'And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the
temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, 2. Being grieved that they
taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the
dead. 3. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the
next day: for it was now even-tide. 4. Howbeit many of them which heard
the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.
5. And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders,
and scribes, 6. And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and
Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were
gathered together at Jerusalem. 7. And when they had set them in the
midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?
8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of
the people, and elders of Israel, 9. If we this day be examined of the
good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; 10.
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised
from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole.
11. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is
become the head of the corner. 12. Neither is there salvation in any
other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved. 13. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter
and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they
marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with
Jesus. 14. And beholding the man which was healed standing with them,
they could say nothing against it.'--ACTS iv. 1-14.
Hitherto the Jewish authorities had let the disciples alone, either
because their attention had not been drawn even by Pentecost and the
consequent growth of the Church, or because they thought that to ignore
the new sect was the best way to end it. But when its leaders took to
vehement preaching in Solomon's porch, and crowds eagerly listened, it
was time to strike in.
Our passage describes the first collision of hostile authority with
Christian faith, and shows, as in a glass, the constant result of that
collision in all ages.
The motives actuating the assailants are significantly analysed, and
may be distributed among the three classes enumerated. The priests and
the captain of the Temple would be annoyed by the very fact that Peter
and John taught the people: the former, because they were jealous of
their official prerogative: the latter, because he was responsible for
public order, and a riot in the Temple court would have been a scandal.
The Saddueees were indignant at the substance of the teaching, which
affirmed the resurrection of the dead, which they denied, and alleged
it as having occurred 'in Jesus.'
The position of Sadducees and Pharisees is inverted in Acts as compared
with the Gospels. While Christ lived, the Pharisees were the soul of
the opposition to Him, and His most solemn warnings fell on them; after
the Resurrection, the Sadducees head the opposition, and among the
Pharisees are some, like Gamaliel and afterwards Paul, who incline to
the new faith. It was the Resurrection that made the difference, and
the difference is an incidental testimony to the fact that Christ's
Resurrection was proclaimed from the first. To ask whether Jesus had
risen, and to examine the evidence, were the last things of which the
combined assailants thought. This public activity of the Apostles
threatened their influence or their pet beliefs, and so, like
persecutors in all ages, they shut their eyes to the important
question, 'Is this preaching true or false?' and took the easier course
of laying hands on the preachers.
So the night fell on Peter and John in prison, the first of the
thousands who have suffered bonds and imprisonment for Christ, and have
therein found liberty. What lofty faith, and what subordination of the
fate of the messengers to the progress of the message, are expressed in
that abrupt introduction, in verse 4, of the statistics of the increase
of the Church from that day's work! It mattered little that it ended
with the two Apostles in custody, since it ended too with five thousand
rejoicing in Christ.
The arrest seems to have been due to a sudden thought on the part of
the priests, captain, and Sadducees, without commands from the
Sanhedrin or the high priest. But when these inferior authorities had
got hold of their prisoners, they probably did not quite know what to
do with them, and so moved the proper persons to summon the Sanhedrin.
In all haste, then, a session was called for next morning. 'Rulers,
elders, and scribes' made up the constituent members of the court, and
the same two 'high priests' who had tried Jesus are there, attended by
a strong contingent of dependants, who could be trusted to vote as they
were bidden. Annas was an _emeritus_ high priest, whose age and
relationship to Caiaphas, the actual holder of the post and Annas's
son-in-law, gave him an influential position. He retained the title,
though he had ceased to hold the office, as a cleric without a charge
is usually called 'Reverend.'
It was substantially the same court which had condemned Jesus, and
probably now sat in the same hall as then. So that Peter and John would
remember the last time when they had together been in that room, and
Who had stood in the criminal's place where they now were set.
The court seems to have been somewhat at a loss how to proceed. The
Apostles had been arrested for their words, but they are questioned
about the miracle. It was no crime to teach in the Temple, but a crime
might be twisted out of working a miracle in the name of any but
Jehovah. To do that would come near blasphemy or worshipping strange
gods. The Sanhedrin knew what the answer to their question would be,
and probably they intended, as soon as the anticipated answer was
given, to 'rend their clothes,' and say, as they had done once before,
'What need we further witnesses? They have spoken blasphemy.' But
things did not go as was expected. The crafty question was put. It does
not attempt to throw doubt on the reality of the miracle, but there is
a world of arrogant contempt in it, both in speaking of the cure as
'this,' and in the scornful emphasis with which, in the Greek, 'ye'
stands last in the sentence, and implies, 'ye poor, ignorant fishermen.'
The last time that Peter had been in the judgment-hall his courage had
oozed out of him at the prick of a maid-servant's sharp tongue, but now
he fronts all the ecclesiastical authorities without a tremor. Whence
came the transformation of the cowardly denier into the heroic
confessor, who turns the tables on his judges and accuses them? The
narrative answers. He was 'filled with the Holy Ghost.' That abiding
possession of the Spirit, begun on Pentecost, did not prevent special
inspiration for special needs, and the Greek indicates that there was
granted such a temporary influx in this critical hour.
One cannot but note the calmness of the Apostle, so unlike his old
tumultuous self. He begins with acknowledging the lawful authority of
the court, and goes on, with just a tinge of sarcasm, to put the vague
'this' of the question in its true light. It was 'a good deed done to
an impotent man,' for which John and he stood there. Singular sort of
crime that! Was there not a presumption that the power which had
wrought so 'good' a deed was good? 'Do men gather grapes of thorns?'
Many a time since then Christianity has been treated as criminal,
because of its beneficence to bodies and souls.
But Peter rises to the full height of the occasion, when he answers the
Sanhedrin's question with the pealing forth of his Lord's name. He
repeats in substance his former contrast of Israel's treatment of Jesus
and God's; but, in speaking to the rulers, his tone is more severe than
it was to the people. The latter had been charged, at Pentecost and in
the Temple, with crucifying _Jesus_; the former are here charged with
crucifying the _Christ_. It was their business to have tested his
claims, and to have welcomed the Messiah. The guilt was shared by both,
but the heavier part lay on the shoulders of the Sanhedrin.
Mark, too, the bold proclamation of the Resurrection, the stone of
offence to the Sadducees. How easy it would have been for them to
silence the Apostle, if they could have pointed to the undisturbed and
occupied grave! That would have finished the new sect at once. Is there
any reason why it was not done but the one reason that it could not be
done?
Thus far Peter has been answering the interrogation legally put, and
has done as was anticipated. Now was the time for Annas and the rest to
strike in; but they could not carry out their programme, for the fiery
stream of Peter's words does not stop when they expected, and instead
of a timid answer followed by silence, they get an almost defiant
proclamation of the Name, followed by a charge against them, which
turns the accused into the accuser, and puts them at the bar. Peter
learned to apply the passage in the Psalm (v. 11) to the rulers, from
his Master's use of it (Matt. xxi. 42); and there is no quaver in his
voice nor fear in his heart when, in the face of all these learned
Rabbis and high and mighty dignitaries, he brands them as foolish
builders, blind to the worth of the Stone 'chosen of God, and
precious,' and tells them that the course of divine Providence will run
counter to their rejection of Jesus, and make him the very 'Head of the
corner,'--the crown, as well as the foundation, of God's building.
But not even this bold indictment ends the stream of his speech. The
proclamation of the power of the Name was fitly followed by pressing
home the guilt and madness of rejecting Jesus, and that again by the
glad tidings of salvation for all, even the rejecters. Is not the
sequence in Peter's defence substantially that which all Christian
preaching should exhibit? First, strong, plain proclamation of the
truth; then pungent pressing home of the sin of turning away from
Jesus; and then earnest setting forth of the salvation in His name,--a
salvation wide as the world, and deep as our misery and need, but
narrow, inasmuch as it is 'in none other.' The Apostle will not end
with charging his hearers with guilt, but with offering them salvation.
He will end with lifting up 'the Name' high above all other, and
setting it in solitary clearness before, not these rulers only, but the
whole world. The salvation which it had wrought on the lame man was but
a parable and picture of the salvation from all ills of body and
spirit, which was stored in that Name, and in it alone.
The rulers' contempt had been expressed by their emphatic ending of
their question with that 'ye.' Peter expresses his brotherhood and
longing for the good of his judges by ending his impassioned, or,
rather, inspired address with a loving, pleading 'we.' He puts himself
on the same level with them as needing salvation, and would fain have
them on the same level with himself and John as receiving it. That is
the right way to preach.
Little need be said as to the effect of this address. Whether it went
any deeper in any susceptible souls or not, it upset the schemes of the
leaders. Something in the manner and matter of it awed them into
wonder, and paralysed them for the time. Here was the first instance of
the fulfilment of that promise, which has been fulfilled again and
again since, of 'a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall
not be able to gainsay nor resist.' 'Unlearned,' as ignorant of
Rabbinical traditions, and 'ignorant,' or, rather, 'private,' as
holding no official position, these two wielded a power over hearts and
consciences which not even official indifference and arrogance could
shake off. Thank God, that day's experience is repeated still, and any
of us may have the same Spirit to clothe us with the same armour of
light!
The Sanhedrin knew well enough that the Apostles had been with Jesus,
and the statement that 'they took knowledge of them' cannot mean that
that fact dawned on the rulers for the first time. Rather it means that
their wonder at the 'boldness' of the two drove home the fact of their
association with Him to their minds. That association explained the
marvel; for the Sanhedrin remembered how He had stood, meek but unawed,
at the same bar. They said to themselves, 'We know where these men get
this brave freedom of speech,--from that Nazarene.' Happy shall we be
if our demeanour recalls to spectators the ways of our Lord!
How came the lame man there? He had not been arrested with the
Apostles. Had he voluntarily and bravely joined them? We do not know,
but evidently he was not there as accused, and probably had come as a
witness of the reality of the miracle. Notice the emphatic 'standing,'
as in verse 10,--a thing that he had never done all his life. No wonder
that the Sanhedrin were puzzled, and settled down to the 'lame and
impotent conclusion' which follows. So, in the first round of the
world-long battle between the persecutors and the persecuted, the
victory is all on the side of the latter. So it has been ever since,
though often the victors have died in the conflict. 'The Church is an
anvil which has worn out many hammers,' and the story of the first
collision is, in essentials, the story of all.