Acts 5

Acts 5:12-6

Subdivision 6. (Acts 5:12-42; Acts 6:1-7.)Triumph within and without. The inspired historian does not detain us long with this now, but passes on to speak of the Church’s triumph over this double evil, within and without.

1. There is the constant display of divine power at the hands of the apostles; so the crowds follow, and the people magnify them; while the fear of what has taken place deters those from joining them who are not joined to the Lord in living faith. But multitudes are thus added to Him, both of men and of women. Consciences are brought into serious exercise, with the sure result of many believing. The place which is habitually frequented, and in which we have found them before, is Solomon’s porch; the testimony of their ruin under the old covenant, whatever may have been the pains to cover it up since, and even to decorate that which covered it. Jerusalem thus becomes a centre to which men flock from all the districts round, bringing the sick and those oppressed by demons, -two classes always carefully distinguished in the word of God; and the very shadow of Peter is sought to for its power to heal; nor do we read of disappointment even in this.

The masses all are healed. So fully is the prayer of true and devoted hearts for the glory of Jesus answered of God. 2. Persecution arises again, and from the same quarter as before; the high priest being foremost, with the sect of the Sadducees, to which he belonged. But when the apostles are once more shut up in prison, an angel of the Lord (that is, of Jehovah) opens the doors by night, and bids them enter again into the temple, to preach there unto the people “all the words of this life.” In the morning, therefore, the prison being securely shut, they are found in the temple at their blessed work. The council is perplexed, and wonder what will be the end of it; but the issue raised is become so serious for them, that they will dispute it with God Himself. So they command them to be brought once more, though it has to be done quietly, lest the excited people should stone the officers; and for the second time the council of the nation, in answer to their charge of violating the prohibition they had given, have to listen to the statement of their crime. The rulers had made obedience to them impossible by their own vain conflict with the God of their fathers.

Him, whom they had put to death with the greatest indignity, God had raised up, and with His right hand exalted Him to be Founder* and Saviour, to begin that new temple to God’s praise, of which they had before proclaimed Him the Foundation-Stone. But for this it was necessary that every one who should form part in it -for the temple was to be, as Peter explains from his own name, a building of “living stones” (1 Peter 2:4-5) -should be cleansed and sanctified.

The Founder must therefore be a Saviour, and give repentance and remission of sins. The apostles say, “to Israel,” and this He will yet do. It was the nation that was at present before them, and to whom their message was. The Church had not emerged into distinct thought, although it was in existence in fact, but as a babe that had not yet learned to know itself. But Christ, -Christ was their absorbing occupation and delight; no higher could be, though they were to learn much more of their own relationship to Him. “And we are witnesses of these things; and the Holy Spirit also, which God hath given to them who obey Him.” But it is not proof which they were wanting, -these leaders of the people; just the reverse; and to be reminded of the proof which was all too demonstrative only throws them into a passionate rage that would quench itself in the blood of those who so fearlessly maintain this testimony. Had they not quenched this light once? Could they not again do so? Had they not put out of their way the Master? Could they not deal with the disciples?
So impossible is it for His enemies to understand the patience of God, which is oftentimes so great a trial to His people even. If He has indeed this power, how is it that, as the Psalmist puts it, He does not “pluck His hand out of His bosom,” and deal more openly with His adversaries? Will He use it in healings and raising up crippled beggars, and let His people lie so defenceless in the hands of their persecutors? Can this gentle zephyr ever grow into a tornado blast? They cannot believe it, however great at times the evidences may seem to be. Did not the prison doors unaccountably open?

Yes; but that did not deliver out of their hands after all! Balance this against that: even their Master did not come down from the cross; and the cross seems ordained for His disciples also. Yes; the Cross! and how little yet do we understand its glory! 3. Thus, even if He interferes for His own, there is generally a veil over His Face: “Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known!” Still, for all that, “Thou leddest Thy people like a flock” (Psalms 77:19-20). Christ’s witnesses are now to prove this; they are to be sheltered, yet by no apparent intervention of the divine Hand. One of the councilors themselves, a Pharisee and not a believer, though brought by all he has seen and heard into the neutral position which his advice indicates, is the instrument which God uses at this time to shelter the witnesses of His grace to men. Gamaliel, a man of great weight among the Jews, and grandson of the celebrated Hillel, having caused the apostles to be put forth for a little while, remonstrates against any violence. The case before them, he urges, was no solitary one; and the examples they had had of impostors who had arisen showed how surely these pretensions of men came to nought. He mentions two of these: one well-known, -“Judas of Galilee, in the days of the census, -the other a Theudas,* only conjecturally taken to be either a Judas, in the reign of Archelaus, as Archbp. Ussher thought, or else a Matthias, about the close of that of Herod.

Both attempts ended disastrously, as Gamaliel reminds his hearers, and so would this, if it were not of God. The possibility of this he warns them of, and the result in that case of being found fighting against God. A tremendous possibility, indeed!
His advice is conformable to such a suspense of judgment: “Refrain from these men, and let them alone.” To which they agree, with a strange modification of their own; for while they acknowledge they may be fighting against God, and so give up their murderous intent, they contradict themselves, and show the malice of their hearts, by beating these possible witnesses for God, before they let them go! and again forbidding them to speak what they cannot venture to say may not be truth! Such a being is man! But Gamaliel himself, though impressed, and right in his refusal to act in the dark as if in the light, is otherwise wrong in his principles, and untrue to the truth. His judgment by the issue leaves him a doubter till that issue; and when, and what, may that issue be? If one could look far enough, no doubt the end would be seen to be in accordance with the righteousness of God who governs. But who will undertake to trace this with any infallibility through those ways which the Psalmist confesses are in the sea, and His footsteps are not known? Who will pierce the clouds and darkness that are about Him, and give a trustworthy account of all His doings? The Psalmist complained of the prosperity of the wicked, and had to pursue them to the other side of death, in order to find satisfaction (Psalms 73:1-28.).

The friends of Job argue like Gamaliel here, and are rebuked by the sufferer as speaking deceitfully for God (Job 13:7); for he also has seen the wicked spend their days in prosperity (Job 21:13). The Preacher too sees it as among the vanities of earthly things, “that there be righteous men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; and again there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous” (Ecclesiastes 8:14). While Habakkuk complains to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity that yet He looketh upon them that deal treacherously, and holdeth His peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man, that is more righteous than himself (Habakkuk 1:13). And Jehovah answers him that “the just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). And this is what Gamaliel with his temporizing policy has left out. He would wait and watch, and go down to the grave perhaps unconvinced; and so there is reason to believe he did; while a bolder and more hasty spirit might catch more quickly his conclusion, and decide, -but decide wholly wrong. For it would be hard upon his principles to accept in his way as the witnesses for God men “as it were, appointed unto death, a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men; -hungry and athirst. and naked, and buffeted”! Must not those who laid their stripes upon the apostles now have fancied they were helping to disprove these fanatical teachings with every stroke of their lash? The meaning of the Cross would be, for them and for their teacher both, an impossibility to comprehend. But God none the less had sheltered His people; and, as for the rest, they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Name! And still, every day, in the temple and in the house, they ceased not to teach and tell the glad tidings that Jesus was the Christ. 4. Another trial was at hand; and now again from within: a difficulty had to be met, which the very growth in numbers tended to produce, the natural selfishness of man’s heart showing itself amid all the power and joy of the work of the Spirit constantly progressing. “There arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews,” or Hellenists, “against the Hebrews,” (the native Jews,) “because their widows were neglected in the daily ministrations.” It does not say, they were neglected, but that this was affirmed. In fact, although grace was here dominant above it, there was always a certain jealousy existing between these two classes. The Jews born in foreign countries tended to more liberal views than those of Judea, and indeed to a liberality as far from the truth on one side as the Pharisaism of the Rabbinistic teachers was upon the other. It was upon the side of the Hebrews, however, that jealousy was rather to be expected. Here it was on that of the Hellenists; but perhaps a reaction resulting from the knowledge of such a spirit generally existing, which would give rise to suspicions such as we find actually manifested now.

But there is grace to meet them effectually, as has been often pointed out; for the names of those chosen on account of the complaints, to take charge of the whole matter of the ministry of the common fund are Greek, every one; and thus, presumably Hellenistic. Those who murmured should have the distribution in their own hands; and those who cannot trust their brethren shall find that nevertheless their brethren can trust them.

How lovely is divine grace! and how effectual is such a settlement! The thought that some have had, that there had been already men appointed to this charge, but who were all Hebrews, and that the seven now chosen were only an addition to the previous number to satisfy the foreign element by giving them representation which hitherto they had not had, is as totally without foundation in Scripture, as it destroys all the beauty of the act itself. In this case, it was but a mere act of tardy justice, or at least the reparation of an actual oversight, which might have given some apparent ground for the complaint. But there is no truth in it; for it is the apostles who have hitherto been in charge of that which we have seen laid at their feet for that purpose and who now take occasion to relieve themselves of what was become a burden, distracting them from their own proper work. The disciples are now to choose those in whom they can have confidence for the management of that which they had themselves contributed; the apostles, however, giving them appointment, as being the divinely constituted leaders, and representatives of the absent Lord. The word of God is that which we see they recognize as their true sphere of service, and that to which they desire wholly to devote themselves; joining with this prayer, which they put first, as the necessary prerequisite. Without that link of conscious dependence, what gift, -even the greatest, -could at all avail? But here we realize the exceeding importance attaching to it in their minds: “We will give ourselves up to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Is it not here, in fact, that we fail so much, and the ministry of the word fails correspondingly? Even for such work as serving tables men are to be sought full of the Holy Spirit, and of wisdom; and the first two that are among the number of those appointed are to be owned and honored of God afterwards in very different ways. One of them also is a proselyte, -of a class thoroughly despised by the Hebrews in general; even while they would do much to gain them. But the grace of God was removing already these unspiritual estimates, -merging all human distinctions in the consciousness of a common relationship to Christ and to God. They are set apart, not without prayer, and by the imposition of hands, as a token, doubtless, of the fellowship with them in their new office. Thus the brief trouble ended; and all was overruled for blessing and the display of the new spirit which animated the new company of believers. The power of it was felt in the increased power of the word of God.

The number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly; and even of the priests a great company became obedient to the faith. The expression made use of in their case lays stress upon the greater difficulty, speaking humanly, to be surmounted by those whose office it would set aside; and of this, although the full light of Christianity had not yet dawned, there were already many intimations.