Quote:
Originally Posted by Socialite
It's really easy to me, all the Apostles preached the same Gospel. Paul, who writes most of the NT, Peter, James, John, Mark, etc. They were disciples of Jesus. They taught what he taught. The Apostle's Doctrine is really Jesus' Doctrine.
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The fact is the Jews in Jerusalem weren't assembled for an earth-shaking revival meeting. They already had met Jesus at previous Jewish feasts. Some had more than likely been on the Mountain listening to His sermon (Mt 5). They had seen His miracles and experienced the earth-shaking crucifixion and eclipse of the sun. These doubters were the ones to whom Peter addressed in his sermon. Peter was urging these religious folk to reconsider who Jesus was. It wasn't a message of hellfire and brimstone. Check it out for yourselves. It was an appeal to common sense, scripture and first hand testimony. These doubters saw the believers gathered "in one place" (may not have even been an upper room). They saw the Spirit of God (like cloven tongues like "as of fire") and heard the tongues. There was something absolutely convincing about the experience in order for Peter's words to have added an additional 3,000 to the ranks of Jesus Believers. What did Peter say?
"repent" (reconsider, have a different opinion) of their feelings of the identity of the Messiah. I think we have been given a far more "radical" definition of this word
repent. It may not always involve the shedding of tears. It may only involve the cognition of placing Jesus in His proper place in life. This can be pretty emotional, but it isn't required to be.
"and be baptised in the name of Jesus...", in other words, IDENTIFY with Jesus. We know that at least 3,000 souls gladly reconsidered Jesus as the Messiah. There's no appeal to the Triunity of the godhead in Peter's sermon. It's all about repentance, ie; changing their minds about Who Jesus really was, and then, AFTER repentance, being baptised, identifying with and in the name of the Messiah.
The NT theology of baptism is expanded upon by Paul and Peter in their epistles, but the Acts account leaves no doubt as to what "formula" to use.
BTW, I use the term Triunity for those that may disagree with the
Acts 2:38 method, not because the godhead is a triunity.
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