<p>3:26 <em>To you first</em>- Along with the reference to all tribes / families of the earth being blessed as Abraham's seed (:25), the idea is clearly that Gentiles too can participate in this great Jewish salvation which is in the Jewish Messiah. But as is made clear in the Cornelius incident in Acts 10, Peter was far from understanding this at the time. The fact he made this hint here about Gentile salvation, if not a clear statement about it, is proof that he was speaking a Divinely inspired message and not just his own personal understanding. Perhaps this is why it is Peter who later makes the point that the inspired prophets spoke things which they did not themselves fully understand (1 Pet. 1:12); he had himself experienced such a thing with regard to the Gentiles.</p><p><i>God, having raised up His servant, sent him<em>- </em></i>Peter taught that &ldquo;God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him&rdquo; to preach to the Jews (Acts 3:26). Yet the Lord Jesus personally resurrected and ascended to Heaven, having &lsquo;sent&rsquo; His followers into the world. Yet because all in Him are so fully His personal witnesses, representative of Him as He is representative of them, in this way it&rsquo;s true to say that the Lord Jesus personally was &ldquo;sent&rdquo; into the world with the Gospel message after His resurrection. And by all means connect this with Peter&rsquo;s difficult words in 1 Pet. 3:19- that by the spirit of Christ, Christ &lsquo;went&rsquo; after His resurrection to preach to those imprisoned. By our sharing His Spirit, we are Him &lsquo;going&rsquo; and preaching. In this sense the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10). And because Peter was alluding to the &lsquo;sending&rsquo; of the great commission, he goes on to say that the spiritually imprisoned to whom we preach are saved by the baptism we minister in fulfilment of the great commission, in the same way as the ark saved people in Noah&rsquo;s day.</p><p>After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus was <em>sent </em>to preach blessing and forgiveness to Israel. But after His resurrection, He sent His men to preach this message. His witness became expressed through, and therefore limited by, His preachers. When they wilfully misunderstood His commission as meaning preaching to Jews from all nations, rather than taking the message to the whole planet literally, His work was in that sense hindered and His intention delayed. Remember that the Rabbis taught that salvation was impossible for Gentiles: &ldquo;For the heathen nations there will be no redemption&rdquo;, so reads the Targum on Ex. 21:30. Like us, the early Jewish converts were influenced by their backgrounds and their limited world views. Until the Lord brought experiences to bear which, when responded to, taught them what is now the obvious meaning of His words- that we each have a duty to take the good news of Him to the whole planet.</p><p><em>To bless you</em>- There is strong connection between forgiveness and blessing. Peter was speaking to the unspoken fears of his guilty audience. Forgiveness was possible in Christ.</p><p><i>In turning every one of you away from your sins<em>- </em></i>The promised blessing was not simply of forgiveness. It was of 'turning away' from sin. This is the equivalent of what Peter preached in Acts 2; he appealed for repentance and baptism, so that the gift of the Holy Spirit or mind could be experienced. Here, he appeals for repentance and belief implying baptism, so that they would know the blessing of being turned away from sin. For what we really need is not simply forgiveness, but the power not to repeat the sin; a new psychology, a new mind, a force higher than ourselves to turn us away from sin. And this is exactly what is promised here. Rom. 11:26 likewise speaks of how the Lord Jesus would &quot;turn away s.w. ungodliness from Jacob&quot; when Israel enter the new covenant; but that new covenant is now made with all who are baptized into Jesus. Rom. 11:26 is quoting from Is. 59:20, but the next verse goes on to say that this shall be effected by Yahweh giving the covenant promise of His Spirit upon His people and their children (Is. 59:21). The gift of the Spirit is therefore a turning of us away from sin. I noted under 2:39 that the promise of the Spirit &quot;to you and your children&quot; is also alluding to this same passage. Israel in their hearts turned back to Egypt (Acts 7:26 s.w.); the arena of this 'turning' is within the human mind. And it is exactly there where we need the Lord's operation; and it is this which is included in the gift of the holy spirit or mind which is enabled by commitment to Christ.</p><p>When Peter speaks of how the Lord Jesus will &lsquo;turn away&rsquo; sinners from their sins, he is using the very word of how the Lord Jesus told him to &ldquo;put up again&rdquo; his sword (Mt. 26:52), thereby turning Peter away from his sin. Peter&rsquo;s appeal for repentance and conversion was evidently allusive to his own experience of conversion (Lk. 22:32 cp. Acts 3:19; 9:35). In this he was following the pattern of David, who sung his &lsquo;Maschil&rsquo; (teaching) psalms after his forgiveness in order to convert sinners unto Yahweh (Ps. 51:13). Like Peter, David did so with his sin ever before him, with a broken and contrite heart (Ps. 51:3,17). He invited them to seek forgiveness for their denial of their Lord, just as he had done. He dearly wished them to follow his pattern, and know the grace he now did. See on Acts 2:39.</p><p>We must remember that baptism means that we are <em>now</em> the seed of Abraham, and the blessings of forgiveness, of all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and God's turning us away from our sins are right now being fulfilled in us (Acts 3:27-29). Israel were multiplied as the sand on the sea shore (2 Sam. 17:11; 1 Kings 4:20), they possessed the gates of their enemies (Dt. 17:2; 18:6)- all in antitype of how Abraham's future seed would also receive the promised blessings in their mortal experience, as well as in the eternal blessedness of the future Kingdom.</p>