August 28
The Continual Burnt Offering" T hen Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. “And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God."
The “signs of an apostle” (2 Corinthians 12:12), that is, the ability to work miracles in the name of the risen Christ, followed close upon the Pentecostal endowment in order to confirm the apostles as the direct, authorized representatives of the glorified Lord. When He was on earth and His mission confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24), He gave them similar powers, but in resurrection these were confirmed and enlarged. Such gifts were not promised to all believers, but to “those who believe” of the apostolic company (Mark 16:17-18). And so we see Peter, once cravenly denying his Lord, now not only boldly confessing Him, but doing mighty deeds in His name. He bore testimony to the might of the One whom Jew and Gentile had united to crucify, but who had been raised from the dead by the power of God.
All blessing for mankind is bound up in the risen Christ. He sits now exalted at the Father’s right hand to dispense riches of grace to all who come in His name, owning their need and confessing their sin. The healing of the man lame from his birth was in order to demonstrate the power and authority of the name of the Lord Jesus.
We see Thee, Lord, vacate Thy home—
That scene immune from blight,
To visit man in all his woe,
To save him from his plight.
Thy love to us constrained Thee, Lord,
To suffer, bleed and die,
That we, redeemed with Thine own blood
Might dwell with Thee on high.
Rejected here and put to death
By those whom Thou didst love,
Thou art no more in Person here,
But in bright courts above.
—C. C. Crowston