Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 4:16
saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them [is] manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny [it.]
16. manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem ] Because all the inhabitants knew the beggar at the Temple-gate, and that he had been lame all his life. There could only be two grounds on which, in reference to the cure of the cripple, the Apostles could be worthy of punishment: (1) If it were a case of imposture, but this nobody in the council or anywhere else insinuated, or (2) if the miracle had been wrought by some unlawful agency (Deuteronomy 13). The question of the Sanhedrin points in this direction, “By what power have ye done this?” But Peter from the first (Act 3:13) had ascribed the miracle to the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” and again testifies that it is God through Jesus Christ that hath made the man whole. So that there was no charge possible on the second ground.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Act 4:16
What shall we do to these men?
for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done we cannot deny.
Healed men
(1) The miracle
Few things are more striking than the continuance and growth of Christianity; first, under the circumstances of difficulty and persecution; and next, under the conditions of maintenance to which it is restricted, viz., moral persuasion and impression. The Church is its own sufficient witness. It is of God, because it has so triumphed. The conditions under which its most signal triumphs have been won have been far removed from any that human sagacity could have devised. How often the things that threatened its destruction have proved the signal means of its salvation! The Jews prevail upon Pilate to crucify Jesus; that very death accomplishes His redeeming purposes. The Sanhedrin persecute the little Church, and break it up; but it simply scattered coals of living fire, which ignited everything they touched. So it has been a thousand times since. Tempests of persecuting passion have only carried in every direction the pollen of the Christian flower, which has fructified and brought forth a hundred-fold. Precisely this result was produced by this persecution: unwittingly it furnished occasion for one of the most signal triumphs of early Christianity. The whole issue turned upon the character of the alleged miracle, and upon the power whereby it was wrought. If it could be established that such a miracle had been wrought in the name and by the power of Jesus, the Christian doctrine was indubitably attested. The question therefore really was the relation of miracles to Christianity, the question that scepticism is discussing still. Only the Sanhedrin never thought of taking the ground of modern scepticism, which, not so closely confronted by contemporary fact, affirms that miracle is impossible. Their insinuation was the old Pharisaic blasphemy, He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. It is not always deficiency of evidence that causes men to reject Christianity.
I. The healing of this cripple is a striking illustration of the peculiar benevolence and grace of Christianity. Amid thousands who needed healing this beggar was the selected object. Lordly priests and wealthy nobles crowded the temple, some probably victims of painful disease, but to none of them were the apostles sent. It was surely in purposed and beautiful harmony with the character of the gospel that neither our Lord nor His apostles sought for illustrious patients. They did not, of course, exclude the rich. Our Lord gladly went to the house of Jairus, and to that of the centurion. To the poor, characteristically, the gospel was preached. They especially awakened the Masters compassion, because of their greater misery. There is a sense in which special solicitudes of the Christian worker will gather round the rich, whose peculiar spiritual peril the Master indicated when He said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom of heaven! It is not easy to make Dives conscious of his spiritual poverty. Men who receive their good things in this life are in danger of neglecting the life hereafter. But it is the distinctive grace of Christs gospel that to the very poorest its blessings may come. It saves the respectable Pharisee, but it has its greatest triumph and joy in saving the outcast publican. It comes to seek and to save the lost; to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Its characteristic agencies are reformatories and ragged schools, theatre preachings and midnight meetings, city missions and missions to the heathen. When do its workers seek the palaces of nobles, or a place among the rich? Its glory is to fill its churches with healed men.
II. The promptings of the healed mans gratitude.
1. Its piety.
(1) His first movement was into the temple. The first use of his recovered limbs was in Gods praise. The healing of his body had touched deep springs of religious feeling. Perhaps his disability had long taught him to pray. Such is often the severe yet gracious lesson of affliction. The rarer thing is that his healing prompted him to praise. Of the ten lepers cleansed, only one returned to give God thanks.
(2) All great experiences of life appeal to religious emotions: in great sorrows we are passionate in prayer, in great joys rapturous in praise; only the religious feeling excited is often as transient as it is fervent. Whether or not this was so with this recovered cripple we are not told. But his fervour, and the courage with which he took his stand by the criminated apostles, are strong presumption of a radical and permanent piety.
(3) Whatever the instrument of our blessing, it is God who makes it efficient. He therefore claims our supreme acknowledgment. If, therefore, I have received temporal healing, let me first pay to Him the vows which I made when I was in trouble. If my soul has been healed, let me enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise. What emotion can be so strong, what joy so exquisite, as those of the man who for the first time after his healing enters Gods house?
2. Its human fidelity.
(1) He held Peter and John in a grateful embrace. Next to him who saves us our gratitude is due to him who leads us to the Saviour.
(2) Thankful to his benefactors, the healed man stood by them when they were apprehended by the Sanhedrin; glad to share their reproach and peril. And poor and unworthy will be our thankfulness if, when Christ is rejected or His servants are scorned, we slink away in shame or fear.
III. In this perilous crisis of the infant Church it was saved by the presence and testimony of this healed cripple. What could these few peasants and fishermen have done against the might and hostility of the Sanhedrin? If, as is sometimes affirmed, Christianity be only human, the miracle of its establishment and propagation by such apostles, and under such circumstances, is surely as great as the miracle of the Incarnation. Five thousand converts within a few days, as the result of simple religious teaching, are surely as difficult to credit as the healing of the lame man. It was not the first time that Peter had stood before Annas and Caiaphas, who would exult in having in their hands again the leaders of the sect. What could be easier than to crush this accursed thing? The difficulty lay in certain incorrigible facts. The vitality of this pestilent heresy was derived from these facts. First, there were the notorious miracles which Christ Himself had wrought, crowned by His own indubitable resurrection. And now His followers seem to be working similar marvels. A fact such as this was worth a thousand arguments. It utterly baffled the Sanhedrim It compelled them to admit the miracle, and, with it, its undeniable inferences. The healed man, not the eloquence of its apostles, saved the infant Church. Such has often been the vindication of the Church; not the learning of its doctors, or the arguments of its apologists, but the spiritual life of some humble, simple-hearted disciple, who has justified its work by himself demonstrating its healing power. (H. Allon, D. D.)
Healed men
(2) The argument
In religious systems the ultimate test of validity must ever be practical efficiency. Let us then apply this test to Christianity. Putting the argument in the broadest way, it stands thus: The fact of human sinfulness is proved from the universality of the consciousness of moral imperfection, and the assertion of the Christian Scriptures. Now philosophers, theologians, and moralists have set themselves to correct this evil, and to exert such influences as may quicken within men holy affections, and array their will resolutely and effectively on the side of purity and piety. The world has had along history. All kinds of experiments have been made in it. We know what was the faith, and what the kind of life that it produced in Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, and other non-Christian nations. We know how various forms of Christianity have worked in Europe. We know the effects of infidelity. And the comparative claims of these various systems are submitted to our verdict. Which of all the theologies, philosophies, or moralities propagated amongst men has been the most effective in making men good? We might rest the argument first upon a broad historical view of nations and peoples; we might compare Christian nations with idolatrous or Mohammedan nations; and point out how little non-Christian faiths have done to correct moral evil in men. We gladly admit that they have done something, and cannot question the true and noble elements of Buddhism, etc., and the very worst superstition is better than unchecked godlessness and vice. There may be religious traditions of a primitive knowledge of God which even a Bechuana has not lost. Yet who would hesitate to recognise the moral superiority of Christianity, and the greater practical power of its truths? A similar line of argument, secondly, might be maintained respecting different forms of Christianity. Just in proportion as it has been spiritual, biblical, have the nations who have received it been virtuous, noble, industrious, and powerful. The connection between Popery and the state of nations such as Spain, Austria, Italy, and Ireland, not to speak of France; and between Protestantism and the state of nations such as Germany, England, and the United States, is too obvious to need exposition. And one has only to think of the principles, religious, social, and political, of the two systems, to see that the result is inevitable. Sacerdotalism, in all its forms, is antagonistic to the noblest life of nations or men. But these lines of argument demand volumes for their adequate illustration. Let me take one or two of the fundamental elements of Christianity, and look at their adaptation to make men holy.
I. The Bible. It is our authoritative religious book, claiming to be a supernatural revelation of the thought and heart of God. Is, then, the Bible, as tested by its history and practical moral power, the efficient instrument for recovering men? On many sides its claims are disallowed. It is denied that it is inspired–only as Plato, and Bacon, and Shakespeare, and Milton are inspired. It is not, we are told, even true as a history. Its chronology, statistics, science are false, its miracles impossible violations of natural law, its prophecies but remarkable coincidences or sagacious prognostications. There is in the Book nothing that may not be accounted for on natural principles. How, then, are its Divine claims to be vindicated? Christianity has scholars abundantly competent to reply to the scholars of infidelity. Nay, the chief learning and science, criticism and philosophy of the world, are Christian. Hitherto, moreover, every assault of hostile criticism has only called forth new champions, who by fresh researches and lines of argument have shown how impregnable and manifold its defences are. But the vindication of the Bible need not be left to learned argumentation. We may appeal to the religious character and achievements of the Bible. Alone among the religious books of the world it is a book of history; and further, itself has a history. The Bible is not like the Zendavesta, a book of liturgies; nor like the Vedic Hymns, a book of impossible legends; nor like the writings of Confucius and Plato, a book of moral philosophy; nor like the Koran, a book of mere doctrine and precept. Fundamentally and characteristically it is history. What, then, is the moral character of the Bible? and what have been its moral effects? Take as a test of the Old Testament the Book of Genesis. Is it history or is it legend, from God or of men? Do we need a Niebuhr to give us a reply? Nay, verily. Make what abatement we may for historic or scientific difficulties, indisputable religious characteristics remain.
1. How are we to account for its characters, Abel, Enoch, Abraham? Hew is it that Abraham, the friend of God, is not, like Hercules, a demigod or a hero? Always in closest intimacy with Jehovah, he is yet always as human in all his thoughts and actions as the men of to-day. How is it, again, that the Jehovah whom he worships is not like Zeus, an incongruous conception of supernatural attributes, human imperfections, and even vile passions. While the worshipper has no single trait of divinity, the Jehovah whom he worships has no single trait of humanity. How is it that these conceptions of the human and Divine, and of their relations, so incomparably transcend all the mythologies of the world, that in fundamental ideas we have neither surpassed nor altered them since?
2. How is it, again, that the morality taught in the Book of Genesis so singularly transcends even that of Plato; nay, that it is so wonderfully accordant with the moral conceptions and feelings of our own day? Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, are fully delineated, and their faults exposed. Wrong is never confounded with right. How came it to pass that when the philosophy of a Plato and the morality of an Aristotle were so signally defective, this old book of three thousand years ago anticipated the fundamental theology and morality of our nineteenth Christian century? Is not the only possible answer–These were men whom God had healed, and this is Gods record concerning them? Difficulties of science or of history have no weight against these moral evidences, based as the former are upon ignorance or erroneous interpretation, which greater information might remove. But there can be no mistake about these positive features, and before the claims of the record can be rejected these must be accounted for.
II. Turning to the New Testament, still grander moral delineations are presented to us. Peerless and Divine stands the moral portraiture of Jesus Christ. Whence is it? of man or of God? Whatever we may think about Christianity, Christ Himself is the greatest moral miracle of human history. Had Jesus never lived, could His character have been imagined? Has any conception of romance approached it since? Think of–
1. His calm, majestic strength, His perfect self-possession and dignity, and yet His nature intense even to passion in its emotions. He denounces the Pharisees, but without a vestige of unholy passion; He drives out the money-changers, but without a spark of religious fanaticism.
2. The wisdom of His holiness. His is not the innocence that is ignorant of human life, it is the strength that is above it.
3. His self-consciousness and self-assertion. When He speaks concerning Himself it is to avow His human faultlessness, to assert His Divine perfection and prerogative. His character, He claims, has been subjected to unparalleled tests, and without the discovery of a single flaw.
4. The singular proportion and adjustment of His character. What a wonderful harmony of greatness and gentleness, holiness and pity, strength and sympathy; the grandeur of the loftiest manhood, the tenderness of the gentlest womanhood. We reverence as much as we love Him, we love Him as much as we worship Him.
5. His moral excellences in combination with His intellectual greatness.
6. His conception of His own kingdom. He, a peasant of the mountain village of Nazareth, conceives a kingdom of pure spiritual life, alike adapted to the ancient Asiatic and to the modern European, to the shivering Esquimaux and to the torrid Hindoo; a kingdom of universal brotherhood, in which all men are to be knit together in holiness and love. May we not, then, fairly appeal to the moral portraiture of the New Testament in proof that it is of God? Not merely to its healed men, but also to their Healer. Scepticism has had its men of genius–why has it never produced another gospel? Upon the moral integrity of its Christ Christianity is staked. He alleged that He wrought miracles. But if He never did them, the loftiest truth, the purest morality of the world is the offspring of a lie–a moral solecism so great that our entire consciousness rejects it.
III. Nor are the effects of Christs Gospel or the religious history of the Bible less conclusive. We know what Christianity did in apostolic times, when it came into contact with the unutterable depravities of Greece and Rome–what it found its converts, and what it made them. We know what it has done in every land to which it has come since; what just now Europe is in contrast with Asia, America in contrast with Africa. We know what fifty years ago the South Sea Islands were, and what–the officers of our navy and the intercourse of our merchant ships being witness–they are now. And its latest triumphs have been the most signal. A few chapters of the Bible, sometimes a single page, has sustained and propagated the Christianity of Madagascar; inspiring its converts with the virtue of saints and with the heroism of martyrs. No other book does this. Stand in a pulpit and read to men Plato or Milton or Bacon: where are their converts? whose hearts do they change? whose lives do they sanctify? Read to them the Bible, and healed men spring up everywhere, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
IV. We might take the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, and reason from them in the same way.
1. No doctrine, e.g., has been more demurred to than the doctrine of atonement. It has been represented as unrighteous and immoral. It is sufficient to reply–
(1) That this, for eighteen hundred years, has been the fundamental doctrine of Christendom. The moral conscience of Christian men, so far from stumbling at its supposed moral incongruities, has gloried in nothing so greatly.
(2) That if it be a false doctrine, men are misled the most grievously where they think themselves guided the most explicitly; and instead of being the most lucid, the New Testament is the most ambiguous of books.
(3) That in its practical influence upon mens hearts and lives, this alleged error has been more potent and fruitful than all admitted truth. Whenever this idea is lost, whatever else is retained, religious life is chilled down, and grateful love is abated. Can we then imagine that all this is a delusion? that this gratitude has been falsely generated? this holiness illegitimately wrought? It cannot be; mans error can never be more potent than Gods truth.
2. So with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is objected to as loosening the bonds of responsibility, as encouraging a perilous laxity in morals; inasmuch as men who are taught that all their goodness is from God, and that a Divine power external to themselves must create in them a clean heart, and renew them day by day, are not likely to strive to be good. Again we appeal to the inexorable logic of fact, to healed men. Who in religious life are the most sensitive to sin, the most scrupulous in holiness, the most consecrated in service, the most beneficent in help? Beyond all dispute, they who theoretically believe, and who practically illustrate the new birth of the Spirit. In a word, we boldly submit all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity to this test of results. Conclusion: Every Christian minister, every town missionary, almost every member of a Christian Church, could adduce instances, some of them scores and hundreds, which would stand the test of any judicial investigation. No one rejects Christianity because its influences are pernicious, or Christ, because His teaching is immoral. When Christian men are charged with inconsistency, the very charge implies a standard far higher than any other in our social life. Reason with a sceptical objector, you may be ignominiously defeated. But the argument from moral result is unanswerable. The most ignorant can say, Whether this be of God or not I cannot tell; this I know, that whereas once I was blind now I see. If the objector tells you what his philosophy is, you show him what your Christianity has done. He challenges the philosophy of your creed, you challenge the moral effects of his infidelity. Where are its religious penitents, its rescued reprobates, its Magdalens and prodigals? And if he has found no such moral power to make men holy, he will, if a true man, tell you with a sorrowful heart, how reluctantly he rejects your Christianity. He who feels no such anguish, or who chuckles over any discredit of a benign and holy Christianity, is simply a fiend and not a man. In this way, then, even gainsayers may be made to confess, That a notable miracle hath been done by these Christian teachers, is manifest to all them that dwell in the land, and we cannot deny it. (H. Allon, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. A notable miracle hath been done] A miracle has been wrought, and this miracle is known, and acknowledged to be such; all Jerusalem knew that he was lame-lame from his birth, and that he had long begged at the Beautiful gate of the temple; and now all Jerusalem knew that he was healed; and there was no means by which such a self-evident fact could be disproved.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
What shall we do? At what a loss are these great men, about the manner of their proceeding with the apostles! They might seem to have the victory in their hands, and yet they are evidently overcome by three witnesses; viz. by both the apostles and the lame man, and especially by the evidence of this fact itself: though they did not boggle at being unjust, yet they were loath to seem to be so, and therefore they take counsel to hide it, or palliate it before men; more valuing their credit, than the salvation of their own or other mens souls.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. a notable miracle . . . done bythem is manifest to all . . . in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny itAndwhy should ye wish to deny it, O ye rulers, but that ye hate thelight, and will not come to the light lest your deeds should bereproved?
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Saying, what shall we do to these men?…. Whether they should punish them by scourging them, or detain them longer in custody, or commit them to prison, or dismiss them:
for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them: they were convicted that a miracle was wrought; that it was a clear case, a well known thing, of which there was no room to doubt, and that it was done by the apostles; but this was not all the difficulty, had it been a thing only within their knowledge, and which they could have concealed, it would have given them no uneasiness; but, as they observe,
it is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem: for the man having been so long lame, and had lain so long at the temple, where all the inhabitants frequently went, he was known and took notice of by them; and his cure being wrought so openly, and in such a miraculous way, it was the common talk of the city: so that there was no smothering it:
and we cannot deny it; the fact is so certain and evident; nor hide it, as the Ethiopic version renders it, it being so notorious and public.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
What shall we do? ( ). Deliberative aorist active subjunctive (ingressive and urgent aorist).
Notable miracle ( ). Or sign. It was useless to deny it with the man there.
We cannot deny it ( ). That is, it will do no good.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “Saying, what shall we doto these men?”(Iegontesti poiesomen tois anthropois toutois) “Saying repeatedly, what may we do (should we do) to or toward these men?” They were agitated, vexed, disturbed, fearful within their own souls, as they sought each other’s uncertain opinion on that to do with Peter and John, God’s men of the hour. They feared for loss of their position, felt they must be punished, Joh 11:47-48.
2) “For that indeed a notable miracle,” (hoti men gar gnoton semeion) “Because that certainly a notable miracle,” or physical sign of instantaneous Divine nature, had occurred, such as formerly convinced Nicodemus and the Sanhedrin that Jesus was from God, Joh 3:1-2.
3) “Hath been done by them,” (grgonen di auton) “Has become (happened) through them,” as Holy Spirit empowered witnessing apostles, whose witness had been confirmed with the healing of the lame man, Heb 2:4.
4) “Is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; (pasin katoikousin lerousalem phaneron) “To all those continually living in Jerusalem it is manifest; This simply means that the former paralyzed man whose impotent condition had long been known in Jerusalem, was now so visibly healed in body and soul that all the residents in Jerusalem had been made aware of the miraculous healing, Act 4:10.
5) “And we cannot deny it,” (kai ou dunamentha areisthai) “And we are not able to deny it,” to contest the truthfulness of the matter, it was so widely known and factually evident, Act 3:9-10; Act 4:10.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(16) What shall we do to these men?The question now debated was clearly one that never ought to have been even asked. They were sitting as a Court of Justice, and should have given their verdict for or against the accused according to the evidence. They abandon that office, and begin discussing what policy was most expedient. It was, we may add, characteristic of Caiaphas to do so (Joh. 11:49-50).
A notable miracle.Literally, sign.
We cannot deny it.The very form of the sentence betrays the will, though there is not the power.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. We cannot deny it Hence we have a clear case of men acting against absolute knowledge, and endeavoring to suppress, not only known truth, but the acknowledged advocates of known truth. The solution of the fact is self-interest. These men feared to lose power by the propagation of truth.
Notable Well known to all.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Act 4:16. A notable miracle , a signal and well-known miracle; one which could neither be doubted nor disproved.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 4:16 . The positive thought of the question is: We shall be able to do nothing to these men . What follows contains the reason: for that a notable miracle (a definite proof of divine co-operation) has happened through them, is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we are not in a position to deny it .
To the corresponds , Act 4:17 ; to the is opposed the mere , Plat. Pol. v. p. 479 D, vi. p. 510 A.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
16 Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it .
Ver. 16. A notable miracle ] A signal sign that all the country rang of.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Act 4:16 . : for the deliberative subjunctive, which should be read here, cf. Act 2:37 ; it may express the utter perplexity of the Sanhedrists (so Rendall); in questions expressing doubt or deliberation, the subjunctive would be more usual in classical Greek than the future indicative, Blass, u. s. , p. 205. : answered by in Act 4:17 (omitted by .), cf. Mar 9:12 , see Simcox, Language of the N. T. , p. 168, and for other instances of similarly used, see also Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte , pp. 74, 75. , that which is a matter of knowledge as opposed to , that which is matter of opinion (so in Plato). The word is characteristic of St. Luke, being used by him twice in the Gospel, ten times in Acts, and elsewhere in N.T. only three times (Friedrich).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
notable. Greek. gnostos, as in Act 4:10.
miracle. Greek. semeion. App-176.
been done = come to pass.
manifest. Greek. phaneros. App-106.
dwell in = inhabit. Greek. katoikeo. See note on Act 2:5.
cannot = are not (Greek. ou. App-105) able to.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Act 4:16. , what shall we do?) The answer is ready to those who ask this question; Believe.-) The Ablative.-, manifest) viz. is. And on this depends , …
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
miracle
(Greek – , sign).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
What: Joh 11:47, Joh 11:48, Joh 12:18
a notable: Act 3:9, Act 3:10, Dan 8:5, Dan 8:8, Mat 27:16
and we: Act 6:10, Luk 6:10, Luk 6:11, Luk 21:15
Reciprocal: Gen 37:20 – and we Exo 8:19 – This is Num 23:23 – What hath 1Ki 12:26 – Now shall 1Ki 18:39 – The Lord 2Ki 1:11 – Again Psa 62:4 – consult Psa 109:27 – General Mat 20:7 – Because Mat 21:16 – Hearest Luk 19:39 – rebuke Joh 3:2 – for Joh 12:19 – Perceive Joh 14:12 – the Act 4:14 – they Act 5:24 – they Act 26:26 – this thing
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6
Act 4:16. These Jews knew they could not deny the fact of the lame man’s recovery. And it would not have been so bad if only they knew about it; but it was manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
See notes on verse 15
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
4:16 {6} Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them [is] manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny [it].
(6) He that flatters himself in ignorance, at length comes to do open wickedness, and that against his own conscience.