Tag: Jesus is the Aurhor and Authority - Acts 3-4

Acts 3:14-15

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. To this we are witnesses.

Tag:  Jesus is the Author

To date I have written 4 and 1/2 manuscripts.  I “authored” them.  As a result, I own them.   I was the “initiator” of what they say.  I, therefore, have all rights of how to use the material contained in them.  No one else, not even my publisher, can change what they mean.  Someone can take the material and twist it into their own meaning, but that doesn’t change the meaning I intended for it.  I am still the author and authority over the words.  We all understand the word “author.”   In the above passage Peter is speaking to the religious leaders of the day.  He has just healed a man who could not walk.  He, and John, were caught “teaching” the people and the religious teachers were jealous of their new found position.   Peter begins to teach the Teachers, however. He wants them to know that his power for teaching comes from Christ, whom they crucified.   He calls Jesus the “author of life.”   This word “author” in the Greek is used three other times in the New Testament: 

Acts 5:31

God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

Hebrews 2:10

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Hebrews 12:2

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

It is translated in these verses as “leader” and “founder.”   This is the part we need to wrap our brain around.  Jesus Christ is the author of life, author of salvation and author of faith.   He is the beginning and the initiator.   He owns the manuscript of our life.   We might think we own it.  We might act as though we “author” our lives, but He owns us.  We are not here for us.  We are here for Him.   We are not here to seek our own glory and our own ease of life.  He has “authored” us and therefore owns the intent of the manuscript we call living.   Peter is telling the religious leaders, they may have killed Jesus Christ, but they did not kill His authority in our lives and over our lives.  It is only when we submit to that authority that we can truly have life and peace.