“. . .you killed the Author of life . . .”

Acts 3:13-16

“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.”

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

[T]hrid, Jesus is also “the prince of life.” The word “prince” here can also mean “the one who initiates something”: he is not so much the ruler over “life,” as the sovereign one who brings life, who initiates new life, who pioneers the way through death, decay and corruption and out the other side into a kind of “life” that nobody had imagined before. . . . Wherever [Jesus] went, he brought new life, the life which indicated that God was now in charge. This makes it all the more ridiculous, paradoxical even, that his own people rejected him and sent him to his death: they killed that prince of life! But, of course, God raised him up—the resurrection continues to be at the heart of the proclamation of the church and the explaining of why new life is now happening—so that his work of brining new life continues unchecked (55).