NOTES for Act 2:24

Filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter delivers the very first sermon of the New Testament Church: a sermon in which the Good News is heard for the first time by those "outside", and this News is about the resurrection of Christ. This astonishing event is unique in human history, and the Church would spend many years seeking an adequate verbal description for it. In these words of Peter we see the first attempt to express the paradox: on the one hand, Jesus Himself turns out to be the victor over death, since it cannot hold Him. On the other hand, only the living can bring the dead to life, and if no one else took part in this, then it means that the Living God raised Christ. This paradox is resolved in another paradox, which the Church would later formulate: the God-manhood of Christ.