Judgment and Blessing. Acts 3:23 - 4:8
Acts 3:23 NASB "And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people." Just as Deuteronomy stated that every word would be required, i.e. accountable to obey every word from this prophet, it is restated here that every soul that would not hear and obey this prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. The word that is translated "destroyed" here is a somewhat antiquated Greek word which is only used a couple of times in the New Testament but is used numerous times in the LXX to translate the concept of being cut off. This is an extreme term that indicates death in many cases—capital punishment for disobedience. Cf. Psalm 92:7; 106:34; both use this word exolothreuo [e)coloqreuw]. Psalm 92:7 NASB "That when the wicked sprouted up like grass And all who did iniquity flourished, It {was only} that they might be destroyed [e)coloqreuw] forevermore." Psalm 106:34 NASB "They did not destroy [e)coloqreuw] the peoples, As the LORD commanded them"—talking about the conquest generation when every Canaanite was to be destroyed, and they failed to obey Him. So this word is a euphemism for capital punishment and for death. So it is very clear that there is a penalty in the messianic prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15-19 that when this prophet like Moses comes, if He is not listened to, the people will be destroyed.
Acts 3:24 NASB "And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and {his} successors onward, also announced these days." Remember that a prophet is a spokesperson for God; he basically represented the Supreme Court of heaven to the people and he challenged to people with reference to their disobedience. The first prophet mentioned here is Samuel, probably the first writing prophet in the Old Testament. Here Peter is addressing the people in the temple courtyard and saying to go back and read the prophets from Samuel all the way forward and see again and again how they foretold these days. So here is a clear statement that the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, have prophecy after prophecy after prophecy related to the Messiah. There are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.
Acts 3:25 NASB "It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.'" Here he is using the term "sons of the prophets" in terms of you have the heritage of the prophets. He is saying to them you are the heirs, the recipients of the teaching of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with their fathers. He uses the word "covenant" as a singular noun. He is specifically speaking of the Abrahamic covenant which had three basic aspects: a promise of land, a promise of seed, and a promise of blessing. What he is focusing on here is the seed promise, the blessing promise—Genesis 12:3 NASB "And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." What is interesting is that in that verse there is the English word "curse" twice. A curse is to come under God's judgment. The first word that is used here is a word that speaks of a strong, harsh punishment or judgment; the second word is one that basically means to treat with disrespect or lightly. It should be translated, "I will harshly judge the one who treats you with disrespect." The phrase "in you" represents a Hebrew preposition that is just the letter b. It is similar to the Greek preposition en [e)n] and it has not only the sense of location, which is what it sounds like—"in you"—but also the idea of means or instrumentality. It should be translated "by means of you" or "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed." So we have a promise here that anyone who treats the Jewish people lightly, casually or with disrespect—not to mention anti-Semitism—God will harshly judge. No nation or people on the earth has ever survived being anti-Semitic.
So God's promise is that He will bring blessing to all families of the earth through the Jewish people. This is not a natural blessing. There are many things that the Jewish people have provided—artists, musicians, scientists, etc.
Acts 3:26 NASB "For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one {of you} from your wicked ways." This is the second time Peter has mentioned the resurrection. There were witnesses of this resurrection and those in Peter's audience knew that. They had heard the stories, they had friends and family members perhaps who had seen the resurrected Jesus, and so this just touched them to the quick. They know that this has happened and there is no challenge. Jesus is the blessing—"sent Him to bless you." He is connecting Genesis 12:3 to the role of Jesus. How? "…by [en/ e)n indicates means] turning every one {of you} from your wicked ways." The word for turning is another form of the Greek word epistrepho, it has a different preposition—apostrepho [a)postrefw] which means to turn, to cause a change in belief or behavior. It should be translated "in order to turn every one of you from your iniquities." What is "their iniquities" in context? In context it is the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. So they are going to turn from rejecting Jesus as the Messiah to accepting Jesus as the Messiah, but this message is having an extremely agitating effect on one group of listeners.
Acts 4:1 NASB "As they were speaking to the people…" While Peter is still preaching there is movement in the background. "… the priests and the captain of the temple {guard} and the Sadducees came up to them." These three groups were truly all part of the Sadducee Party. What characterized the Sadducees was, first of all, they did not believe in bodily resurrection. So they are extremely upset over this proclamation of the resurrection. They associated that with the Pharisees and thought that this was a Pharisaic innovation, some new doctrine that the Pharisees had dreamed up. They also denied the existence of angels or spirits, so they were basically like today's religious liberals—they don't really believe in God, in the supernatural. They were loyal to the Roman government, they cooperated, and they would be called Quislings in the modern sense. They had a desire to maintain the status quo; they were associated with the wealthy class; they adhered only to the Pentateuch and didn't pay any attention to the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The words "came up to them" is an aorist verb tense that indicates this is sudden. As soon as they heard about this they gathered their people together and ran out to stop this from happening. It is a very dramatic scene; they are highly agitated. They hate this doctrine of the resurrection and they are disturbed because Peter and John and the others are teaching and preaching. Two different words: didasko [didaskw] means to teach, to give instruction, to go through the Old Testament Scriptures point by point showing all the different prophecies that were fulfilled specifically in Jesus; "preached"—we live in a world today that has taken the concept of preaching and ripped it out of the Bible and distorted it. We have created a rhetorical style. But that is not what the Bible means by preaching. The word translated "preaching here is kataggello [kataggellw] and this means to simply announce something: that Jesus has come, that Jesus died for our sins, that Jesus rose from the dead. That is a proclamation. The other word that is used, kerugma [khrugma] for a sermon also has that thrust; it is simply to make a proclamation. But didasko is a key word, it means to instruct, to go point by point through what the Scriptures teach so that the people understand it and can see how to apply it. Neither of these are "preaching" in what we find in most churches today. It is not good homoletics—the modern study of preaching.
Acts 4:2, 3 NASB "being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening." It is almost dark, too late to have a trial; there are certain rooms within the precincts of the temple where they can lock them up over night and so they arrest them and put them in a holding cell until they can have a trial or hearing the next morning.
Acts 4:4 NASB "But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand." That is just the men, but in addition to that there were women and children who also believed, so this could have been fifteen or twenty thousand who trusted and believed in Jesus as Messiah on that particular day. What is interesting is the word "believed." It doesn't say they repented. What was the command back in verse 19? "Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." Today people take the word "repent" and say we have to repent of our sins before we can be saved. That is not what the text says. Repent is a mental attitude word which means to change your mind about Jesus. What do you do when you change your mind about Jesus? You believe in Him, you trust Him as savior. So their response was to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and to trust in Him. Only the men are numbered here—5000 men. There were four thousand people who were saved on the day of Pentecost and so by this time there are thirty or forty thousand Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. The church was exploding and we can just imagine how the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin must feel. It was out of control and they had to do something to stop this.
Acts 4:5 NASB "On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem; [6] and Annas the high priest {was there,} and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of high-priestly descent." This is the Sanhedrin that comes together, the ruling council over the Jews. It was a collection of seventy-one rulers, most of whom were Sadducees. It is referred to in Scripture as the body of elders in Luke 22:66. Josephus referred to it as the Council in his Antiquities. The term that is used most of the time in the Mishnah is "Sanhedrin" which is the ultimate law court, the rulers over the Jews at this particular time. It first appeared in history in approximately 200 BC and it continues its role as the rulers over the Jews until the Jewish revolt began in 66 AD. After the Jewish revolt there was another body that came up, also called the Sanhedrin, but there is not a connection between the two.
Annas, mentioned here, is the high priest as appointed by the Jews, but the Romans tried to regulate the Jewish observance and they wouldn't allow a high priesthood rule being in office for more than six or seven years. From the Jewish perspective Annas is still the high priest. The high priestly family ran everything—like the Godfather. Caiaphas was his Annas's nephew and was the high priest from 18-36 AD, so he is still the high priest but he is the high priest that Rome put in there because they weren't going to let somebody come in as high priest for life, which is what the Mosaic Law had demanded. Then there is mention of John and Alexander, two others in the family of the high priest who had a position of authority over the Sanhedrin and were in the priesthood. These all come together and they bring in John and Peter.
Acts 4:7 NASB "When they had placed them in the center, they {began to} inquire, 'By what power, or in what name, have you done this?'" Then Peter responds. [8] "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, 'Rulers and elders of the people.'" This filling of the Spirit is not the filling by means of the Spirit that we have; it is not Ephesians 5:18 phraseology. In Ephesians 5:18 is the command to be filled—the Greek verb poleroo [plhrow]—by means of the Spirit. It is the preposition en [e)n] plus the dative for the Holy Spirit. Here we have a different but related word, pimplemi [pimplhmi]. It is found frequently in Acts with the genitive, to be full of something. The genitive describes the content of something. For example, if I say to fill up my glass with water I would use a genitive there because I am talking about the content of what is in the glass. But if I am talking about what you are going to use to fill my glass when I say "Fill my glass with that pitcher" then the pitcher becomes the means and I would use the phrase en plus the dative to indicate what you are using to fill my glass with water. When Ephesians 5:18 talks about being filled by means of the Spirit, the Spirit isn't the content of the filling; He is the one who is filling us with something. When we compare Ephesians 5:18 with Colossians 3:16 we realize we are to let the Word of Christ dwell within us, so the Spirit fills us with the Word. But that is a completely different idiom to what we have here in Acts 4:8 to be full of the Spirit. Every time we have this verb and this phraseology, from Zachariah the father of John the Baptist Luke chapter one, Elizabeth in Luke chapter one, Mary in Luke chapter one, it is always followed by some sort of speaking—they are full of the Spirit and they say something. It is something similar to the process of inspiration and it is unique to this period of history. It is not something that is the result of being in fellowship, it is not something that is the result of any volitional decision made; it is a sovereign act of God where suddenly He gives them the Holy Spirit for a particular purpose and they say something that is the result of this being full of the Holy Spirit.
Peter now speaks under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and we see a totally different peter than we saw just a few weeks before. He is now in front of all the power brokers in Judea and they are all angry with him and want to kill him. And he is relaxed, calm, and he is going to turn the whole case against them. What we see here is an example of what Jesus told the disciples to expect. He said that they would meet opposition, be arrested and taken before kings and governors, and that they would be persecuted for His sake; and so He instructed them before the crucifixion: Settle in your hearts not to meditate before hand what you will answer: "I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist." So this is something that is a supernatural empowerment that comes from the Holy Spirit so that they can answer the charges against them.
Acts 4:8 NASB "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, 'Rulers and elders of the people, [9] if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, [10] let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this {name} this man stands here before you in good health." He is not backing off at all. He is not afraid of the power that is in front of him, he just sees this as an opportunity to witness and make the gospel clear to the members of the Sanhedrin. He does it in a relaxed manner; he is not defensive or hostile, he doesn't feel threatened. He is empowered by the Holy Spirit and he makes it very clear and immediately goes on the offensive. How can you judge us for a good deed?
Then he connects it to the Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah. Acts 4:11 NASB "He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, {but} WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER {stone.}" In Psalm 118:22, in context, the stone that is rejected is the nation Israel, the Jewish people. But the embodiment of everything that God intended the Jewish people to be is in the Messiah, and He is the one who is rejected. Peter applies that verse to Jesus. Then he says [12] "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." He uses the word "salvation" which can mean healing, but it can also mean eternal salvation in the full sense of the word because he is talking about not only was this man healed, he is also saved. It is done with the same word, so there is a little bit of a play on words there. He focuses that just as by the name of Jesus this man was healed there is no other healing or salvation in the spiritual realm in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.