<p>17:31 <i>Inasmuch as He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained; of which He has given assurance</i> <em>to all men, in that He has raised him from the dead</em>- Preaching is motivated by His resurrection (1 Cor. 15:14). Baptism saves us &ldquo;by the resurrection of Jesus Christ&quot; (1 Pet. 3:21 cp. Rom. 4:25; Col. 2:13). We who were dead in sins were &ldquo;quickened together with Christ&quot; (Eph. 2:5). If we believe in Christ&rsquo;s resurrection, we will therefore repent, confess our sins and know His forgiveness. Thus believing in His raising and making confession of sin are bracketed together in Rom. 10:9,10, as both being essential in gaining salvation. Because He rose, <em>therefore </em>we stop committing sin (1 Cor. 6:14). We can&rsquo;t wilfully sin if we believe in the forgiveness His resurrection has enabled. Men should repent not only because judgment day is coming, but because God has commended repentance to us, He has offered / inspired faith in His forgiveness <em>by the resurrection of Christ </em>(Acts 17:30,31 AV mg.). The empty tomb and all the Lord&rsquo;s glorification means for us should therefore inspire personal repentance; as well as of itself being an imperative to go and share this good news with a sinful world, appealing for them to repent and be baptized so that they too might share in the forgiveness enabled for them by the resurrection. Because the Lord was our representative, in His resurrection we see our own. We are therefore born again unto a living and abounding hope, by our identification with the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:3).</p><p>The very fact that judgment day will surely come is therefore in itself a <em>command</em> to all men to repent (Acts 17:30,31)- and therefore it is a command to preach repentance. The resurrection of Jesus was to give assurance &ldquo;to all men&rdquo;. But how? They hadn&rsquo;t seen Him. There was no Euclidean reason for them to believe in His resurrection. How is it an assurance to all men? Surely in that we are the risen Lord&rsquo;s representatives &ldquo;to all men&rdquo;, and through us they see the evidence of Christ risen, and thereby have assurance of God&rsquo;s plan for them. In the same way, the wicked and adulterous generation to whom the Lord witnessed were given the sign of the prophet Jonah- that after three days, the Lord would re-appear. But that sign was only given to them through the preaching of the apostles- that generation didn&rsquo;t see the risen Lord Himself (Mt. 16:4). But the witness of the disciples was as good as- for in their witness, they represented the Lord.</p><p>Acts 17:31 reasons that the very existence of the future judgment seat and the Lord ordained as judge of living and dead is a command to repent. At the Lord's resurrection, a day was appointed for human judgment, and therefore a knowledge of the Lord's resurrection means we are accountable to that day, and must therefore repent and prepare. It is by this logic that Paul argues that the Lord's resurrection is a guarantee that judgment day will come. &quot;For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord... which involves that we shall all therefore stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written... Every knee shall bow to me as Lord and judge...&quot; (Rom. 14:9,10).</p><p>We will be judged by or in the man Christ Jesus (Acts 17:31 R.V. Mg.). This means that the very fact Jesus didn't pre-exist and was human makes Him our constant and insistent judge of all our human behaviour. And exactly because of this, Paul argues, we should right now repent. He is judge exactly because He is the Son of man.</p>