Acts 5

Again the record declares, that great fear came upon all that heard as well as witnessed those things. Deep indeed would be the impression and long the memory of so awful a judgment of the manifest God! And thus was the infant Church taught and warned and guarded in her time of greatest weakness and need against corruption from within, especially against “that leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy,” an evil always greater and more demoralizing than persecution from without!

Some Leading Truths.—While personal influence, even to the working in human hearts, is ascribed to Satan, yet his power is only that of temptation, and is resistible. It is the man that sins, by his own uncontrolled act of yielding to the temptation. Hence the helpful injunction, “Resist the devil, and he will flee.”

Every human heart is under the influence of the Holy Spirit or of Satan, but under compulsion of neither. What the Holy Ghost has aimed to do in the saving of all that have been saved, he still seeks to do in behalf of the lost and imperilled. And what Satan has done to destroy, what he succeeded in accomplishing by his influence with Saul, Ahithophel, Judas, and now with Ananias and Sapphira, he seeks now, as earnestly, to do with every one.

In this fearful twofold judgment we have God’s protest and refutation respecting the false tenet or belief, that because he is infinitely merciful and long-suffering, he will clear the guilty and transform hell into heaven. The voice of this judgment is, Be not deceived, God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap: In no wise shall enter they who make a lie: For our God is a consuming fire. B.

No matter whether the miracle happens once or every day. It is simply the type of a law inevitable and universal. Whether the outer stroke should ever be repeated or not, it was only the visible sign of a thing that is always going on while the world stands—unrighteousness blasted, lying exposed, the cheating man and the cheating woman, in spite of their skill in concealment, sent down at last to misery. F. D. H.

13. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them. 12 And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. And by the hands of the apostles 15 were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the 16 shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were 14 vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. 17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the 18 Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the apostles, and 19 put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison 20 doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people 21 all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the 22 prison to have them brought. But when the officers came, and found them not in the 23 prison, they returned, and told, saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man 24 within. Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests 25 heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow. Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and 26 teaching the people. Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without 27 violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. And when they 28 had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, say- ing, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.

29. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than 30 men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him 31 hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to 32 Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.

33. When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them. Then 34 stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; 35 and said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as 36 touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be some- body; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; 37 and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: 38 he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I say un- to you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of 39 men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be 40 found even to fight against God. And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

41. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted 42 worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

“THEY ceased not to teach and preach Jesus the Christ.” Similar expressions continually recur in the Acts. No such announcements are heard in the Gospels. The preaching spoken of there is not of the person, but of the kingdom. In the Acts the two expressions are sometimes united, as when the Samari- tans “believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of the Lord Jesus”: and yet again, with more evident purpose, in the closing verse of the book, which describes the two years’ continuous ministry by the words “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.” The two expressions are combined to show that the preaching of the kingdom and the preaching of Christ are one. All is founded upon the old Jewish expectation of a kingdom of God; but it is now explained how that expectation is fulfilled in the person of Jesus; and the account of its realization consists in the unfolding of the truth concerning him, “the things concern- ing Jesus.” The manifestation of Christ being finished, the kingdom is already begun. Those who re- ceive him enter into it. Having overcome the sharpness of death, he has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Those, therefore, who were once to “tell no man that he was Christ,” are now to make “all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ”; yea, they are to proclaim that fact to every nation under heaven. Through the blessed ordinance of a written word they have not ceased to do so now. To us they preach him still; a Christ “who died for our sins and rose again for our justification”; a Christ who saves without the Law, yet one who is witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. So they preach, and so we believe. This was the beginning of the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope to the Church at its birth, and this begin- ning it will hold firm unto the end. It is for us to see that we bear our part in the long history of the faith, finding its reality in the joy of our own salvation, and transmitting its testimony to the generation to come. T. D. B.

12-16. Effects wrought among the People by the Apostles’ Preaching and Healing in the Name of Jesus.—These verses cover a considerable period of undisturbed ministry. The most appropriate order would probably be this: verse 13; the last sentence in verse 12; the first sentence in the same verse, attached to verses 15 and 16; and verse 14. Read thus, without any parenthesis, the meaning is clear and the narrative orderly and progressive.

The rest, the multitude without, had been so impressed by the miraculous judgment upon Ananias that they stood in awe of the apostles as divine mes- sengers, and none ventured to join the company of believers unless drawn by a true faith and honest confession. Nevertheless they “magnified,” in their hearts honored, the character and work of the apos- tles. They had learned at least the difference be- tween false pretense and true service.

Solomon’s porch was now the daily meeting and preaching place of the apostles. No other place was large enough for the concourse of believers and people. (Vol. I, p. 620.)

The account given in verses 15 and 16 recalls similar statements respecting great periods and wide circuits of Christ’s ministry in Galilee. Everywhere from within Jerusalem itself, and from the numerous cities adjacent, the sick and the possessed with unclean spirits were brought by multitudes to the apostles. And the result is told in the old language of the gospels, “they were healed every one.” Not, we suppose, that any one was healed by the lengthened shadow of Peter’s person, as he returned toward sunset from the crowded evening service in Solomon’s porch. Yet we know that the sick were afterward healed by the touch of aprons and handkerchiefs that had been in contact with the person of Paul; and we remember how one was healed by the touch of a garment-hem. There may have been such faith, as these cases showed, in the placing of the sick within the line of the apostle’s shadow, and if there was, God may have healed in like condescension to human ignorance and infirmity. But the text does not furnish any inference that there was such faith, or that healing was wrought by this means. The fact is stated to show the extent and pervasive character of the influence which had already gone forth from these few illiterate fishermen, within the city and outside of it.

The “many signs and wonders” now “wrought among the people” were in answer to the first prayer of the Church. They were designed to honor the apostles in the sight, and so with the favor, of the people; that the people might interpose, as they did, to protect them against the assaults of the rulers. But, chiefly, their miracles of healing were wrought, like their Master’s, to show how much God’s mercy delighted to rejoice against his judgment, how much more willing were his helpful, gracious, loving purposes and acts, than his enforced strange deeds of judgment. And all these ends of miracle, we read, were accomplished.

14. Believers were the more added. This is the natural close to this whole statement. Even the terrible judgment combined with the multitude of healing mercies, in connection with the preaching of Jesus, produced far more faith than fear. Of the vast numbers who had been outwardly convinced by miraculous demonstration, many were inwardly touched by the truth concerning Jesus impressed by the present mighty Spirit of God. Multitudes both of men and women were added to THE LORD!—to Christ, not to the roll of the Church. Here, as before, the LORD, i. e., CHRIST, added to the Church the saved! but first—then, now, and ever—added to the Lord! as branches to the vine, by the principle and through the divine implanting of a spiritual life: living branches, and fruitful if living, in the living vine—these only are “the saved,” these only make up the roll of the true Church, visible or invisible! B.

17-19. The apostles are brought forward to preach before the Sanhedrim the doctrine of the resurrection, by the agency of the Sadducees who denied it. The Sadducees imprison the apostles; but the angel of the Lord opens the prison doors. Thus Christ overrules the designs of the Sadducees, who denied the existence of angels, and makes the Sadducees themselves to be the means of showing to the world that his angels are ministering spirits, encamping about his Church. W.—As their hate increased, their malignity gave them increased courage to seize and imprison the apostles. While these imprisoned men are filled with the Holy Ghost, and leave all things quietly with God, their persecutors—into whose hearts we are continually permitted to see—are filled with Satan, and undertake themselves to carry out the devices he has inspired.

But! This is a divine “but,” which deranges all their plans. The excess, or “remainder,” of men’s wrath over what may be needful in the execution of his plans, God easily restrains, and generally by his usual methods of providence. Here, for the same purpose that he wrought by miracle, he sends an angel to release his first “ambassadors” to the world. Silently, and unnoticed by the slumbering guard, the prison doors are opened, and the rescued, newly animated disciples are bidden to resume their work for the Master. Go, as heralds go, not seeking safety in concealment, but before the face of the people. Utter the message of life—all of it—faithfully to all the people! It was a reaffirmation of the commission from their risen Lord, uttered under circumstances of implied approval, encouragement, and yet larger promise. And there was no hesitation or wavering in their response. Early in the morning, soon as the temple gates were opened, they gathered in Solomon’s porch and taught the thronging crowds. B.—The Lord sent his angel and set his servants free. He showed the persecutors that they had no power over these men, “except it were given them from above.” But having done this, the Master left the witnesses in their enemies’ hands. His will was, that his servants should neither flee nor fight; that they should preach the Cross, and bear it; that they should overcome as he had overcome—by enduring. Arnot.

21-26. Then came the specially called meeting of the great Sanhedrim, showing how exasperated the priestly party were and how determined now utterly to destroy these teachers of Christ. “All the senate,” i. e., all the elders of the nation, were called in to give counsel and add weight to the judgment of the Sanhedrim. The officers were sent to the prison, and excitedly returned with the wonderful story of an empty ward and carefully guarded doors and building. The meaning was, that there was full proof of divine interposition in the escape. And while the assembly were amazed and wondering what would come out of these marvels, one came with the intelligence that the men who had mysteriously disappeared out of their prison were boldly preaching again in the temple. At the instance of the high priest, the captain of the temple—the custodian of the sacred house—then went with his own band and quietly summoned the apostles into the presence of the assembled council. The obedient response of the apostles prevented any outbreak among the people.

The strongly favorable feeling of the people in behalf of these persecuted disciples is the instructive and cheering fact of this portion of the narrative. Many causes combined—all of them noble and grand—to produce this feeling. These lowly but bold disciples had dared to come right from the prison to the sanctuary and stronghold of their own and their Master’s persecutors, instead of fleeing from them. They spake with like boldness as they acted; repeating in calm and serious words the offensive doctrines. Here were evidences of their own truthfulness, of their belief in the word they preached, and of a wonderful strength of personal trust in the Christ they proclaimed and urged upon others. And their forbearance equaled their courage and truth. Though their release showed that superhuman power was theirs, yet they did not seek to employ it in opposition to the high priest and elders. Not to resist the rulers, not to smite with judgment-might the men who had accumulated a vaster amount of even more aggravated guilt than the false Ananias, but to heal the sick and suffering they used the might of miracle.

And perhaps the “signs” most wonderful and powerful with the people were the signs of their Christlike spirit—their utterly unselfish lives and ministry—the avowed purpose of their preaching as well as the manifest ultimate object of their miracles, to save the lost soul! In palpable contrast to these “signs and wonders” of Christlike spirit and living, had been life-long presented before their eyes the selfish greed and rapacity, the open hypocrisy, and especially the utter lack of sympathy or care for others, which characterized the priests and rulers of that day above any other time even in Jewish history. Multitudes, therefore, of the common people heard these true-hearted apostles, also, gladly! They heard the words and read the life, and the Holy Ghost impressed his own truth in both forms, and wrought miracles of deliverance for multitudes of penitent, believing souls, more wondrous far than the angel’s release of the imprisoned bodies of the apostles!

27,28. If we needed proof of the superior intelligence and shrewdness of these foremost priests and rulers, we have it in their discriminating appreapplication of the preaching and doctrine concerning Jesus as the source of the apostles’ power, and of their own consequent danger. These men of the Sanhedrim cared nothing for mere miracles. They did not want to know, they wished not to know, how the apostles escaped from the prison; and passed that matter over in silence. But when the known companions of Jesus preach a spiritual religion, and declare a salvation of grace, when their preaching is attested not only by numerous and stupendous miracles, but by an unselfish, true, pure, and helpful life, when the religion they preach and practice stands forth in striking contrast with the teaching and life of authoritative Jewish teachers, and when, for all these reasons, multitudes from city and country are drawn to seek healing and find repentance in the name of Christ, no wonder these false hypocritical leaders take alarm, and seek to silence and destroy the apostles.

But the charge they make of a design “to bring this man’s blood” (purposely throwing contempt upon the name that the apostles had exalted) “upon them” is surprising, when we remember that these very rulers had led in that answering cry to Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children.” But they had an object in saying this now; they wished to create an impression among the people that the apostles were actuated by revengeful and hostile feelings in making the charge. B.

29-32. Critics have noticed the structure of Peter’s brief defense as one of the finest specimens of pleading on record. It is a proof that the promise, “It shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak,” was amply fulfilled. It is clear and cogent; it is very short, but it is long enough. The speaker says all that is needful, and stops when he is done. In this short space he defends himself, confounds his adversaries, and commends Christ to the bystanders. Arnot.

Taking no notice of their attempt to create odium against himself and his companions, with manly boldness he repeats the main points of his previous address. Again he reverses the position of the parties, becomes himself the accuser of his judges, and preaches the gospel plainly to them. So did Stephen afterward, before that very same tribunal.

29. First, he declares directly, not as before in the way of appeal to their judgment, that God must be obeyed rather than men. In saying this, he boldly implies that they are commanding things contrary to God; and he justifies the disregard of their injunction solely on the ground of obedience to the higher authority of God himself. He does not deny the allegiance properly due to these rulers as the highest human authority in the nation. He claims and attempts no right of open opposition or organized resistance. But he must speak the word, and so obey the supreme command of God. B.

How much the world owes to the word that Peter uttered before the Sanhedrim that day! It is the foundation of all the true liberty that exists in the world. On this rock—the word that the Holy Spirit spake by Peter’s lips—has the liberty of the Church been built, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Leaning on this, human liberty has been able to maintain a footing on the world during the dark centuries that are past; and that liberty, wherewith the Son has made his people free, is waxing apace, as the dawn advances into day. Freedom of conscience—the subjection of a human spirit to God, and its emancipation therefore from all inferior control—is deposited here in the ground as a living seed. Thence it has sprung and spread; thence it will spring and spread until all superstition and tyranny shall be swept away. Arnot.

30. Next Peter reasserts the offensive doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus, carefully naming him whom they would not name. Still speaking as himself a Jew and to them as Jews, he declares that their God had “raised up Jesus,” and unqualifiedly to their faces reaffirms the charge that they had slain him by crucifixion. It was true that Christ’s blood was upon them. No words could be more direct or pointed; yet he instantly follows them with other words of promise and hope.

31. The same God, their God, had exalted this Jesus, who is already a Prince and Saviour—names well known to them as applied by Isaiah to the Messiah—by him to give repentance and forgiveness to Israel! The statement was very plain and the meaning very clear to them. All the facts of Christ’s life—his character, his wondrous deeds and yet more wonderful words, his death and rising again—all accorded perfectly with the known and accepted teaching of their prophets. Even the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was distinctly promised. In all this Peter was speaking no enigmas to them.

32. In further asserting that the apostles are witnesses of all those things respecting Christ, Peter still refers them back to Isaiah (43: 10, 12, and 44: 6, 8), where the Lord the Saviour, Israel’s King and Deliverer, utters these very words. Repeated by this Lord himself, after his resurrection, in the ears of the disciples, Peter now triumphantly responds to them, and affirms that they are his witnesses! And then, in support of their merely human testimony, and in conclusive proof of all these things respecting Christ, he refers to a divine witness, the long-promised and now received Spirit of God. This witness, the Holy Ghost, with his internal convincing testimony, he declares to these heartless, disobedient priests of the Temple, God will give to them that obey him.

Thus calmly, without sign of personal feeling, save earnest, faithful kindness, in the very spirit of the Master, this brave apostle preached to the Sanhedrim the whole doctrine of Christ and the Holy Ghost; to them he offers salvation by repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the inworking of the Holy Spirit.

33-40. The Counsel of Gamaliel, and the Final Judgment of the Sanhedrim.—The same excessive madness of rage and hate that filled them against the Master was now excited toward the disciples. Under the first impulse, they would have done with these what they had done with him. But at this crisis God interposed for his people’s sake, and raised up a helper in the person of the most influential and least moved of their number.

Gamaliel, here referred to as one of the council or Sanhedrim, a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, and of high repute among the people, is said by the Talmud to have been the grandson of Hillel, the founder of the then leading Rabbinical school. They say further that he was the second and last who “obtained the name of Rabban, a title of the highest eminency and note of any among their doctors.” Apparently he is the only one unmoved, and therefore apprehends the peril of murdering the apostles, and certainly, though unconsciously, he is actuated by a divine impulse in his interposition. But he shows masterly skill and judgment in reaching his object. He removes these hated men out of sight, and so takes away one stimulus and supply of their excited feeling. He tells his colleagues of their peril in undertaking this murderous scheme. He recalls two well-known instances, of many similar ones in the history of the time, where insurgent leaders had taken advantage of strong Jewish expectation and feeling, and undertaken the overthrow of the Roman dominion, but had been themselves slain and their bands dispersed. With the designed intimation that such would be the issue with the movement begun by the apostles, he counsels that these men be let alone. And then he enforces all by stating a fact and using it as a basis for a principle—the fact that man’s plan or work can not stand as against God’s; and the principle that one should wait for the actual issue to determine whether a work is God’s or man’s.

From this method and reasoning of Gamaliel we may take this one bare grain of wisdom out of a full measure of folly and mistake. It is wise and right to deal tolerantly with errorists in sentiment; and intolerance with supposed error is always unjustifiable and wrong. In conclusive proof of this, we have Christ’s spirit, his words, and his acts. But Gamaliel’s principle, his main argument with his fellow-councillors, is essentially and most hurtfully wrong. It is conspicuously untrue, as applied

to present results, in time, that all which fails to succeed is not of God. For many true churches of God in every age, and other beneficent Christian institutions, have been suffered to languish and become extinct. And we need not speak of unnumbered personal sacrifices of possessions and life for Christ and the truth. Only as applied to ultimate and eternal issues is it true that failure is God’s condemnation. And as obviously, for similar reasons, it is untrue that seeming success and continuance in this life is certainly of God. David’s teaching, as well as that of David’s Lord, is clear and abundant upon this point. Nothing short of or prior to the final plaudit at the judgment is decisive of God’s purpose and part in any life success.