EXCURSUS A. The Hebrew Doctrine respecting Angels before the captivity. In the Jerusalem Talmud we read how ‘the names of the angels went up by the hand of Israel out of Babylon,' and the date of the prophecy of Daniel, in which book the work and office of the Angelic Host is especially described,... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Episode of Ananias and Sapphira,_ 1-11. Acts 5:1-2. BUT A CERTAIN MAN NAMED ANANIAS, WITH SAPPHIRA HIS WIFE, SOLD A POSSESSION, AND KEPT BACK PART OF THE PRICE. In striking contrast to the entire self-abnegation of some of the richer brethren, of whom Barnabas was an example, appears the conduc... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Inner Life of the Church, Acts 4:32 to Acts 5:11_. The characteristic feature is concord among the believers. The great topic of preaching among them is the Lord's resurrection. The favour they were held in among the people. Their community of goods. Two notable examples of this generosity in... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:3. BUT PETER SAID, ANANIAS, WHY HATH SATAN FILLED THINE HEART TO LIE TO THE HOLY GHOST? It was in the solemn assembly of the believers for prayer and counsel, Peter and the twelve no doubt sitting on their raised chairs (see note on chap. Acts 4:35), when Ananias presented his rich offering.... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:4. WHILES IT REMAINED, WAS IT NOT THINE OWN? AND AFTER IT WAS SOLD, WAS IT NOT IN THINE OWN POWER? All this shows that this community of goods was purely voluntary; even in the Church of Jerusalem it was required of no member. ‘If you were unwilling to sell (your possession), who compelled yo... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:5. AND ANANIAS HEARING THESE WORDS FELL DOWN, AND GAVE UP THE GHOST. In considering the questions which cluster round this terrible death scene, we must put aside all such interpretations which ascribe ‘the death' to what is termed natural causes. It was no stroke of apoplexy, the result of s... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:6. AND THE YOUNG MEN AROSE. These young men probably occupied in the Church some authorized official position. As yet to look for a definite organization in the little community, would be of course premature; yet it is in the highest degree probable that the earliest Christian worship was mod... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:7. AND IT WAS ABOUT THE SPACE OF THREE HOURS AFTER, WHEN HIS WIFE. The words ‘about the space of three hours' form a parenthesis. Then ‘it came to pass some three hours had now elapsed when his wife.' She was puzzled at the long absence of her husband, who had left her to present his rich gif... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:8. AND PETER ANSWERED UNTO HER. Her entrance into the assembly of saints, where one sad thought was present in each one's heart, was, as Bengel happily says, equivalent to her speaking. So Peter, looking at her, answers her mute look of inquiry, her voiceless question, with the words, TELL ME... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:9. HOW IS IT THAT YE HAVE AGREED TOGETHER TO TEMPT THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD? This evidently in the apostle's mind is a serious aggravation of their guilt. They had agreed together to do this thing. It was no sin committed hastily, but one thought over and planned a preconcerted scheme to deceiv... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:10. AND THE YOUNG MEN CAME IN, AND FOUND HER DEAD. The death of the wife was instantaneous, and took place exactly as the words of Peter had foretold. She lay dead in the midst of the assembly, and the young men who had just returned from the grave of Ananias laid her in that same sad evening... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:11. AND GREAT FEAR CAME UPON ALL THE CHURCH, AND UPON AS MANY AS HEARD THESE THINGS. Within and without the story was told. On the Church, in all the city and neighbourhood, on many an indifferent and careless citizen outside the Church's pale, fell the shadow of that great fear fear, however... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:12. AND BY THE HANDS OF THE APOSTLES WERE MANY SIGNS AND WONDERS WROUGHT AMONG THE PEOPLE. Notwithstanding the great fear which came over the Church after the terrible event just recorded, the apostles seem to have pressed on their work with greater enthusiasm than before, and with marked suc... [ Continue Reading ]
_A Further Picture of the Progress of the Church. The Power of St. Peter in those First Days,_ 12-16. The relations of the little Church towards the _outside_ world are now dwelt on. Already we have seen how all public teaching in the name of Jesus was strictly forbidden, and in chap. Acts 4:31 we... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY WERE ALL WITH ONE ACCORD IN SOLOMON'S PORCH. ACTS 5:13. AND OF THE REST DURST NO MAN JOIN HIMSELF TO THEM: BUT THE PEOPLE MAGNIFIED THEM. Thus, while the apostles were busied in their work of healing and teaching, using for the purpose of spreading the knowledge of their Master's kingdom th... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:14. AND BELIEVERS WERE THE MORE ADDED TO THE LORD. This statement confirms the exposition given above of the words, ‘Of the rest durst no man join himself to them.' A sense of religious awe kept the crowds who thronged the Temple courts and the people generally from intruding upon them and di... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:15. INTO THE STREETS. Those between the apostles' house and the Temple. The whole scene of growing admiration and respect for the persons of these brave and earnest teachers, who enforced their burning words with such mighty loving acts, reminds us of a still greater enthusiasm excited by the... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:16. WITH UNCLEAN SPIRITS. The subject of ‘demoniacal possession' will be found discussed in chap. Acts 16:6.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Second Arrest of the Apostles. They are freed by the Interposition of an Angel_, 17-25. Acts 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... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:18. THE APOSTLES. Peter and others of them. It does not necessarily mean the whole twelve. In the common prison. This is specially mentioned, that no doubt may rest on the fact of the deliverance by means of an unearthly hand that night. It was no mere temporary confinement in the high pries... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:19. THE ANGEL OF THE LORD. Commentators even of the schools of Meyer, Neander, and Ewald dislike to acknowledge this angelic interference as a historical fact, and seek by various devices to explain away the statement. So Neander writes: ‘The fact of a release by a special Divine guidance to... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:20. GO, STAND AND SPEAK IN THE TEMPLE TO THE PEOPLE. The very words spoken by the angel of deliverance are here quoted. The imprisoned ones were to go at once (the new day was probably already dawning) into the public courts of the temple to proclaim to the people all the words of this life,... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:21. THEY ENTERED INTO THE TEMPLE EARLY IN THE MORNING, AND TAUGHT. During many months of the year in the Holy Land the heat becomes too oppressive for the ordinary labour of the day soon after sunrise. In the early dawn (see John 20:1) the work of the day would begin, and the worshippers and... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:23. THE PRISON TRULY FOUND WE SHUT WITH ALL SAFETY. We have here the report of the guard who were sent by the high priest to fetch the accused from their place of confinement. They found the prison locked and barred, and the keepers watching as usual, fully believing all was secure; but on en... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:24. NOW WHEN THE HIGH PRIEST. For the word rendered high priest here, in the original Greek we find only ι ̔ ερου ͂, _priest_ that is, _the priest_ just mentioned in Acts 5:21, and who we have explained was Annas. The captain of the temple. As before, the Jewish priest in command of the Levi... [ Continue Reading ]
_They are arrested again, and accused before the Sanhedrim,Peter's Defence. The Impression it made on the Pharisee Members of the Council, The Sentence,_ 26-40. Acts 5:26. AND BROUGHT THEM WITHOUT VIOLENCE: FOR THEY FEARED THE PEOPLE. At this period the popular favour which the apostles enjoyed had... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:28. 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. A concealed dread underlies the whole of the high priest's accusation. He never asks them how they came to be in t... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:29. WE OUGHT TO OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN. Peter here commences his defence with the same words which he had made use of before, when the Sanhedrim dismissed the apostles with threats of future punishment. He took up the same solemn argument now a second time; it was as though he said, ‘I told... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:30. THE GOD OF OUR FATHERS. Identifying himself, in the words ‘our fathers,' with the glorious line of patriarchs, prophets, and kings whom the children of Israel in their then state of humiliation and subjection remembered with so passionate a love; while he pointed to Jehovah, the Mighty On... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:31. HIM HATH GOD EXALTED WITH HIS RIGHT HAND. ‘To His right hand,' not ‘with' (see the note on chap. Acts 2:23, where a similar change has been adopted). That same Jesus whom _you_ slew and hanged on the cross of shame and agony, hath the God of your fathers exalted to His right hand, TO BE A... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:32. AND WE ARE HIS WITNESSES OF THESE THINGS. ‘His,' as appointed by Him, as chosen by Him when on earth. ‘Of these things,' viz. the death on the accursed tree and the ascension from earth, they were eye-witnesses; but they were witnesses in a yet higher sense of their Master's exaltation, a... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:33. THEY WERE CUT TO THE HEART. Literally, ‘they were cut asunder as with a saw' (so the Vulgate, _dissecabantur)._ TOOK COUNSEL TO SLAY THEM. To carry out such a sentence, the sanction of the Roman Government must have been first obtained, unless they had effected their purpose by having r... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:34. A PHARISEE NAMED GAMALIEL, A DOCTOR OF THE LAW, HAD IN REPUTATION AMONG ALL THE PEOPLE. This Gamaliel (גַּמְלִיאֵל, _benefit of God._ See Numbers 1:10; Acts 2:10) is generally acknowledged to be identical with the celebrated Gamaliel the elder, who lived at the time, and was the grandson... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:35. YE MEN OF ISRAEL, TAKE HEED TO YOURSELVES WHAT YE INTEND TO DO AS TOUCHING THESE MEN. Gamaliel here, as a wise and far-seeing man, persuades the angry and unreasoning zealots in the council, who would have taken the lives of the teachers of the new sect, to consider well what they were do... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:36. FOR BEFORE THESE DAYS. That is, ‘not long ago;' so Chrysostom understands the words when he remarks, ‘He does not speak of ancient records, though he might have done so, but of more recent histories, which are most powerful to induce belief.' Gamaliel's meaning is: ‘This is by no means th... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:37. AFTER THIS MAN AROSE. These words determine pretty closely the date of the failure of the pretensions of Theudas. The attempted rising of Judas of Galilee, related in this verse, was a well-known one, and happened in the reign of Augustus about A.D. 6 or 7 that is, about twenty-six years... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:38-39. AND NOW I SAY INTO YOU. Gamaliel's words could be paraphrased thus: ‘Is this work a Divine one? does it emanate from God? If not, it will come to nothing, like those examples of imposture of Theudas and Judas of Galilee I have just been quoting to you. There is no reason for our counci... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:40. AND TO HIM THEY AGREED. How bitterly many of that council must have reproached themselves for the past! The present vote, which dismissed the apostles with a comparatively light penalty, silently condemned the crucifixion of the apostles' Master as a mistake, perhaps as an awful crime.... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:41. REJOICING THAT THEY WERE COUNTED WORTHY TO SUFFER SHAME. The glad and joyful willingness to endure martyrdom for the sake of the Master which has been ever so distinguishing a feature in the Christian story, is here shown for the first time. Everything _like fear_ was banished from the mi... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 5:42. AND DAILY IN THE TEMPLE. Undismayed by any punishment in the past, undeterred by any fear for the future, they did their Master's bidding daily without rest or repose, in public, in the courts of His ancient and beautiful temple. And in every house they ceased not to teach. In private as... [ Continue Reading ]