Acts 2:22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Ye men of Israel, hear these words Let me charge it upon you, as a most important duty, to pay attention to these remarkable words of the prophet, which I have now repeated in your hearing; and a part of which is this day evidently fulfilled, and the rest shall be fulfilled in their season. Jesus of Nazareth So I call him, because he was generally known among you by that name, though he was not born there, nor, properly speaking, was a Nazarene; a man approved of God among you Censured, indeed, and condemned by men, but approved of God, who testified his approbation of his life, doctrine, and of the whole of his proceedings, by the miraculous powers he gave him; a man, marked out by God, as Dr. Hammond translates απο του θεου αποδεδειγμενον, signalized and made remarkable among you that now hear me; for you yourselves are witnesses how remarkable he was rendered by the miracles, wonders, and signs, works above the power of nature, out of its ordinary course, and contrary to it, which God did by him That is, which he did by that divine power with which he was clothed, and in which God plainly co-operated with him; for no man could do such works, unless God were with him. Observe, reader, the amazing stress Peter lays upon Christ's miracles: 1st, The matter of fact was not to be denied; they were done, says he, in the midst of you In the midst of your country, your city, your solemn assemblies; as ye yourselves also know You have been eye- witnesses of his miracles, and I appeal to yourselves whether you have any thing to object against them, or can offer any thing to disprove them. 2d, The inference from them cannot be disputed; the reasoning is as strong as the evidence; if he did those miracles, certainly God approved of him, showed him to be what he declared himself to be, the Son of God and the Saviour of the world: for the God of truth would never set his seal to a lie.