{"id":14365,"date":"2025-08-24T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T16:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=14365"},"modified":"2025-08-25T22:30:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T14:30:02","slug":"overcoming-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2025\/08\/24\/overcoming-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Decay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acts 13:34-37 34<\/sup>And that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to decay, he has spoken in this way, \u2018I will give to you the holy and trustworthy things of David.\u2019\u00a0<\/span>35<\/sup>Therefore, he says also in another place, \u2018You will not let your Holy One see decay.\u2019\u00a0<\/span>36<\/sup>For David, on the one hand, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was gathered to his fathers and saw decay, 37<\/sup>but on the other hand, the one whom God raised up did not see decay. <\/em><\/p>\n

The keyword that brings these verses together is decay<\/em> (diaphthora, <\/em>corruption or destruction), which occurs four times in these verses. God raised Jesus from the dead before his body began to decay. His body was transformed in some way and serves as a model, the “first fruits” (1 Corinthians 15:23), guaranteeing our own resurrection. Jesus truly was physically dead, yet his wounded and bruised body was raised to new, eternal life. His resurrection is at the core of Christian theology. Everything else rests upon this truth (1 Corinthians 14:12-19).<\/p>\n

Paul used Scripture to prove his point, using some of the same texts as Peter did in his Pentecost sermon in chapter 2. Paul quoted part of Isaiah 55:3 in verse 34, which emphasizes the eternal covenant made with David. His quotation makes a vital connection between Jesus and David, confirming his Messiahship. The verse in Isaiah reflects on the prophetic words of Nathan in 2 Samuel 7:4\u201317.<\/p>\n

With this established, Paul moved on to confirm the prophecy about Jesus’ resurrection by quoting from Psalm 16:10 in verse 35. This psalm offers support for the Messiah’s resurrection with the description Holy One<\/em> and the linking word\u00a0decay<\/em>. The assumption is that the Holy One will be beyond death, but there is also the possible assumption that the Holy One would experience death but not be overcome by it. The Messiah would be even greater than David, who died and whose body decayed. The Messiah would not see decay because God would raise him from the dead. Paul showed that Jesus fulfilled God’s plan. The choice was up to the listeners to accept the truth of what he said. This is always the case with the gospel. The truth is more than intellectual but is deeply experiential, which Paul took up next in his sermon.<\/p>\n

For older posts, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 13:34-37 34And that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to decay, he has spoken in this way, \u2018I will give to you the holy and trustworthy things of David.\u2019\u00a035Therefore, he says also in another place, \u2018You will not let your Holy One see decay.\u2019\u00a036For David, on the one hand, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14365"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14400,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365\/revisions\/14400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}