In verses 29 through 31 “Peter and the apostles answered and said, It is necessary to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you slew, hanging Him on a tree. This One God has exalted to His right hand as a Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” Jesus’ incarnation made Him a man, His human living on earth qualified Him to be man’s Savior, His crucifixion accomplished full redemption for man, His resurrection vindicated His redemptive work, and His exaltation inaugurated Him to be the ruling Leader that He might be the Savior.
The Greek word rendered “Leader” is archegos, meaning author, origin, originator, chief leader, captain. In 3:15 the same Greek word is translated “Author.” God exalted the Man Jesus, rejected and killed by the Jewish leaders, as the highest Leader, the Prince, the Ruler of the kings to rule over the world (Rev. 1:5; 19:16), and the Savior to save God’s chosen people. “Leader” is related to His authority, and “Savior” to His salvation. He rules sovereignly over the earth with His authority so that the environment may be fit for God’s chosen people to receive His salvation (Acts 17:26-27; John 17:2).
Who rules the earth today? We may say that the earth is ruled by kings and presidents, but the Lord Jesus as the highest Ruler is above them. According to Revelation 1:5, He is the Ruler of the kings of the earth. Which title do you think is higher—ruler or king? Probably most people would say that a king is a higher title than a ruler. Nevertheless, the New Testament speaks of Christ as the Ruler of the kings, and Peter says that He is the Leader, the chief Ruler.
In a very real sense, Christ as the Ruler of the kings dethrones all the kings. Only He is the Ruler. Furthermore, according to Revelation 19:16, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Christ is both the Ruler and the King. As the Ruler, He rules the entire earth. It may seem that kings and presidents rule the earth and that the Lord Jesus is not on the throne. Nevertheless, this One who seems not to be on the throne is the Ruler of all the enthroned ones. Today the entire world is under the Lord’s ruling. He is truly the Leader, the chief Ruler.
For what purpose is the Lord Jesus ruling the earth? As the Leader, the Ruler, He is ruling the earth for the purpose of our salvation. He is ruling so that we may be saved. Let us take as an illustration the case of Chinese immigrants to the United States. We have found that a great many of these immigrants are very open to the Lord. But if they had remained in China, it is not likely that they would be this open. The Lord Jesus exercises His authority to cause so many foreigners to come to this country. Then once they arrive, they become open to Him. This is an illustration of the Lord’s ruling the earth for the sake of saving people.
We believe that God has chosen us, and then at the right time the Lord Jesus, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, exercised His authority to produce a certain environment so that we had no choice except to believe in Him. In a sense, we have been “caught” by the Lord. A number of saints have testified that they have been caught by Him. We may not feel this way when we are in a season of refreshing. However, when the “sky” above us is not clear and we are in a “cloudy” situation spiritually speaking, we may begin to consider that the Lord has caught us, even trapped us. We may also believe that we are caught in the church life. There is no way for us to escape from the Lord’s “trap.” We have been caught by Christ and in Christ; furthermore, we have been caught in the church. In a sense, this is our situation. We have been caught by the Lord in His sovereignty.
Before we were saved, we were like mice running loose. But the Lord Jesus exercised His sovereign authority to set up a trap to catch us. The faster we ran, the easier it was for Him to catch us. In this matter He is sovereign; He is the Ruler of the kings, arranging the environment so that we were constrained to believe in Him. Without such an environment, we would not have believed in Him. Actually, believing in the Lord does not depend on us—it depends altogether on Him. He has been exalted to be the Leader over all the kings to arrange the environment so that His chosen people will believe in Him.
In 5:31 Peter says that God has exalted Christ to His right hand as a Leader and Savior. After the Lord catches us, He becomes our Savior. However, He does not save us from being caught; rather, He keeps us in a “trap” in order to save us from God’s condemnation, from the lake of fire, and from many evil things. His being the Leader is for authority, and His being the Savior is for salvation.
I do not know of anyone who has chosen to believe in Jesus on his own. We were all compelled to believe in Him. Many have testified, saying, “Concerning believing in the Lord Jesus, I did not have any choice. I simply had to believe in Him.” Actually, none of us was willing to believe in the Lord. We all were caught by Him and constrained to believe in Him. Praise the Lord that we believe in Him!
We have pointed out that we cannot run away from the Lord’s trap. We may use as an illustration the ark made by Noah. This ark is a type of Christ. Once we have entered into Christ as our ark, we cannot get out. We need this ark, for without it we would perish.
In one of the messages on the book of Genesis, I said that the local church is an ark for us today. Now we all are in this ark. Who put you into the ark of the church? Did you put yourself there? The Lord is the One who has put us into the church ark. He has been exalted by God to be the Leader, and as the Leader He has put us into the ark. At times we may want to get out of the ark of the church, but we cannot escape. Because of the Lord Jesus as the Leader, we are in the ark, and now we should live together in it.