Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
Unto you first God, having raised up - not (as we think) 'raised up from the dead,' but 'provided, prepared, and gifted,'
His Son [Jesus], х ton (G3588) paida (G3816) autou (G846) Ieesoun (G2424)] - rather, 'His servant [Jesus]' (see the note at Acts 3:13). Lachmann and Tischendorf exclude from their text the bracketed word "Jesus" - perhaps with reason; though the evidence for it is considerable (A B and some other manuscripts, as against C D E and most versions as well as fathers).
Sent him to bless you, х eulogounta (G2127)] - literally, 'sent Him blessing you;' as it were laden with that blessing of blessings, the forgiveness of sins, as the apostle immediately adds,
In turning away every one of you from his iniquities - q.d., 'Hitherto we have been looking too much for a Messiah who should shed outward blessings upon the nation generally, and through it upon the world. But we have learned other things, and now announce to you that the great blessing with which Messiah has come laden is 'the turning away of every one of you from his iniquities.'
Remarks:
(1) The fact that the first Christians, under apostolic direction, observed the Jewish hours of prayer at the temple as well as their own hours of social worship, from the day of Pentecost onwards, is worthy of special notice. They probably were unaware for some time of the precise relation in which these stood to each other, and would at first be apt to suppose that both services were to go on harmoniously, Christianity being regarded as but a fully developed Judaism. 'Christianity immediately and originally (says Baumgarten justly) was nothing else than the fulfillment and completion of Judaism.' Those who believed in Jesus, so far from ceasing to be Jews, only then began to he called and to be Jews in the true and proper sense of the term (see Revelation 2:9; Philippians 3:3). Consequently, it was both natural and necessary that the apostles anal first Christians should simply follow all the rules of life which prevailed among their countrymen.
The temple of Israel is also their sanctuary (see Acts 2:4; Acts 2:6; Acts 5:12). The hours of prayer for Israel are also their hours of prayer (Acts 2:42; Acts 3:1), etc. But even though the apostles had seen clearly from the first that the one mode of divine worship was intended to give place to the other, it is not at all certain that they would have ventured of their own accord to discontinue the old services; and it is very certain that if they had, they would have arrested the progress of the Gospel among the timid multitude, and precipitated upon themselves the violence of the ecclesiastics. By degrees only would the waning character of Judaism, after the glory bad departed from it, dawn upon their minds; and the more enlightened would be ready to say, even while joining in the temple services, "That which decaveth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away" (Hebrews 8:13). Thus the two services seem to have gone on sweetly together until the question was practically settled by the fall of the temple and the entire dissolution of the Jewish state. And, if we mistake not, analogous cases will be found in the history of the Christian Church, in which the reward of patience and caution has been similarly reaped. When Luther, in 1522, was shut up in the castle of Wartburg, Carlstadt was endangering all that had been gained by insisting, at Wittemberg, on the laity partaking of the cup in the Eucharist before yet they had light as to their warrant to do so. Hearing of this, the reformer stole away from his retreat, and, re-appearing at Wittemberg, at the risk of his life, allowed the people to receive the sacrament in the form most edifying to themselves. This restored the broken peace, and soon the half-instructed people themselves demanded and received the cup. In the following year Zwingli, at Zurich, acted upon the same principle, when, though he had opened the eyes of the Council and the more intelligent classes to the unscriptural character of certain popish usages, he yet would not give his consent to the public abolition of them until the people generally should be prepared to go along with them; and he was soon rewarded by a popular demand for what, had it been done before, would have had to be forced upon them. Let the wise consider this.
(2) The intelligent reader will again observe how exclusively the apostle confines himself to the Jewish point of view in preaching the Gospel-insisting that it was the God of their fathers who had sent Jesus, and who, when they slew Him, raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory; that all this was but the fulfillment of the prophetic testimony from the beginning; and therefore, that while in now receiving Jesus they would only be repairing the error which in ignorance they had already committed, and would thus experience the blessings promised to their nation, they would, by rejecting Him, consummate their guilt and seal their national doom. This was the one view of Christ's claims which the Jewish mind was then capable of taking in, and probably all that then occupied the mind even of the apostle himself; and as it brings out the true relation between the old and the new economies, and the harmony of Scripture, it is never to be lost sight of, even under the more comprehensive views of Christianity and the Church which the accession of the Gentiles has introduced. (See the notes at Acts 2:14-47, Remark 1, at the close of that Section.)
(3) When the apostle says that "heaven must receive" the ascended Saviour "until the times of restitution of all things" (whatever that may definitely mean), it seems impossible to doubt that he meant to announce a protracted absence-an absence of uncertain length, no doubt, but yet of extended duration. When, therefore, we find our Lord enjoining watchfulness in the prospect of His coming, and preparedness for an unexpected return, and His apostles, in the same strain, telling us that He will come as a thief in the night, and so forth, we must take care that we frame no theories of His Second Coming that will not admit of both views of it; and, tried by this test, some theories, now engrossing the attention of many warm-hearted Christians, will, as we think, be found lacking.
(4) With what skill and power does the apostle, seeing himself surrounded and gazed on by a wondering multitude, seize his opportunity, and, founding on resistless facts, drive home to the conscience of his auditors their guilt in crucifying the Lord of Glory; then soothe their awakened minds by assurances of forgiveness on turning to the Lord, and a glorious future as soon as this shall come pass-to terminate with the Personal Return of Christ from the heavens where He has ascended-ending all with warnings, from their own Scriptures, to submit to Him if they would not perish, and with calls to receive from Him the blessings of salvation.