“The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” (Acts 3:14-16)
Peter and John received a lot of attention from the people of Jerusalem following the healing of a man who had been unable to walk. Peter was quick to turn the central focus of the event away from himself and John toward Jesus for it was the Lord who had performed this great miracle. This allowed Peter to preach a sermon centered on Jesus.
In this sermon, he disclosed that this miracle had been performed by faith in the name of Jesus. Peter and John were merely His instruments. What Peter proclaimed was designed to convict his audience of their sinfulness. They had been complicit in a very serious matter when they called for the death of Jesus. While they may have acted in ignorance of who Jesus really was they still needed to repent of that sin and all their wickedness. Otherwise they faced exclusion from God’s kingdom.
The same is true of all human beings today whether they realize it or not. Our sins sent Jesus to the cross and the primary sin is self-centered rejection of God’s authority over us. We cannot atone for our sins by our own efforts for our very rejection of Him and what He has done for us in Jesus our redeemer and savior, is an infinite sin. It offends His divinity. We can never atone for such a heinous deed. Jesus did atone for us and all mankind. He shows mercy, He forgives all who by faith repent and come humbly to Him. And we faithful believers are called to testify to this truth to all the people in our world, just as Peter did, so they would repent and come to faith in Jesus before it is too late.