The Gospel Is a Story

Acts 3:12-20

And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.”

D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Vol. 1)

There is a string of characteristics that unite this sermon with the sermon in Acts 2 and some others in the book of Acts. These features include: the God of our fathers has sent his servant Jesus; you killed him—disowning the Holy and Righteous One, the author of life—but God raised him from the dead; we are witnesses of these things; by the death and resurrection of Jesus God fulfilled the promises he made through the prophets; repent therefore, and turn to God (July 16).

Aaron Orendorff,

The gospel is not, as it’s so often presented, a set of abstract, spiritual principles. The gospel is not: repent and believe “that your sins may be blotted out.” The gospel is a story, a story about something that happened, an event in history around which history turns. The gospel, as Peter outlines it here, is the story of how God—the historical God of an historical people (i.e., Abraham, Isaac and Jacob)—has acted through the death and resurrection his servant Jesus—the Holy and Righteous One, and Author of life—to reconcile and redeem lost people to himself.

The immediate implications of this gospel (i.e., the responses) are faith in the name of Jesus and repentance from sin, but faith and repentance are not (properly speaking) “the gospel” itself.

This is important to remember because it isn’t faith that justifies, it’s faith in Jesus. Nor is it repentance from sin that saves, but repentance from sin toward God. The more we center ourselves on the story—on the actual events that took place in space and time—the more the implications of those events can work their way into our lives. First things first, however: the gospel proper, then the implications.