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 you? if you wished to offer but the half, who required the whole?' (Augustine, Sermon cxlviii).

Thou hast not lied onto men, but unto God. The doctrine of the early Church on the subject of the Holy Ghost is plainly declared in the words of this and the preceding verse. The personality of the blessed Spirit is assumed by the words of Acts 5:3, and from Acts 5:4 we gather that, in the esteem of St. Peter, the Holy Ghost was God. In the first question Peter asks, ‘Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?' In reference to the same offence, in Acts 5:4 his words are, ‘Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.' To lie to the Holy Ghost is not to lie unto men, because the Holy Ghost is not man, but to lie unto God, because the Holy Ghost is God (see Pearson, art. viii.).

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Old Testament