Acts 5:17-40 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,… The few hours that were covered by this portion of the history must have been hours charged with confirmation of the faith for the apostles. It is not merely that they are again attacked and again get in the end the victory, but that every position is carried for them by some strong arm invisible. It is not altogether the force of the truth, at least of the truth as spoken and spoken by them; still less is it their own force that gains this glorious and memorable day, although doubtless both of these are involved in the day's achievements. But there was a "fighting from heaven" for them," and the stars in their courses fought against" their enemies. And as nothing so much daunts an enemy as the impression of this latter, so nothing can be conceived more reinforcing to the faith and courage of the army or the general who have evidence of the former. While, then, the bold and faithful utterance of "all the words of this life" was now the loving care of the apostles, God's watchful providence and the living Spirit whom Christ sent made the "heaven that fought for" them. We may view the present portion of the Church's history under this light. It is the history of a succession of incidents, every one of which shows the foe as the party signally discomfited. The apostles are still the representatives of the Church. They sustain the brunt of any attack. And it is noteworthy, that at present, so far as we read, no private member of the Church is exposed to any similar treatment. Notice, then - I. THE INCIDENT OF A NEW TRIAL OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPRISONMENT. The high priest and those who were acting with him had not, it appears, learned the lesson which their former failure might well have taught them. It had been attended by circumstances and followed by a sequel which should have made a lasting impression on their memory. But memory's good offices were scorned, and wisdom's lessons set at naught and lost. The experiment is to be tried again, whether certain facts to which the word of the apostles gives great notoriety, with certain comments upon them and explanations of them, can be hushed up, and a prison's doors be mightier than miracles. This very point was soon settled, and in the shape that should have carried conviction and reproof in equal proportions. It is to be remembered that the imprisonment policy stands condemned, not altogether necessarily in itself, but emphatically, in this case, because the facts to which the apostles gave the notoriety so unwelcome to the authorities were facts within the knowledge of those same, and because the whole action of the apostles had the abundant attestation of surpassing miracles. Mouths can be stopped by imprisonment, no doubt. And the method may, no doubt, be a legitimate method, even though there be allowed to be prima facie a likely moral danger attaching to it. That danger has shown itself so repeatedly and so malignantly - in matters of religion to the oppressing of the conscience, in matters of science to the clouding of the prospects of truth and the growth of knowledge. But the point of interest and at the same time the hopelessness of the present conflict turned on the fact that the method of imprisonment attempted to stop the mouth of God's Word and truth. The enemy was confounded signally. An "abundant door" of exit from the prison for the apostles made a more than ever "abundant door of entrance" for the truth, and it occasioned "great boldness" of utterance of "all the words of this life" in the temple of temples, and before the enemy was so much as awake. II. THE INCIDENT OF A SECOND TRIAL OF ARRAIGNMENT BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 1. In this proceeding embarrassment awaited the council; they stumble upon the very threshold. The prisoners are duly sent for, but they are not to be found. The prison is there; the keepers are there; the doors were shut with all appearance of safety, and if they had been opened, there is not a sign of it nor of any violence that might have effected it; the keys are neither lost nor injured; and the locks are not disobedient to their own keys, as though they had been tampered with. Yet to what all this, when the prison itself proves as empty as ever place was? The officers return with tale and face, no doubt, equally blank; but blankest of all was the astonishment of those in authority under these new circumstances. That "they were in doubt concerning them" (so the apostles) was no unnatural, no unlikely account of the case in which "the high priest, and the captain of the temple, and the chief priests" found themselves. And perhaps it might have suited them and their reputation about as well if all had ended here. But this was not to be. They had meddled with strife, nay, had not "forborne them meddling with God" (2 Chronicles 35:21); and they shall not "leave off contention" before it has worsted them signally, decisively. For: 2. A sudden relief from undignified bewilderment leaves them no choice but to go on with a prosecution, hazardous much more to those who prosecute than to those who are prosecuted. That by this time they began to feel this there are not wanting certain indications. (1) Though the narrative is very concise, very condensed, it does not omit to describe the tender handling of the prisoners found speaking in the temple - a tender handling the more notable because they were escaped prisoners. "The captain and officers went and brought them without violence; for they feared the people, lest themselves should be stoned" - an unfavorable predicament, all things considered, certainly. (2) Presumably because the narrative is very condensed it asks a second thought on our part as to what is the precise meaning when it is said, "The high priest, and the captain of the temple, and the chief priests, doubted concerning them [i.e. the apostles], whereunto this would grow." We take it that their innermost darkness began to be harassed with dawning day; their innermost mind with dawning convictions that they had a very new sort of men to deal with; their conscience with dawning of a fear very unfamiliar to their hitherto manner of bearing themselves toward that same conscience. Possibly, more than possibly afterwards, the same messenger who brought word as to where the apostles were and what they were doing stated also the apostles' account of how they had got out of the prison. He would have ample time to do this while the captain and the officers went to bring them. That awkward interval must have been filled up somehow by the dismayed court. Nor can there be a doubt that it was filled up with abundant talk and question and discussion. This or some such view is, it appears to us, essentially corroborated by the apparent silence of the court, when the apostles were at last ushered into its presence, as to their escape, and by its sedulous abstinence from any interrogations upon the matter. Silence absolute on that subject were certainly their best wisdom when they had heard the real facts, and, hearing, had seen them with eyes forced open. The silence of the narrative is one thing, and is a token of historic accuracy and fidelity. The silence of the court is another thing, and is a touch true enough to nature, in fact, a great demonstration of nature, which sometimes, in the supreme effort to cover defeat, then most convicts itself of defeat. What, therefore, with a certain underswell and muttering of conscience first, and then with the unease wrought by the plain discovery of how things had been, it may be reasonably imagined that the high priest and those associated with him wished already that they were well clear of the whole matter. 3. But the moment has come for the arraignment itself. It is at all events plain, its meaning and. its implications not obscure. "You have disobeyed our strict command, have filled Jerusalem with the doctrine we disapprove, and are going far to fix on us the responsibility and possibly the vengeance of the blood of this man." Probably a spirit of contempt and an intention to express it thinly veiled growing fear, when they use the words, "this name," and "your doctrine," and "this man's blood," instead of naming the Name that was already "above every name" and naming the doctrine which was certainly not "the doctrine nor after the commandments, of men" (Colossians 2:22), and naming "the blood which speaketh better things than that of Abel." 4. But the challenge is at once accepted by the apostolic band. They admit their disobedience to human command. They assert their obedience to Divine command, and assert the necessity of it - its moral ought. They at once honor, by a firm and repeated utterance of it, the Name which had just been sorrily flouted, but which, in very deed, designated One who had known the unprecedented transitions of resurrection and ascension, and who owned to the titles of Prince and Savior of mankind. His princely gift is the power of" repentance," his saving gift is the "remission of sins." Occupying a position of vast moral purchase over their judges, the apostles do not propose to shield these from an iota of their responsibility. They had declined to name the Name of Jesus; the apostles do not shrink at all from naming the name of their sin and guilt, nor forbear to describe them as the persons answerable for the blood of Jesus. "Whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree." And so they make out their text. We "ought to obey God." And as God, the God of our fathers, was he who "raised" Jesus, and who "exalted" him, we are his "witnesses," in these glorious wonders, of the history of his Son Jesus. And Peter adds, in one of the most pronounced of the claims of inspiration peculiar to revelation, that, in saying so much, he means that "the Holy Ghost" in them is the real Witness, that Holy Ghost whom God gives to those who obey him. That God is to be obeyed, probably the now judges of the apostles would not presume to deny. Peter and the apostles have made out their case when they have proved that this is all to which their censured and imprisoned conduct amounts. So the close of their defense clenches the opening of it. III. THE INCIDENT OF A FRESH EXPERIENCE OF HELPLESS INCAPACITY IN THE COUNCIL. This experience was ushered in, indeed, by one of a far more pronounced character. In a word which itself expresses an intensity of suffering, we are told that they of the council "were cut" to the quick, and in the first paroxysm of agony saw no option but to slay their prisoners. The apostles were again called upon to retire from the court (Acts 4:15) while the state of things was deliberated. And "in the multitude of counselors was found safety" of some sort at least, and of some brief duration, thanks to the sage prudence that dwelt in one of them, and apparently only one. Note here to what different issue men have been cut to the heart. 1. Some to deep penitence, contrition, conversion; so Peter (Luke 22:61, 62), and the first converts (Acts 2:67). 2. But other some to deeper condemnation, and suicide either actual or moral; so Judas (Matthew 27:4, 5), and those here described, with many an ancestor, many a descendant. The blindness of intense anger and the malignant action of intense chagrin may be ranked among the certain precursors of incapacity, but here they reveal it too. And that we read under these conditions, "they take counsel to slay them," serves little more than to make assurance doubly sure that helpless floundering is the present order of things at the ostensible seat of justice. IV. THE INCIDENT OF A FRESH UNDIGNIFIED ESCAPE FROM AN UNDIGNIFIED POSITION. A Pharisee - save the mark! - leads the way out. And the way out leads just back by the way they came in. That the members of the council put themselves as far as possible just where they were before they stirred at all in the matter is the policy which Gamaliel propounds. It comes to this, that he forcibly argues it were by far the best thing to eat their own, both words and deeds. The conservative shrewdness and blandness of this advice, and of the courteous way in which it is advanced, are equally unmistakable and in a sort admirable. It were uncharitable, however, to deny that it is open to intrinsic commendation also. 1. Gamaliel has noted and treasured and now uses well the lessons of history. 2. Evidently he is before his time, and has a largo and open eye for the principles of even civil liberty. 3. More remarkably still, he seems to have grasped the principle and the very basis of the principle of religious liberty. "These men" (ver. 35) are to be looked at, as some possibly sacred thing should be looked at. "These men" (ver. 38) are to be "let alone," as men possibly doing "the work of God." And their present would-be judges are to "refrain from" them, because they ought themselves to shrink, for their own sake, from incurring even the distant responsibility of "fighting against God." The principle of religious liberty always postulates these two aspects-one presenting the view of the harm that may be done to others by hampering their moral convictions or nature; the other the harm that may be done to self in challenging the most solemn and critical responsibilities which even "angels might fear." 4. It is difficult to resist the impression that Gamaliel was one of those who were" not far from the kingdom of God." The narrative scarcely warrants our saying that he had a leaning to "these men "himself. But this "doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people" (ver. 34), does seem to have had this of religion in him, that" he feared God," and that he dared to say it in connection with taking a very unpopular side. To the advice of Gamaliel his fellow-councilors "agreed," glad to escape the position in which they again found themselves. They retreated from it for reasons which Gamaliel takes the credit of putting before them, but which should have been before them long before, and should have saved them from being where they now were. They do retreat, they know they are in the wrong, they are morally again beaten; but the only thing which would have taken from their retreat the description undignified is withheld, for they do not confess their error. On the contrary, we notice - V. LASTLY, THE INCIDENT OF A GRATUITOUS BEATING OF THE APOSTLES AND A BARREN COMMAND LAID UPON THEM. Whatever may be thought or charitably hoped of Gamaliel, the adviser in this crisis, very clear it is that those whom he had influenced had no deeper sympathies with the grounds of his advice. Against these they now as much sin in principle as if they had laid violent hands on the apostles, according to the first dictates of their rage. And so again do these men drop awhile from our sight. They drop into the ignominious shade, while it fares far otherwise with their beaten, commanded, but withal released prisoners. Cruelty is the covering with which cowardice now chooses to take its unavailing chance of concealing defeat already too shameful, but which rather adds to it and to the revealing of it. They disappear from view, "beating" the apostles, and "commanding them not to speak in the Name of Jesus." But it is a token of the literal fact that they themselves have been ignominiously beaten along the whole line of battle, the apostles and the truth and "the Name of Jesus" winning the day. - B. Parallel Verses KJV: 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, |
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