Acts 2:37 When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” 40 With many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!”

Peter Said Repent

Just before Jesus came on the scene “preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel,” (Mark 1:14, 15), John the Baptist, had been preparing the people of Israel by calling them to repent, turn to God in faith and obedience, and be baptized.

What did the baptism of John mean?

It meant that the Messiah has arrived; he will be gathering a new people for himself; the mark of this new people is not Jewishness but repentance and faith. Therefore, Jews should not say to John’s demand for repentance: “But we have Abraham as our father, and we bear the marks of circumcision, the sign of the covenant.”

What counts in the new people is not who your parents are but whom you live for; and therefore a new symbol for the new covenant people is given, baptism; and it is given in John’s ministry only to those who repent and believe.

In other words, by calling all Jews to be baptized, John declared powerfully that physical descent does not make one part of God’s family, and therefore circumcision which signified a physical relationship will now be replaced by baptism which signifies spiritual relationship. And so John the Baptist lays the foundation for the New Testament understanding of baptism, which we in the Baptist tradition today try to preserve.

Jesus himself accepted baptism from John in order to identify himself with John’s teaching and with this new people of faith. Jesus’ disciples picked up John’s practice and baptized as a part of Jesus’ ministry (John 3:26; 4:2). Then at the end of his earthly ministry Jesus commissioned the church to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

Several weeks later the Jewish people gathered for Pentecost in Jerusalem. Peter closed with these words: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” Following in the footsteps of John the Baptist and in obedience to their Lord’s command, the apostles call the nation of Israel to repent and to signify that repentance through baptism. And the promise that they hold out is not merely for this generation, but for their children also, and not only for those near, but those who are far away. It is for everyone who hears and responds to the call of God. Forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit is offered to all who turn to follow Christ and go on to express that transformation in baptism.

Believer Baptism Vs. Infant Baptism

One of the things that makes our view of baptism distinct is that we do not think infants should be baptized. infants are not capable of repentance or faith; and, the notion that a person should inherit the blessings of a Christian or be considered a Christian by virtue of his parents’ faith is contrary to New Testament teaching.

Galatians 3:7 says: “So you see it is the people of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” Since the only way to enter the true Israel of God, the Church, is by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, therefore the symbol of that entry should only be administered to those who believe.

Believer baptism bears witness to the teaching of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:9), Jesus (Matthew 21:43), and the apostles that “not all are children of Abraham just because they are his descendants … and it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God” (Romans 9:7, 8).

A very important change has occurred in the way God forms his people. In the Israel of old God formed his people through natural offspring. But in the Church, the true Israel, God is forming his people not by natural kinship but through supernatural conversion to faith in Christ.

With the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus and the apostles, the emphasis now is that the spiritual status of your parents does not determine your membership in the covenant community. The beneficiaries of the blessings of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham. These are the ones who belong to the covenant community, and these are the ones (in line with Old Testament practice) who should receive the sign of the covenant.

The Need for Forgiveness from God

Relativism constantly minimizes or denies the absoluteness of God. Relativism maximizes the absoluteness of self. It says that the way to healing and wholeness is to stop measuring yourself by external standards or expectations, even God’s. Instead, without reference to God or his Word, be yourself. Make yourself the measure of what is good and acceptable. Give yourself an unconditional positive self-regard. The only role that God has to play in this relativism is to be the divine endorsement of your own self-affirmation.

Toward the end of World War II, Simon Wiesenthal was working in Auschwitz. He had lost his entire extended family in the ovens of Auschwitz. He was the only Wiesenthal who survived.In those final weeks before the Russians got to them and released them he was in a work crew when suddenly he was pulled out of the line and shoved into a little room where there was a dying German soldier about 19 young German soldier asked Wiesenthal for forgiveness, treating Wiesenthal, in effect, as a representative Jew.

Wiesenthal agonized over the desperate request. His reasoning, in brief, was this: Surely only the offended party has the right to forgive. How can those who have not suffered extend forgiveness on behalf of those who have? Since most of the victims of the Nazis were killed, Wiesenthal argued to himself, how can those of us who have survived extend forgiveness on behalf of those who were slain? So there is no forgiveness for the Nazi.

After the war was over, eventually, Wiesenthal wrote up his experience in a memorable little book. You can still find it online, elsewhere. It’s called The Sunflower. It’s only about 80 pages. On the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. Most of the book is taken up with what passes through his mind as this young Nazi German soldier is talking to him and begging for forgiveness. But in point of fact, in that room itself, Wiesenthal listened to the request, said absolutely nothing, and then turned and walked out of the room.

When he wrote the whole thing up in his book The Sunflower, he sent it to many of the world’s leading ethicists (Catholics, Protestants, Jews) with one simple question: did I do the right thing?

“Is there hope for me?” The most hopeless people in the Gospels are the Pharisees, not the publicans and sinners, and that is because they see no need of Him. And is not that the tragedy today?

Little boy in hospital, no hope, they send a teacher to help him and he got better, he thought why would they do that for a boy that was going to die,

Relativism is that it undermines the glory of God’s grace in forgiveness. It sounds gracious to say that God has no law, no standards, or commandments. People had rather hear that He is there
to affirm me in whatever I happen to be. Where there is no law, no just standard, there can be no forgiveness.

The Bible Offers a Hope for Forgiveness

These people in verse 37 were cut to the heart because they saw that God had made Jesus Lord and Christ, but they had killed him. They saw that they were utterly at odds with God. They were living against his will, and they were violating His Word and his Son.

What they desperately needed (and what we need), was forgiveness. They had offended God and there was only one hope, that God might find a way to be the holy God that he is and forgive. Which is exactly what he di in the death of his Son.

We need to take the words at the end of verse 40 and apply them to all of us with all the urgency that we can. Be saved from this crooked generation. You know what the most fallen mankind, our Generation. Man has created ways of salvation without God, without law, and therefore without forgiveness. That leaves man with no hope outside of God.