Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 5:17
Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
17 32. Arrest of the Twelve. Their miraculous deliverance and their Defence before the Sanhedrin
17. Then the high priest rose up ] The conjunction at the beginning of the sentence should be But. While the multitudes thronged to be healed, the effect on the authorities was to provoke them to opposition.
rose up ] The Greek word is used in this chapter of the insurrections of Theudas and Judas ( Act 5:36-37) and in the next chapter (Act 6:9) of the disputants with Stephen. It is often found without the sense of opposition which it has here and in those verses.
and all they that were with him ] A phrase more comprehensive than that used in Act 4:6, “as many as were of the kindred of the high priest.” The opposition has had time to gather its forces and now represents not only the family of Annas, but the heads of the party of the Sadducees.
which is the sect ] The word is that which St Paul uses in his defence (Act 24:14) before Felix, “after the way which they call heresy.” But he employs it without any sense of blame (Act 26:5) about the Pharisees, and it is used of them also Act 15:5. With a bad sense it is applied to the Nazarenes (Act 24:5), and similarly Act 28:22.
of the Sadducees ] From Act 5:21 it will be seen that the statement of Josephus concerning the influence of this sect is fully borne out ( Antiq. xiii. 11. 6), for they had the rich on their side. We have no certain evidence in Scripture that Annas was a Sadducee, but Josephus ( Antiq. xx. 9. 1) tells us that his son Ananus [or Annas] was of this sect.
and were filled with indignation ] The word used to express their feeling might better be rendered jealousy. What the historian is describing is an outbreak of party-feeling. The whole influence of the Sadducean party is called forth by their antagonism to the doctrine of the resurrection and their envy of the growth of the new movement.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Then the high priest – Probably Caiaphas. Compare Joh 11:49. It seems from this place that he belonged to the sect of the Sadducees. It is certain that he had signalized himself by opposition to the Lord Jesus and to his cause constantly.
Rose up – This expression is sometimes redundant, and at others it means simply to begin to do a thing, or to resolve to do it. Compare Luk 15:18.
And all they that were with him – That is, all they that coincided with him in doctrine or opinion; or, in other words, that portion of the Sanhedrin that was composed of Sadducees. There was a strong party of Sadducees in the Sanhedrin; and perhaps at this time it was so strong a majority as to be able to control its decisions. Compare Act 23:6.
Which is the sect – The word translated sect here is that from which we have derived our word heresy. It means simply sect or party, and is not used in a bad sense as implying reproach, or even error. The idea which we attach to it of error, and of denying fundamental doctrines in religion, is one that does not occur in the New Testament.
Sadducees – See the notes on Mat 3:7. The main doctrine of this sect was the denial of the resurrection of the dead. The reason why they were particularly opposed to the apostles rather than the Pharisees was that the apostles dwelt much on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which, if true, completely overthrew their doctrine. All the converts, therefore, that were made to Christianity, tended to diminish their numbers and influence, and also to establish the belief of the Pharisees in the doctrine of the resurrection. So long, therefore, as the effect of the labors of the apostles was to establish one of the main doctrines of the Pharisees, and to confute the Sadducees, so long we may suppose that the Pharisees would either favor them or be silent; and so long the Sadducees would be opposed to them, and enraged against them. One sect will often see with composure the progress of another that it really hates, if it will humble a rival. Even opposition to the gospel will sometimes be silent provided the spread of religion will tend to humble and mortify those against whom we may be opposed.
Were filled with indignation – Greek: zeal. The word denotes any kind of fervor or warmth, and may be applied to any warm or violent affection of the mind, either envy, wrath, zeal, or love, Act 13:45; Joh 2:17; Rom 10:2; 2Co 7:7; 2Co 11:2. Here it probably includes envy and wrath. They were envious at the success of the apostles – at the number of converts that were made to a doctrine that they hated, and they were envious that the Pharisees were deriving such an accession of strength to their doctrine of the resurrection; and they were indignant that the apostles regarded so little their authority, and disobeyed the solemn injunction of the Sanhedrin. Compare Act 4:18-21.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 5:17-26
Then the high priest rose up.
Vain efforts to oppose the gospel
I. The effort in this case; by the imprisonment of the leaders of the gospel (Act 5:17-18). The whole Jewish authority was in opposition.
II. Its vanity.
1. Because God was on the side of the gospel (Act 5:19-24).
(1). Sending His angel to release.
(2) Infusing courage. If God be for us, who can be against us?
2. Because the people wanted and needed the gospel (Act 5:20-21; Act 5:25-28). The rulers were fighting against the deepest requirements of the human soul. The gospel is for the people.
3. Because Christ is a Prince as well as a Saviour (Act 5:29-32). (Christian Age.)
The priests and the preachers
I. The devil some times makes use of the best instruments for the basest of his purposes. The Sadducees the best sect: the high priest the pick of his nation.
II. Persecution must be reckoned as the cost of Christian courage. The age of martyrdom not yet closed.
III. Gods deliverances of His chosen often appear like miraculous interventions of His own hand (Psa 91:11-12).
IV. The true purpose of every Christian career is to go stand and speak to the people all the words of this life: by testimony or works.
V. The devils minions are usually the earliest to become frightened when the fight really begins.
VI. What satan fears most is good doctrinal teaching (Act 5:28).
VII. The grand principle of the gospel is unqualified obedience to God.
VIII. The entire gospel is contained in the story of Christs humiliation and exaltation.
IX. The limit of human responsibility is found in stating the truth and living up to it. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
The Sanhedrin and the apostles
In considering the lessons to be drawn from this history we see–
I. How God overrules opposition for the good of His Church. It seemed indeed a dark hour for the cause of Christ when the apostles were shut up in the common prison, and left, apparently, in the power of their bitterest enemies. They were now beginning to realise the truth of their Lords words: They shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, etc. But they had no reason for despondency, for in that same prediction was also the promise of help: And it shall turn to you for a testimony. In the faith of this they waited on the Lord. Nor did they wait in vain. It was a triumphant answer to the teaching of the Sadducees, who denied the existence of angels, and it was also calculated to instruct and elevate the faith of the Church. Nor was the lesson lost. As mercies granted make us bold to ask for more, so, we may believe, this deliverance was remembered on a subsequent occasion, when the disciples met together to pray for the release of Peter. But more especially was this event blessed to the apostles themselves. The angel who delivered them said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. Their trial and deliverance, after all, increased their qualifications to preach. Satan defeated himself. So it has ever been in the experience of Gods faithful ministers. Many a sore trial or dark night of sorrow has fitted them to proclaim more clearly and positively the words of life. The apostles in prison, Paul in Neros dungeon, and John Bunyan in Bedford jail, are events which show how God can make the trials and persecutions of His servants advance His glory and turn to them for a testimony. We cannot but admire the prompt and faithful obedience of the apostles. To stand in that public place and teach in the name of Jesus was to expose themselves again to danger and death. Carnal prudence might say, You are now delivered; hide yourselves until this storm of indignation has swept by. But no; these were men who thought more of Christ than of their personal safety.
II. Rationalism confounded. The high priest and his council slept undisturbed by the visits of angels. On the morrow they were to pass sentence, But instead of their anticipated triumph came their discomfiture. Evil is never so near its defeat as when it seems to be in the hour of its triumph. The morrow came; the high priest, his council and the Sanhedrin were assembled, and officers were sent to bring in the prisoners. The officers return, with their faces proclaiming their amazement, saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, etc. (verse 23). Here was something that confounded all their plans and put a new phase on the matter before them. Just when rationalism thought to put down the supernatural, lo! it appears in a new manifestation before them. The perplexity of the council is further increased when one came saying, Behold, the men whom ye put into prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. When men escape from prison it is to hide themselves, but these prisoners go at once to repeat their offence. It was this conduct, as much as the strangeness of their deliverance, that impressed the senate. Then, as often since, men were made to see that there is a hidden spiritual force about the gospel which cannot be accounted for, save on the ground that the life of Christ is in it.
III. The enemies of the gospel made to fear and respect those who are fearless in proclaiming it. The high priest and his council have now heard where their former prisoners are, but how were they to arrest them? A short hour before they deemed it enough to send the ordinary officers to drag them to their tribunal. But now (verse 26) they were compelled to show special consideration to the apostles, and the latter are set before the Sanhedrin with something of honour and deference. The meeting is most significant: it presents one of those striking contrasts between the old and the new which history now and then furnishes. On one side are men of this world, who have no aims or hopes beyond the grave–men of policy and self-interest, controlled in their actions by fear of the people; on the other side, men who are living for eternity, and who through the risen Christ have seen the glorified life beyond the grave–men whose conduct is shaped only by the fear of God. The issue between them is the struggle of the ages; they represent the parties of to-day. Which side are you on? (S. J. Niccolls, D. D.)
Persecution renewed
I. The apostles in prison. The high priest and the Sadducees were filled with jealousy.
1. Because of the popularity and success of the apostles (verse 12-16). The rapid growth of the Church was a threat to them. It presented to them the uneasy suggestion of some day being called to account for having crucified the Head of the Church (verse 28).
2. Because the apostles were still giving, with great power, their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Act 4:33). They were tolling the knell of the Sadducees as a sect.
3. The apostles represented the vital energy of this new sect. If they only could be silenced, the propagating power of the new faith would be gone.
II. The apostles released. Observe–
1. Its manners By an angel in such a way that the prison guards were unaware of their going (verse 23).
2. Its suggestions.
(1) As to the power of God. Men had incarcerated His followers, but He took them out of their prison as easily as we take a fly out of the meshes of a cobweb.
(2) As to the vigilant care of God. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge. It was not in His design to leave the apostles at the mercy of the Sanhedrin in this time of the genesis of His Church. By miraculously delivering them first, He would warn the rulers not to proceed too far.
(3) As to the ministry of angels. For illustrative instances, take the succouring of Elisha under the juniper tree (1Ki 19:5-7); the invisible celestial host round about Elisha at Dotham (2Ki 6:16-17); the delivery of Peter from prison (Act 12:1-11), etc. For the scriptural teachings relative to the mission of angels with regard to Gods servants refer them to Psa 14:7; Heb 1:14. But just here a caution is needed. Generally speaking, it is true that the Lord delivers those who fear and trust in Him, but it is not always so. He brought the apostles out of prison, but he suffered Stephen to be stoned. He delivered Peter, but He permitted James to be slain with the sword. There are circumstances where death is worth more than life. Whether He delivers or permits one to suffer, God acts towards His servants in the best, the wisest, and the tenderest way.
III. The apostles in the temple. Note–
1. That the apostles were not allowed to flee, they were released that they might return to the thick of the fray.
2. That with the release of the prisoners the mission of the angel ceased. They were to speak the words of eternal life. It is not by the eloquence of angels, but by the often faltering testimony of men, that the world is to be won to Christ.
3. That the apostles were to speak all the words, not a part merely–to speak without fear and favour–to speak just as freely as though no Sanhedrin or prisons or crosses were in existence.
4. That they must have spoken that morning with peculiar power. The circumstances suggest that they could not have done otherwise.
IV. The apostles on trial. Before they were brought to trial, the Sanhedrin were much perplexed, and were particularly concerned as to whereunto this would grow. They were in dread of miracles and of the influence of miracles. In the midst of their perplexity, the astounding information was brought that their late prisoners were doing openly what the Sanhedrin had forbidden them to do. But on account of the manifest favour of the people toward the apostles, the officers brought them without violence, fearing to be stoned if, in any way, they roughly treated them. When brought before the council the apostles–
1. Were reminded of the prohibition which they had just been disregarding–a prohibition which the apostles, at the time, intimated that they must disregard.
2. Were accused now of trying to bring this mans blood upon them. This mans blood, however, they had invoked upon themselves (Mat 27:25).
V. The apostles answer.
1. It was bold. It laid down the principle, We must obey God rather than men. That was like the reply of that heroic trio (Dan 3:16-17). So Socrates at Athens, I honour and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you.
2. It was faithful. In reciting the facts that impelled them to speak in spite of the prohibition of the Sanhedrin, Peter again pressed home the guilt of the rulers before whom he stood. God had raised up Jesus, whom they slew, and exalted Him with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour.
3. It was suggestive of mercy. Peter pointed out that God had exalted Jesus to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. In this was an answer to the charge that the apostles were endeavouring to bring the blood of this man upon them. They were–but for their redemption! Peters address is short, but it contains the substance of the gospel. To the rulers as well as to the people in the temple, the apostles were enabled to speak all the words of this life.
4. It gave the reason why they must speak. They were witnesses of these things. They were chosen of Christ to speak. They were not alone in their witness. The Holy Spirit witnessed with them, and through them, and through others–thus Divinely confirming their testimony. And here was a hint to the rulers. If they would not accept the witness of the apostles, they should accept the higher witness of the Spirit. (M. G. Hazard.)
Persecution renewed
I. The apostles imprisoned and released.
1. Put in prison (Act 4:1; Act 13:45; Act 17:5; Luk 21:12).
2. Led out of prison (Act 12:7; Act 16:26; Heb 1:14).
3. Teaching in the temple.
(1) The command given (Mat 10:27; Joh 6:68; Act 20:20).
(2) The command obeyed (Pro 28:1; Isa 8:13; Mat 10:28).
4. Sent by the council.
(1) The sending.
(2) The report (Psa 124:7; Psa 91:3; Eze 34:22).
(3) The perplexity (Isa 9:7; Dan 2:44; Mar 4:32).
5. Lessons: Faithful witnesses for Christ–
(1) May count upon exciting the jealousy of those who are the enemies of Christ.
(2) May count upon some kind of hostile interference by the enemies of Christ.
(3) May count upon the ministries of angels in their behalf.
(4) May count upon Gods being alive to any dangers they may incur by witnessing for Christ.
(5) May count upon Gods delivering them when it is best for His cause that they should be delivered.
(6) Are called upon to speak to the people all the words of this life.
(7) Still cause the enemies of Christ to be perplexed with the question as to whereunto this gospel is to grow.
II. The apostles on trial.
1. The apostles brought (Mat 14:5; 1Pe 2:13).
2. The apostles examined.
(1) The reminder (Act 4:18; Dan 6:12; Dan 3:10).
(2) The accusation.
(a) Ye have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. Ye shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem (Act 1:8). Shall go forth the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa 2:3). The earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord (Hab 2:14).
(b) And intend to bring this Mans blood upon us (Mat 27:25; Act 2:36; Act 3:14).
3. Lessons: If the disciples of Christ are faithful–
(1) They will secure the respect and favour of the people.
(2) They will find that deliverance from one trouble will not secure them from further trial.
(3) They may some times be compelled to disobey the mandates of the authorities.
(4) They will yet fill the world with their teaching.
(5) They will bring the blood of Christ upon all men, either for their redemption or for their condemnation.
III. The apostles answer.
1. The declaration. We must obey God rather than men (chap. 4:19; Dan 3:18; Dan 6:10).
2. The reason for the declaration.
(1) The facts.
(a) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew (Act 2:24; Act 3:26; 1Co 15:13).
(b) Him did God exalt to give repentance to Israel (chap. 2:33; Php 2:9; Mat 1:21).
(2) Their relation to the facts. We are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost (Luk 24:48; Act 1:8; Heb 2:4).
3. Lessons:
(1) The fundamental rule for Christians, We must obey God rather than men.
(2) Christians should obey God rather than men.
(a) Because of that which Jesus has done to purchase their perfect obedience.
(b) Because of the exaltation of the One whom they serve.
(c) Because they are witnesses for Christ, their witness being effective in proportion to their fidelity to God. (S. S. Times.)
The activity and bafflement of the persecutors
I. The apostles arrest and imprisonment. The new attack was occasioned by the things described in verses 12-16. Note–
1. The feeling of the persecutors–Indignation.
2. Their conduct. They laid hands upon the apostles and put them into the common prison, of all places the most revolting and disreputable. Thus, as ever, bigotry shows the weakness of its opinion and the malignity of its aims, by substituting force for argument, might for right.
II. Their deliverance and commission.
1. Their deliverance. On the former occasion they were released by the timid and apprehensive policy of their oppressors; here by a direct messenger from heaven. Prison walls, iron gates, massive chains are nothing to an angel.
2. Their commission.
(1) Its subject. The words of this life. The gospel is a record of words that generate, nurture, develop, and perfect the true life of humanity.
(2) Its sphere–the temple, the most public place, when the greatest numbers could be reached.
(3) Its expedition. They set themselves to work at once early in the morning.
3. This deliverance and commission had a twofold effect upon their enemies.
(1) It confounded them with disappointment. The wicked work in the dark, and Providence makes them the victims of their own plots.
(2) It filled them with apprehension. They doubted whereunto this would grow. Well might they fear.
III. Their arraignment and defence.
1. Their arraignment (verse 28). The language expresses–
(1) Their mortification at the disregard of their authority.
(2) An assumed contempt for Christ.
(3) Their reluctant testimony to the progress of Christianity.
(4) The foreboding of a terrible retribution.
To bring blood on the head is a Hebrew idiom for having to answer for the death of another. They had cried, His blood be upon us, now they deprecated that as the direst of judgments.
2. Their defence (verses 29-32). We have here–
(1) One of the grandest of principles (verse 29).
(2) One of the most wonderful of facts. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus.
(3) One of the most appalling of crimes. Whom ye slew, etc.
(4) One of the most glorious of communications (verse 31). Here observe–
(a) That Christ is exalted to the highest dignity–the right hand of God.
(b) That He is so exalted for the sublimest functions–to be a Prince and a Saviour.
(c) That in these functions He has to communicate to the world the greatest of blessings–repentance and forgiveness.
(5) The most exalted of missions (verse 32). They were fellow-workers with the great Spirit Himself.
(6) The most intense exasperation (verse 33). (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The imprisonment and deliverance of the apostles
I. The conflict of force.
1. On the side of the persecutors (verses 17, 18).
2. On the side of the persecuted (verses 19, 21).
II. The conflict of argument.
1. The Sanhedrin (verse 21).
2. The apostles (verses 29,32).
III. The conflict of policy.
1. The violent party (verse 33).
2. The moderate party (verses 34-42).
Lessons:
1. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity.
2. The moral cowardice of bravado. The Sanhedrin put the apostles in prison, but dared not ask how they got out.
3. We ought to obey God rather than men.
4. The inefficacy of force to crush the truth. (J. Bennett, D. D.)
The apostles persecuted
1. (verses 17, 18). There all evil power ends. The policy may admit of great variety in detail, but it is all summed up in that poor sentence. How differently it might have read remembering the dignity and culture of the Sanhedrim–Let us instantly dare them to controversy, and in the hearing of all the people put silence to their doctrine. No; their only resource was physical force. It is the same thing in all ages. No man can answer the truth; he can only lay hands on the truth-teller.
2. But having looked at the darkness, let us see if it be all darkness (verses 18, 19). So the affairs of men are not bounded by what we can see, and measure, and add up. There are invisible agencies over which we have no control. All the stars fight for God, all the angels of heaven assist the good man. They have always identified themselves with Christian effort. They were with Christ in all the crises of His life; and now they were with Christs servants in theirs. Men can shut us up; angels can deliver us. Men can do the destructive work upon our persons and ministry, whether in the pulpit, in the home, or in business; but God can do the constructive work, and set up again what has been shattered by violence. To know this is power, emancipation. The great difficulty is to realise the invisible. Lord, increase our faith! Give us those inward, all-piercing eyes that see angels everywhere, as the prophet saw them when the hosts of Samaria encamped round about him.
3. And when they heard that they entered into the temple early and taught. The apostles were always prepared, never better at one time than at another. They could preach early in the morning; they could study in prison; they could face the highest men in the nation; they could answer questions extemporaneously and completely; they could heal the sick and teach inquirers at once. Are we in the apostolic succession? Have we not to go to books of reference? But the Christian professor ought never to have to go away in order to find a word for his Master. The Church is losing power by not living in the atmosphere of Christian thought, service, love. The apostles received their commissions from the angels; but had a little child said, There are some poor people in the temple who want to hear about Jesus, the apostles would have accepted the call instantly. How can we teach Jesus if we do not know Him? But if He be our hearts delight and supreme love, then we shall always be prepared in the best sense to speak for Him, not artistically and in a literary sense, but with that all-piercing power that touches every man to the core.
4. No angel had called upon the Sanhedrin during the night. So they came in the morning to go about their days work. But the prisoners were not forthcoming. Think of a whole court being put hors de combat. God is always making fools of those who oppose Him. The officers return. Hear their statement (verse 23). This is an aspect of the terrible power of God. He lets things remain just as they are, to all human appearance, but sucks the life out of them. He leaves prisons great shells. God can work so secretly, so completely. Circumstances have been your prison, and bewilderment, and prejudice, but an angel has come in the night-time and delivered you.
5. What a message was that of verse 25! Your expostulation has come to nothing. God has not touched a key in the girdle of the prison keeper, but He has used His own. The men were brought before the senate, and they said, We ought to obey God. This was their strength. Not We had a vision, and were compelled to this act, otherwise we would have remained in prison and come. Be gentle with some men. Peter denied his Master, and some of us would have expelled him for ever from the Church. But Jesus recovered him, and here he is, a hero. Have any of us slipped? There is no reason why we should slip for ever. Give a man an opportunity of getting up again. Those who heard Peter were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay him. I would we had more such preaching. Whether it is the knife is too short or blunt, or the hand too cowardly, we never get down into the heart.
6. There was one wise man in the council–Gamaliel. He called them to common sense. He told them of two men of marvellous pretensions who subsided into oblivion, and his argument was, Give the men time. Time is the enemy of the bad–the friend of the good. If this be a nine-days wonder, do not let us be angry on the fourth day: five days more will show us what it is made of. He prevailed, and the council compounded with the occasion by simply beating the men they intended to slay.
7. When the apostles were dismissed, what think you they said? No more of this; we cannot endure being trampled on. We have done enough, now we will resume our ordinary tasks. Nay, read verse 41. Their wounds were medals. You could never have had a sentence like this from a mere artist. No literary man could have hit upon this expression. Have you ever suffered shame? Did they obey the prohibition? No: daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to preach, teaching Jesus Christ. There was a new tone in their voices. Peters suffering developed that womanly element without which a man can never be complete in any great ministry. What examples we have to follow! We see from their history the worst that can be done to us. Fear not them that kill the body.
8. This history shows us whence true power comes. The power that bears affliction comes not out of our own hearts, but from heaven. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. The high priest – and – the sect of the Sadducees] , The heresy of the Sadducees. In this place, as well as in several others, the word , heresy, has no evil meaning in itself; it is a word of distinction, and may receive either a good or bad colouring from the persons or opinions designated by it. It signifies a sect or party, whether good or bad, distinguished from any other sect. , heresy, comes from , I choose, and was anciently applied to the different sects of the heathen philosophers, the members of each sect having chosen their own in preference to all the others. It has been applied among ecclesiastical writers in the same way – when a man chooses one party of Christians, in preference to others, to be his companions in the way of salvation; and he chooses them and their creed and Christian discipline, because he believes the whole to be more consistent with the oracles of God than any of the rest. The Church of Rome has thought proper to attach a very bad meaning to this innocent word, and then apply it to all those who can neither credit her transubstantiation, depend on her purgatory, nor worship her relics. A heretic, in her acceptation, is one who is not a papist, and, because not a papist, utterly out of the way and out of the possibility of being saved. These persons should recollect that, by a then persecuting brother, St. Paul, all the apostles, and the whole Church of Christ, were termed , the heresy of the Nazarenes, Ac 24:5; and it was after the way which the persecuting Jews called heresy that St. Paul and the rest of the apostles worshipped the God of their fathers, Ac 24:14; and it was according to the strictest HERESY in the Jewish Church, , that St. Paul lived before his conversion, Ac 26:5; and we find, from Ac 28:22, that the whole Church of Christ was termed this heresy, , and this by persons who intended no reproach, but wished simply to distinguish the Christians from scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, c. Heresy therefore, in its first acceptation, signifies simply a choice: afterwards it was applied to designate all those persons who made the same choice and hence the word sect and it became synonymous: in process of time it was applied to those professing Christianity who made, in some cases, a different choice as to some article of faith, or form of worship, from those which had obtained in that part of the Church with which they had been before connected. The majority, from whom they became thus separated, spoke evil of them, and treated them ill, because they presumed to choose for themselves on the foundation of the Holy Scriptures; and because they would take nothing for the truth of God that was not accredited from heaven. Thus, when the people now called Protestants, began to examine their creed according to the Holy Scriptures, and, in consequence of this examination, left out auricular confession, indulgences, the priests’ power to forgive sins, adoration of saints, angels, and relics, purgatory, and the doctrine of transubstantiation, because they could not find them in the word of God, the papists called them heretics, by which they meant, in opposition to the meaning of the word, persons holding damnable errors; and, as such, they persecuted, burnt, and destroyed them wherever they had power. Now be it known to these persecutors, that the Protestants still choose to reject opinions and practices which they know to be unscriptural, absurd, and superstitious; and which they have a thousand times demonstrated to be such: and, on this ground, may they still be HERETICS!
Were filled with indignation.] , With zeal. , from , to be hot, and or , very much, signifies a vehement affection or disposition of the mind, which, according to its object, is either good or bad, laudable or blamable. Its meaning in this place is easily discerned; and not improperly translated indignation, in our version. We need not be surprised that the Sadducees were filled with indignation, because the apostles proclaimed the resurrection of Christ, and, through that, the general resurrection, which was diametrically opposed to their doctrine; for they denied the possibility of a resurrection, and believed not in the being of either angel or spirit; nor did they allow of the existence of a spiritual world. See Clarke on Ac 4:2.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Then the high priest rose up; moved at the report of these things, went out of the council to observe what was done.
And all they that were with him; there were both Pharisees and Sadducees in their sanhedrim or great council, as appears Act 23:6; but the high priest and a great part were at this time Sadducees.
Indignation, or zeal, which is the best when kindled (as the fire on the altar) from heaven, regularly acting for Gods truth and word; and the worst when inflamed by carnal affections, and set upon wrong objects for self-ends. The pique these Sadducees had against the apostles and their doctrine, was, because they taught the resurrection, which the Sadducees denied.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17-23. sect of the SadduceesSeeon Ac 4:1 for the reason whythis is specified.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then the high priest rose up,…. Annas, or rather Caiaphas; [See comments on Ac 4:6] he having heard what miracles were wrought by the apostles, and what additions were made to them, rose up from his seat and went out of the sanhedrim, in great haste, and in much wrath and passion:
and all they that were with him; in council, that were of his kindred or his party, as John and Alexander, and others, Ac 4:6
which is the sect of the Sadducees; who denied the resurrection of the dead; which doctrine the apostles preached; and this made the high priest and his party very uneasy; whence it seems that the then high priest was a Sadducee, and also the sanhedrim at that time, and which was sometimes the case. Great care indeed was taken of an high priest, that he should not be a Sadducee; on the eve of the day of atonement they always swore the high priest, lest he should be a Sadducee, that he would make no innovation in what was ordered him; and particularly that he would not put the incense upon the fire without, and then carry it in a censor into the most holy place, as the Sadducees understood k, Le 16:3. But notwithstanding all their care, sometimes they had a Sadducee for an high priest; we read of one John, an high priest, who ministered in that office fourscore years, and at last became a Sadducee l. And sometimes a sanhedrim consisted only of Sadducees: hence we read of
, “a sanhedrim of Sadducees” m; and such an one was this; and therefore it is not to be wondered at what follows,
and they were filled with indignation; or “zeal”, for Sadducism; and which was a blind zeal, and not according to knowledge: or “with envy” at the apostles for the miracles done by them, and because of the success that attended them; fearing lest, should they go on at this rate, their religion and authority would come to nothing. Sadducism now seemed greatly to prevail among men in power; and the Jews say n,
“the son of David will not come until the whole government is turned to the opinion of the Sadducees.”
k Misna Yoma, c. 1. sect. 5. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib. l T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 29. 1. Juchasin, fol. 16. 2. m T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 52. 2. n Ib. fol. 97. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Apostles Imprisoned; The Apostles Released by an Angel; The Disappointment of the Council. |
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17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation, 18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. 19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, 20 Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. 21 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 prison to have them brought. 22 But when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told, 23 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 within. 24 Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow. 25 Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people.
Never did any good work go on with any hope of success, but it met with opposition; those that are bent to do mischief cannot be reconciled to those who make it their business to do good. Satan, the destroyer of mankind, ever was, and will be, an adversary to those who are the benefactors of mankind; and it would have been strange if the apostles had gone on thus teaching and healing and had had no check. In these verses we have the malice of hell and the grace of heaven struggling about them, the one to drive them off from this good work, the other to animate them in it,
I. The priests were enraged at them, and shut them up in prison, Act 5:17; Act 5:18. Observe, 1. Who their enemies and persecutors were. The high priest was the ringleader, Annas or Caiaphas, who saw their wealth and dignity, their power and tyranny, that is, their all, at stake, and inevitably lost, if the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of Christ should get ground and prevail among the people. Those that were most forward to join with the high priest herein were the sect of the Sadducees, who had a particularly enmity to the gospel of Christ, because it confirmed and established the doctrine of the invisible world, the resurrection of the dead, and the future state, which they denied. It is not strange if men of no religion be bigoted in their opposition to true and pure religion. 2. How they were affected towards them, ill affected, and exasperated to the last degree. When they heard and saw what flocking there was to the apostles, and how considerable they were become, they rose up in a passion, as men that could no longer bear it, and were resolved to make head against it, being filled with indignation at the apostles for preaching the doctrine of Christ, and curing the sick,–at the people for hearing them, and bringing the sick to them to be cured,–and at themselves and their own party for suffering this matter to go so far, and not knocking it on the head at first. Thus are the enemies of Christ and his gospel a torment to themselves. Envy slays the silly one. 3. How they proceeded against them (v. 18): They laid their hands on them, perhaps their own hands (so low did their malice make them stoop), or, rather, the hands of their officers, and put them in the common prison, among the worst of malefactors. Hereby they designed, (1.) To put a restraint upon them; though they could not lay any thing criminal to their charge worthy of death or of bonds, yet while they had them in prison they kept them from going on in their work, and this they reckoned a good point gained. Thus early were the ambassadors of Christ in bonds. (2.) To put a terror upon them, and so to drive them off from their work. The last time they had them before them, they only threatened them (ch. iv. 21); but now, finding that this did not do, they imprisoned them, to make them afraid of them. (3.) To put a disgrace upon them, and therefore they chose to clap them up in the common prison, that, being thus vilified, the people might not, as they had done, magnify them. Satan has carried on his design against the gospel very much by making the preachers and professors of it appear despicable.
II. God sent his angel to release them out of prison, and to renew their commission to preach the gospel. The powers of darkness fight against them, but the Father of lights fights for them, and sends an angel of light to plead their cause. The Lord will never desert his witnesses, his advocates, but will certainly stand by them, and bear them out.
1. The apostles are discharged, legally discharged, from their imprisonment (v. 19): The angel of the Lord by night, in spite of all the locks and bars that were upon them, opened the prison doors, and, in spite of all the vigilance and resolution of the keepers that stood without before the doors, brought forth the prisoners (see v. 23), gave them authority to go out without crime, and led them through all opposition. This deliverance is not so particularly related as that of Peter (ch. xii. 7, c.) but the miracle here was the very same. Note, There is no prison so dark, so strong, but God can both visit his people in it, and, if he pleased, fetch them out of it. This discharge of the apostles out of prison by an angel was a resemblance of Christ’s resurrection, and his discharge out of the prison of the grave, and would help to confirm the apostles’ preaching of it.
2. They are charged, and legally charged, to go on with their work, so as thereby to be discharged from the prohibition which the high priest laid them under; the angel bade them, Go, stand, and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life, v. 20. When they were miraculously set at liberty, they must not think it was that they might save their lives by making their escape out of the hands of their enemies. No; it was that they might to on with their work with so much the more boldness. Recoveries from sickness, releases out of trouble, are granted us, and are to be looked upon by us as granted, not that we may enjoy the comforts of our life, but that God may be honoured with the services of our life. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee, Ps. cxix. 175. Bring my soul out of prison (as the apostles here), that I may praise thy name, Ps. cxliii. 7. See Isa. xxxviii. 22. Now in this charge given them, observe, (1.) Where they must preach: Speak in the temple. One would think, though they might not quit their work, yet it had been prudent to go on with it in a more private place, where it would give less offence to the priests than in the temple, and so would the less expose them. No; “Speak in the temple, for this is the place of concourse, this is your Father’s house, and it is not to be as yet quite left desolate.” It is not for the preachers of Christ’s gospel to retire into corners, as long as they can have any opportunity of preaching in the great congregation. (2.) To whom they must preach: “Speak to the people; not to the princes and rulers, for they will not hearken; but to the people, who are willing and desirous to be taught, and whose souls are as precious to Christ, and ought to be so to you, as the souls of the greatest. Speak to the people, to all in general, for all are concerned.” (3.) How they must preach: Go, stand, and speak, which intimates, not only they must speak publicly, stand up and speak, that all may hear; but that they must speak boldly and resolutely: Stand and speak; that is, “Speak it as those that resolve to stand to it, to live and die by it.” (4.) What they must speak: All the words of this life. This life which you have been speaking of among yourselves, referring perhaps to the conferences concerning heaven which they had among themselves for their own and one another’s encouragement in prison: “Go, and preach the same to the world, that others may be comforted with the same comforts with which you yourselves are comforted of God.” Or, “of this life which the Sadducees deny, and therefore persecute you; preach this, though you know it is this that they have indignation at.” Or, “of this life emphatically; this heavenly, divine life, in comparison with which the present earthly life does not deserve the name.” Or, “these words of life, the very same you have preached, these words which the Holy Ghost puts into your mouth.” Note, The words of the gospel are the words of life, quickening words; they are spirit, and they are life; words whereby we may be saved–that is the same with this here, ch. xi. 14. The gospel is the word of this life, for it secures to us the privileges of our way as well as those of our home, and the promises of the life that now is as well as of that to come. And yet even spiritual and eternal life are brought so much to light in the gospel that they may be called this life; for the word is nigh thee. Note, The gospel is concerning matters of life and death, and ministers must preach it and people hear it accordingly. They must speak all the words of this life, and not conceal any for fear of offending, or in hope of ingratiating themselves with their rulers. Christ’s witnesses are sworn to speak the whole truth.
III. They went on with their work (v. 21): When they heard this, when they heard that it was the will of God that they should continue to preach in the temple, they returned to Solomon’s porch, v. 12. 1. It was a great satisfaction to them to have these fresh orders. Perhaps they began to question whether, if they had their liberty, they should preach as publicly in the temple as they had done, because they had been told, when they were persecuted in one city, to flee to another. But, now that the angel ordered them to go preach in the temple, their way was plain, and they ventured without any difficulty, entered into the temple, and feared not the face of man. Note, If we may but be satisfied concerning our duty, our business is to keep close to this, and then we may cheerfully trust God with our safety. (2.) They set themselves immediately to execute them, without dispute or delay. They entered into the temples early in the morning (as soon as the gates were opened, and people began to come together there), and taught them the gospel of the kingdom: and did not at all fear what man could do unto them. The case here was extraordinary: the whole treasure of the gospel is lodged in their hands; if they be silent now the springs are shut up, and the whole work falls to the ground and is made to cease, which is not the case of ordinary ministers, who therefore are not by this example bound to throw themselves into the mouth of danger; and yet when God gives opportunity of doing good, though we be under the restraint and terror of human powers, we should venture far rather than let go such an opportunity.
IV. The high priest and his party went on with their prosecution, v. 21. They, supposing they had the apostles sure enough, called the council together, a great and extraordinary council, for they summoned all the senate of the children of Israel. See here,
1. How they were prepared, and how big with expectation, to crush the gospel of Christ and the preachers of it, for they raised the whole posse. The last time they had the apostles in custody they convened them only before a committee of those that were of the kindred of the high priest, who were obliged to act cautiously; but now, that they might proceed further and with more assurance, they called together, pasan ten gerousian—all the eldership, that is (says Dr. Lightfoot), all the three courts or benches of judges in Jerusalem, not only the great sanhedrim, consisting of seventy elders, but the other two judicatories that were erected one in the outer-court gate of the temple, the other in the inner or beautiful gate, consisting of twenty-three judges each; so that, if there was a full appearance, here were one hundred and sixteen judges. Thus God ordered it, that the confusion of the enemies, and the apostles’ testimony against them, might be more public, and that those might hear the gospel who would not hear it otherwise than from the bar. Howbeit, the high priest meant not so, neither did his heart think so; but it was in his heart to rally all his forces against the apostles, and by a universal consent to cut them all off at once.
2. How they were disappointed, and had their faces filled with shame: He that sits in heaven laughs at them, and so may we too, to see how gravely the court is set; and we may suppose the high priest makes a solemn speech to them, setting forth the occasion of their coming together–that a very dangerous faction was now lately raised at Jerusalem, by the preaching of the doctrine of Jesus, which it was needful, for the preservation of their church (which never was in such danger as now), speedily and effectually to suppress–that it was now in the power of their hands to do it, for he had the ringleaders of the faction now in the common prison, to be proceeded against, if they would but agree to it, with the utmost severity. An officer is, in order hereunto, despatched immediately to fetch the prisoners to the bar. But see how they are baffled. (1.) The officers come, and tell them that they are not to be found in the prison, Act 5:22; Act 5:23. They last time they were forthcoming when they were called for, ch. iv. 7. But now they were gone, and the report which the officers make is, “The prison-doors truly found we shut with all safety” (nothing had been done to weaken them); “the keepers had not been wanting to their duty; we found them standing without before the doors, and knowing nothing to the contrary but that the prisoners were all safe: but when we went in we found no man therein, that is, none of the men we were sent to fetch.” It is probable that they found the common prisoners there. Which way the angel fetched them, whether by some back way, or opening the door and fastening it closely again (the keepers all the while asleep), we are not told; however it was, they were gone. The Lord knows, though we do not, how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and how to loose those that are in bonds for his name’s sake, and he will do it, as here, when he has occasion for them. Now think how confused the court looked, when the officers made this return upon their order (v. 24): When the high priest, and the captain of the temple, and the chief priests, heard these things, they were all at a plunge, and looked one upon another, doubting what this thing should be. They were extremely perplexed, were at their wits’ end, having never been so disappointed in all their lives of any thing they were so sure of. It occasioned various speculations, some suggesting that they were conjured out of the prison, and made their escape by magic arts; others that the keepers had played tricks with them, knowing how many friends these prisoners had, that were so much the darlings of the people. Some feared that, having made such a wonderful escape, they would be the more followed; others that, though perhaps they had frightened them from Jerusalem, they should hear of them again in some part or other of the country, where they would do yet more mischief, and it would be yet more out of their power to stop the spreading of the infection; and now they begin to fear that instead of curing the ill they have made it worse. Note, Those often distress and embarrass themselves that think to distress and embarrass the cause of Christ. (2.) Their doubt is, in part, determined; and yet their vexation is increased by another messenger, who brings them word that their prisoners are preaching in the temple (v. 25): “Behold, the men whom you put in prison, and have sent for to your bar, are now hard by you here, standing in the temple, under your nose and in defiance of you, teaching the people.” Prisoners, that have broken prison, usually abscond, for fear of being retaken; but these prisoners, that here made their escape, dare to show their faces even where their persecutors have the greatest influence. Now this confounded them more than any thing. Common malefactors may have art enough to break prison; but those are uncommon ones that have courage enough to avow it when they have so done.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Which is the sect of the Sadducees ( ). Literally, “the existing sect of the Sadducees” or “the sect which is of the Sadducees,” being the article, not the relative. H means a choosing, from , to take for oneself, to choose, then an opinion chosen or tenet (possibly 2Pe 2:1), then parties or factions (Gal 5:20; 1Cor 11:19; possibly 2Pe 2:1). It is applied here to the Sadducees; to the Pharisees in Acts 15:5; Acts 26:5; to the Christians in Acts 24:5-14; Acts 28:22. Already Luke has stated that the Sadducees started the persecution of Peter and John (Ac 4:1f.). Now it is extended to “the apostles” as a whole since Christianity has spread more rapidly in Jerusalem than before it began.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
The Second Public Persecution Against the Church V. 17-28
1) “Then the High Priest rose up,” (anastas de ho archiereus) “Then the High Priest rose up,” in anger, to do battle, to attack and harm the church. They “rose up,” not merely from their seats, but in excited frustration when they saw what little effect their threats against the apostles had meant. The High Priest was leader of the sect of the Sadducees, Act 4:1-3; Act 4:5-8.
2) “And all they that were with him,” (kai pantes hou sun auto) “And all those in colleague (or even collusion) with him,” in council and oppression against the apostles and the church, which were witnessing so effectively in Jerusalem and the cities and suburbs round about, Act 4:5-7; Act 4:17-18; Act 4:21; Act 5:14-16.
3) “Which is the sect of the Sadducees,” (he ousa hairesis ton Saddoukaion) “Those who were (existed as) the sect of the Sadducees,” holding or embracing the heresy of the Sadducees – – that,
1) There is not and never will be any resurrection of the dead,
2) That there are, never were, or will exist any angels, and,
3) That there is no Holy Spirit, never was, or ever will be, Act 23:8.
4) “And were filled with indignation,” (eplesthesan zelou) “Were being filled with or controlled (by) jealousy,” they were inflamed, hot with jealous fury, that these witnessing followers of Jesus were by word, and Holy Spirit empowered gifts, able to perform miracles that attested their testimony of Jesus Christ as the risen Savior, Lord, and coming judge of all men, Heb 2:3-4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
17. Luke hath hitherto declared that the Church was wonderfully increased, that it was furnished (254) with divers gifts, that it excelled in miracles; finally, that the kingdom of Christ did flourish there by all means. Now he beginneth to show that the fury of the wicked was kindled with these things, so that they raged sorer afresh. (255) Whence we may gather with what blind fury and rage Satan driveth them forward, when as they are so little terrified with such evident power of God, that they run headlong more boldly, and with greater force, and bend all their force, as it were, to overthrow the very heaven. As this so great blindness is a horrible punishment of Almighty God, so ought it to teach all men to submit themselves betimes to God, lest that they themselves, being taken with the spirit of giddiness, (whilst they run against the hand of God,) be broken in pieces with the same. Nevertheless, let us know that God will so increase his Church with spiritual good things, that yet, notwithstanding, he suffereth the same to be vexed of the wicked. Therefore we must alway be ready for the combat; for our estate at this day is not unlike to theirs. Especially the knowledge of the gifts of God, whereby he testifieth that he is present with us, ought to encourage us, lest the fury and boldness of the wicked do terrify and dismay us. For this is no small comfort, when we know that God is present with us.
Which were with him. He meaneth those which were most familiar, and the highest linked in friendship with the chief priest, whose counsel he was wont to use, and whom he had, being, as it were, gathered and culled out of the whole order, not for judgment, or discretion, but for the love of his faction; as they did then contend among themselves shamelessly, like mortal enemies. Furthermore, Luke saith again, that the Sadducees did bear the greatest swing at that day; to the end we may know that the government was then confused with horrible wasteness; (256) when as such a sect could bear rule. But God suffered the synagogue to be drowned in such extreme reproach, after that he had separated his Church from it, to the end they might have the less excuse, who despising the gospel, did continue in such a sink of filthiness. In the mean season, what did enforce and drive forward those swine, who were touched with no care of the life to come, save only mere ambition, and desire to keep that lordship and pre-eminence which they had gotten?
They were filled with zeal. I had liefer keep the Greek word still (especially seeing it is common enough otherwise) than to translate it emulation (or indignation;) for he speaketh generally of the perverse and violent force wherewith hypocrites are carried and inflamed to maintain their superstitions; whereby it appeareth what account God maketh of zeal, and what praise it deserveth, when as it is not governed by reason and wisdom, that is, when it is not led and guided by the Spirit of God. We see at this day those men moved and stirred with devilish fury, who will be counted the most devout of all men, who rage horribly to shed innocent blood. Nevertheless, let us note that he speaketh not in this place of an unadvised or blind zeal, which was in many of the Jews, as Paul affirmeth, but we understand rather a hot and unbridled violence; for although the wicked be accused of their own consciences, because they wittingly resist godliness, yet do they deceive themselves with a false show of zeal, because it is lawful to prevent new things. (257) So at this day almost in all Popery they boast only of zeal, whereas notwithstanding they are zealous for their belly. But admit we grant that that is true which they pretend, how can this excuse the heat of their cruelty whereunto they are enforced by their blindness? as if this were a chief virtue to grant liberty to their wrath, (258) to be avenged of that which displeaseth them; but this was former in order, to make a difference between good and evil, lest any thing be dissolved (259) unadvisedly.
(254) “ Magnifice ornatum,” magnificently furnished.
(255) “ Ut de integro violentius saevirent,” so that they anew become more violently enraged.
(256) “ Totem Ecclesiae gubernationem horrenda vastitate tunc fuisse confusam,” that the whole government of the Church was then confused and lying waste.
(257) “ Novis rebus,” a revolution.
(258) “ Frena iracundiae suae laxare,” to give loose reins to their wrath.
(259) “ Atqui hoc ordine prius erat, habere boni et mali discrimen, ne temere quicquam improbetur,” but the first thing in order was to observe the distinction between good and evil, that nothing might be rashly disapproved.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE PERSECUTION OF PREMILLENNIALISTS
Act 5:17-42.
JOHN BUNYAN makes his Pilgrim progress by a path that is not always smooth, by steps that are not always easy; and yet, in Pilgrims Progress, he is supposed to have presented the best uninspired picture of Christian experience written to date.
The Christian of his conception had Sloughs of Despond to pull through, Giants of Despair to wrestle with, Lions of menacing mien to face, hills of difficulty to climb, sharp stones to press beneath his feet and even Apollyon to fight. Bunyans conception was altogether a Biblical one, and when one reads the New Testament he is impressed with the conflicts of Christianity, and justifies Uhlhorn in the choice of his theme.
The Book of Acts is a marvelous history of Christianity in its beginning steps, and there the Apostles of Jesus go from conflict to conflict. That early Church experienced little danger of drowsiness, and they couldnt have suffered from ennui. The battlefield, itself, in the day of violent attacks and counterattacks, is a symbol of the true Church of God. It, like an army, lives in a conflict and by conquests.
In continuing, therefore, this study of Acts, beginning with Act 5:17 and concluding with the end of the chapter, we call attention to certain features of church experience that are ensample features; they mark the face of the church in every century.
You will note here Politics in Religion; you will read here of the Powers of Three Worlds, and you will find here Apostles of Real Worth.
POLITICS IN RELIGION
Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
And laid their hands on the Apostles, and put them in the common prison (Act 5:17-18).
These two verses are like most Scripturesignificant and suggestive. They make plain certain features of the Jerusalem First Church life; for instance, the quiet triumph of an ecclesiastical party, the unexpected storm in the political teapot, and the evident intolerance of professed liberals.
The quiet triumph of an ecclesiastical party. Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him. The high priest was the chosen head and consequent leader of an ecclesiastical party. It was known as the party of the Sadducees. The bracketed phrase, which is the sect of the Sadducees, is more properly translated, which is the heresy of the Sadducees. In fact, the Greek word translated sect means exactly heresy. These were the New School in Judaism. They were the Rationalists who opposed angels, spirit and all miracles. The resurrection was their particular offense. Like the Modernists of the present day, they had no affirmative faith, but were deniers of orthodox teaching. Being without an appeal to Holy Writ, their political ambitions had to be carefully engineered, and by smooth and even expert methods they sought and secured control of the Sanhedrin, having made one of their number the high priest; and in the power of their political organization, they opposed and persecuted the Apostles, not because they were Pharisees, but because they held to the great fundamentals of the Old Testament teachingangels, spirit, miracles, and above all, the resurrection from the dead.
It may seem strange that such a party should come into control of a Jewish Sanhedrin, when one remembers how clearly the Jewish Scriptures presented the very subjects against which the Sadducees savagely set themselves. But certainly men of this day can understand. We are repeating this part of Acts. Once more rationalists have, by pussyfoot methods, captured great Christian assemblies and conventions, securing again and again the chief offices of the same and always with the intent of putting down and silencing men who hold to the full teaching of Gods Word; men who believe in angels, spirits, miracles, the resurrection from the dead and related truths of revelation. The only way these men can secure office and hold the same is the way of party politics, and the greater the politician the less anxious he is to engage in debate with anybody. His method is never the stormy, but always the silent one. He knows that in open argument he would be worsted; but he also knows that by clever planning and quiet wire-pulling and dexterous penmanship, he may carry his point.
I saw a few years since a fine example of this Modernist method. The Y. W. C. A., in session at Cleveland, after four years of bitter debate (a debate that sundered the sisters making up its membership into two utterly antagonistic factions,) finally voted, by a majority, to put away the evangelical church membership test, and adopted a pious but meaningless phrase, in accommodation of Unitarian, Christian Science and Roman Catholic sentiment. A Baptist minister present, who belongs to the Modernist party, wrote up that convention in an extended and apparently complete article. He glided over the resignation of Mrs. Shepard, the most notable Christian woman in America; he ignored her speech of protest, quoting not a single sentence; he made no mention whatever of the fact that she had a following of hundreds, including Mrs. Gladden and other brilliant women, and, at the conclusion of his article, one would never have dreamed that his party had come into power by political methods that would have done credit to Tammany in its darkest deeds. That is the Modernist method! They have no intention of entering the arena with the man who wields the Sword of the Spirit; they trust the pen above the Sword and the whisper of a secret session above all appeals to either history, prophecy or Gospel; and Sadducees to-day sit in practically every bishopric saddle in the Methodist denomination in America and have been able to capture the chief offices again and again in the conventions of other denominations.
But this Scripture also narrates
The unexpected storm in the political teapot. The shrewd politicians are perturbed! The calm, quiet, cultured section of the Sanhedrin is excited. Their pleasant foreheads are creased. On each of their countenances thunder clouds gather. The only word in the dictionary big enough to express their feelings is indignation. What has happened? One would naturally imagine that the Pharisees had caught them napping; had turned some better political trick than the expert Sadducees had been able to put over; had elected, by some unexpected ballot, all the chief officials. But nothing of the sort! A few ignorant and unlearned fishermenmen whose ministry had not been standardizedhad risen up to teach. Multitudes had been going after them. The entire population was in danger of believing the quotations of Scripture made by the lips of these common, not to say contemptible, men! In other words, the trouble had come from an all unexpected quarter. How often it is so! The great and powerful gather together, whisper their opinions to each other, agree upon their method of procedure, plan the continuation of clique power, and lo! suddenly there is a monkey-wrench in the machinery. The wheels are not turning, but breaking; the belts are not moving, but straining; the looms are not weaving, but ravelling!
A few years ago a certain Baptist State Convention was captured by Modernists. They got a State secretary who sympathized with the liberal teachings of a certain university. He systematically surrounded himself with a company of leading men whose leanings were in the same direction. He set to work to fill the pulpits of the State with expositors of new thinking. It all worked beautifully. Then a man, well advanced in years, moved into the State and commenced with a church which had an honorable record, but only comparative influence. Ere long there was a conflict of teaching between the leading pulpit of the city and this plain expositor of Gods Word. The debate waxed. The Association split into two factions. The majority went with the conservative man. The feeling spread to the Convention itself and shortly the State was aflame. The Convention, by the coercive methods of court procedure, attempted to take property from orthodox pastors and orthodox people. The chief charge was premillennialism, a Biblical and Baptist doctrine. The test cases had gone against the Convention in most instances. Ecclesiastical officials proposed a conference and said that in some way the difficulty ought to be settled and the aggrieved elements brought to a reconciliation, to all of which the conservative brethren rejoined:
About eleven years ago nearly 2,000 Baptists in one city of the State of openly declared their loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ and determined that they would not fellowship nor regard as Baptists those who substitute humanism or liberalism for the Word of God. This decision has never been changed but is constantly growing firmer, and the number in the State holding to this purpose has greatly increased.
During the period above mentioned that particular Convention has extended the hand of fellowship to liberals or humanists who reject the authority of the Scriptures and has promoted them and elected them to places of influence, direction and control. Against this unbaptistic course we have protested in vain.
We are asked to send our missionary money to the State Treasury to support humanistic schemes, and men who are humanists, as State workers, and so-called missionaries, educators, and Bible School literature publishers, but this we cannot do. We are responsible to God and must invest His money in men who are true to Him and His Word.
Threats have been made against premillennialists, and action has been taken by at least two Associations, and suits have been brought against at least two churches with the approval, as we believe, of the State Board. These things raise a question in our minds as to whether this request for a conference may not be the first step in some desperate action to be taken at the meeting of the Convention.
We can never compromise. God has spoken and we must obey Him. The only way we can work together is for the Convention to free itself from the liberals, and adopt such articles of faith and rules of order as will enable it to protect itself from humanists or liberals.
We cannot participate in the New World Movement so long as its loftiest purpose is mere civilization through social service, and with the purpose to invest a large share of the income in Germanized education. Neither can we endorse the destruction of our sacred inheritance in Baptist principles and achievements by the liberalistic propaganda of the federated and community church.
We are not in accord with the employment of such an army of overseers and promoters as now burdens and perverts the work of our Baptist Conventions. Many of their schemes are unbaptistic, unscriptural and not of God. We fear there are many of our denominational leaders entirely unacquainted with Satan and his wiles. Certain men have crept in unawares who are really the ministers of Satan transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness. Our work as a denomination cannot prosper until we return to the Scriptures and the way of the Lord. Humanism threatens the very existence of the denomination.
We are Baptists through and through, and will stand by that only which is Scriptural. We cannot compromise. If now you wish to stand upon Scriptural and Baptistic ground and put the liberals out, then we are willing to confer with you at a time and place that may be agreed upon, but otherwise it is useless, for there is nothing to confer about, so far as we are concerned, except a way to eliminate from our convention mission fields and schools, the Unitarians, infidels and liberals who have crept in unawares.
We want it understood that we have no thought of giving up our rights in the convention, but as Baptists we shall earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered, and the honor of the Baptist name in the State of M.
This was signed by four prominent pastors.
Truly the Lord can bring to His opponents trouble from unexpected quarters. With a worm, He can thrash a mountain!
When the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites became over-confident and set their faces against the people of God, God sent an angel to guide His people in the way and hornets to drive the enemy before them, until the last man was gone from the land, that His own people might inherit the same. Hornets are not difficult to hatch and, in the language of the colored man, they can quickly organize for business, and when once they go to war, nobody will debate the effectiveness of their methods. Let potentates take notice! It is the unexpected that happens!
Still further, we have The evident intolerance of professed Liberals. These were the men who had been condemning the Pharisees for their bigotry; who had written arguments again and again against dogmatism; the very men who had pled for liberty of opinion; who had objected to external authority and proposed an era of personal liberty. But now when prophets of God exercise that personal liberty of opinion and preach angel, spirit, miracle, resurrection, they are not perturbed; they are mad! They are not calm, they are bitter; they are not complacent, they are cruel; they are not moralizing, they are murderous.
That is Modernism for you. The story might have been written yesterday and published in The Forum of The Baptist or The Congregationalist; in fact, it was written. A slight change in expression, no change in spirit. And, mark you, there is another translation here that is significant in the last degree. The word indignation is more correctly translated jealousy. Since the days of the Apostles, jealous indignation has not burned against orthodoxy as it burns this morning. The hatred manifested when Martin Luther rebelled against precepts and practices of Rome; the bitterness felt when Savonarola proclaimed the Gospel of God; the anger exercised when Charles Spurgeon refused to compromise with the destructive critics of his land these were all tempests in teapots beside the rising tide of hatred in the hearts of Modernists now living. Their every speech reveals their spirit; their message is denunciatory. Their softest phrases veil dire threats. Their increasing conviction is that, having captured offices in certain denominations, they own the denominations themselves, and should be disturbed by no pleader for orthodox religion or conservator of historic faiths.
In spite of all the disgust they have felt at the failure of the Interchurch, they have for political reasons held in check their real sentiments. They attempted the Russian fable of the swan, the crab and the pike, which were brought together and harnessed in order that they might be hitched to a common load. No sooner was the harness on, than the swan flew up and the crab crawled backward and the pike made with all haste for the water, leaving the load where it was! They charge up the whole fault to the swan. He had no right to fly upward! He should have gone with the crab and he should have seen to it that the pike did proper team-work.
Yes, we have refused to cooperate. We confess it, and by refusing we have revealed the fact to the world that sweet Liberals become the sourest of living men when once they cannot have their own way. Charles Spurgeon spoke from a keen observation when he said, If you want a bitter sneer, a biting sarcasm, or a cruel action, I commend you to these large-minded gentlemen. They are liberal to everybody except those who hold the truth, and for those they have a reserve of concentrated bitterness which far exceeds wormwood and gall.
We pass from this to the
POWERS OF THREE WORLDS
The underworld committed the Apostles to the common prison; the upperworld released and commissioned them to the Temple; the middle world sought compromise and softened a death sentence to stripes.
We are beginning now to see how the Book of Acts was written for our learning.
The underworld committed them to a common prison. The high priest and Sadduceesthe liberal partylaid hands upon the Apostles and put them in a common prison. But, you say, the high priest is not from the underworld and the Sadducees are not evil spirits. Are you certain? Satan has always had his minions in ecclesiastical office. He had his Judas even among the Apostles, and in Pauls day there were ministers of righteousness who were Satans servants. In fact, Satan is himself indicted as one who transformeth himself into an angel of light. We expect, if the truth were known, the progress of the Church of God has been as often held back by ecclesiastical potentates, and Prophets of God have as often suffered at their hands, as from any other single source. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians (Eph 6:12), We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. At any rate, the day these men put hands upon the Apostles and thrust them into prison, they were the devils agents. Every man who opposes one who is a true Apostle of the faith once for all delivered, does the devils pleasure, and to that extent becomes a minion of the underworld.
The upper world released and commissioned them to the Temple. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the Temple to the people all the words of this life (Act 5:19-20). What an answer to all of the Sadduccees philosophies existed in this single circumstance! We suspect the Apostles had fallen asleep and the angel wakened thema type of the time when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall live. The presence of angels and their exhibitions of power were an absolute answer to Sadducean philosophy. The fact that they took them out without opening doors or disturbing guards, was a death-blow to Sadducean naturalism, and then they commissioned them to go, stand and speak in the Temple to the people all the words of this life. They knew perfectly well that the resurrection of Jesus from the grave and the consequent resurrection of all believers at His coming, would be themes involved in that full Gospel. It is hard to kick against the goads. It is impossible to fight against God. You can deny angels if you want to do so, but that will not stop their ministry. You can scoff the miracle as often as you like, but while you are speaking it is occurring. You can laugh the resurrection to scorn, but the day will come when the risen Christ will hold such in derision. The time of His laugh will be on; The Lord shall halve them in derision; He shall mock when their fear cometh.
But the most interesting part of this Scripture to me relates itself to a third class.
The middle world compromised and softened the death sentence to stripes. The captain with the officers went and brought them without violence (Act 5:26). That is the first part of the compromise. We are told why they did it. They feared the people?. When they brought them and set them before the council, the high priest said, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this Name? And when the answer of the Apostles was such as to excite them afresh, then Gamaliel stood up, one of the old Pharisees who had a soft side to him; who was always being quoted by the Sadducees and could be counted on to cast an occasional and deciding vote with them, and consequently claim them as his friends, while they utilized him and chuckled over his lack of stamina and his consequent value to the critical party in critical times. He was a doctor of the law and had a reputation among all the people, that is, he stood well with both sides. That is the poorest compliment that was ever paid, and his speech was of the soft, political sort. He reminded them of Theudas and how he came to naught, and of Judas and how he perished, and his following was dissipated; and by these historic instances, he softened the anger of the Sadducees, and then by appealing to them to wait in the execution of their ill-will against the Apostles, he threw a sop to the Pharisees, and as he supposed, proved himself also a friend to the Apostles, and to him they agreed and having beaten them, they commanded they should not speak in the Name of Jesus and let them go. The most difficult man to deal with in great ecclesiastical conflicts is the middle manthe man who runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds; the man who always believes in getting by without trouble and who is always seeking a way to solve a difficulty politically, irrespective of principle. At this present moment and in the controversy that rages to-day between orthodoxy on the one side and the most Christless skepticism on the other, the Gamaliels of the land are not standing up with and for the apostles of the faith. They are pleading with the Liberals to be less angry, and they are begging the conservatives to be less pronounced. They do not want the true apostles of the faith to perish; but if a scourging could be substituted and silence could be insured, they would not only consent to that, but frame the resolutions to effect it.
Some years ago, George Lorimer spoke of the political endeavor to dethrone the Christ and bring Him down to the level of a mortal man, and of the smooth way in which that attempt was being carried on. He likened it to the instance in which an executioner, sent to behead Charles I, bowed before the king, kissed his hand and begged his pardon for undertaking the unpleasant business in which he was engaged, but beheaded him just the same. So now at the opening of the 20th Century, infidelity, wearing a mask and sharpening the ax, will not be slow to cut off the head of Christianity when the propitious moment arrives. Dr. Dollinger once spake of the advancing pressure of unbelief as the festering wounds which are causing every community to languish, and of that Dr. Lorimer said, The danger of the hour is that indifference, or rather apathy may betray the most sacred interests of humanity. Some one has said, England has so fed upon the pap of compromise as to be unable any longer to conceive a muscular resolution, and it may so fall out that the disciples of our Lord, in their desire to avoid contention, and in their good-natured tolerance of deadly heresies, may become traffickers and bargainers in holy things, and soon cease to have sufficient iron in their consciences to vigorously resist the encroachments of even undisguised enemies. The policy of non-resistance I deplore. Occasionally some well-meaning soul arises in the midst of the battle and sententiously utters the misleading platitude, Truth is mighty and will prevail. And at times religious journals, presumably having nothing better to write on, take ministers to task for introducing apologetics into the pulpit, advising them to preach the Gospel, when the minister knows and the editor knows that the question of the hour is whether that same Gospel is still credible to the enlightened understanding.
But we must take up the last part
APOSTLES OF REAL WORTH
The record is short but the Scriptures are suggestive.
They commanded that they should not speak in the Name of Jesus, and let them go.
And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted 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 (Act 5:40-42).
Look to it now!
They quit the council with undaunted courage. As they stood before that august company, they refused to cringe. As they listened to their stern commands, they batted not an eye. At the utterance of threats of lash and prison and death, they felt with Paul, We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. They were no weaklings. The Gospel ministry was never meant for weaklings and weaklings were never meant for the ministry. Dear old Joseph Parker, the man of the leonine head and lion heart, said of some of our forefathers in the ministry who were men of convictions and consequent courage, They bore scars for medals; they took honors in the school of suffering; they graduated in the dungeon and in the wilderness and their breath was like the fresh air that blows around a mountain top. Do I speak to any young man who is about to enter the ministry? Any gentle, delicate, pale, frail creature who is going to take up the Apostolic banner or, at least, the silken end of it? It is hard work! You can make it easy if you please, but in so pleasing you offend God. Wherever this Gospel is preached, it must create antagonism. We have indeed, by a tacit compact, villainous in its every syllable, agreed to shut up the unpleasant, and to confine the disagreeable, and to hold converse upon only such topics and principles as soothe and comfort us, and assure us of our personal safety. Why, Christianity began as a fighting religion. When did it lay aside its first charter? Christianity came as a fire, as a sword, as a voice of judgment. When did it pass through a transformation which robbed it of its combativeness and made it as other faiths? When was this Samson shorn?
Their worthy successors will not waver now before the apostles of Modernism, nor will they blanch, though persecution comes and prisons open and death itself threatens. With Peter and the other Apostles, they will still say, We can but speak the things which we see and hear.
They rejoiced to suffer shame for Christs sake. They had never expected to be preachers of the Gospel apart from such experience. Had not Jesus said,
They will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;
And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles (Mat 10:17-18)?
When did the promise of Jesus ever fail? True men dont wish themselves out of the ministry when a Sadducee scorns them, nor whine when a stripe falls across the shoulder, nor join Elijah in a juniper tree despondency when opponents multiply. On the contrary, that is the testing time and their true characters shine brighter in the midst of persecutions. God knows that, and hence His willingness to leave us sometimes to the ill-luck of conflict, battle, prison and even death. It is said that when King Edward III. heard that his son, the Black Prince, was having a hard battle with the French, he smiled to think he was put at last in a place where he would show his true valor. When he was implored to send reinforcements to him, he refused, saying, Let him so get honors this day as to have them undivided.
Charles Spurgeon comments upon this piece of history after this manner: The Lord Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, puts some of His followers into places of great peril and sends them no help that their faith and consecration may be tested and proved.
Finally
They continued their testimony and increased the same. Had they not said, We cannot but speak the things which we have both seen and heard? Now they are showing that was no idle speech. Long years afterward, Paul, gathering other Christians into an assembly with himself, and becoming the spokesman, said,
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak (2Co 4:8-13).
This Apostle, at a little later date, simply carried the courage of these earlier men to more marvelous heights, and illustrated the fact that the true Apostle is daunted by nothing;
In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness (2Co 11:23-27).
He carried on! Bearing his witness, exalting Christ, preaching the glorious doctrines of grace, the great necessity of regeneration, the certainty of the resurrection, the promised return and everlasting life! Give us ministers after the Pauline sort, believing absolutely the Pauline Gospel and all the minions of hell will not long hold back the Kingdom of God, and Satan himself, the god of this world, will not long retain his supremacy against the coming Son of Man.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act. 5:17. The high priest.Annas, as in Act. 4:6. Indignation.Not envy or jealousy (R.V.), but hot, angry zeal.
Act. 5:19. Not the but an Angel of the Lord; i.e., sent by the Lord, or the Exalted Christ.
Act. 5:20. All the words of this life.I.e., of this resurrection life which the Sadducees denied, or of this eternal life which the apostles preached, or of this blessed life which the angel himself enjoyed, or all of these together.
Act. 5:21. All the senate, or eldership. Whether a special meeting of the presbyters (a wider conception than the Sanhedrim) was summoned to assist the Sanhedrim (Meyer, Wendt, Holtzmann), or only the Sanhedrim, called in the Old Testament Apocrypha, the senate (Schrer, ii. 149) was convened (Zckler, Hackett), cannot be determined.
Act. 5:24. They doubted of them.Better, were much perplexed concerning themi.e., the apostles (Alford), or the words reported about the apostles (Hackett). Whereunto this would grow.What this would become, this incident of their escape from prison and this movement of which they were the leaders.
Act. 5:26. Lest they should be stoned depends upon not with violence (Alford, Hackett), rather than upon they feared (Holtzmann).
Act. 5:28. This mans blood upon us recalls Mat. 27:25.
Act. 5:29. We ought to obey (, to obey or acknowledge as ruler, stronger than , Act. 4:19) God rather than man.Compare Socrates to his judges, (Plato, Apologia, xvii. D).
Act. 5:31. With, or by, rather than to. See Act. 2:33. Not to be, but (as) a prince (as in Act. 3:15)i.e., as theocratic Lord and King of His people, and a Saviouri.e., as the originator of the Messianic salvation (Holtzmann).
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.Act. 5:17-32
Annas upon the Move; or, the Bursting of the Storm
I. The high priest and the angel of the Lord.The high priests action against the apostles was:
1. Dictated by evil motives.
(1) Indignation. If not grieved at the miraculous activity of the apostles in healing (which they probably were) he and his associates felt annoyed at the persistence of the apostles in teaching doctrines which they, the high priest and his colleagues, did not believe. Most men are intolerant of beliefs to which they cannot themselves subscribe. No matter how excellent in character and beneficent in action other people may be, unless these swear by their superiors Shibboleths, they are disliked, if not oppressed, for their non-conformity. The Christian Church, to the amazement of the world, has often followed in the steps of the Jewish Sanhedrim!
(2) Jealousy. The high priest and his associates were offended at the growing influence of the apostles and the cause they represented. Few things are harder to bear with equanimity than the popularity of rivals and much more of opponents. The increase of the apostles in public esteem meant the decline of the Sanhedrists in national favour.
2. Concurred in by his associates. Those that were with him were not his colleagues in the Sanhedrim afterwards mentioned as the council (Act. 5:21), but his co-religionists, belonging to the sect of the Sadducees. Evil-doers never want allies. The difficulty has ever been to find fellow-helpers in good.
3. Observed by an unseen eye. The Lord noticed the angry feelings of the high priest, his rising indignation and jealousy, the secret confabulations between him and his associates, the order issued for the arrest of the apostles, the execution of that order by the officers of the Sanhedrim, and the consignment of the servants of Jesus to the public ward. All things are naked and manifest unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Heb. 4:13; compare Act. 1:24; Rev. 2:18; Rev. 2:23).
4. Counterworked by an invisible agent. An angel of the Lord, celestial intelligences being all subject to the exalted Christ (1Pe. 3:22; Rev. 22:16), visited the prison by night at his Kings command (Heb. 1:14), opened its doors, as he or another (Act. 12:7) afterwards did to Peter, and having fetched them out commanded them to resume teaching in the temple. When Christ and His battalions take the field against confederacies of evil, whether human or angelic, these are sure to be overthrown and their projects scattered to the winds (Psa. 2:4-5).
II. The high priest and the senate of Israel.Having effected the arrest of the apostles, the high priest and his confederates convened a meeting of the Sanhedrim or High Ecclesiastical Council.
1. When? At daybreak, about 6 a.m., before which hour a meeting of the court could not be held,about the time when the apostles had resumed their public exhortations in the temple.
2. Why? To try the prisoners who on the preceding night had been committed to the cells, and were now to be fetched from confinement and placed at the Baruch
3. In what spirit? With a firm determination to put down the nuisance of teaching in the temple porch about Jesus and the resurrection. Thousands of civic and ecclesiastical rulers since then have attempted to do the like, and with as little success. Upon the whole the worlds potentates (and sometimes also the Churchs rulers) do not relish preaching that talks about Jesus and the resurrection.
III. The high priest and his apparitors.
1. The bootless errand. Commissioned to fetch the apostles, the officers of the Sanhedrim repaired to the prison house and found it shut, with the warders at their posts. Having opened its massive gates and penetrated to the interior, to their astonishment they discovered no man within. However they had escaped the prisoners were gone.
2. The perplexed judges. When the officers returned with their tale, the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priests were filled with terror. Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all. They could not tell what to make of it. What the upshot of this incident might be they could not predict. Not for an instant dreamt they of treachery on the part of the gaolers; they discerned that it was a miracle by which they were confronted, and they feared.
3. The startling announcement. Whilst pondering the situation, they became further dismayed by the exciting news, reported by a messenger, that the men wanted had resumed their old work of preaching in the temple. This must have strongly confirmed the Sanhedrists suspicion that the escape from prison had been effected by supernatural means. Prisoners who had attained liberty by treachery would hardly have returned to their accustomed haunts. The fact that the apostles were again preaching in the temple indicated they had some superior authority at their backs.
4. The second apprehension. The captain of the temple and the officers of the Sanhedrim, having renewed endeavours to arrest the preachers, used no violence on this occasion because of secret alarms for their own safety, the people being on the side of the apostles. Nor was violence required, since the apostles offered no resistancein this following both the teaching (Mat. 5:39) and example (Joh. 18:8) of their Muster.
IV. The high priest and the apostles.1 The accusation. Set before the council, the apostles were charged by the president, in the name of his colleagues, with three crimes:
(1) With having disobeyed the instructions given by the court at a previous sederunt. A grave offence had the courts orders been just, and dangerous considering the men who composed (Act. 4:5-6) the court, and the temper in which these then were (Act. 5:17).
(2) With having filled Jerusalem with their teaching, an indirect admission of, and unwilling testimony to, the growing popularity of the new religion, as well as of the unwearied assiduity of its teachers in promulgating their tenets.
(3) With seeking to fix on them, the Sanhedrists, the guilt of their Masters murder. This was putting into words what the councillors own hearts kept whispering. Conscience is ill to silence even in the worst and most ignorant of men; how much more in men who are good (after a fashion) and enlightened?
2. The defence. Offered by Peter and the apostles, or by him on their behalf and with their concurrence.
(1) A great principle restated. That it was their (the apostles and every ones) duty to obey God rather than man. Of this principle they had reminded the court on a former occasion (Act. 4:19), and now satisfy themselves with its repetition. About the second and third charges, which, being true, needed no defence, they are silent, confining their remarks to the one which, though also true, required justification. And the justification they offered was short, simple, sufficient, and unanswerable.
(2) A great story rehearsed, in four parts. First, that they had slain Jesus by hanging Him on a treethey, the Jewish nation in general, and the Sanhedrists in particular. Peter and his fellow-apostles had manifestly lost nothing of their boldness and plain-speaking since last they stood before their accusers. Second, that the God of their fathers had raised up Jesus from the dead (once more the obnoxious doctrine!), and exalted Him to the right hand of the Majesty on high (a claim for divine dignity to the man they had slain!). Third, that Christ had been exalted as Prince and Saviour, from which it could be gathered that they had totally misconceived His character and mistaken His person. Fourth, that the grand object contemplated by His exaltation was that He might give repentance unto Israel (them and the people) and remission of sins. A strong pressing home of guilt on His accusers.
(3) A great claim reasserted. That they, the accused, were witnesses of these facts and doctrines complained ofwitnesses appointed and put forth by Him, and for Him, and therefore His witnesses responsible to Him alone. Yea, going beyond this, that the Holy Ghost jointly witnessed with them, since, having been given to them by God and dwelling in them, He spoke and acted through them in the words they uttered and the miracles they wrought.
Learn.
1. That the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them (Psa. 34:7).
2. That He who sitteth in the heavens laughs at His enemies and has them in derision (Psa. 2:4).
3. That the doubts of the chief priests as to whereunto this (Christianity) would grow have been largely answeredthe faith planted by the apostles intends to grow till it fills the whole earth (Luk. 13:21).
4. That nothing can release from responsibility to God (Ecc. 12:13).
5. That Christ will pardon even His greatest enemies if they repent.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act. 5:17. Misdirected Indignation.
I. Against the publication of the truth, rather than against the dissemination of error.
II. Against well doing, instead of against evil doing.
III. Against good men, and not against bad.
IV. Against other peoples supposed wickedness, and not against ones own real sins.
Act. 5:19. Ministering Spirits.The angels of God are represented in Scripture, and in this instance appear
I. As the friends of the righteous.Shown by the service rendered to the apostles.
II. As watchers in the night.Proved by the observation taken of the apostles incarceration.
III. As rescuers from trouble.Seen in the opening of the prison doors, and liberation of the prisoners.
IV. As directors in the way of duty.Exemplified by the order given to the liberated apostles.
V. As messengers of the heavenly life to the world.Suggested by the commission put into the hands of the apostles.
VI. As conveyers to the heavenly life and eternal joy.Evinced by the interest taken in the gospel of life.Compiled from, Lange.
Act. 5:20. The Preachers Commission.
I. His authority.The divine commandmentGo ye!
II. His vocation.To speak, not to write, but to proclaim with the voice.
III. His sphere.The temple; or, in New Testament times the Christian Church.
IV. His theme.All the words of this lifethe gospel, the whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel.
V. His audience.The people, to believers and unbelievers; to the former for edification, to the latter for conversion.
Act. 5:23. The Worlds Veto upon Preaching.
I. Unreasonable.To expect men to keep silence who have been commanded by Christ to speak, who know what they speak to be true, and who feel themselves impelled to speak by the inner voice of conscience.
II. Unjust.To command men to desist from preaching is to invade the domain of conscience which belongs alone to Christ, and is therefore in the highest degree culpable and reprehensible.
III. Unkind.To impose silence upon men who offer mankind the highest conceivable blessing (repentance and remission of sins) on the easiest possible terms (faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ) is surely the opposite of benevolent.
IV. Unsuccessful.Those who attempt to put down preaching never really succeed. So long as Christ lives and reigns they never will succeed. All interdicts upon the gospel break down. The more men are punished for preaching, the hotter grows their zeal to persist in the forbidden work.
Act. 5:29. Obedience to God and Man.
I. It is possible to obey man rather than Godwhich is sin. Unfortunately this is often done, when inclination and supposed self-interest side with mans orders rather than with Gods.
II. It is proper to obey God rather than manwhich is duty. Proper in the sense of right, when Gods orders and mans come into collision, man being a creature who is himself under authority to God.
III. It is practicable to obey man as well as Godwhich is both desirable and dutiful, when mans orders are not countermanded by Gods.
The Power of the Civil Magistrate.
I. Its source.God (Rom. 13:1). Civil government a natural institution and divine ordinance.
II. Its sphere.Civil affairs, or men considered solely as citizens. Things temporal and material, social and political.
III. Its limitations.
1. Into the domain of conscience, and that signifies into the realm of religion it dare not intrude.
2. Even in its own sphere it is forbidden to enjoin anything which contravenes the law of God.
3. The power of the sword, or the infliction of pains and penalties, is permissible solely within its own specific province.
IV. Its guide.
1. The light of the natural conscience.
2. The teachings of revelation so far as these bear on the duties of magistrates and citizens.
Act. 5:32. Witness of the Holy Ghost.
I. The subject of His witness.These things. The facts of Christs death, resurrection, and exaltation, and the doctrines founded on and connected with them.
II. The medium of His witness.Those who obey Him, the Holy Ghost, by believing the gospel; whom He thereupon inhabits, and through whom He delivers His testimony.
III. The object of His witness.The unbelieving world who, by beholding the faith of Christians and listening to their testimony, are frequently brought to believe.
The Gift of the Holy Ghost.
I. The Author of this gift.God, the Father, from whom the Holy Ghost proceedeth. No contradiction to Act. 2:33.
II. The recipients of this gift.Those who obey God, who commands men to repent and believe upon His Son.
III. The nature of this gift.An inhabitation of the repenting and believing heart by the gracious influences of the Divine Spirit.
IV. The object of this gift.To enable those who receive it to witness for Jesus Christ.
Act. 5:17-32. The Fortunes of the Twelve.
I. Incarcerated by the Sanhedrim.A signal honour to suffer affliction for Christs sake.
II. Delivered by an angel.Are they not all ministering spirits? etc.
III. Honoured by the people.These at this time heard the apostles gladly. Popular favour not always a good sign. Here, however, it was.
IV. Supported by the Holy Spirit.A proof that they were obeying His directions.
Act. 5:17-32. The Sanhedrim and the College of the Apostles.
In considering the lessons to be drawn from this history we see
I. How God overrules persecution and opposition for the good of His Church.It seemed indeed a dark hour for the cause of Christ when all of the apostles were shut up in the common prison, and left, apparently, in the power of their bitterest enemies.
II. This history shows us rationalism confounded.Just when rationalism thought to put down the supernatural, lo! it appears in a new manifestation before them. There was evidently a power working for these apostles which prison-walls, bolts, bars, and guards of soldiers could not restrain. The perplexity of the council is further increased when one came saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. It was this conduct, as much as the strangeness of their deliverance, that impressed the senate. Then, as often since, men were made to see that there is a hidden, spiritual force about the gospel which cannot be accounted for, save on the ground that the life of Christ is in it.
III. We can also learn from this that the enemies of the gospel are made to fear and respect those who are fearless in proclaiming it.
IV. Finally, we have in this history Peters address to the Sanhedrim.It is the jewel of which all of which all the rest is only the casket. As a defence nothing could be more admirable and to the point than the words of Peter. The specifications in the indictment against the apostles were two: first, that they had disobeyed the lawful authority in continuing to preach after they had been strictly charged to speak no more in the name of Jesus; second, that by their preaching they were stirring up the people to avenge the crucifixion of Jesus upon the Sanhedrim. To the first Peter replies, We ought to obey God rather than men. This was their justification for the disobedience charged. In answer to the second he fearlessly tells the Sanhedrim their guilt, and charges upon them the death of Jesus. It is most significant that in the defence which Peter makes, as indeed in all apostolic preaching, special prominence is given to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The apostle well knew that the larger portion of the Sanhedrim was of the sect of the Sadducees, yet he does not hesitate in his testimony. There are three great indestructible facts that have remained all through the ages as witnesses to the reality of the resurrection. The first is the testimony of the apostles; the second is the Christian Church; the third is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The proof which they furnish is conclusive, and we may rest assured that our holy faith, so glorious in the hopes which it inspires and so wonderful in the destiny which it opens for sinful men, is founded upon the ROCK.S. J. Niccolls, D.D.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
10.
IN THE PRISON. Act. 5:17-20
17
But the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy,
18
and laid hands on the apostles, and put them in public ward.
19
But an angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them out, and said,
20
Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this Life.
Act. 5:17 This was too much for the high priest and the Sadducees. They could bear it no longer. Luke gives a picturesque word respecting the anger of the high priest and the Sadducees. He says . . . The high priest rose up, and all that were with him. As if they could sit still no longer. They could no longer witness this flagrant disobedience to their command. If the disobedience of these men had not caused such an interest among the people the high priest might have overlooked it, but how he was filled with jealousy.
Act. 5:18 These authorities came much as they had before, and laid hands upon the apostles and put them in the public ward. It will be of import to realize that all twelve of the apostles were jailed upon this occasion.
When man has reached his extremity, then it is that there is afforded to God an opportunity. The extremity had been reached. An emergency had arisen. What would have happened to the cause if all twelve of the apostles had been tried and condemned? This was exactly the plan of the Sanhedrin, not to stop with two of them, but to silence all twelve once and for all.
Act. 5:19 Heb. 1:14 states that the angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation.
Upon this occasion God gave to one of these ministers a special task . . . the task of opening those doors that were only shut to the power of men. And so it was that the apostles had an angelic visitor in the quiet of the early morning hours. To their unspeakable amazement the angel opened the prison doors and lead them out. Why were they thus delivered? The angel answered this question when he had led them out under the stars of the Syrian sky.
173.
What events had transpired that incited the wrath of the high priest?
174.
What is the picturesque statement Luke gives that describes the wrath of the high priest?
175.
What is there about the second arrest that is different from the first?
176.
What was the purpose in the arrest of all twelve apostles?
Act. 5:20 Can you imagine the apostles with incredulous gaze searching the face of the angel for a reason for their freedom? Perchance the hearts of the apostles were troubled as they communed together in the dark of the prison; Why has God permitted this? Why has God thus dealt with us? If our message is what He wants preached why has He thus permitted us to be confined? Maybe He does not intend that we should speak any more in His name. All of these questions were answered, all of their fears were dispelled when the angel said: Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this Life.
177.
What question do you imagine was in the minds of the apostles upon their release by the angel? How was it answered?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(17) Then the high priest rose up. . . . Probably, as before, Annas or Caiaphas.
Which is the sect of the Sadducees.The fact, of which this is the only distinct record, is of immense importance as throwing light on the course of action taken by the upper class of priests, both during our Lords ministry and in the history of this book. From the time of the teaching of Joh. 5:25-29, they must have felt that His doctrine was diametrically opposed to theirs. They made one attempt to turn that doctrine, on which, and almost on which alone, He and the Pharisees were in accord, into ridicule, and were baffled (Mat. 22:23-33). The raising of Lazarus mingled a dogmatic antagonism with the counsels of political expediency (Joh. 11:49-50). The prominence of the Resurrection of Jesus in the teaching of the Apostles now made the Sadducean high priests their most determined opponents. The Pharisees, on the other hand, less exposed now than they had been before to the condemnation passed by our Lord on their unreality and perverted casuistry, were drawing off from those with whom they had for a time coalesced, into a position at first of declared neutrality; then of secret sympathy; then, in many cases, of professed adherence (Act. 15:5).
Filled with indignation.The word is that elsewhere rendered zeal, or envy. Both meanings of the word were probably applicable here. There was zeal against the doctrine, envy of the popularity of the Apostles.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
V. PENTECOSTAL CHURCH IN SECOND AND SEVERER PERSECUTION AND RESULTS, 17-42.
1. Imprisonment of Apostles and Arraignment, Act 5:17-32 .
As our history grows, larger events open on us. In the first persecution (Act 3:1 to Act 4:22,) two apostles were arrested, and the Sanhedrin from fear or the people had dismissed them with a requirement of silence, which the apostles faithfully promised to disobey. So far from silence, the apostles persisted in miracles and preaching; and after the terrible phenomenon or Ananias and Sapphira they boldly ventured to hold assembly in Solomon’s Porch, to the awe of their adversaries, to the love of the people, and the rapid increase of the Church. The incensed Sadducean authorities now proceed to bolder measures. Spite of the people or of divine interference, and even of their want of authority to inflict capital punishment, they are ready to put the entire twelve apostles to death forthwith; and, even when cooled by the remonstrances of Gamaliel, heading the Pharisaic party, they cannot dismiss the apostles without inflicting upon them an ignominious chastisement.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
17. High priest Caiaphas, the same who arraigned the Saviour a few short months ago. Well might the apostles say to such men, (Act 5:30,) Jesus, whom ye slew.
Rose up As if he could sit and see the bold proceedings of the apostles no longer.
With him Sadducees Whether Caiaphas was a Sadducee or not is not very clear; but that the Sadducees were in the present case his instigators is certain, and for reasons detailed in our notes on Act 4:1.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘But the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy, and laid hands on the apostles, and put them in public ward.’
Once again it was the Sadducees as a party, led by the High Priest, who initiated the action, for much of the activity was still taking place in the Temple courtyards. They were ‘filled with jealousy’. Note the contrast with ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ (and earlier ‘filled by Satan’). These were the very men who should have been filled with God’s Holy Spirit, but they served another god, themselves. It was not surprising that they were jealous. They felt that in the Temple all the respect, and all the adulation, and all the worship, should be conducted through themselves. But here were these upstarts preaching a forbidden Name, drawing all the crowds to themselves, and actually performing the kind of wonders that were impossible to the priests. The priests were aware that they could declare men clean or unclean, but they could not make them so (compare Act 5:16 – ‘unclean spirits’ cast out). But these pretenders made men clean.
So they arranged for the arrest of the Apostles and had them locked in a public cell. Note the irony. ‘They laid their hands on the Apostles’. What a contrast with ‘by the hands of the Apostles were many wonders wrought –’. The so-called representatives of God used their hands for unholy purposes. It was left to the ignorant Galileans to use their hands for holy purposes.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Second Arrest. The Kingly Rule of God Is Revealed By The Opening of Prison Doors (5:17-24).
In view of the fact that the Apostles were openly defying the stricture of the previous council, and were doing so with such obvious success, it could only be riling to the authorities, unless they were going to accept the evidence (which they did not deny) and believe in Jesus. Thus we cannot be surprised that the council acted once again. It may be questioned why they had waited so long. The explanation is probably twofold. Firstly their innate sense of justice as based on God’s Law and secondly a certain level of support among those very authorities who advised caution in the face of something which was very popular and could, if handled unwisely, cause trouble among the people. After all nothing had happened which had disturbed the Roman authorities who kept a close eye on the Temple.
But when the situation continued unabated, opposition was inevitable in the end. For these men were deliberately disobeying an official council injunction. All it did, however, was simply lead on to another wonder, the opening of prison doors (Isa 61:1).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Witness of the Persecution of the Church In Act 5:17-42 we have the record of the first persecution against the early Church.
Act 5:17 Scripture Reference Note:
Psa 2:1-3, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
Act 5:28 “and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us” Comments – That is, Jesus’ blood. The priests were referring to Jesus’ death as if His blood was not upon them, which means that they denied being responsible for His death on the Cross. In some deceitful way, they probably shifted the blame to the Roman soldiers.
Act 5:30 Comments – Peter makes a descriptive accusation towards the Sanhedrin, having been an eyewitness of the sufferings of Christ. Since he was also an eyewitness of Jesus’ resurrection, Peter is bold to declare his faith in Christ, where he once denied his association with Him the night of his Master’s trial.
Act 5:31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
Act 5:31
[133] Craig R. Koester, Hebrews, in The Anchor Bible, eds. William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 228.
Act 3:15, “And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.”
Act 5:31, “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”
Heb 2:10, “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
Heb 12:2, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Act 5:32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
Act 5:32
Mar 16:20, “And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.”
Heb 2:3-4, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?”
Act 5:33 When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.
Act 5:33
Act 5:34 Then 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;
Act 5:34
Comments – In Luk 5:17 this word is equivalent to “scribes” as this word is substituted for “doctors of the law” within this same passage of Scripture. The other two places where this word is used are:
Luk 5:17, “And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.”
1Ti 1:7, “Desiring to be teachers of the law ; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”
Act 5:36 “For before these days rose up Theudas” Comments – The name “Theudas” could have been a contraction of the Greek name Theodorus, Theodosus, T heodotus, or Theodosius , as Demas is perhaps a contraction of the name Demetrius. Adam Clarke and John Gill believe this Greek name is equivalent to the Hebrew ( ) “Thuda,” or “Thoda,” and it is found as “Thaddaeus” in the New Testament (Mat 10:3, Mar 3:18). [134] The suggestion by some that this name could be the Greek equivalent to several Hebrew names lacks strong evidence to support this view. [135]
[134] Adam Clarke, The Acts of the Apostles, in Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1996), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), notes on Acts 5:36; John Gill, Acts, in John Gill’s Expositor, in e-Sword, v. 7.7.7 [CD-ROM] (Franklin, Tennessee: e-Sword, 2000-2005), comments on Acts 5:36.
[135] A. C. Headlam, “Theudas,” in A Dictionary of the Bible Dealing With its Language, Literature and Contents Including the Biblical Theology, vol. 4, ed. James Hastings (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 750.
Act 5:36 Comments – Eusebius (A.D. 260 to 340), in his Church History, quotes Josephus in referring to the insurrection of Theudas. Note:
“Luke, in the Acts, introduces Gamaliel as saying, at the consultation which was held concerning the apostles, that at the time referred to, ‘rose up Theudas boasting himself to be somebody; who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered.’ Let us therefore add the account of Josephus concerning this man. He records in the work mentioned just above, the following circumstances: ‘While Fadus was procurator of Judea a certain impostor called Theudas persuaded a very great multitude to take their possessions and follow him to the river Jordan. For he said that he was a prophet, and that the river should be divided at his command, and afford them an easy passage. And with these words he deceived many. But Fadus did not permit them to enjoy their folly, but sent a troop of horsemen against them, who fell upon them unexpectedly and slew many of them and took many others alive, while they took Theudas himself captive, and cut off his head and carried it to Jerusalem.’ Besides this he also makes mention of the famine, which took place in the reign of Claudius, in the following words.” ( Ecclesiastical History 2.11.1-3)
Josephus dates the insurrection of Theudas during the rule of Fadus as procurator of Judea (A.D. 44 or 45).
“Now it came to pass, while Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas , persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan; for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who, falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. This was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspius Fadus’s government.” ( Antiquities 20.1.6)
Act 5:37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.
Act 5:37
Luk 2:1-2, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)”
Note the quote from Eusebius:
“Flavius Josephus, the most celebrated of Hebrew historians, also mentions this census, which was taken during Cyrenius’ term of office. In the same connection he gives an account of the uprising of the Galileans, which took place at that time, of which also Luke, among our writers, has made mention in the Acts, in the following words: ‘After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away a multitude after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.’ The above-mentioned author, in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, in agreement with these words, adds the following, which we quote exactly: ‘Cyrenius, a member of the senate, one who had held other offices and had passed through them all to the consulship, a man also of great dignity in other respects, came to Syria with a small retinue, being sent by C’sar to be a judge of the nation and to make an assessment of their property.’ And after a little he says: ‘But Judas, a Gaulonite, from a city called Gamala, taking with him Sadduchus, a Pharisee, urged the people to revolt, both of them saying that the taxation meant nothing else than downright slavery, and exhorting the nation to defend their liberty.’ And in the second book of his History of the Jewish War, he writes as follows concerning the same man: ‘At this time a certain Galilean, whose name was Judas, persuaded his countrymen to revolt, declaring that they were cowards if they submitted to pay tribute to the Romans, and if they endured, besides God, masters who were mortal.’ These things are recorded by Josephus.” ( Ecclesiastical History 1.5.3-6, see also Josephus, Antiquities 18.1)
In this same passage of Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus then explains that there were three major sects of the Jews, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. A fourth group that arose for a short period of time was led by this man named Judas.
“But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. And since this immovable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no further about that matter; nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved, but rather fear, that what I have said is beneath the resolution they show when they undergo pain. And it was in Gessius Florus’s time that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper, who was our procurator, and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it by the abuse of his authority, and to make them revolt from the Romans. And these are the sects of Jewish philosophy.” ( Antiquities 18.1.6)
Josephus made numerous references to a man named Judas.
There was also Judas , the son of that Ezekias who had been head of the robbers; which Ezekias was a very strong man, and had with great difficulty been caught by Herod. This Judas, having gotten together a multitude of men of a profligate character about Sepphoris in Galilee, made an assault upon the palace [there,] and seized upon all the weapons that were laid up in it, and with them armed every one of those that were with him, and carried away what money was left there; and he became terrible to all men, by tearing and rending those that came near him; and all this in order to raise himself, and out of an ambitious desire of the royal dignity; and he hoped to obtain that as the reward not of his virtuous skill in war, but of his extravagance in doing injuries. ( Antiquities 17.10.5)
“And besides this, the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean of that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Cyrenius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews, as we have showed in a foregoing book.” ( Antiquities 20.5.2)
As Eusebius says above, Josephus again refers to Judas in his War of the Jews.
“In Sepphoris also, a city of Galilee, there was one Judas (the son of that arch-robber Hezekias, who formerly overran the country, and had been subdued by king Herod); this man got no small multitude together, and brake open the place where the royal armor was laid up, and armed those about him, and attacked those that were so earnest to gain the dominion.” ( Wars 2.4.1)
“And now Archelaus’s part of Judea was reduced into a province, and Coponius, one of the equestrian order among the Romans, was sent as a procurator, having the power of [life and] death put into his hands by Caesar. Under his administration it was that a certain Galilean, whose name was Judas , prevailed with his countrymen to revolt, and said they were cowards if they would endure to pay a tax to the Romans and would after God submit to mortal men as their lords. This man was a teacher of a peculiar sect of his own, and was not at all like the rest of those their leaders.” ( Wars 2.8.1)
“In the mean time, one Manahem, the son of Judas , that was called the Galilean, (who was a very cunning sophister, and had formerly reproached the Jews under Cyrenius, that after God they were subject to the Romans,) took some of the men of note with him, and retired to Masada, where he broke open king Herod’s armory, and gave arms not only to his own people, but to other robbers also.” ( Wars 2.17.8)
“The others readily complied with their petition, sent to them Gorion, the son of Nicodemus, and Ananias, the son of Sadduk, and Judas , the son of Jonathan, that they might give them the security Of their right hands, and of their oaths; after which Metilius brought down his soldiers; which soldiers, while they were in arms, were not meddled with by any of the seditious, nor was there any appearance of treachery; but as soon as, according to the articles of capitulation, they had all laid down their shields and their swords, and were under no further suspicion of any harm, but were going away, Eleazar’s men attacked them after a violent manner, and encompassed them round, and slew them, while they neither defended themselves, nor entreated for mercy, but only cried out upon the breach of their articles of capitulation and their oaths. And thus were all these men barbarously murdered, excepting Metilius; for when he entreated for mercy, and promised that he would turn Jew, and be circumcised, they saved him alive, but none else.” ( Wars 2.17.10)
Act 5:36-37 Comments – Historians find a problem with Luke’s statements in these two verses when they read Josephus, who says that the revolt of Judas took place under Cyrenius (about A.D. 6) ( Antiquities 18.1.1), while the insurrection of Theudas took place under Fadus, the procurator of Judea ( about A.D. 45) , during the reign of the emperor Claudius, (reigned A.D. 41 to 54) ( Antiquities 20.5.1) . Historians are further confused when modern scholarship dates this speech by Gamaliel at A.D. 34 to 37.
Numerous explanations have been given in an attempt to resolve this apparent discrepancy of dates. However, it is important to note that Luke, who wrote much earlier than Josephus, was not able to use this Jewish historian as a source, since The Wars of the Jews was published in A.D. 77-78 and The Antiquities of the Jews was published about A.D. 94. Luke’s sources are not indicated in the book of Acts. [136]
[136] “Flavius Josephus,” F. L. Cross, and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, revised (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 759.
Some scholars believe that either Luke or Josephus was mistaken in his chronology. John Gill suggests several explanations to this text. He says that verse 36 is not a quote from Gamaliel, but rather an insert from Luke, who was writing after A.D. 45. Gill suggests that the rendering “After this man rose up Judas” could read “Besides this man rose up Judas,” or “Before this man rose up Judas.” Gill says that some scholars even suggest that the names of Theudas and Judas should be switched in order to improve the chronology of the text by making Judas come before Theudas. [137]
[137] John Gill, Acts, in John Gill’s Expositor, in e-Sword, v. 7.7.7 [CD-ROM] (Franklin, Tennessee: e-Sword, 2000-2005), comments on Acts 5:36-37.
Adam Clarke quotes Bishop Pearce as saying that Theudas and Judas were one and the same person. He bases this argument on the fact that in Scripture, Judas (not Iscariot) was also called Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus. [138] Note:
[138] Adam Clarke, The Acts of the Apostles, in Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1996), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), notes on Acts 5:36-37.
Mat 10:3, “Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus , whose surname was Thaddaeus ;”
Joh 14:22, “ Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”
Mar 3:18-19, “And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus , and Simon the Canaanite, And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him: and they went into an house.”
This would mean that the text of Act 5:36-37 refers to two events in the life of one individual.
Perhaps the most common explanation given by scholars for this discrepancy is that the name Theudas was a common name and could have referred to a difference person and a different event that occurred much earlier than A.D. 45. This explanation is supported by the fact that Josephus described Judea as a place of much insecurity, with “ten thousand other disorders” and “full of robberies.”
“Now at this time there were ten thousand other disorders in Judea, which were like tumults, because a great number put themselves into a warlike posture, either out of hopes of gain to themselves, or out of enmity to the Jews.” ( Antiquities 17.10.4)
“And now Judea was full of robberies” ( Antiquities 17.10.8)
This explanation is also supported by the fact that Josephus makes a reference to Judas the son of Hezekias ( Wars 2.4.1) and another reference to Judas the son of Jonathan ( Wars 2.17.10), both being robbers. Judas is also called a Galilean ( Wars 2.17.8) as well as a Gaulonite from a city called Gamala ( Antiquities 18.1.1). Thus, it is possible that another rebellious Theudas existed.
Horatio Hackett says, “Josephus gives an account of four men named Simon who followed each other within forty years, and of three named Judas within ten years, who were all instigators of rebellion.” [139] Origen (A.D. 185 to 254), in his work entitled Against Celsus, believed that Theudas lived before the birth of Christ and that this text is perfectly accurate the way Luke records it.
[139] Horatio B. Hackett, A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, in An American Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Alvah Hovey (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, c1882), 82.
“But since it is in the spirit of truth that we examine each passage, we shall mention that there was a certain Theudas among the Jews before the birth of Christ , who gave himself out as some great one, after whose death his deluded followers were completely dispersed. And after him, in the days of the census, when Jesus appears to have been born, one Judas, a Galilean, gathered around him many of the Jewish people, saying he was a wise man, and a teacher of certain new doctrines. And when he also had paid the penalty of his rebellion, his doctrine was overturned, having taken hold of very few persons indeed, and these of the very humblest condition.” ( Against Celsus 1.57)
Act 5:42 Comments – Act 5:42 tells us how the apostles applied the two-fold principle of teaching and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people in Jerusalem. Jesus followed this pattern of ministry wherever he went, as many other verses in the Gospels reveal.
Mat 9:35, “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”
Mat 11:1, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.”
Mar 6:6, “And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching .”
These three key words, teaching, preaching and healing, reveal the method that Jesus used when He began to minister to people. He first taught the people God’s word, then He proclaimed how God had sent Him to establish the Kingdom of God in their lives, and thirdly, He was able to heal those who received His words.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Imprisonment, Deliverance, and Defense of the Apostles.
Arrest and deliverance:
v. 17. Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
v. 18. and laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
v. 19. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison-doors, and brought them forth, and said,
v. 20. Go, stand and speak in the Temple to the people all the words of this life.
v. 21. And when they heard that, they entered into the Temple early in the morning and taught. One storm had been safely weathered, chap. 4, but a second one was coming on which would prove a little severer than the previous one. The constant growth of the congregation and the enthusiastic praise which was given to the apostles on all sides was too much for the rulers of the Jews, especially for the Sadducees with their denial of the resurrection. To them it was an abomination that the entire preaching of the Gospel was based upon the miraculous rising of Jesus from the dead. And so their party, with the high priest at its head, who most likely also belonged to this school or party, made another formal descent upon the portico of Solomon. They were not merely filled with indignation because the disciples dared to continue their preaching in the name of Jesus, but they were literally filled with angry jealousy on account of the fact that the apostles were gaining in popular favor, that the people were giving them great awe and relevance. So these leaders laid angry, forcible hands upon the apostles and placed them into the public prison with the idea of publicly defaming and degrading them. But their triumph was of short duration. For during that very night an angel of the Lord, probably one of the highest order, like Gabriel, not only opened the doors of the Temple, but also led them forth and gave them the command to go to the Temple, to stand before the people, and to speak all the words of this life, to preach the Gospel of eternal salvation. Far from being discouraged by the treatment accorded them, the apostles were to proclaim the message entrusted to them not only boldly, but also in the most public spot in all Jerusalem. He who Himself is the Resurrection and the Life wanted the Word of this life to extend its influence not only in Jerusalem, but throughout Judea and to the end of the world. So about the time of daybreak, just as soon as the Temple-doors were opened for the bringing of the morning sacrifice, the apostles went to the Temple and resumed their teaching. The more the Word of God extends its power, the more the wrath of the world and of the prince of this world is enkindled. Many a disciple of Christ has been thrown into prison on account of the name which he believed in and confessed. But the Lord was with them and helped them according to His promise. And never in the history of the Church have the true confessors permitted themselves to be deterred, either by persecution or by imprisonment, from preaching the Word which God entrusted to them.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Act 5:17. The sect of the Sadducees, The Sadducees, as they denied the resurrection from the dead, and a future state of rewards and punishments, were the most constant and implacable enemies to Christianity. Grotius and other commentators have concluded from this text, that the high-priest and his kindred were Sadducees. Josephus also affirms, that some of the high-priests were of this se
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 5:17-18 . ] The high priest stood up ; he raised himself : a graphic trait serving to illustrate his present interference. Comp. Act 6:9 , Act 23:9 ; Luk 15:18 , al. “Non sibi quiescendum ratus est,” Bengel. The , is according to Act 4:6 , Annas , not Caiaphas , although the latter was so really .
, .] and all his associates (his whole adherents, Act 5:21 ; Xen. Anab. iii. 2.11, al.), which were the sect of the Sadducees . This sect had allied itself with Annas, because the preaching of Christ as the Risen One was a grievous offence to them. See Act 4:1-2 . The participle (not is put) adjusts itself to the substantive belonging to the predicate, as is often the case in the classical writers. See Khner, 429; Stallb. ad Plat. Rep. p. 333 E, 392 D. Luke does not affirm that the high priest himself was a Sadducee, as Olshausen, Ewald, and others assert. This remark also applies in opposition to Zeller, who adduces it as an objection to the historical character of the narrator, that Luke makes Annas a Sadducee. In the Gospels also there is no trace of the Sadducaeism of Annas. According to Josephus, Antt. xx. 9. 1, he had a son who belonged to that sect.
.] . as in Act 4:3 . The public prison is called in Thuc. 5:18. 6 also merely ; and in Xen. Hist. vii. 36, .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
SECTION III
ANOTHER AND A MORE VIOLENT ASSAULT, CONDUCTED BY THE SADDUCEAN PARTY, IS FOLLOWED BY THE IMPRISONMENT OF ALL THE APOSTLES; THE MIRACULOUS DELIVERANCE OF THE LATTER, THEIR BOLD DEFENCE BEFORE THE GREAT COUNCIL, AND THE INTERVENTION OF GAMALIEL, ULTIMATELY LED (AFTER THEY HAD SUFFERED SHAME FOR THE SAKE OF JESUS), TO THEIR RELEASE.
Act 5:17-42
______
A.The Arrest of all the Apostles, who are, however, Miraculously Delivered by the Angel of the Lord; they are then Summoned to Appear before the Great Council, and Voluntarily Present themselves
Act 5:17-26
17Then [But] the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) [om. parenthetical marks] and were filled with indignation,9 18And laid their10 [om. their] hands on the apostles, and put them in the [a] common [public] prison. 19But the [an] angel of the Lord by [during the] night opened the prison doors, and brought them, forth, and said, 20Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. 21And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning [temple about daybreak], and taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate [all the elders] of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. 22But when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned and told, 23Saying, The prison truly [om. truly, ] found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without11 before [standing at] the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man [no one] within. 24Now when the high priest12 [the priest] and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of [were in doubt concerning] them whereunto this would grow [what this would become]. 25Then came one and told them, saying13, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching [are in the temple, standing and teaching] the people. 26Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without [not with] violence: for they feared the people, lest14 they should have been stoned [in order that they might not be stoned (the words: for they feared the people, viewed as a parenthetical remark)].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act 5:17-18. Then the high priest rose up prison.This second interference of the highest Jewish tribunal with respect to the affairs of the Church, is marked by increased bitterness of feeling, and may be distinctly traced to the influence of the Sadducean party. The high priest rose up, , that is, proceeded to employ active measures; Annas is, no doubt, the individual meant, according to Act 4:6, although his son-in-law Caiaphas was, at that time [Joh 11:49; Joh 18:13], actually the high priest. Those who lent him their aid, , were, preminently, the sect of the Sadducees. Luke does not say that the high priest himself belonged to that sect (and no evidence of his connection with it exists elsewhere), but simply informs us that the Sadducees coperated with him on this occasion. If Annas was a Pharisee, it is quite possible that the public appearance of the Christians as a distinct body, temporarily influenced the party feelings of the Pharisees and Sadducees, in so far at least, that the distrust with which they regarded each other, was forgotten in the presence of a common enemy. When, therefore, the Sadducean party unequivocally assumed a hostile attitude toward the apostles, the high priest was easily persuaded to become the ally of the former. As the resurrection of Jesus was the central fact to which the preaching of the apostles continually referred, the most violent opposition which they encountered, naturally proceeded precisely from the sect of the Sadducees.
Act 5:19. But the [an] angel of the Lord.In the course of the night which followed the arrest of the apostles, they were liberated by an angel who opened the doors of the prison. Interpreters who have deemed it necessary to trace this deliverance to natural causes, have suggested various agents, such as a flash of lightning, or an earthquake, or the keeper of the prison himself, or a resolute Christian. But all these explanations contradict the Scriptural narrative in direct and absolute terms; it might with equal propriety be asserted that the original facts had received legendary additions (Meyer), or that the whole narrative bore an unhistorical character (Baur; Zeller). Unless we concede the point that angels do not exist, and that, consequently, no miracles are wrought by them, the present narrative affords no grounds for the doubts of these interpreters. There are only two circumstances in the narrative which might, at first view, suggest doubts: first, when the apostles are subsequently examined in the presence of the Sanhedrin, Act 5:27 ff., no mention whatever is made of the mode in which they had been delivered from the prison. This circumstance certainly demonstrates that the account which Luke gives, is a mere summary of events, in which full details are omitted, but not that it is itself untrustworthy. Secondly, the liberation of the apostles appears to have been without a definite purpose, since they were, nevertheless, brought before the tribunal, after their escape, ver 27, and shamefully beaten, Act 5:40-41. This latter fact, however, by no means authorizes us to conclude that their deliverance had been effected without an object in view, for Luke expressly refers, Act 5:24, to the perplexity and confusion of mind which prevailed among the enemies of the apostles, when the event, occurred; with respect to them at least, the object of the miracle was attained. Further, it may be easily conceived that such a wonderful interposition of God, must have added new power to the faith of the apostles, and this effect is plainly seen in Act 5:20 ff. Lastly, when the apostles voluntarily appear before the great Council, Act 5:26-27, they occupy a very different position from that of prisoners who are carried from a place of confinement to the presence of the judges. Hence the alleged absence of an object, when the apostles were liberated during that night, is only apparent; the effects which it produced, indicate its object.
Act 5:20. Go, stand and speak.The angel directs the apostles to stand forth with freedom and boldness (), and preach publicly in the temple [, the sacred enclosure, as distinguished from the edifice itself, called ], in the presence of the people; are the words that refer to this life, this blessed life in Christ and through Christ. If an hypallage should be assumed to occur here [so that the true meaning would be thus expressed: . .], (an assumption, which, however, is by no means necessary), the meaning would be: life-words: such a conception would scarcely have been expressed by Luke, or have originated in those primitive times.
Act 5:21-23. But the high priest came.While the apostles were teaching in the temple, the high priest and his followers called a meeting of the whole Sanhedrin, for the purpose of instituting legal proceedings against the apostles. The expression . ., cannot, however, be reasonably understood as designating any others than the mentioned in Act 4:5. Meyer and Stier, it is true; assign the utmost latitude of meaning to the words, and suppose that the entire college or body of the elders is here meant. The sense would then be, that an extraordinary session of the Sanhedrin was held, at which even those elders of the people, who were not regular members of it, also assisted. Such additions to the actual members of the Council, are not recorded elsewhere, and the Sanhedrin uniformly bears the name of in the Second Book of the Maccabees. That a tautology occurs in the present passage must be admitted, but the cause may be readily found in the purpose of the writer to indicate distinctly that the whole number of the members was present at the meeting [i.e. the council and all the senate, equivalent to: the council, including all the elders who were members of it.].
Act 5:24-25. Now when heard these things.The title doubtless designates the high priest himself, and are high priests in the wider sense of the term [that is, predecessors of the high priest, who retained the title, and also the heads of the twenty-four sacerdotal classes, or courses, 1Ch 24:1-19; 2Ch 8:14; Luk 1:5.Tr.]. The captain of the temple-guard, who was, no doubt, himself a priest, may have been personally engaged in effecting the arrest of the apostles; comp. Act 4:1 ff.
Act 5:26. Then went the captain.The captain of the temple now conducted the apostles to the place in which the Sanhedrin was assembled, but without offering personal constraint; his motive in avoiding violent measures is indicated in the words: . These words are much more naturally connected with . than with . Even if instances can be produced from Greek writers who employed the Attic dialect, in which is connected with , , the passive verb seems to indicate that the former construction was really intended; the words . . . may, without any difficulty be regarded as parenthetical.The popular feeling which was manifested on this occasion, is truly remarkable. The guard must have considered it a possible event, that they would be stoned by the people, if they resorted to violence in their treatment of the apostles. The popular favor which the apostles enjoyed, had undoubtedly reached its culminating point at this time. The sources from which it proceeded, are readily ascertained: many benefits had been conferred, not simply on individuals, but on entire families whose sick relatives had been healed; and then, the apostles had been imprisoned on the previous day, but had been liberated, not by human aid, but by a direct interposition of God. We may conjecture that the latter circumstance inspired the apostles with unusual confidence, and augmented the power of their language when they addressed the people.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Christ is our Redeemer, preminently as the Crucified One, [1Co 2:2], and the cross is the mark by which the Gospel is recognized; so, too, the history of the apostles and of the primitive church exhibits a development which proceeded under the sign of the cross. Every blessing was succeeded by a trial, either originating in the bosom of the church [Act 5:1 ff.], or produced by external causes. But the richest and most glorious consolations which the devout receive from heaven, are also imparted to them only under the cross.
2. The angel of the Lord here acts as a minister, not only of God the Father in his government of the world, but also of the exalted Son of God; he exerts an influence on occurrences in civil and daily life, but, at the same time, also on the progress of the kingdom of God, that is, the development of the church of Christ.
3. The angel encourages the apostles to speak all the words of this life. He belongs to the celestial world, in which death is not known; he neither manifests an interest, nor does he actively participate, in aught else, save that which is called life, and which possesses life. Hence the angels appeared in large numbers at the birth of the Redeemer, who is the life of the world, and at his resurrection, which was the most glorious manifestation of his life, and of his victory over death. The angels rejoice over one sinner that repenteth [Luk 15:7; Luk 15:10]; they take pleasure only in those words which refer to the life that was manifested [1Jn 1:2], and that imparts life to the world; such words alone claim their active and efficient aid.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Act 5:17. Then the high priest rose up.When the Lord arises to build up Zion [Psa 102:16] through the instrumentality of his servants, the enemy also arises, in order to employ his servants in hindering the work, (Ap. Past.).The sect of the Sadducees.The carnal and sinful life of the Sadducees, both of ancient and of modern times, is sluggish, as long as the Spirit of God, and his warning messages, are withheld. But when the disciples of Christ, filled with the Holy Ghost, bear witness against that carnal life by their words and their deeds, it is at once aroused, openly avows its hostility, and manifests a Satanic zeal in its opposition to God and his Gospel. How often, since that day, the Sadducean Annas, who lives after the flesh even when he assumes the Christian name, has attempted to bind believers and their faith with chains! (Leonh. and Sp.).And were filled with indignation.The servants of Christ are filled with the Holy Ghost; his enemies with a hellish zeal [; Germ. version: Eifer]!A holy zeal, and a wicked zeal: I. The objects of each; II. The manifestation of each. [Gal 4:17-18].
Act 5:18. Put them in the common prison.The bonds and chains by which men are confined for Christs sake, are truly honorable badges. (Quesn.).
Act 5:19. But the angel of the Lord.There is a divine But, which often disconcerts the plans of men. When the latter have matured their evil counsels, this But defeats them all. Joseph says to his brethren; Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. David complains in the second Psalm: The rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed; but He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. (Ahlfeld.)By night opened the prison doors.Affliction is not of long continuance; be not dismayed, thou sorrowing soul! Weeping may endure for a night, but joy Cometh in the morning. Psa 30:5.No bars nor bolts are so strong, that the Lord cannot open a passage for his servants. There are no sorrows so profound, no burdens so heavy, that the Lord cannot, in his own appointed time, give relief to the soul.But He who holds the key which opens the prison doors of his servants, holds also the key of hell and death, yea, the key of heaven and eternal life. (Ap. Past.).The angels of God, ministering unto our salvation, [Heb 1:14]: as, I. Friends of the devout; II. Guardians at night; III. Deliverers from danger; IV. Leaders in the path of duty, Act 5:20; V. Messengers of heavenly life in the world, Act 5:20; VI. Guides to heavenly life and eternal joy.How precious man is in the sight of God, since an entire invisible world is at hand, and ready to afford him aid in seeking salvation! How full of comfort the assurance is, that they that be with us, are more than they that be against us [2Ki 6:16]. (Fr. Arndt.)Brought them forth.A strange beginning, but a glorious end! Thou sayest: The course of events is wonderful; what will the issue be? We reply: Unquestionably, it is wonderful, but is not God He who doeth wonders? (H. Mller).
Act 5:20. Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people.The angel does not say: Go, seek concealment!butGo, and stand forth! He does not say: Speak to your own company!butSpeak in the temple to the people! Such a commission is suited, not to men who confer with flesh and blood [Gal 1:16], but to those, who, at all times, promptly respond: Lord, at thy word! (Luk 5:5). These are the men through whom God accomplishes his great designs. (Williger).All the words of this life.The word of Christ, demonstrated in the history of the apostles as a word of life: by the power of that word, they, I. Were endowed with a divine life in the soul; II. Communicated a new life to the world; III. Joyfully ventured their temporal life; IV. Triumphantly gained eternal life.
Act 5:23. We found no man within.Every persecution which believers endure for Christs sake, ultimately glorifies Him in them: I. Where Christ appears, the power of his life is speedily manifested, Act 5:16; II. The enemy, to whom that life is invisible (Act 5:17), attempts to fetter it, Act 5:18; III. But it is ultimately revealed in all its glorious freedom and power, Act 5:19-23. (Ahlfeld.).Praise thy God, O Zion! I. Out of Zion God hath shined, [Psa 50:2,] Act 5:16; II. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their king, [Psa 149:2] Act 5:17-18; III. The Redeemer shall come to Zion, [Isa 59:20] Act 5:19 ff. (Leupold).
Act 5:24. They doubted of them where-unto this would grow.How salutary this alarm of the enemies of the Lord might have been, if they had been willing to recognize the mighty hand of God, and bow in submission before his majesty and power! (Ap. Past.).
Act 5:25. Then came one and told them.When an injury is to be inflicted on Christ and his people, a Judas can always be found.
Act 5:26. They feared the people.Godliness converts men into heroes; ungodliness, into cowards. (Starke).The Lord glorified alike in the joys and the sorrows of his servants: I. In the blessing which attends their labors; II. In the trials which accompany that blessing; III. In the protection which he grants to his suffering servants. (Langbein).How the Lord builds up his church by his protecting care in seasons of persecution: I. He permits its enemies to rage, so that their unholy passions may demonstrate the innocence of his persecuted people; II. He opens a pathway for his messengers, so that their successful labors may reveal the helplessness of its enemies. (Lisco).
Footnotes:
[9]Act 5:17. [For indignation (Tyndale; Cranmer; Geneva), the margin offers (as in Wiclif) the word envy. The word () necessarily suggests the ideas of zeal, party spirit; and indignant jealousy or envy, etc. (J. A. Alex.); Hackett, who refers to Act 13:45, where the same word is translated envy, here prefers indignation.Tr.]
[10]Act 5:18. is wanting in important MSS. and versions [A. B. D., Cod. Sin., Syr., Vulg., etc.,], and is, without doubt, an addition made by a copyist. [Found in E; omitted by Lach., Tisch., Alf.Tr.]
[11]Act 5:23. is undoubtedly an interpolation, and was suggested by , which afterwards occurs, in the same verse. It is not found in any of the more important MSS.; [omitted in A. B. D. E., Cod. Sin., Vulg., and by Alf. as a gloss]. [before .] is supported by the authority of the most important MSS. [by A. B. D. Cod. Sin.]; [of the text, rec., and found in E.] is a later correction, and was substituted as a more descriptive word.
[12]Act 5:24. [of the text. rec.] is wanting in many MSS. and versions, among which are some of the more important [A. B. D. Cod. Sin., Vulg., etc.]; but it was unquestionably cancelled [by copyists] simply for the reason that its presence in connection with in the same clause was not comprehended. If it had not been originally employed in the text, it would certainly never have been inserted by a later hand. [No uncial MS. exhibits it; E reads ; it is omitted by Lach. and Tisch., but retained by Alf., and advocated by Meyer and de Wette, on the ground that the great variety of readings, intended as corrections, indicates its original presence.Tr.]
[13]Act 5:25. [ after , inserted in the text. rec. is omitted in A. D. E. Cod. Sin. Vulg., and cancelled by recent editors, including Stier.Tr.]
[14]Act 5:26. Lachmann [but not Tisch.] omits , following the authority of several MSS., and assuming that is connected with , in which case, would be inaccurate. [If is retained, the phrase: . depends upon ; it is omitted in B. D. E. Cod. Sin., but found in A., and retained by Alf.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation, (18) And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. (19) But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, (20) Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. (21) 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 prison to have them brought. (22) But when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told, (23) 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 within. (24) Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow. (25) Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. (26) Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. (27) And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, (28) Saying, 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 men. (30) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. (31) Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. (32) 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. (34) Then 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 touching these men. (36) For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to naught. (37) After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. (38) And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: (39) But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. (40) 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 worthy to suffer shame for his name. (42) And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
Let the Reader in this place remark again, what hath been often noticed before in this Poor Man’s Commentary, the hardened state of the mind, which nothing short of sovereign grace can cure. And in persons of the characters here spoken of, for whom no provision is made in a grace-union with Christ, the thing is impossible, 2Ti 3:13 ; 2Th 2:11-12 . And solemn as the subject is, yet we see in the history of the characters here shewn, the righteous judgment of God in the appointment. The everlasting hatred they manifested to Christ while upon earth, and now to his Apostles and followers after his departure, shutting up their minds against all conviction most plainly testified the influence of Satan upon their hearts. The Lord leaving all such to their own perverse wills, can be no impeachment of his justice. The Apostle hath very fully shewn this, in his opening of the Epistle to the Romans. As they did not (saith the Apostle) like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, Rom 1:28 . This was only leaving a cause to produce its own natural effects. This was but suffering them to remain in that state of unbelief and ignorance, which by their own obduracy they have brought upon themselves, and of consequence will be found in at Christ’s second coming.
The opening the prison doors to the Apostles, and bringing them out, might have taught them, would they have listened to the loud voice accompanying the sovereign act, that the miracle was of God. And those Apostles not running away when brought out, as is the case with ordinary prisoners, carried a further conviction under whose protection they were. But all lose their effect with such hardened minds as are resolutely bent to resist all persuasion. Hence a judicial blindness follows. Israel, (that is, professing Israel, Rom 9:6-7 .) would name of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lusts, and they walked in their own counsels, Psa 81:11-12 .
There is somewhat very sweet and striking in the angel’s precept to the Apostles, Go, stand and speak in the temple, to the people, all the words of this life. Not, go, and hide yourself from the fury of your enemies. Not, go, and be idle, and give over what will expose you to persecution. But, go into the most public place, the temple, stand with firmness and intrepidity, and speak to the people, the Lord’s people, the people whom Jehovah hath formed for himself, they shall shew forth his praise, Isa 43:21 , all the words of this life, even eternal life, yea, Christ himself, who is life eternal: for he is the life and the light of men. By him, life and immortality is brought to light. For He it is, that by his incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection, hath destroyed death, spiritual death, and eternal death. And by the life, both spiritual and eternal, which in his own life-giving, soul-renewing communication, as an Head to his members, he communicates to his whole body the Church, he quickens them from sin to salvation here in grace; and from death to life hereafter in glory. Go stand and speak to the people all the words of this life!
I pray the Reader to remark the firmness of the Apostles: But let him not fail to keep always in remembrance the cause. Oh! what strength cannot the Lord impart; yea, what strength will he not impart to his people, when his glory, and his Church’s welfare, are concerned?
I must not stay to enter into particulars concerning the history here recorded, of the faithfulness of the Apostles, and the malice of their persecutors. Indeed the whole is so sweetly and plainly related, that it can need no comment. Let the Reader not fail to observe, how Peter harps in all his discourses, on Covenant love, while he so often calls upon those he addressed, to attend to what the Lord Jehovah hath done, in this grand concern, as the God of our fathers. And how blessedly he points to Jesus, as a risen, and an ascended Prince and Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. So that Jehovah’s Covenant-love, and the Redeemer’s fulness of grace, finally leaves all without excuse, who neglect so great salvation!
The indignation of the Council, the advice of Gamaliel, the beating of the Apostles, and the command with which they suffered them to depart, no more to speak in the name of Jesus; these open large subjects for improvement: and I pray the Lord the Spirit to give both to the Writer and the Reader of this Poor Man’s Commentary, grace so to gather sweet instruction from the perusal. But I must not enlarge.
One point more, I would call upon the Reader particularly to notice in this Chapter; namely, the Apostles departing from the presence of the Council, when stripes had been laid upon them, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. And so far were they from being overawed by the threats of their enemies, or paying the least respect to their commands, that daily in the temple, and from house to house, they ceased not to teach, and to preach Jesus Christ.
Reader! can your mind furnish to itself anything more lovely, than such a view of primitive faithfulness, in those first earnest laborers in the Church! They were nothing intimidated by their adversaries, nothing terrified or distressed. Both publicly in the temple, and in every private house wheresoever they came; not Lord’s days only, but every day; and not now and then, but unweariedly, their teaching, as well as their preaching, was all of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus was with them, both text and sermon; they found enough in him for endless discourse. Oh! that those glorious days would return, when Christ and Christ alone, Jehovah’s Christ, and Jehovah’s chosen, may fill every pulpit, occupy every house, warm every heart, and flow from every tongue, in his Churches, and among his people! Lord! the Spirit, in mercy to thy Church, hasten the hour, when, the Redeemer shall arise out of Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob! Come my beloved, (saith the Church,) and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
Ver. 17. With indignation ] Gr. With zeal: but it was that bitter zeal, Jas 3:14 , that grows not but in Satan’s gardens.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 42. ] IMPRISONMENT, MIRACULOUS LIBERATION, EXAMINATION BEFORE THE SANHEDRIM, AND SCOURGING OF THE APOSTLES.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
17. ] is not redundant, but implies being excited by the popularity of the Apostles, and on that account commencing a course of action hostile to them: see reff. (‘Non sibi quiescendum ratus est.’ Beng. , Chrys.) To suppose that the H. P. ‘rose up’ after a council held (Meyer) is far-fetched, and against the , which points to the kindling zeal of men first stirred up to action.
.] Annas, ch. Act 4:6 , and note on Luk 3:2 .
] those who were with him (see ch. Act 4:13 ; Act 19:38 ; Act 22:9 ). Not the members of the Sanhedrim : but the friends and kindred (ch. Act 4:6 ) of the H. P .: see Act 5:21 ; Kuinoel’s ‘qui a partibus ejus stabaut’ is too definite (De W.): it was so , but this meaning is not in the words.
] attr., but implying more than . .: the movement extended through the whole sect . On . . . , see Mat 3:7 , note. The passage of Josephus, Antiq. xx. 9. 1, is worth transcribing: (Nero) . , . , , , . , , , . , , , . This shews that the family of Annas, if not he himself, were connected with the sect of the Sadducees. They (see ch. Act 4:1 , note) were the chief enemies of the Apostles, for teaching the resurrection .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 5:17 . , see on Act 1:15 , cf. Act 6:9 : it may denote a hostile intention (but need not force this), Mar 3:26 , Luk 10:35 , Mat 12:41 , in LXX, Job 16:8 ; see Overbeck, Blass, Weiss; ., i.e. , Annas not Caiaphas, Act 4:6 . : the context seems to imply that more are included than referred to in Act 4:6 . (= ), a rare employment of the relative in the N.T., but found in Luke and Paul, most of all in the latter; cf. Act 16:12 , 1Co 3:17 , Gal 3:16 , Eph 3:13 , Act 6:2 , Phi 1:28 , etc. ( cf. Rev 4:5 ; Rev 5:9 ); Viteau, Le Grec du N. T. , p. 192 (1896). : (1) a choosing, choice, so in classical writers, cf. also LXX, Lev 22:18 ; Lev 22:21 , 1Ma 8:30 ; (2) that which is chosen, a chosen method of thought and action; (3) later, a philosophic principle; those who have chosen certain principles, a school, a sect, so six times in Acts. It is used thrice elsewhere in N.T., 1Co 11:29 , Gal 5:20 , 2Pe 2:1 in the plural, of factions or parties within the Church; in its later ecclesiastical use, applied to doctrines, “heresies,” which tended to cause separation from the Church. The word need not therefore be used in a bad sense, although it is so used of the Nazarenes, cf. Act 24:5 ; Act 24:14 , Act 28:22 , whilst on the other hand St. Paul uses it of the Pharisees, Act 26:5 ( cf. Act 15:5 ), in no depreciatory sense ( cf. its use by Josephus of the Sadducees, Ant. , xx., 9, 1). Lumby gives a disparaging use of the word in Apocr. Act. Phil. in Hellad. , 10, see his note. It is not expressly said by St. Luke that Annas was a Sadducee, although he seems to imply it. But this is not in itself inconceivable (see Act 4:1 ) in spite of the strictures of Zeller and Overbeck; Josephus distinctly says, u. s. , that the son of Annas who bore his father’s name was of the sect of the Sadducees, and if he mentions this as something peculiar, and as showing why the younger Annas was so bold and insolent (Zeller, cf. Nsgen’s note, in loco ), yet there is no difficulty in supposing that the elder Annas was at least associated with the Sadducees if only for political reasons. : jealousy, R.V., so rightly A.V in Act 13:45 ; Wycliffe “envy,” cf. Rom 13:13 , 1Co 3:3 , 2Co 11:2 , Gal 5:20 , Jas 3:14 ; Jas 3:16 , Clem. Rom., Cor [177] , iii. 4 and iv vi ( cf. Num 25:10-11 , 1Ma 8:16 , , and 2:54, 58, Psal ms of Solomon 2:27) , and in some places of the jealousy which God has, as in 2Co 11:2 , Num 25:10-11 , and cf. Psalms of Solomon Act 2:27 , Act 4:2 , 1Ma 2:54 . But is capable only of an evil signification. By Aristotle is used in its nobler sense ( Rhet. , ii., 11), as opposed to , but it seems to be used by other writers as = or coupled with it. The meaning is defined by the context. Trench, N. T. Synonyms , i., 99. Here the envy and jealousy of the Sanhedrim was provoked by the popular favour shown to the disciples, and hence to their doctrine of the resurrection.
[177] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Acts
WHOM TO OBEY,-ANNAS OR ANGEL?
Act 5:17 – Act 5:32
The Jewish ecclesiastics had been beaten in the first round of the fight, and their attempt to put out the fire had only stirred the blaze. Popular sympathy is fickle, and if the crowd does not shout with the persecutors, it will make heroes and idols of the persecuted. So the Apostles had gained favour by the attempt to silence them, and that led to the second round, part of which is described in this passage.
The first point to note is the mean motives which influenced the high-priest and his adherents. As before, the Sadducees were at the bottom of the assault; for talk about a resurrection was gall and wormwood to them. But Luke alleges a much more contemptible emotion than zeal for supposed truth as the motive for action. The word rendered in the Authorised Version ‘indignation,’ is indeed literally ‘zeal,’ but it here means, as the Revised Version has it, nothing nobler than ‘jealousy.’ ‘Who are those ignorant Galileans that they should encroach on the office of us dignified teachers? and what fools the populace must be to listen to them! Our prestige is threatened. If we don’t bestir ourselves, our authority will be gone.’ A lofty spirit in which to deal with grave movements of opinion, and likely to lead its possessors to discern truth!
The Sanhedrin, no doubt, talked solemnly about the progress of error, and the duty of firmly putting it down, and, like Jehu, said, ‘Come, and see our zeal for the Lord’; but it was zeal for greetings in the marketplace, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the other advantages of their position. So it has often been since. The instruments which zeal for truth uses are argument, Scripture, and persuasion. That zeal which betakes itself to threats and force is, at the best, much mingled with the wrath and jealousy of man.
The arrest of the Apostles and their committal to prison was simply for detention, not punishment. The rulers cast their net wider this time, and secured all the Apostles, and, having them safe under lock and key, they went home triumphant, and expecting to deal a decisive blow to-morrow. Then comes one of the great ‘buts’ of Scripture. Annas and Caiaphas thought that they had scored a success, but an angel upset their calculations. To try to explain the miracle away is hopeless. It is wiser to try to understand it.
The very fact that it did not lead to the Apostles’ deliverance, but that the trial and scourging followed next day, just as if it had not happened, which has been alleged as a proof of its uselessness, and inferentially of its falsehood, puts us on the right track. It was not meant for their deliverance, but for their heartening, and for the bracing of all generations of Christians, by showing, at the first conflict with the civil power, that the Lord was with His Church. His strengthening power is operative when no miracle is wrought. If His servants are not delivered, it is not that He lacks angels, but that it is better for them and the Church that they should lie in prison or die at the stake.
The miracle was a transient revelation of a perpetual truth, and has shed light on many a dark dungeon where God’s servants have lain rotting. It breathed heroic constancy into the Twelve. How striking and noble was their prompt obedience to the command to resume the perilous work of preaching! As soon as the dawn began to glimmer over Olivet, and the priests were preparing for the morning sacrifice, there were these irrepressible disturbers, whom the officials thought they had shut up safely last night, lifting up their voices again as if nothing had happened. What a picture of dauntless persistence, and what a lesson for us! The moment the pressure is off, we should spring back to our work of witnessing for Christ.
The bewilderment of the Council comes in strong contrast with the unhesitating action of the Apostles. There is a half ludicrous side to it, which Luke does not try to hide. There was the pompous assembling of all the great men at early morning, and their dignified waiting till their underlings brought in the culprits. No doubt, Annas put on his severest air of majesty, and all were prepared to look their sternest for the confusion of the prisoners. The prison, the Temple, and the judgment hall, were all near each other. So there was not long to wait. But, behold! the officers come back alone, and their report shakes the assembly out of its dignity. One sees the astonished underlings coming up to the prison, and finding all in order, the sentries patrolling, the doors fast so the angel had shut them as well as opened them, and then entering ready to drag out the prisoners, and-finding all silent. Such elaborate guard kept over an empty cage!
It was not the officers’ business to offer explanations, and it does not seem that any were asked. One would have thought that the sentries would have been questioned. Herod went the natural way to work, when he had Peter’s guards examined and put to death. But Annas and his fellows do not seem to have cared to inquire how the escape had been made. Possibly they suspected a miracle, or perhaps feared that inquiry might reveal sympathisers with the prisoners among their own officials. At any rate, they were bewildered, and lost their heads, wondering what was to come next, and how this thing was to end.
The further news that these obstinate fanatics were at their old work in the Temple again, must have greatly added to the rulers’ perplexity, and they must have waited the return of the officers sent off for the second time to fetch the prisoners, with somewhat less dignity than before. The officers felt the pulse of the crowd, and did not venture on force, from wholesome fear for their own skins. An excited mob in the Temple court was not to be trifled with, so persuasion was adopted. The brave Twelve went willingly, for the Sanhedrin had no terrors for them, and by going they secured another opportunity of ringing out their Lord’s salvation. Wherever a Christian can witness for Christ, he should be ready to go.
The high-priest discreetly said nothing about the escape. Possibly he had no suspicion of a miracle, but, even if he had, Act 4:16 shows that that would not have led to any modification of his hostility. Persecutors, clothed with a little brief authority, are strangely blind to the plainest indications of the truth spoken by their victims. Annas did not know what a question about the escape might bring out, so he took the safer course of charging the Twelve with disobedience to the Sanhedrin’s prohibition. How characteristic of all his kind that is! Never mind whether what the martyr says is true or not. He has broken our law, and defied our authority; that is enough. Are we to be chopping logic, and arguing with every ignorant upstart who chooses to vent his heresies? Gag him,-that is easier and more dignified.
A world of self-consequence peeps out in that ‘ we straitly charged you,’ and a world of contempt peeps out in the avoidance of naming Jesus. ‘This name’ and ‘this man’ is the nearest that the proud priest will come to soiling his lips by mentioning Him. He bears unconscious testimony to the Apostles’ diligence, and to the popular inclination to them, by charging them with having filled the city with what he contemptuously calls ‘ your teaching,’ as if it had no other source than their own ignorant notions.
Then the deepest reason for the Sanhedrin’s bitterness leaks out in the charge of inciting the mob to take vengeance on them for the death of Jesus. It was true that the Apostles had charged that guilt home on them, but not on them only, but on the whole nation, so that no incitement to revenge lay in the charge. It was true that they had brought ‘this man’s blood’ on the rulers, but only to draw them to repentance, not to hound at them their sharers in the guilt. Had Annas forgot ‘His blood be on us, and on our children’? But, when an evil deed is complete, the doers try to shuffle off the responsibility which they were ready to take in the excitement of hurrying to do it. Annas did not trouble himself about divine vengeance; it was the populace whom he feared.
So, in its attempt to browbeat the accused, in its empty airs of authority, in its utter indifference to the truth involved, in its contempt for the preachers and their message, in its brazen denial of responsibility, its dread of the mob, and its disregard of the far-off divine judgment, his bullying speech is a type of how persecutors, from Roman governors down, have hectored their victims.
And Peter’s brave answer is, thank God! the type of what thousands of trembling women and meek men have answered. His tone is severer now than on his former appearance. Now he has no courteous recognition of the court’s authority. Now he brushes aside all Annas’s attempts to impose on him the sanctity of its decrees, and flatly denies that the Council has any more right to command than any other ‘men.’ They claimed to be depositaries of God’s judgments. This revolutionary fisherman sees nothing in them but ‘men,’ whose commands point one way, while God’s point the other. The angel bade them ‘speak’; the Council had bid them be dumb. To state the opposition was to determine their duty. Formerly Peter had said ‘judge ye’ which command it is right to obey. Now, he wraps his refusal in no folds of courtesy, but thrusts the naked ‘We must obey God’ in the Council’s face. That was a great moment in the history of the world and the Church. How much lay in it, as in a seed,-Luther’s ‘Here I stand, I can do none other. God help me! Amen’; Plymouth Rock, and many a glorious and blood-stained page in the records of martyrdom.
Peter goes on to vindicate his assumption that in disobeying Annas they are obeying God, by reiterating the facts which since Pentecost he had pressed on the national conscience. Israel had slain, and God had exalted, Jesus to His right hand. That was God’s verdict on Israel’s action. But it was also the ground of hope for Israel; for the exaltatior of Jesus was that He might be ‘Prince [or Leader] and Saviour,’ and from His exalted hand were shed the gifts of ‘repentance and remission of sins,’ even of the great sin of slaying Him. These things being so, how could the Apostles be silent? Had not God bid them speak, by their very knowledge of these? They were Christ’s witnesses, constituted as such by their personal acquaintance with Him and their having seen Him raised and ascending, and appointed to be such by His own lips, and inspired for their witnessing by the Holy Spirit shed on them at Pentecost. Peter all but reproduces the never-to-be-forgotten words heard by them all in the upper room, ‘He shall bear witness of Me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.’ Silence would be treason. So it is still. What were Annas and his bluster to men whom Christ had bidden to speak, and to whom He had given the Spirit of the Father to speak in them?
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 5:17-26
17But the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. 18They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail. 19But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out he said, 20″Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.” 21Upon hearing this, they entered into the temple about daybreak and began to teach. Now when the high priest and his associates came, they called the Council together, even all the Senate of the sons of Israel, and sent orders to the prison house for them to be brought. 22But the officers who came did not find them in the prison; and they returned and reported back, 23saying, “We found the prison house locked quite securely and the guards standing at the doors; but when we had opened up, we found no one inside.” 24Now when the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them as to what would come of this. 25But someone came and reported to them, “The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!” 26Then the captain went along with the officers and proceeded to bring them back without violence (for they were afraid of the people, that they might be stoned).
Act 5:17 “they were filled with jealousy” The Greek word simply means “to boil.” Therefore, context must tell us it is zealousness or jealousy. This shows the true motivation of the religious leaders, jealousy! In Luke’s Gospel Jesus’ main enemies were the Pharisees, but in Acts His followers’ main enemies were the Sadducees.
The verb “filled” is used in a variety of ways by Luke to show what characterizes or describes a person or personified entity.
1. John the Baptist, even before his birth, was filled with the Holy Spirit Luk 1:15
2. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit Luk 1:41
3. Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit Luk 1:61
4. all in the Synagogue who heard Jesus speak were filled with rage Luk 4:28
5. those in the house where the paralytic was lowered through the roof were filled with fear Luk 5:26
6. Pharisees and Scribes traveling with Jesus on a Sabbath were filled with rage Luk 6:11
7. those in the upper room on Pentecost were filled with the Holy Spirit Act 2:4
8. those who heard Peter speak in the temple were filled with amazement Act 3:10
9. Peter speaking before the Sanhedrin was filled with the Holy Spirit Act 4:8
10. all in the upper room were filled with the Holy Spirit Act 4:31
11. Satan filled Ananias’ and Sapphira’s hearts Act 5:3
12. Peter and John spoke to the Sanhedrin again and they were filled with jealousy Act 5:17
13. Jerusalem filled with the gospel Act 5:28
14. the seven full of the Spirit and wisdom Act 6:3
15. Stephen full of faith and the Holy Spirit Act 6:5; Act 6:8; Act 7:55
16. Ananias lays hands on Saul/Paul and he is filled with the Holy Spirit Act 9:17
17. Paul preaches filled with the Spirit Act 13:9
18. Jews in the crowd who Paul preached to were filled with jealousy Act 13:45
19. the disciples were continually filled with joy and the Holy Spirit Act 13:52
20. Ephesus was filled with confusion Act 19:29
In the presence of the gospel what are you “filled” with?
Act 5:18 These first chapters in Acts show the problems faced by the early church. The problems differ from age to age, culture to culture, but God is for us, with us, and empowers us to overcome. Nothingprison, attempted humiliation, threats, etc.can rob believers of the presence and peace of Christ (cf. Rom 8:31-39).
Act 5:19 “an angel of the Lord” This phrase is used two ways in the OT.
1. an angel (cf. Gen 24:7; Gen 24:40; Exo 23:20-23; Exo 32:34; Num 22:22; Jdg 5:23; 1Sa 24:16; 1Ch 21:15 ff; Zech. 1:28)
2. as a way of referring to YHWH (cf. Gen 16:7-13; Gen 22:11-15; Gen 31:11; Gen 31:13; Gen 48:15-16; Exo 3:2; Exo 3:4; Exo 13:21; Exo 14:19; Jdg 2:1; Jdg 6:22-24; Jdg 13:3-23; Zec 3:1-2)
Luke uses the phrase often (cf. Luk 1:11; Luk 1:13; Luk 2:9; Act 5:19; Act 7:30; Act 8:26; Act 12:7; Act 12:11; Act 12:23; Act 10:3; Act 27:23), but in the sense of #1 above. The NT does not use sense #2, except in Act 8:26; Act 8:29, where, “an angel of the Lord” is paralleled to the Holy Spirit.
“opened the gates of the prison” This is similar to Paul and Silas’ experience at Philippi (cf. Act 16:26). In many ways the life of Peter is paralleled in Paul. This may have been Luke’s literary intentionality.
Act 5:20 “Go, stand and speak” These function as three imperatives.
1. Go, present middle (deponent) imperative
2. Stand, aorist passive participle used as an imperative (Friberg’s, Analytical Greek New Testament, p. 379)
3. Speak, present active imperative
The angel had an evangelistic mission for the early church (and for today’s church).
“speak to the people” This was the major thrust of the Apostles’ ministry. Boldness (see Special Topic at Act 4:29), not fear, characterizes their new spirit-filled lives.
NASB”the whole message of the Life”
NKJV”all the words of this life”
NRSV”the whole message about this life”
TEV”all about this new life”
NJB”all about this new Life”
This phrase is speaking about the new life (ze, eternal life) found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They had been freed both spiritually (salvation) and physically (out of prison). Now they were to tell all to all (cf. Mat 28:18-20; Luk 24:47; Act 1:8)!
Act 5:21 Notice that being supernaturally freed did not imply that they would not be imprisoned again. Even God’s provision does not mean that all difficulties will be solved or removed in ministry (cf. Mat 5:10-12; Rom 8:17; 1Pe 4:12-16)
“the Council. . .the Senate of the sons of Israel” See Special Topic: Sanhedrin at Act 4:5. To whom does “the Senate” refer? Curtis Vaughan, in Acts, pp. 39-40, says it was the elders of Jerusalem who were not members of the Sanhedrin at that present time (cf. M. R. Vincent, Word Studies, Vol. 1, p. 234), but the NASB and NIV translations assume that Council and Senate are synonymous.
Act 5:23 “locked” This is a perfect passive participle. The idea was that the prison doors were secure and the guards set (perfect active participle), but the prisoners were gone.
Act 5:24 “they were greatly perplexed” Luke uses this term several times. It is an intensified form of apore (cf. Luk 24:4; Act 25:20) with dia (cf. Luk 9:7; Act 2:12; Act 5:24; Act 10:17). Its basic meaning is doubt, uncertainty, or perplexity.
“as to what would come of this” The grammatical form of the phrase is an incomplete Fourth class conditional sentence (an plus aorist middle [deponent] optative). The optative mood expresses perplexity (cf. Luk 1:61-62; Luk 3:15; Luk 8:9; Luk 15:26; Luk 22:23; Act 5:24; Act 8:31; Act 10:17; Act 21:33, see James Allen Hewett, New Testament Greek, p. 195).
Act 5:26 “they were afraid of the people, that they might be stoned” This showed the popularity of the early church (cf. Act 5:13; Act 2:47; Act 4:21) and the source of the continuing jealousy of the Jewish leaders.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Then = But.
high priest. Greek. archiereus.
rose up. App-178. See Act 5:6.
sect. Greek. hairesis = a choosing, hence “heresy”. Occurs here Act 15:5; Act 24:5, Act 24:14; Act 26:5; Act 28:22. 1Co 11:19. Gal 1:5, Gal 1:20. 2Pe 2:1.
Sadducees. App-120. Compare Act 4:1.
indignation. Greek. zelos. Only other occurance in Acts in Act 13:45. Used in a good sense in Joh 2:17. 2Co 11:2, &c.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17-42.] IMPRISONMENT, MIRACULOUS LIBERATION, EXAMINATION BEFORE THE SANHEDRIM, AND SCOURGING OF THE APOSTLES.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 5:17. , having risen up) He thought that he ought not to remain quiet.- , of the Sadducees) Many gathered themselves together to these, so as that they might the more assail the resurrection of Jesus Christ.-, with indignation or angry zeal) The impotence of this feeling is made apparent by their whole proceeding.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Act 5:17-25
PETER AND JOHN IMPRISONED AGAIN
Act 5:17-25
17 But the high priest rose up,-Here we see another step taken by the enemies of the early church. Peter and John had been thrust into prison overnight to await their trial in the morning. (Act 4:3.) The high priest was probably Annas, who is named as high priest (Act 4:6), or it may have been Caiaphas, who was acting high priest at the time by Roman authority. According to the law, Annas was high priest until his death. (Num 35:25 Num 35:28 Num 35:32.) Rose up has been variously interpreted ; some think that it simply means to rise from ones seat or bed (Mat 9:9; Mar 1:35; Luk 4:29); others give it a figurative meaning as to be raised from the dead (Mat 17:9; Mar 6:14; Luk 9:8); still others give it the meaning to follow a course without giving some reason for doing so. It seems here that this is the meaning; Annas with the Sadducees, who were opposed to the resurrection from the dead, began anew the persecution of the apostles. Sect of the Sadducees means those who taught against the resurrection and held to other tenets of faith. Sect comes from hairesis, which means to choose an opinion, parties, factions. (1Co 11:19; Gal 5:20.) It is also applied to the Pharisees (Act 15:5 Act 26:5) and to Christians (Act 24:5-14 Act 28:22).
18 and laid hands on the apostles,-Peter and John were arrested and this time they were put in public ward; that is, in the public prison. They were not put in prison for punishment, but for detention until they could be examined; however, they were made to associate with all sorts of criminals in this prison. The arrest is described in the same words as before-laid hands on them. (Act 4:3.)
19 But an angel of the Lord by night-This is put in contrast with what the high priest and Sadducees did for them; they put them in prison, but an angel of the Lord visited, comforted, and delivered them. There are at least six distinct acts ascribed to angels by Luke in the Acts. (5: 19; 8: 26; 10: 3; 12: 7, 23; 27: 23.) Angel is found twenty times in Acts. The angel here opened the prison doors and released the apostles. This act on the part of the angel gave courage and confidence to the apostles; it astonished, perplexed, and awed the Sadducees and prepared the way for the release of the apostles; it confirmed the faith of the disciples and held the favor of the people. The angel did more than merely open the prison door; he brought them out and gave them a command.
20 Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple-The angel commanded them, after releasing them from prison, to go and stand and speak in the temple. That is, they were to take their places as usual, and with courage stand and teach. They were not to linger, but go at once; they were to go to the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life. They were to speak the words of eternal life which Christ revealed; speak the words of the resurrection life, which the Sadducees denied. Peter once had said of Jesus: Thou hast the words of eternal life. (Joh 6:68.) These words were committed to the apostles, and the angel now bids them speak these words to all the people. Jesus not only had the words of eternal life, but he gives life to those who obey him. (2Ti 1:10; 1Jn 5:11.) I am the way, and the truth, and the life, said Jesus. (Joh 14:6.) In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (Joh 1:4.)
21 And when they heard this, they entered into the temple- The apostles did not delay; they went early, about daybreak, and began teaching those who came to the temple at that early hour. They had been forbidden by the Sanhedrin to speak any more in the name of Christ, but seemingly in defiance to all authority of men they continue to preach the resurrection. The high priest assembled the Sanhedrin and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and made ready to try the apostles. The high priest came, and they that were with him, meaning the Sadducees; men of influence were also invited to be present; it seems that they wanted to have a strong and influential meeting. The senate is from the Greek ten gerou sian, and means the old men. After the council with its prominent men had assembled they sent to the prison-house to have the apostles brought to them. All things were ready for the trial, but the presence of the prisoners; hence, they sent for them.
22-23 But the officers that came found them not-The officers must have been greatly surprised when they came to the prison and found the prison doors closed and fastened as the guard had left them, but no prisoners within. It must have been a foolish feeling for them to be guarding an empty prison, or to go for prisoners who were already free and publicly preaching in the temple. These officers were not Roman soldiers, but Jewish civil officers or servants of the Sanhedrin. There were no marks of prison doors being broken nor the walls battered; everything was in good order, but the prisoners were absent. It seems that the angel had miraculously opened the prison doors and brought the prisoners out without the guards or keepers knowing anything about it.
24 Now when the captain of the temple-The Standard Version omits high priest, and mentions only the captain of the temple and the chief priests; the captain was the ruler of the house of God; he was not a military officer, but had charge of the guard of priests and Levites who watched the temple at night. The chief priests were the heads of the classes or courses of the priests. There were twenty-four divisions of priests and each division had its chief. The Sanhedrin was composed of chief priests, elders, and scribes. All were confused as well as perplexed about the affair; they did not know how the prisoners had escaped, but that which concerned them most was what would be the final outcome of preaching the name of Jesus.
25 And there came one and told them,-As the Sanhedrin was thrown into a state of confusion and astonishment when the report that the prisoners were gone reached it, there came another report which added to the state of perplexity; this report was that the apostles were in the temple standing and teaching the people. They had been put in prison for preaching Christ; an angel had released them without the authorities knowing it; and now to their great surprise the apostles were in the temple doing that which they had been forbidden to do and in seeming defiance of the authority of the Sanhedrin. The apostles were at their old work, fearlessly teaching the people in the temple. The fearless apostles were too powerful to be roughly treated and the Sanhedrin did not know what to do.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
18. “COUNTED WORTHY TO SUFFER”
Act 5:17-18; Act 5:26-41
The Apostles of Christ were called into court by the Jewish Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin were the 70 top dogs in Israel. They were the most highly respected, most influential, and thought to be the most spiritual, godly men of the religious world. Normally they were very tolerant. But the Apostles of Christ were publicly proclaiming Christ as the only Lord and Savior of men; and they were doing it in the temple! The Sanhedrin thought the temple belonged to them, but it was God’s temple. The angel of the Lord expressly commanded these men to go to the temple, the place where God’s name was profaned, and preach the gospel there, even though the people who worshipped there despised the God they claimed to worship (Act 5:20).
The leaders of the Jewish church, these guardians of the temple, would have killed God’s preachers on the spot, but they feared that such action would stir up the wrath of the people. Therefore, because it was politically expedient to do so, they spared the lives of God’s servants, but just barely. The word “beaten” in Act 5:40 means “to skin”. It is the same word that would be used to describe the skinning of an animal. These men were brutally scourged with a whip, a whip designed to rip the skin from the body! It was not uncommon for men to die from these beatings. In the very next verse we read – “And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Act 5:41).
Their bodies were full of pain, but their hearts were full of joy, “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ.” They considered it a high honor bestowed upon them that God would allow such worthless, sinful creatures as they were to suffer for the honor of Christ. They rejoiced in his faithfulness to them, knowing that “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1Co 10:13). It is truly an honor to suffer patiently as a Christian for the honor of Christ (1Pe 4:16).
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF OUR SUFFERING? Everyone knows something about suffering. Some suffer more than others and some less, but all suffer. Basically, all that we suffer in this world is either physical pain or spiritual distress. We suffer physically, in the flesh; and we suffer spiritually in the heart, the soul, and the mind. Like Job, we recognize that all we suffer must ultimately be traced to the hand of our God (Job 2:10; Rom 8:28; Rom 11:36). We rejoice to know that “all things are of God” (2Co 5:18). Realizing that all suffering is ordered, like all other things, by the providential rule of our God, the sufferings of God’s children in this world may be traced to four subordinate causes.
1. COSMIC SUFFERING – There are some things men and women suffer simply because we live in this world. These are common to all since the fall of our father Adam. Sin has made this world a place of sorrow, pain, and suffering. All people, believers and unbelievers, suffer from satanic oppression (Job 1:12; Job 2:7-8; Mat 8:26-34; Mat 15:22; 2Co 12:7). Satan is not only God’s enemy, he is the subtle, crafty, powerful enemy of all mankind. Though governed by the hand of God’s providence, satan causes people to suffer both mentally and physically. We also suffer because of sin. Because all are sinners all are sufferers. Were it not for sin there would be no thorns of sorrow, thistles of suffering, sweat of fever, or death in the world. Moreover, by acts of sin men and women bring certain evils upon themselves. Because of sin we are all suffering, mortal, dying creatures.
2. CIRCUMSTANTIAL SUFFERINGS – From time to time people suffer simply because of their circumstances. In times of famine, plague, and war both the righteous and the wicked suffer, though even then the children of God are under his special care (Psa 91:1-16).
3. CONSCIENTIOUS SUFFERINGS – Frequently, the saints of God choose to suffer for Christ as a matter of conscience (Act 4:18-20; Act 5:29-32; Heb 11:24-26). They willingly take up their cross and follow Christ. They willingly choose pain and sorrow, even persecution and death, rather than disobey the will of God, violate the Word of God, or compromise the truth of God. Men and women of faith and conviction make great personal sacrifices, deliberately, for the honor of Christ (Mat 10:34-38; Mar 8:34-38; Luk 14:25-33).
4. CORRECTIVE SUFFERINGS – Like a loving, caring Father, our God chastens his children for their eternal, spiritual good (Heb 12:5-15). God does not punish his elect for sin! He punished us for our sins in Christ when he suffered the wrath of God as our Substitute (Rom 3:24-26; Gal 3:13; 2Co 5:21; 1Pe 3:18).
“Payment God cannot twice demand,First at my bleeding Surety’s handAnd then again at mine!”
God will not punish sin where he will not impute sin; and God will not impute sin to his elect, whose sins were imputed to Christ (Rom 4:8; Rom 8:33-34). The only place where God deals with the sins of his elect in a penal way is Calvary! When God chastens us it is not to punish us, but to correct us (Psalms 119; Psalms 65-71).
WHEN CAN IT BE SAID THAT A PERSON IS SUFFERING FOR CHRIST? A person is not suffering for Christ when his sufferings are the result of his own evil actions or attitude. Neither is one suffering for Christ when he wallows in self-pity, murmuring and complaining against God. But there are some living martyrs in this world, men and women who hazard their lives for the name of Christ (Act 15:26).
To suffer for Christ is to suffer patiently, trusting God’s providence and believing his promise (1Pe 2:20-24). Job, Eli, Moses, and Paul were all examples of such suffering (Job 2:10; Heb 11:24-26; 1Sa 3:18; 2Co 12:9). We ought to follow their examples.
Those who willingly expose themselves to pain, affliction, and heartache for the honor of Christ suffer for his name’s sake. The Apostles knew what the consequences of their actions would be. They had been forewarned (Act 4:21). Many pay a high price for confessing Christ, worshipping him, and obeying him, and consider it a high honor to do so. The martyrs who were burned at the stake in England died simply because they refused to say that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Table are the body and blood of Christ! John Bunyan spent twelve years in Bedford jail because he would not agree not to preach in the town of Bedford, England!
To suffer for Christ is to be a true believer. It is to lose your life for him. It is to obey him, follow him, submit to him, and trust him, regardless of cost or consequence. To refuse to suffer for Christ is to deny him (Mat 10:16; Mat 10:22; Mat 10:24; Mat 10:28; Mat 10:31-39).
Every believer will, as long as he lives in this world, be called to suffer for his Savior’s name. But you have these promises: You will not be forsaken (Isa 41:10; Isa 43:1-5). You will never suffer more than you can bear (1Co 10:13). Christ will keep you (Joh 10:28). God will honor you (1Pe 1:7). If you would learn how to suffer for Christ look to Christ (Heb 12:1-5).
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
the high: Act 4:26, Psa 2:1-3, Joh 11:47-49, Joh 12:10, Joh 12:19
all: Act 4:1, Act 4:2, Act 4:6, Act 23:6-8
indignation: or, envy, Act 7:9, Act 13:45, Act 17:5, 1Sa 18:12-16, Job 5:2, Pro 14:30, Pro 27:4, Ecc 4:4, Mat 27:18, Gal 5:21, Jam 3:14-16, Jam 4:5, 1Pe 2:1
Reciprocal: Neh 4:1 – Sanballat Isa 43:27 – and thy Jer 26:7 – General Mat 3:7 – the Pharisees Mat 16:1 – Sadducees Mat 22:23 – the Sadducees Mar 13:9 – take Luk 20:27 – the Sadducees Luk 21:12 – before Act 5:21 – But Act 24:5 – the sect Act 28:22 – sect 1Co 11:19 – heresies Jam 2:6 – and
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The Trials and Triumphs of Apostolic Testimony
Act 5:17-32
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
Those were momentous days. On the part of the Apostles they were days of continued testimony, God working with miracles and signs and wonders. On the part of the High Priest and of the rulers of Israel they were days of timorous tremblings. The new faith was shaking the very foundations of Judaistic traditions.
The High Priest knew no recourse to prayer; he had no hope of Divine interposition in his behalf, for he knew that God was working with the Apostles. However the High Priest felt that something severe had to be done. Thus we read of-
I. PERSECUTION AND IMPRISONMENT
Let us quote, in full, Act 5:17-18 :
“Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation.
“And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.”
Persecution has always been fostered by a false and Godless religious system, centered in corrupt headship. Men who worship God in truth, need not press their cause by the sword.
The truth is that Satan’s tactics against the early Church, as fostered by the High Priest and by his religious leaders, failed utterly to stop the progress of the Truth. Satan learned that the blood of martyrs became the seed of the Church. Where he slew one Christian a dozen more seemed to spring up as by magic.
It is not because we have reached in the twentieth century an era of advance in social ethics that the blood of the martyrs has ceased to flow. In proof of this we need but to point to the carnage and slaughter that marked the recent world war, when intellectuals and ethical propagandists faced each other in the most abhorrent butchery that the world has ever known. The blood of the martyrs has ceased to flow because their blood would only add fuel to the fire of truth and spiritual advance.
Satan, today, is following the method of a substitute but false piety, fashioned after the real. He is seeking to engulf the Church by a tidal wave of worldiness. He is endeavoring to beautify the present evil world with a halo of passing glory, that will cause the coming and abiding glory of God’s eternal city to fade from view.
Thus it was that the High Priest and the Sadducees filled with indignation, laid their hands on the Apostles and put them into prison.
II. DELIVERANCE AND PREACHING (Act 5:19)
Satan and his embassage are helpless before the power of God. Apostles and saints are safe when in the will of God. We do not mean to say that God always delivers His faithful praying and preaching children. Stephen was stoned, James was killed. In fact, many have been the slain of Jehovah. However, Peter was delivered from prison; Paul and Silas were freed from their bonds. Many have been the saints who have been snatched from the hands of the enemy.
Here is the truth-whether in death, or in life, God works in wondrous ways His marvels to perform. Therefore, whether it be by death or by life, we, the Lord’s children, should always be willing to walk in God’s way that His name may be glorified. When Paul went bound to Jerusalem knowing that bonds and imprisonment awaited him, he was the same cheerful, willing, obedient Apostle as when God was delivering him from every evil work.
In the case of Peter and of the other Apostles-their work was not yet accomplished, their task was not done, therefore the angel of the Lord was sent to open the prison doors. In after years Peter approached his crucifixion with a courage that was sublime and beautiful.
Let us mark well that Peter and the Apostles were delivered that they might preach the Word of Life. They had not been freed from prison to cowardly run from their persecutors. They were commanded to do again the very thing that had caused them all of their trouble. Here is the statement of Holy Writ: “When they heard that, they entered into the Temple early in the morning, and taught.”
III. A NEW NAMING FOR GOD’S GOSPEL (Act 5:20)
We feel constrained to tarry a moment as we consider the deep significance of the words of the angel-“Speak * * to the people all the words of this life.” The words of angels are sure and steadfast. Here then are words worth while. Here are words that carry an angel’s estimate of the Gospel of God as Divinely delivered. The words of God are words of life.
Why are the words given by inspiration, “words of life”? They are words of life because they are Living Words. “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful”; that is-“The Word of God is living and powerful.” All other words written by men may live for a day or, for an age, and then they die. The Word of God, lives in a sense that no other word lives; and it never dies. God’s Word is evergreen. Heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will never pass away.
Why are the words of God, words of life? They are words of life because they beget life. No word written by man can beget life. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God.” Men’s words may be called “living” only in the sense that they exist and carry an influence upon life. However the words of men never beget life, and they are, therefore, in reality dead and not living.
God’s Word creates life. Hear the Truth of God: “Receive with meekness the ingrafted Word, which is able to save your souls.” Hear again the Truth of God: “So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.”
Christ said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
No marvel that the angel commanded the Apostles to preach all of the words of this life, because that is the only preachment that begets life.
IV. FIGHTING AGAINST GOD A FRUITLESS CONFLICT (Act 5:21-25)
The Sanhedrin met with unusual pomp. The High Priest, and the council and the senate of Israel gathered with due dignity and ceremony. With a sway of authority suitable to the dignity of so august a body, court was called, and officers were sent to the jail to bring the Apostles before a court of authority in religious matters.
The officers returned from the jail with a most discomfitting announcement. They said, “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 within.”
What amazement filled the minds of the court. They surely saw that they were fighting against God. They had crucified the Lord of glory and imprisoned Him in a tomb, made sure both by “sealing” and by guards, but the Lord had broken the bands of death, and had come forth alive. Now they had imprisoned the Apostles and behind doors shut with all safety and with guards sleeplessly standing by on watch, the Apostles had come forth.
Surely the day of miracles was not passed; surely the God of deliverance was not dead. The angel of the Lord had come forth from God and had opened the prison bars. Beloved, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”
While prison doors were fastened, and guards stood on their watch their prisoners were standing in the Temple preaching all the words of life, Let no one think that they can wage a successful warfare against God. He who fights God must fall in shame before the Word of His power.
When the High Priest and the captain of the Temple heard these things they wondered whereunto the thing would grow. They felt that their efforts to throttle the Truth had only added fuel to its flame.
Saints of God, be encouraged. Be strong, be fearless. Hold up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees; thy God liveth. He will avenge His elect. He will back the testimony of His saints with all the power of Heaven. Why should you cringe and fear before a Godless and Christless world? You are following a Captain who has never known defeat. All hell and earth, and air cannot produce a combined force sufficient to stand against one word from His mouth. “Be strong and of a good courage.”
While the “court” stood startled and amazed by God’s mighty deliverance, a certain one came and told them, saying, “Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people.”
V. TRIED BUT TRIUMPHANT (Act 5:26-28)
When with due carefulness the Apostles were finally brought before the Sanhedrin, the high priest asked them, “Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this Name?” Then he charged two things: First, he charged that the Apostles had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine. And, secondly, he charged that they were bringing the Blood of Christ upon him, and upon his colleagues.
It was a spectacle worth witnessing. There stood the Apostles-men without human culture or education, but men taught of God, and filled with the Spirit. On the other hand, there were the judges, men who represented the very best of the Jewish nation. The judges were the leaders, the men in authority, the men who laid burdens upon others which were hard to bear. The men before whom the populace were accustomed to bow and cringe.
These very men in after years gave authority to the young man Saul, and sent him forth to Damascus to bring back to prison and perhaps to death all Christians he could find.
Were the Apostles afraid? Not they. Did they cringe, and do obeisance? Not they. Peter and the other Apostles said, “We ought to obey God rather than men,”
Here is the crux of the whole life and testimony of the Christian, and of the Church?
It is true one shall be subject to another. The Holy Spirit shall have the right of way, but we greatly doubt if it is God’s purpose that even organized Christian movements shall appoint one or more lords or supremes over the entire organized body. It may be true that the least of all may become a worthy advisor in a most critical time.
For our part we stand with Peter and the rest-We should obey God rather than men. If God tells one of His Truth-bearers to go into such a city and preach the Word, that preacher need not bend the knee to the demands of the pastors of such a city, and abide their will and time? To be sure the evangelist should seek co-operation, But, whether is more important, for an evangelist to co-operate with a local church, or group of churches; or for a church or group of churches to co-operate with an evangelist?
After all-the only thing to be considered is-“What is the command of God?” Apostles dare not await the will of the men who hold religious supremacy? Shall saints preach only where, and when, and what the “leaders” say? God forbid. Let them preach the preaching He bids them. Let them preach where He bids them. Let them go when He bids them. What of the consequences? Leave them with God.
If Peter had watched the consequences he might have been disobedient to the command of the angel, and have sinned against God.
Let trials block our way. God will cause us to triumph.
VI. PETER CHARGES THE COURT THAT TRIES HIM (Act 5:30-32)
Peter had spoken before the same court not many days before-the words as reported in Act 3:14-15, This all goes to show that bonds and imprisonment, threats and thundering of wrath had not in the least changed the message of the Apostle. He would not, he could not change his testimony because of threatenings. Truth was truth, and truth should be proclaimed.
The preacher is not sent to preach smooth things. To be sure he should not needlessly offend. He should not be harsh, just to excite animosity. He should by no means court persecution. However, the preacher should not tame down his message of vital truth because of persecution. The preacher should not fail to declare the whole counsel of God simply because that counsel will work against false teachers. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth must be preached.
What did Peter say? He said that his judges had slain and hanged upon a tree the Jesus whom the God of their fathers had raised up. He said more. He said that the very One whom God had raised up, had been exalted at God’s own right hand “a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”
In Peter’s words there was not only condemnation and warning; there was also salvation and forgiveness.
Peter contrasted, first of all, the attitude and treatment of Christ by the rulers, with that of God. They had slain Him, God had raised Him up; they had lifted Him up on a tree, God had lifted Him up to His own right hand; they had crucified Him, in shame and spitting, God had exalted Him to honor and glory.
Peter contrasted in the second place the wrath of the rulers with the mercy of God. They had crucified Jesus, the One who had come to save them from their sins; God had raised up Jesus and proclaimed Him a Saviour. They had slain the Son of God, and had cried out against Him; God had made the One they crucified their Redeemer. Their hatred was set over against God’s love; their contumely over against God’s grace.
VII. THE COURT WRITHED IN ANGER AT PETER’S CHARGE (Act 5:33)
We need not marvel that the rulers, realizing that the Apostles had turned the court into criminals, began to rage.
We need not marvel that the rulers realizing that the Apostles had made their villainy exceedingly vile by contrasting it with the mercy of God, began to rage.
Act 5:33 gives us in succinct words the result of Peter’s charge. It says, “When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.”
Why should the court have raged? Why were they cut to the heart? They knew that Peter spoke the truth. It is the truth that hurts. The hit dog howls. The guilty conscience cringes. They did not and they could not deny Peter’s words. All men knew that they had hanged Jesus on a tree. All men knew that God had raised Him up. Peter told facts that were the common conception of all men.
Had the high priest thrown the lie as to their crucifixion of Christ, they had been hit with a boomerang. The Holy Ghost has come to reprove the world of sin. When the Spirit lays sin at the door, the sinner dare not deny his guilt. When God speaks, every mouth is stopped. Denial is folly. Sin has been too openly committed to be disclaimed. The human heart when convicted by the Spirit, is too conscious of its guilt to deny its iniquity.
What then should the high priest and his court have done? They should have repented of their iniquity; they should have confessed their sins. Peter plainly said that the Christ they slew was ready to forgive. The sin-offering was crouching at their door. Repentance and forgiveness of sins was freely proffered.
Here is the very glory of the Spirit’s work. He reproves, convicts, convinces men of sin-but that is not all. He offers to the sinner the sacrifice of the Saviour. With one breath Peter charged the court with having slain Jesus; with the next breath Peter proclaimed Jesus as a Saviour.
But why did not the court cry for mercy instead of taking counsel to slay the Apostles?
It is the same old story, of the criminal trying to shut the mouth of his accuser by ridding the earth of his presence. The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Knowing its guilt it will seek to hide it; knowing its salvation it will seek to slay it.
VIII. THE MESSAGE OF ALL MEN WHO WITNESS FOR CHRIST (Act 5:32)
Peter said, “We are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost.” Witnesses of what things? That the Christ who died is exalted, a Saviour. Witnesses of what things? That the Lord is longsuffering, and willing to save.
Who are witnesses of these things? Peter alone? By no means. We are witnesses. We who live twenty centuries beyond Peter’s day.
Who are witnesses of these things? All to whom God hath given the Holy Ghost. Let us stand then in our lot in these the last days, and keep the fires of witnessing burning.
To whom has God given the Holy Ghost? To all who obey Him. Who is it that obeys Him? Those who go where they are told to go. Those who preach the words they are told to preach.
Perhaps we need to stop here and think a while. Perhaps we need a bit of introspection? Why did God clothe Peter with the Holy Ghost and with power? It was because Peter was not disobedient to the angel’s command. He went into the Temple. He went into the Temple and preached all the words of this Life. He shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God. He went where he knew he must pay dearly for going.
Do we want the Holy Spirit to be given unto us for testimony? Do we want Christ’s promise, “Ye shall receive power” and “be witnesses unto Me,” verified in our lives? Then we must cease from the fear of men. The breath of men is in their nostrils, why should we fear their wrath?
God wants men to preach His Word, who, Daniel-like, will say to the Belshazzars of our day, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”
The obedience which brings unto the heart and into our testimony the unction of the Holy Ghost, must include the obedience which Peter and the Apostles manifested, when, upon their releasing from prison, they heard the voice of the angel saying, “Go, stand and speak in the Temple to the people all the words of this life.”
IX. THE JOYS OF SUFFERING SHAME FOR CHRIST
Let us now close as we briefly note the last two verses of Act 5:1-42.
“And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted 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.”
Singing does not necessarily accompany clear skies and balmy breezes. The disciples rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name. Here is a new value placed on suffering shame. To die for Christ is better than to live for Satan, Spittle, and stones, and crucifixions, and the fagots and fire of martyrdom, are to be highly valued.
John heard the great multitude in Heaven saying, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,” Christ’s sorrow and anguish enhanced His joy and rejoicing. Christ’s humiliation and shame were foundation stones on which were builded His honor and glory.
Let us count our afflictions as our servants, working out for us a more excellent and eternal weight of glory.
Why should we pine because” the world hates us? Paul and Silas, in jail, sang praises unto God. Neither the pains of the Roman scourging, nor the stocks which galled their feet, could not quiet their joy and rejoicings.
Let us count it all joy when we fall into divers testings.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
7
Act 5:17. The Sadducees are mentioned especially as being in sympathy with the high priest in ooposition to the apostles. That is understandable because they were disbelievers in the resurrection, which was the outstanding fact that the apostles had been stressing in their work in connection with the story of Christ.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Second Arrest of the Apostles.They are freed by the Interposition of an Angel, 17-25.
Act 5:17. Then the high priest rose up. Not from his throne in the council, for the Sanhedrim is not said to have been sitting. Rose up implies that the high priest, excited and alarmed at the growing power of these followers of the Crucified, determined at once again to try and crush them by violent measures. The high priest is no doubt Annas, as in chap. Act 4:6, though his son-in-law Caiaphas nominally filled the office.
All they that were with him. These were not his brother judges in the great council, but those who sympathized with him in his bitter hatred of Christs followers.
Which is the sect of the Sadducees. The fact of the resurrection of Jesus had now been made known beyond the walls of the city, and was believed in by ever-increasing multitudes. The fear and anger of the Sadducees were more than ever stirred up. Very many, as we have said (see note on chap. Act 4:1), of the most influential of the nation belonged to this sect. Whether Annas himself was a Sadducee is doubtful. We know, however, that his family was friendly to them, and his son one of the prominent members of the sect; and with them, in their bitter hostility to the doctrines of Jesus, Annas heartily joined.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Note here, 1. How the persecution of the holy apostles did gradually advance and increase. In the former chapters the apostles were only secured, kept in hold for a night and dismissed with a threatening next day; but now being filled a second time with the Holy Spirit, they are better enabled to grapple with sufferings, and to glorify God under them: and accordingly here they are committed to the common prison amongst malefactors, and afterwards beaten and exposed to public shame, Act 5:40.
O the tenderness of God towards his tender servants! While these apostles were striplings, their faith feeble, and their grace weak, God stayeth the rough wind, keeps off the storm of persecution from them. God will evermore suit the stroke to his peoples strength, proportion their burden to their back, and never suffer them to be tempted above what they are able.
Note, 2. The apostles being prisoners for Christ and his Gospel, they have an angel for their keeper and deliverer, who opens the prison door, and overpowers and puts out the devil. God could otherwise have delivered them, but he makes use of the ministry of angels for the confirming of their faith, and to let them see by experience that he had given his angels charge over them. Since the establishment of the gospel, God will have us live more by faith, and to walk less by sense, and therefore we must not now (ordinarily) see those ministering and beneficent spirits: but although their visible operations for the heirs of salvation shall never cease, Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? Heb 1:14
Note, 3. The apostles being thus brought out of prison by an angel, are commanded to preach, and they have their text given them by the angel that opened both the prison and the pulpit door for them. The angel said unto them, Go, and speak unto the people all the words of this life, Act 5:20. That is, of this life for which you were imprisoned, this life which the Sadducees, who imprisoned you, deny; namely, the resurrection of the body, and eternal life.
Learn, That not the things of this life, but the things of eternity and the to come, the unseen things of another world, ar the things which all the ministers of Christ ought to preach, and press their people to the pursuit of; Go, and speak unto the people all the words of this life: That is, the gospel, which is the word of life, and directs them how to attain eternal life and salvation by Jesus Christ.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
The Apostles Imprisoned
Seeing the high regard the apostles were held in by the people and knowing the number being added to the church moved the high priest and the Sadducees to jealousy. They caused the apostles to be seized and placed in common prison. After all, the apostles, despite an earlier warning, had continued preaching in the name of Jesus. Their ongoing proclamation of the resurrection was totally contrary to the teaching of the Sadducees. But, God is more powerful than any earthly authority. He sent a messenger to release the apostles and command them to go to the temple and preach the words which give eternal life.
Around daybreak, the apostles were in the temple preaching. At roughly the same time, the high priest called for the council to assemble. Luke described the council as a senate, probably because Theophilus would have been more familiar with that word’s meaning. The high priest also sent to the prison to have the apostles brought to the meeting of the assembled council. However, the officers soon came back to report they found the jail secure and all the guards in place but no apostles. Despite such a clear sign that God was with the apostles, the high priest and those allied with him wondered what would happen ( Act 5:17-24 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Act 5:17-18. Then the high-priest rose up Never did any good work go on with any hope of success, but it met with opposition; for they that are bent to do evil cannot be reconciled to them who make it their business to do good. Satan, the destroyer of mankind, ever was, and ever will be, an adversary to those who are mens benefactors. And it would have been strange, if the apostles had been suffered to go on thus teaching and healing, and had received no check. In these and the following verses we have the malice of hell and the grace of Heaven struggling about them; the one to make them cease from this good work, the other to animate them in it. The high-priest, Annas or Caiaphas, was the ringleader in the opposition made to them: he rose up As it were, with awakened and renewed fury; and all they that were with him His friends and associates; for they saw their wealth and dignity, their power and tyranny, that is, their all at stake, and inevitably lost, if the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of Christ should gain ground and prevail among the people. Which is the sect of the Sadducees A goodly company for the priest! The Sadducees were most forward to join with the high-priest in this persecution, having a particular enmity to the gospel of Christ, because it attested and confirmed the doctrine of the invisible and eternal world, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the future state, which they denied. And were filled with indignation Greek, , with zeal, rather; namely, bitter, persecuting zeal against the cause of Christ: for it is not strange, if men of no religion be bigoted in their opinions against true and pure religion. When they heard and saw how the people flocked to the apostles, and how reputable they were become, they were exasperated to the last degree, and rose up in a passion, as men who could no longer bear such proceedings, and were resolved to oppose them, being vexed at the apostles for preaching the doctrine of Christ, and curing the sick; at the people for hearing them, and bringing the sick to be cured; and at themselves and their own party for suffering this matter to go so far, and not suppressing it at its first rise. Thus are the enemies of Christ and his gospel a torment to themselves! And laid their hands on the apostles Being determined to bring them to another trial before the sanhedrim; and put them in the common prison Where the vilest malefactors were lodged.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
17, 18. The excitement which now prevailed throughout Jerusalem and the neighboring villages, and found utterance in the most enthusiastic praise of the apostles, was too much for the equanimity of the dignitaries who had so strictly forbidden them to preach or teach in the name of Jesus. (17) “Then the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, being the sect of the Sadducees, and were filled with zeal, (18) and laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the public prison.” Here we have the same Sadducees at work who had arrested and threatened Peter and John. They were “filled with zeal;” but it was a zeal inspired less by love for their own cause, than by hatred for that which was triumphing over it. The advocates of error will generally appear quite easy, and sometimes, even generous, when their cause is merely standing still; but their zeal is always kindled when the truth begins to make inroads upon them. The zeal of these Sadducees was fanned to its fiercest heat by recent events, and they determined to execute the threats with which they had recently dismissed two of the apostles, making all the twelve their present victims.
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
HIGH PRIEST AND OFFICIAL BOARD
17, 18. And the high priest and all those with him, being of the sect of the Sadducees, were filled with envy, jealousy and prejudice, and laid hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. Tell me not that the high priest did not, in all good conscience, sign the death-warrant of Jesus Christ, believing that he was doing God service. We have no right to impeach the honesty of these leading preachers and official members at Jerusalem. You have nothing to do but look at their successors at the present day. Their name is legion. They doubtless feel it to be their duty to crush out the Holiness Movement, whose votaries are preaching the Incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire, Entire sanctification, Divine Healing, and the Coming of the Lord. We are preaching precisely the doctrines which the apostles preached in Jerusalem. This can not be denied. We prove it constantly with an open Bible. Why do they oppose and interdict us, forbidding us to preach in their jurisdiction? While we have no right to impeach the candor of the high priest and his coadjutors, we know they did the work of Satan, believing they were obeying God. We have the same phenomena throughout Christendom this day. The logical sequence is irresistible. Just as the leaders of Judaism blindly resisted the Holy Ghost, so the leaders of fallen Christianity at the present day ostracize and interdict the holiness people, who are preaching just what the apostles preached. I am willing to preach in any of their churches, with the understanding that I am to be put out the moment I deflect from the New Testament. We challenge all of the anti-holiness preachers and officers to convict us of departure from the Word of God. But they do not charge us with antagonism to Gods Word, but simply forbid us to preach in their territory, when God has commanded us to preach the gospel to every creature. Of course, we are not going into their houses uninvited; but how dare they mark off a certain territory, and let drunkards; harlots, thieves, murderers and the devil into it, and then order Gods gospel herald out of it! We come to wage war with the devil and sin, and nothing else. Why forbid us thus, protecting the devil and sin in said territory, while they drag the people into hell by the wholesale? No doubt but these very preachers and church officers who antagonized the apostles at Jerusalem are down in hell. Look out! The Judgment Day is coming, when God will call the holiness evangelist to stand on the witness block and testify that he went, responsive to Jehovahs bidding, to that wicked town to preach the gospel and warn those wicked people to flee from the wrath to come, and a certain clergyman ran him away. Will not that man be guilty of the blood of those souls? Better for him that he had never been born. Remember, there will be no dignitaries at the Judgment bar, but every tub will stand on its own bottom.
THE PEOPLE TRUER THAN THE PREACHERS
The preachers in charge of the orthodox Jewish Church at Jerusalem, availing themselves of the acquiescent civil arm, imprison the apostles. God sends His angel to open the prison and let them out. Having convened the Sanhedrin in the judgment hall on Mt. Zion and failed to find them in the jail, upon notification that they are standing in the temple and teaching the people,
25, 26 . The captain of the temple guards along with officers, goes and brings them out by force, because they feared the people, lest they may be stoned. When the church is in the kingdom of God, the leaders as a rule are better than the people, living nearer God, and thus leading the people on to grander achievements in the divine life. Et, vice versa, when the church is fallen and preachers and people out of the heavenly road and on a downward trend, as is true in case of apostasy, then the preachers are worse than the people. During all the martyr ages the preachers led the bloody persecutions. From Stephen, the first, when Saul of Tarsus, the top of the clergy, led the mob that stoned him, to the anti-holiness rally of the present day, the preachers have opposed and persecuted the holy people. Here doubtless they would have killed the apostles if they had not feared the people.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Act 5:17-42. A Hostile Encounter with the Jewish Authorities.This account closely resembles that in ch. 4; the imprisonment is at the hands of the same men, extends over one night, and Peters two declarations (Act 4:19, Act 5:29) are very similar. In spite of a few added touches, Gamaliel and his historical reminiscences, we cannot but feel the paucity of materials that were at the authors disposal for this part of his history. As in Acts 4, the attack comes from the Sadducees. If so the motive could only be political. The Resurrection is not mentioned to explain their action; they were filled with jealousy. They could not wish the new sect to become important; a real Messiah would be the end of their power. Here, as in Acts 4, no ground is given for the arrest. Not only Peter and John are arrested but the apostles generally. The opening of the prison (Act 5:19) occurs again twice in Ac. (Acts 12, 16); here it is told very shortly. The words of this life (Act 5:20) is a phrase for which it is difficult to find a parallel in NT. It means the message of Jesus Resurrection and the new life descending on the world from Him. The gates of the Temple were locked at night; only at daybreak could the angels order be obeyed. The high priest and those with him (Act 5:17) call a meeting in the morning of the Sanhedrin and all the eldership. In OT the elders of the people is a common phrase; our writer may be thinking of the Roman Senate. In Jewish practice of Gospel times the elders are a part of the Sanhedrin, and the phrase, making them separate from it, shows imperfect knowledge of Jewish affairs. The story of the empty prison, the perplexed judges, the captain of the Temple, the high priests (plural, cf. Act 4:1*, Act 4:6), the message that the men who had been imprisoned are preaching in the Temple, is admirably told. The rearrested apostles have to be brought with courtesy, on account of the people (Act 4:21); the priestly party was prepared to act differently. The high priest appeals to the prohibition (Act 4:18) of any teaching based on this name, which he will not pronounce. The apostles have disregarded it entirely, expressly declaring the leaders of the people to be chargeable with the blood of this man. The passage in which the leaders formally undertook before Pilate for themselves and their children the responsibility for the blood of Jesus, is not in Lk. but in Mt. (Mat 27:25), but the guilt has been repeatedly charged to them in Ac., and they have shown marked aversion to the name. Peters reply (Act 5:29-32) is a repetition of his former one (Act 4:19), and he goes on, though the circumstances call for less, to repeat his favourite statement as to the Resurrection of Christ in spite of all the Jews did to Him. It is the God of our fathers (Act 3:13) who raised up Jesus, ill-treated by the Jews, who by His right hand exalted Him as a Prince and a Saviour; in Act 4:12* this word is used in a wide sense of deliverance from physical or any other ills. All His mission is for Israel, that repentance may be granted to Israel and forgiveness of sins (Act 2:38, Act 3:19, Luk 24:47). The whole picture is within Judaism. Of these matters the apostles are witnesses and the Holy Spirit (Act 2:4, Act 4:31, etc.) which all those have who obey God.
Act 5:33. cut to the heart: lit. sawn asunder, of a painful mental shock.they were minded to slay them: they had no power legally to do so; in the case of Stephen it is done in passion.
Act 5:34-42. Intervention of Gamaliel.In Lk. there are various instances of friendly feeling towards Jesus on the part of Pharisees, not given in the other gospels. Of this Gamaliel (Act 22:3*) not much is known. He is an open-minded man, and his authority is readily acknowledged. Again (Act 5:34) we have the exclusion of the apostles from the meeting, and the report of the proceedings after they were excluded (cf. Act 4:15-17). Gamaliel counsels caution, and appeals to history, at least what here appears as such. Theudas (Act 5:36) figured as a prophet in the procuratorship of Cuspius Fadus (A.D. 44) and could not be used as an instance by Gamaliel speaking some years earlier. The details agree with those given by Josephus (Ant. xx. 5). There might be other insurrectionaries of the same name, but probably our author here makes a mistake. The revolt of Judas of Galilee (Act 5:37) took place in the days of the enrolment or census under Quirinius, A.D. 7 (Josephus, Ant. XVIII. i. 16; XX. Act 5:2; Wars, II. viii. 1). The party of Zealots (pp. 609f. Mar 3:18*) originated from this revolt [this is the usual view, but Lake argues (Harvard Theological Review, Jan. Act 19:17) that the party did not originate till shortly before the Fall of Jerusalem.A. S. P.]; but no corroboration can be found of Gamaliels statement as to the fate of Judas. His practical conclusion is the same as that in Act 4:15-19, but is based on another reason than the fear of the people. His policy is that of wait and see piously expressed. The apostles are beaten and forbidden as before to speak in the name of Jesus, but released. They find the beatitude on the persecuted (Mat 5:10) fulfilled in their case; the Name is a power for which they can never do too much, to suffer for which they count great honour. The meetings go on as before, both in the Temple and at home (as Act 2:42; Act 2:46); they preach the Messiah, namely Jesus.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 17
They that were with him; his associates and partisans.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
5:17 {3} Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the {h} sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
(3) The more that the Church increases, the more the rage os Satan increases, and therefore they proceed from threats to imprisonment.
(h) The word which is used here is “heresy”, which signifies a choice, and so is taken for a right form of learning, or faction, or study and course of life, which the Latins call a sect: at first this word was used indifferently, but at length it came to be used only in reference to evil, whereupon came the name of “heretic” which is taken for one that goes astray from sound and wholesome doctrine in such a way that he thinks lightly of the judgment of God and his Church, and continues in his opinion, and breaks the peace of the Church.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The apostles’ appearance before the Sanhedrin 5:17-33
The popularity and effectiveness of the apostles riled the Sadducees just as Jesus’ popularity and effectiveness had earlier.
"One of the central motifs of Acts is the rejection of the Gospel by the Jewish nation. This section [Act 5:17-42] traces a further step in rejection and persecution by the Jewish officials." [Note: Ladd, "The Acts . . .," p. 1133.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The high priest "rose up" (Gr. anastas, cf. Act 5:34) taking official action as leader of the Sanhedrin. As mentioned above, the high priest and most of the Sanhedrin members were Sadducees (Act 4:1). The Holy Spirit filled the believers, Satan had filled Ananias and Sapphira, and now jealousy filled the Sanhedrin members, particularly the Sadducees. They had the apostles arrested and confined in a common (public) jail (Gr. teresis demosia).
"The Sadducees are often seen as more hostile to the new movement than the Pharisees in Acts, whereas in Luke’s Gospel the Pharisees are major opponents of Jesus. This fits the shift of attention to Jerusalem from the setting of Jesus’s ministry outside the city. The Sadducees have more to lose, since they control the council and have worked out a compromise with the Romans to share power." [Note: Bock, Acts, pp. 237-38.]
"Sadduceeism is rampant, so is Pharisaism; they are represented to-day by rationalism and ritualism. These are the opponents of living, vital Christianity to-day, just as they were in Jerusalem." [Note: Morgan, p. 129.]
"It is amazing how much envy can be hidden under the disguise of ’defending the faith.’" [Note: Wiersbe, 1:424.]
Peter and John have been the apostles in view to this point, but now we read that Peter and the apostles (plural) stood before the Sanhedrin (Act 5:29). It is probable, therefore, that more apostles than just Peter and John are in view in this whole incident beginning with Act 5:17.