Acts 3:19-21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Repent ye, therefore, &c. Let it, therefore, be your principal and immediate care to secure an interest in the benefits procured by his death; and in order thereto, repent of this and all your other iniquities; and be converted That is, be turned from sin and Satan to God, (chap. Acts 26:20,) in the way of sincere and universal obedience. The term, converted, so common in modern writings, rarely occurs in Scripture, at least in the sense we now use it, for an entire change of heart and life. That your sins may be blotted out That you may be delivered from the heavy burden of your guilt, and may obtain peace with God through the sacrifice and intercession of him you crucified; when the times of refreshing shall come Rather, that they may come; times when God shall largely bestow his refreshing grace; from the presence of the Lord To you also. To others, those times will assuredly come, whether ye repent or not. Erasmus and Piscator render this clause, Seeing times of refreshment are come; but the authorities produced in favour of this version seem not sufficient to justify it. The blotting out of the sins of penitents, however, was not deferred to any distant time, and divine refreshment would, no doubt, immediately follow a sense of pardon to them, attended with a lively hope of eternal felicity to succeed in due time. But “the following clause seems to intimate, that Peter apprehended the conversion of the Jews, as a people, would be attended with some extraordinary scene of prosperity and joy, and would open a speedy way to Christ's descent from heaven, in order to the restitution of all things.” Doddridge. And he shall send Greek, και αποστειλη, and that he may send; Jesus That, in consequence of your complying with this important counsel, you may not only be received to all the joys of a state of pardon and acceptance with God, but he may, at length, send unto you Christ, which before was preached unto you By his disciples, both before and since his resurrection. But Tertullian, and several of the fathers, in quoting this passage, instead of προκεκηρυγμενον, before preached, read, προκεχειρισμενον, before appointed; that is, exhibited and set forth in a variety of types, and other symbols, namely, under the Old Testament dispensation, as the great Saviour of lost sinners. 1st, You shall have Christ in his spiritual presence; he that was sent into the world shall be sent to you, in and by his Spirit accompanying his word. The apostle meant, 2d, That God would send Christ to destroy the unbelieving and persecuting Jews, the enemies of God and his truth and cause, and so would deliver his true servants, both ministers and people, and give them a quiet possession of the gospel, with its privileges and blessings, which would be a time of refreshing to all that received it. For then had the churches rest, Acts 9:31. So Dr. Hammond. There is also, 3dly, A reference in these words to the general conversion of the Jews, to take place after the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in, of which there are many express predictions and promises in the writings of the prophets, which, when it takes place, will be a time of refreshment indeed, both to them and the whole Church of Christ through all the world. Whom the heavens must receive Whom you must not expect to appear immediately in person among you, for as he has ascended to heaven, he must remain there, until the times of restitution of all things The long- expected happy times, when God will rectify all the seeming irregularities of his present dispensations, and make the cause of righteousness and truth for ever triumphant and glorious: which God hath spoken of, &c. That is, concerning which great events (namely, that such a Saviour should be raised up, and should at length extend his righteous reign over all the world) God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets That is, by the mouth of the generality of them; for the word παντων, all, is not found in some of the best MSS. and versions; since the world began Since the beginning of time. See note on Luke 1:70, where the same original phrase, απ ' αιωνος, occurs. In these times of restitution, the apostle here comprises at once the whole course of the time of the New Testament between our Lord's ascension and his coming to glory. The most eminent of these times are the apostolic age, and that of the spotless church, which will consist of all the Jews and Gentiles united, after all persecutions and apostacies are at an end. It is well known that Dr. Thos. Burnet, Mr. Whiston, and some other learned writers, have urged this text in proof of a restoration of a paradisiacal state of the earth, which they have endeavoured to show will take place, but certainly without any clear warrant from Scripture; and this passage, in particular, may be so well explained of regulating the present disorders of the moral world, and the seeming inequalities of God's providential dispensations, that it can with no propriety be pleaded in vindication of such an hypothesis.