NOTES for Act 3:11-26
Explaining the healing that had taken place, Peter again returns to what he had already spoken about on the day of Pentecost. He again points to Jesus as the Messiah glorified by God. And he connects everything that is happening with this glorification. The matter is still the same: the spiritual process that we usually call salvation. Only for us, salvation often appears to be something deeply personal, touching, if not exclusively then first of all, ourselves. Of course, we understand that we are not the only ones being saved, but still we usually see salvation itself as an individual matter. Meanwhile Peter and the other apostles viewed it as a universal, cosmic process. First of all it includes the people of God, and then all humanity.
All the prophets point to the Messiah, and whoever listens to the prophets cannot fail to recognize the Messiah: such is the apostle's thought. But the prophets spoke about what God revealed to them, and if He revealed to them something that forms a whole picture with the Messiah at the center, then our relationship with the Messiah, with Christ, is not only our personal affair and touches not only us alone. It is part of God's plan and one of the elements in the realization of that plan.
We can, of course, ignore everything connected with Christ and with the Kingdom, but if we want to participate, we must be aware that we are participating not in some experiment whose result concerns us alone. The Kingdom is entering the world, and our salvation is connected with this movement. Whether we are saved or not will become known only when the Kingdom is revealed in fullness, at the end of time. Still, it is not peoples and not collectives who are saved, but concrete human beings.
The process of salvation itself is truly universal, but each person participates in it personally. That is why the apostle speaks of the killing of Christ, saying that the people listening to him did it "in ignorance." Of course, in any society there are always those who act fully consciously, and guilt is not removed from such people, at least until repentance. But in every society there are also those who do not understand what is happening and take part in events without realizing their meaning and significance, following the majority.
Of course, this too is a choice, but often without understanding exactly what is being chosen. In this case repentance is certainly also necessary, though not for conscious sin, as in the case of those who understand everything to the end. Still, without repentance for unconscious sin, or more precisely, for the sin of refusing awareness, it is impossible; for life in the Kingdom requires full awareness of all one's life and actions. And therefore the fullness of responsibility, without which one cannot enter the Kingdom.