One other thing I will also mention is that faith has always been the foundational element of every dispensation throughout history going all the way back to Adam. The Lord desires faith rather than just actions, as any supervisor would want from his workers, in that if they don't believe in the mission, they aren't much good for anything else. So, when Peter spoke of the crucifixion of Christ of Christ in order to drive home the fact that the Jews had killed their Messiah, it could only cut them to the heart if they believed what Peter had told them. THAT is what drove them to then ask what they must do as a result, to which Peter responded with the requirement to DO something, which was water baptism FOR the remission of sins. Remission of sins, I'm sure we can both agree, must take place in order for one to be saved. That is then the point for the filling of Holy Spirit as a reality and evidence for salvation.
Had they called Peter a liar, they would not have become water baptized by faith. Given that the Law was still in force at that time, and will become in force after the rapture and thus the ending of the dispensation of grace, evidenced in their having to ENDURE unto the end, as Jesus emphatically stated because they will not be sealed by Holy Spirit in that time, their salvation will become a reality after a demonstration for endurance. That is not what we are under today given that we today are sealed by Holy Spirit unto salvation at the point of faith in the death, burial and resurrection on the third day of Christ Jesus, the first born of all creation.
Acts 21:20 And when they heard [it], they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother,
how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law:
The Greek word translated "zealous," according to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, has this meaning:
"b. to
defend and uphold a thing, vehemently contending for a thing (zealous for): νόμου,
Acts 21:20"
In other words, they were not just sitting around speaking good things about the Law of Moses, they were upholding it. I'm reiterating this because the Kingdom Gospel folks were still upholding the Law of Moses, and we today do NOT uphold the Law of Moses. This isn't about just saying good things about it, as some have suggested, generally speaking, but they were upholding the Law just as they were upholding faith in Messiah.
So, the singular gospel gang has a serious problem on their hands. Will they go back to upholding the Law contrary to scripture written to us, or will they become Hebrew Roots followers and uphold a massive falsehood for us today? Some out there try to straddle that fence in spite of the deadly spikes along its top, claiming that one can live in both realms of doctrine without creating horrid inconsistencies in their gospel preaching to the unsaved.
What so many fail to understand is the difference between, God meeting out His grace upon various individuals and nations with healing and situational intervention, and the basis of salvation offered to ALL rooted in grace through faith alone, indepenedant of works. They are not one and the same, but the massively confused continue to vomit their inconsistencies as if they knew what they were talking about contrary to what's written. That's not pride, it's accepting scripture for what it says resulting from systematic analysis.
MM