New Testament Word & Image: Acts 3:11-26 & the statues of the facade of St. Peter's Basilica, Square and Colonnade

Acts 3:11-26

View of St. Peter's Square and Colonnade, Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed. 

St Peter,  by Giuseppe De Fabris, 1840, from St. Pater's Square, Vatican City

So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: “Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go... 

St. Peter.s Basilica facade statues of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ and St. Andrew

...But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all...

Back of St. Peter.s Basilica facade statues of Christ and the Apostles

...Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,  and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things...

Statues of various saints, popes, virgins, martyrs and churchmen throughout the ages, sitting atop the colonnade of St. Peter's Square

...which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed’...

Statue of Christ from the façade of St Peter' s Basilica, Vatican City. Rome

...To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”

St. Peter's Basilica facade diagram of the statues of Christ, John the Baptist and the Apostles