Acts 2:21

Whosoever. This would first apply to Peter’s listeners, but in its wider sense it embraces all mankind and stresses the universality of the gospel appeal.

Call. To “call on the name of the Lord” was a common Hebrew phrase connected with those who worshiped God (see Gen. 12:8; see on ch. 4:26). Luke and Paul both use the construction (Acts 7:59; 9:14; 22:16; Rom. 10:12; 1 Cor. 1:2). In Acts it is also used in the sense of appealing from a lower to a higher tribunal (ch. 11, 12, 21,25).

The prayer of faith will result in a spirit of calm assurance amid the terrors of the day of the Lord. It is also true that those who, at any time, sincerely call on the Lord’s name thereby find the way of salvation ch. 4:12.

Peter broaches the great conclusion to which he is working, that Jesus is the Lord and Christ ch. 2:36. He has taken an OT prophecy that speaks of Yahweh, Jehovah (see Vol. I, pp. 172, 173), and applied it to Jesus. The title Kyrios, “Lord,” used in the LXX for Yahweh, is given to the ascended Master. It is a bold step. It shows how the conviction of Christ’s deity was the keystone in Peter’s thinking and doctrine.

So frequently does the word “name” occur in connection with the Lord in the book of Acts that it constitutes a theme. The name of the Lord became a symbol to the disciples of the glorious character and unlimited power of Him with whom they had walked in Palestine.

Shall be saved. This has a twofold application — saved from sin and from the judgments of God upon the earth. As to judgments, the 1st-century Christians, by obeying the counsel of Jesus as given in Matt. 24:15-20, were saved from the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History iii. 5.3; see on Matt. 24:16). At the close of time, true Christians, by following the counsels of the Lord as Saviour and coming King, will be saved from the catastrophes of the last days. However, the chief application of the words of this verse is to salvation from sin.