Sermon Audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ministrybymail

“And we declare to you glad tidings— that promise which was made to the fathers. ³³ “God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: `You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’ <sup>34</sup> “And that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, He has spoken thus: `I will give you the sure mercies of David.’ ³⁵ “Therefore He also says in another Psalm: `You will not allow Your Holy One to see corruption.’ ³⁶ “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and saw corruption; ³⁷ “but He whom God raised up saw no corruption. ³⁸ “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; ³⁹ “and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.”

Dearly Beloved Fellow Believers,

As we read through the Old Testament we meet many memorable characters. But surely none of them is more memorable to us than David, the second king of Israel. We remember how he—while still only a boy—killed the giant Goliath. We remember how he successfully led the armies of Israel against the Philistines. We remember how Israel prospered greatly during his reign.

Yet David’s reign—great though it certainly was—had its limits. Paul refers to this when he says here that David fell asleep and was buried “after he had served his own generation by the will of God.” David could finally do no more than to serve his own generation.

This is the most that any of us can do. All of us will serve others in many ways during the years that God grants us. We will serve our families and our neighbors. We will serve at home, at work, and in our congregation. But we cannot hope to do more than to serve our own generation.

But Paul here proclaims one who did more than that. Jesus Christ did more than just serve His own generation. He did more than preach to the people that were living in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee during His lifetime. He did more than heal the sick and cast out demons from the people of His day. He has benefited people for the twenty centuries that have passed since He walked in this world, as well as the believing who lived before He was born. And He is just as able to aid and to save people today as He was two thousand years ago, because He rose from the dead and lives forever. Jesus remains

Unlike all others, Jesus did not see corruption.

Our text is part of a sermon that Paul preached on a Sabbath day in the synagogue in the city of Antioch in Pisidia, in the course of his first missionary journey. The congregation there that day included both Jews and Gentiles who worshiped the one true God, but Paul here especially addresses his fellow Jews. He announces to them the most momentous news that would ever reach their ears. “We declare to you glad tidings,” he says. The promises that God had made to their fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David—He had at last fulfilled. This was the word that the faithful, the believing in Israel, had long been waiting for. God had fulfilled His promise of a Savior by raising up Jesus.

When Paul says that God “has raised up Jesus” (v. 33), he isn’t yet referring to Jesus’ resurrection—he speaks of that in the next verse. Here he is announcing that God had sent His Son into the world and designated Him as the Christ, the Savior of the world—“raising Him up” in that sense. God also made it clear that this Jesus was His only begotten Son. When Jesus was baptized by John the voice of the Father was heard from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son.” This was when Jesus presented Himself for the work of the Messiah and when God the Father publicly and officially declared Him to be the Messiah.

Then Paul comes to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This Jesus, Paul says, whom God the Father declared to be His own beloved Son and the promised Messiah, was also raised from the dead after He had offered up His life as sacrifice for the sin of the world. This, too, was something the prophets of the Old Testament had foretold. Paul quotes a verse from Isaiah (55:3) where God promises to His people, “I will give you the sure mercies of David.” That may not sound to us like a prophecy of Christ’s resurrection, yet Paul quotes it as such. The “sure mercies of David” were the promises of mercy that God gave to David. They included especially the promise that the Savior would come from David’s descendants. That Savior would be a king who would establish an everlasting kingdom. This is the prophecy that was given to David:

When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever. (2 Sam. 7:12-17)

We can see how Christ’s resurrection fulfills the promises of mercy to David. Because Christ rose from the dead and lives forever, He can reign forever and can have a kingdom that endures and continues forever. And in Christ and His resurrection those sure mercies of David are given to all God’s children. “Sure mercies” are promises of mercy and grace that can never be broken or abrogated. This is what we have in Jesus Christ because He has risen from the dead and lives forever. His resurrection is the witness that His sacrifice offered for us was acceptable to God for the remission of our sins. It is a sacrifice that avails for sinners for all times. It is valid for us today. Jesus, because He lives forever, is able to intercede for us before the throne of grace so that our sins are forgiven and our prayers are heard and answered. You and I today have the sure mercies of David in the risen and ever-living Christ.

Paul quotes yet another Old Testament prophecy. This one was written by David (Psalm 16:10) and foretells the resurrection of Christ: “You will not allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” By these words God promised that when the Christ gave His life on the cross and was buried that His body would not remain in the tomb and decay. He would be raised to life on the third day. He would appear alive to His disciples. Far from seeing corruption His body would be glorified. He would ascend into heaven and live and reign forever.

Paul also here defends his understanding of that verse from Psalm 16. He says that though David wrote those words there was no way that he could have been referring to himself. He was a great king and a hero of faith by the grace of God, but he died, was buried, and his body decayed just like that of everyone else. No, it was not of himself that David wrote. By the Holy Spirit he wrote of Christ and His resurrection from the dead.

Therefore whoever believes in Him is justified before God.

What does it mean that Christ arose from the dead and that His body did not see corruption? What does it have to do with us? Paul tells us: “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins.” Christ’s resurrection shows that He did take away sin, that He did destroy the power of death. Through Him we have forgiveness. The word for forgiveness here means a sending away of sins. In Christ, God has sent away our sins forever. Under God’s grace in Christ our sins and guilt vanish as if we had never sinned.

Paul tells his Jewish audience that they could never be justified before God by means of the law of Moses. That law would only condemn them for failing to keep it in all its unyielding strictness. But “everyone who believes is justified,” he says, declared to be not guilty in God’s court, for justification is by faith alone. And the offer is universal, for Jew and Gentile alike. And the Gentiles in the audience rejoiced to hear this. When Paul was done speaking that day the Gentiles “begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath” (v. 42).

Because Jesus arose from the dead and lives forever, we, too, have the confidence that we are forgiven and justified. We can sing with confidence, as we did at Easter services last Sunday,

He lives triumphant from the grave, He lives eternally to save,

He lives all-glorious in the sky, He lives exalted there on high.

He lives to silence all my fears, He lives to wipe away my tears,

He lives to calm my troubled heart, He lives all blessings to impart.

He is our Savior forever. Amen.

—Rev. John Klatt

Watertown, SD

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Ministry by Mail is a weekly publication of the Church of the Lutheran Confession. Subscription and staff information may be found online at www.clclutheran.org/ministrybymail.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.