One thing that I never tire of pondering as a Christian is how Jesus\u2019 cross saves me and what it saves me from. Growing up evangelical, the answer was simple: Jesus took the punishment for my sin to save me from an angry, perfectionist God who wanted to burn me in hell forever. But this explanation looks nothing like the salvation that takes place in response to Peter\u2019s first sermon about Jesus\u2019 cross in Acts 2. Peter says nothing whatsoever about hell. So what does he say that people need to be saved from? He tells the crowd, \u201cSave yourself from this corrupt generation\u201d (v. 40). And how does the cross accomplish this salvation for Peter? It causes his hearers to be \u201ccut to the heart\u201d (v. 37) after Peter tells the crowd that they killed their messiah. They are saved not by being legally exonerated in some abstract heavenly courtroom, but by having their hearts mortally wounded by their implication in the murder of their king. In other words, Jesus\u2019 cross saves them by unmasking their sin and putting it on public display in the ugliness of his brutal death. None of the modern formulaic Romans Road \u201cfour spiritual laws\u201d account of salvation was part of the experience of the original three thousand converts to the Christian faith. Since we are two thousand years removed from Jesus\u2019 crucifixion, it\u2019s an abstraction to associate our sin directly with Jesus\u2019 cross, so we cannot be saved in the same manner as the first 3000 Christians, unless we recognize that our sin continues to crucify Jesus in places like Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York in the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.<\/span><\/p>\n There are three places in Acts where the phrase \u201ccut to the heart\u201d is used. In Acts 2:37, the crowd that is \u201ccut to the heart\u201d by Peter responds with abject humility, saying \u201cBrothers, what should we do?\u201d So Peter baptizes them and they become the original Jerusalem church. In this first case, being \u201ccut to the heart\u201d results in repentance. But in Acts 5:33 and 7:54, the Sanhedrin council of religious authorities are \u201ccut to the heart\u201d in a very different way by the testimony of Peter and Stephen respectively (the phrase in Greek is dieprionto tais kardiais, which should be translated literally \u201ccut to the heart\u201d as it is in the King James Bible even though the NRSV translation paraphrases it as \u201cenraged\u201d). The cutting of the Sanhedrin\u2019s hearts has the opposite result from the crowd that was saved by Peter\u2019s sermon. They are hardened into rage instead of being broken into repentance. In Peter\u2019s case in Acts 5, his life is spared by Gamaliel who warns his fellow religious authorities that they might be fighting against God if they kill Peter. In Stephen\u2019s case in Acts 7, he is taken out and stoned to death. When people are \u201ccut to the heart\u201d by the recognition that they have blood on their hands, they either respond with remorseful surrender or angry defensiveness.<\/p>\n