These well-known words of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, heard every time a child is baptized in the church, might perhaps be losing some of their meaning for us, simply because we hear them so often, and because they are often used as one of the basic Scriptural proofs of infant baptism. We see the wide breadth of the text in the expression "all that are far off," but its depth may be lost to us. This appears in the first words of the text, "For to you is the promise …" Who are those referred to here?

The context gives the answer; in the climax of this sermon, Peter concludes that God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus "whom you crucified," acts 2:36. Peter addresses roughly the same crowd that had been gathered in Jerusalem fifty days before, and had participated in Christ's condemnation and subsequent crucifixion. They had cried out, "His blood be on us and on our children." (Matthew 27:25). To these same people who had thus called an enduring curse upon themselves, Peter proclaims God's promise and His blessing – also enduring through the generations.

Here something of the depth of God's unending grace opens up before us. For in the death of the well-Beloved, sin had reached its culmination point, its climax. No sin is greater than the willful murder of God's only Son, the special Messenger He sent into the world to proclaim His justice and truth. Man can do nothing worse than this. This sin – the crucifixion of the Son of God – is tantamount to making a curse out of God's blessing, and expressing the highest hatred and contempt for the LORD God. Many acted in ignorance, as Peter himself says, Acts 3:17. Yet this does not affect their guilt! The proclamation of Pentecost does not ignore this guilt! Golgotha is the living proof, the verifiable evidence in the hands of the apostles and of God Himself which proves universal guilt, not only of the Jews but also the Gentiles. This is what we have done!

What a surge of life then comes forward on those words: "For to you is the promise …" The greatest possible injury has been inflicted against the Holy One. But at the same time, He is prepared to overlook it, if only we repent and believe in Jesus. The culmination of sin also leads to the greatest offer of grace. The peak point of sin yields grace magnified, – indeed, grace perfected in the proclamation of the new covenant. And is that not what Pentecost is all about? With Pentecost, all comes fullness. The full maturation of sin to such a vile deed opens the door to the fullness of grace proclaimed for Jew and Gentile alike. Along with the peak of guilt comes the proclamation of fullness of amnesty, release from guilt through the blood of the cross! And that promise comes to one and all, young and old, in the same way God gave His covenant promises in the old covenant.

However, precisely because grace comes to its peak, and God's love is poured out to its maximum, everything in the new covenant involves the highest seriousness, and the greatest earnestness. The fullness of giving, the fullness of divine speaking cannot but draw out the fullness of response – one way or the other. No doubt remains in the Pentecost age. From heaven's end all registers have been opened. What ought then to come from earth to heaven?

Paul himself gives the answer when he outlines the aim of the Pentecost preaching. Just as sin has reached a climax in the death of the Son, and just as grace has come to its fullness in the forgiveness proclaimed in His death, so the thank offering must also come to its fullness in the obedient response of all who believe in Christ. Paul's aim is to "present every man mature in Christ," Colossians 1:28; and here the word "mature" includes the idea of completeness and perfection. God's unexpected and astonishingly merciful proclamation of full amnesty must be met by a full and complete thank offering – a self-offering and self-dedication which leaves not one stone unturned in giving all to God. His "all" must be met with our "all" from below! So Paul adds that His gifts were many and varied,

until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.Ephesians 4:13

We must strive for the fullness, but we are also brought to the fullness, so that, at God's time, all we have done in the body may be placed in humble thanksgiving before His throne.

Here, too, the end can only be: soli Deo gloria. For the thank offering which God above may declare "perfect" and "complete" in Christ Jesus our Lord is all given by Him through the Spirit. For out of Him and from Him and to Him are all things! And He leads all things to the day when the fullness will be plain for all to see, and God shall be all and in all.