David Anguish
The point of Peter's first sermon is lost on many. In the first place, the sermon is so familiar that we gloss over it. Second, we've used the sermon more as a preface on the instructions which follow it. Third, we are so influenced by contemporary tendencies that we read it as if it says something else.
Here is its point: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ - this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36, NASB). What Peter proves, by the evidence of his life and supernatural deeds (v 22), his crucifixion (v 23), and especially his resurrection (vv 24-35) is that Jesus is "Lord" (kyrios) and "Christ" (christos). Both are authority terms, a point with important implications for life in his church.
Compared with "Savior", used to refer to him only twenty-four times in the New Testament, the use of Lord as a title for Jesus is overwhelming, used, according to one count, over 700 times. It's used over 100 times in Acts alone. The point is not to de-emphasize Jesus' role as Savior. He does save, the verbal form often being used even when the title is not. But he saves only because he is Lord. Peter's Jewish audience would not have missed the significance of this point; the Septuagint had consistently used kyrios to refer to God.
He is also Christ (the Greek word) or Messiah (the Hebrew), literally, "the anointed." Again, the term was a loaded one for Jews. They had long awaited their King whom they expected would bring ultimate deliverance and set up a dynasty better than the great reign of David. Jesus was not what they expected - his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36) - but there is no reason to believe that the title when applied to him and properly understood spiritually would have denoted any less authority than what they had come to expect when they thought of it in merely physical terms.
So, for the Jews on Pentecost, as for the apostles who preached to them and for all who followed (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:6), Jesus was not a "spiritual buddy," he was Lord and King. He was the only way to God (John 14:6). In his name and no other was salvation (Acts 4:10-12). All authority was his (Matthew 28:18). To love him was to keep his commands (John 14:15; 15:14). To call him Lord and not do as he said was unthinkable (Luke 6:46).
Since he is Lord and Christ, there is no area of life untouched by his authority. Paul shows this in the context of one of the greatest doctrinal passages in all of Scripture, Philippians 2:5-11, where he reviews the journey of Jesus from divine equality to humble service to humiliating execution to ultimate exaltation. In Old Testament language used of God himself, he declares "that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11; cf. Isaiah 45:23). Far from being a doctrinal statement divorced from life's realities, this fundamental and deepest of Christian teachings is used in context to get to the bottom of a very real practical problem, strained relationships brought on by "selfishness [and] empty conceit" (2:3; see also vv 12-16). Paul reminds his readers that they should sacrifice their interests because that is what Jesus had done with his. But he also leaves no doubt that they were to act out of respect for Jesus' Lordship, closing his review with a reminder of Jesus' authority and following it with a call to obedience (v 12).
Understanding this point at the level of daily practice will take us far as we search for solutions for problems we face in living as his people.