Kosmic Warfare: Increased Hostility From the Religious Systems. Acts 5:13-42
The ultimate issue in life really is authority. The ultimate issue in life is the issue that was breached by Lucifer in eternity past when he sought to exert his authority over God's authority and to live his way rather than God's way. Ever since then this is the ultimate issue: are we going to follow God or follow the dictates of our own soul and follow our own volition? That is the issue for the creature. Are we going to submit to the authority of God or to our own authority? This is why the Scripture emphasizes authority and submission so much, because it is that principle that is at the very core of every issue in life, and it is the very core of our spiritual life. Whether that is being manifest in a sphere related to government, related to military, related family, marriage, the home. Whether it has to do with an issue at school, the workplace or whether it is a spiritual issue it is suggested that if we are honest with ourselves and we look at how we respond to authority in any of those spheres it will tell us something about how we respond to authority in any other sphere because we tend to respond to authority out of our own sense of arrogance or humility. If we have genuine humility then we will respond to authority on that basis, and if there is arrogance then we will respond to authority on that basis. It won't ultimately matter whether that authority is in one sphere or another, at some point or another it will usually reveal itself.
As we have seen there is a unique dimension to the assault on the church that comes out in chapter five, and that occurred with the introduction of a temptation from Satan, as mentioned in verse three. Satan is the one behind every temptation whether it comes from him directly or indirectly through something in the cosmic system, or whether it is even more indirect through our own sin nature it ultimately derives from Satan's rebellion against God.
We have mentioned the Kosmic system [Kosmic with a K, coming from the Greek], meaning the system of thought that is manifested in all of Satan's thinking, that is characterized by arrogance and antagonism to God, arrogance in that the creature asserts his own authority over against God's, antagonism in that any assertion of authority against God ultimately leads to antagonism and hostility to God's Word. Even though it may be cloaked in some pseudo friendship at some point sooner or later the gloves will come off, the disguise comes off, and sooner or later it is clear that there is going to be clear antagonism and opposition to the truth of God, to Christians and to the clear presentation of the gospel. That opposition continues in the remainder of this chapter.
In Acts 5:12 greater respect comes to the early church through the hands of the apostles because of the miracles that were done. These miracles were designed for the apostles. They were the credentials for the apostles, according to 2 Corinthians 12; they are the signs of an apostolic ministry in the early church. They were temporary; they were to provide credentials for the apostles and prophets in the early church who were the representatives of God upon the earth. With the death of the last apostle, the apostle John, the apostolic group passed from the scene of history and we shifted from the early pre-canon apostolic period of the early church to what is referred to as the apostolic fathers, i.e. those who were directly under the authority and ministry of the apostles in the early church, though they themselves were not apostles.
Through the apostles there were many miracles performed among the people, there was a unity in the early church. Acts 5:13 NASB "But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem." Because of the death of Ananias and Sapphira there was a hesitancy among a certain number of people to officially associate with the early church. Yet at the same time the number of those who are believing in Jesus as Messiah are increasing rapidly. [14] "And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to {their number,} [15] to such an extent that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets, so that when Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on any one of them.}" This wasn't a mystical thing, it was clear from both the ministry of Jesus and later with the apostle Paul that the power of the apostles was such that it affected more than just their immediate volitional choice. This was part of all the grace evidence provided by God of the truth of the message of the apostles.
Then there is a reaction that sets in: the reaction, the opposition, the order to cease and desist from proclaiming the gospel, God's direct countermanding of that order from the Sadducees, his direct order to the apostles to continue to proclaim the message of the gospel, and the apostles being rearrested and tried again. All of this sets us up with another opportunity to look at the issue of when and under what conditions does the believer have the right and responsibility to oppose or disobey established, legitimate authority.
Acts 5:17 NASB "But the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. [18] They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail." This is a repetition of what occurred at the beginning of chapter four. The Sadducees had a specific doctrinal position. They were the liberal religious leaders in Israel and one of the things they rejected was the eternality of the soul, the life of the soul after physical death, and the possibility of resurrection. They completely rejected any kind of future hope or future resurrection. And what are the apostles proclaiming? The resurrection of Jesus and the hop eof eternal life by faith alone in Jesus Christ. That is the gospel. It was the promise of the Old Testament prophets, that the Messiah would come and through the Messiah there would be eternal life given to Israel. While the doctrine of bodily resurrection is not overtly taught in the Old Testament it is clearly and strongly implied in numerous places—which Jesus brought out in very sophisticated reasoning when He talked about, "I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been in the grave for over 400 years. This pre-supposes continued existence. Also the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they would have the land as their inheritance and yet they never had it in their lifetime. It means that God envisioned a future time when they would be restored to physical life and would indeed have the land of promise as their possession, their inheritance.
The Sadducees rejected the authority of all of what we would refer to as the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures, except for the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. Because of their beliefs—they didn't believe in angels, in the existence of the soul or spirit, future judgment, or in physical bodily resurrection—they were a little incensed about what the apostles or the disciples were teaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The apostles were arrested and put into a common prison. Acts 5:19 NASB "But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out he said, [20] Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life." Verse 20 demands a little exegesis. The command to go, poreuomai [poreuomai], present middle imperative, and it means that this is something they are to do, continuously do. The emphasis in a present imperative has to do with a normative action. Then the next command is to speak to the people. That also is a present tense command but it is modified by an aorist participle, to stand, and it really the standing comes before the speaking. So it should be translated, "Go, after you take your stand in the temple speak to the people." It clearly recognizes a proper order of events. They would leave the prison, go and take up a position in the temple precincts where they could teach, and then they were commanded to speak to the people "all of the words [whole message] of this life." What is interesting is the phraseology here. The Greek term translated "words" here is not the word logoi [logoi] but the word rhema [r(hhma]. rhema is used in the LXX primarily to translate any time there is a word from the Lord. The Hebrew word is dabar, and any time that word dabar is related to Yahweh it has to do with God's revelation, and in many cases it has to do with some sort of prophetic announcement. The common LXX translation of that word is rhema. Like picks it up and uses it in that sense on both his Gospel and in Acts in the sense of a specific message of God's promise, and for Luke this is a promise that has been fulfilled and needs to be proclaimed. So he understand the angel saying, "speak to the people all the words, of the promise and fulfilment, that God has made of this life. And "this life" is a reference to the Messiah who is raised from the dead. All off that is implied by the verbiage used by the angel.
Acts 5:21 NASB "Upon hearing {this,} they entered into the temple about daybreak and {began} to teach. Now when the high priest and his associates came, they called the Council together, even all the Senate of the sons of Israel, and sent {orders} to the prison house for them to be brought." Now there's opposition again. [22] "But the officers who came did not find them in the prison; and they returned and reported back, [23] saying, 'We found the prison house locked quite securely and the guards standing at the doors; but when we had opened up, we found no one inside.' [24] Now when the captain of the temple {guard} and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them as to what would come of this." They are insecure. Whenever you have a tyrant there is a measure of insecurity because at the core of tyranny there is the desire to have this tremendous power that they know at the very core is illegitimate. So they begin to wonder what is going to happen here as they had these men locked up tight and they managed to escape, and nobody knew it.
Acts 5:25 NASB "But someone came and reported to them, 'The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!'" This was a direct contradiction to the command that the Sadducees had given them in 4:18, which shows that now we have an authority issue. The ego of the Sanhedrin and the Sadducees is on the line. Their authority, their prestige and their power is now being threatened by these upstart Galileans.
Acts 5:26 NASB "Then the captain went along with the officers and {proceeded} to bring them {back} without violence (for they were afraid of the people, that they might be stoned)." Notice the fear on the part of the leadership here. There is an awareness that if they go too far in exercising their authority the people will very easily revolt against them and stone them. [27] "When they had brought them, they stood them before the Council. The high priest questioned them, [28] saying, 'We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.'" Just as a side note, this verse and the next verse are verses that were taken out of context by Christians in the early church. Bu the early church is meant during the post-apostolic period in the early third century to justify a hostile attitude toward the Jewish people as Christ-killers. The Jewish people were not alone in their condemnation of the Messiah. Pilate was, the Romans were the ones who executed Him; the issue is that the Jewish people and the Gentiles as a combined effort indicate all of the human race rejected Jesus' offer as being the Messiah, and He was executed by the human race. It is completely inappropriate and wrong to assign guilt to the Jewish people as Christ-killers. This horrible doctrine of anti-Semitism has plagued western Christianity since the early Middle Ages. It found its full flowering in the philosophy of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the early 20th century but it has flowered in many different ways, and on of the most current forms—there is a host of literature on this—is anti-Zionism. The reason anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is (1) because anti-Semitism has been rejected as something bad and negative by most of western Europe and is not socially acceptable except in certain quarters. And (2) on the basis of the San Remo resolution which had the authority to set the boundaries for modern Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria with the break-up of the Ottoman empire was the same authority that gave them the right to establish the boundaries for a national homeland for the Jewish. That included all of the land wqest of the Jordan River and all of the land east of the Jordan River, which is now called the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. All of that land was by international law agreed to be a national homeland for the Jewish people.
Due to the fact that the French failed to back King Faisal in Syria after WW I the Syrians kicked him out and the British had to fulfil their pledge to him that they would back the Arabs who would revolt against the Ottoman's in their fight against the Germans, and then the British would back a Hashemite kingdom. Churchill hated to do it because he was very pro-Israel and pro-Zionist but he had to cut off everything east of the Jordan and establish a Hashemite kingdom there. He didn't want to do it and, in fact it was illegal. It breached the authority that had been given to the mandatory powers of France and Britain by the League of Nations in the San Remo Resolution. And everything since then has been illegal based on international law. This proves once again that the United Nations doesn't care anything about international law, and any country that goes along with UN Resolution 151—November 1947—which was designed to even further break up the west bank and give it to the Arabs… UN Resolution 151 was a non-binding resolution, and the Arabs rejected it. And what did they do? The Arabs invaded and attacked Israel six months in April of 1948. So UN resolution 151 was dead on arrival. And even the UN resolution at the end of the 6-day war in 1967 recognized that the 1949 Armistice line was not designed to be a border. Yet we have these historically ignorant, legally ignorant anti-Semiticly-cloaked Administration officials today who want to go back to the 1949 borders. They ought to be thrown out of office on their ear because they are so ignorant of international law. But it is not just them; it is like 99 per cent of western politicians and lawyers are ignorant.
Peter responds to this same kind of mandate from the council by saying: Acts 5:29 NASB "But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross.'" Now this isn't the basis for anti-Semitism, it is a historically conditioned comment. These Sadducees and these Pharisees that are in front of him are the very ones who turned Jesus over to the Roman authorities. He is not blaming the Jewish people or the Jewish nation for the death of Jesus; he is assigning guilt to whom guilt belongs, which was that group of people who were in front of him.
Acts 5:31, 32 NASB "He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and {so is} the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him." They don't have the Holy Spirit because they haven't obeyed God. They didn't really like that and that is what generated their response in the next verse. [33] "But when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them."
There is an interesting thing that happens at that point, but we want to stop and focus on the principle that Peter lays down which is that we are to obey God rather than man. This is the principle: the only time that a Christian is authorized by Scripture to disobey any human authority—father, parents, school, government officials, etc—is when that authority is demanding that the Christian disobey specific revelation from God; not just some abstract principle. What we have in Scripture are specific commands from God. When God says that you are to pray and the governing authority says don't pray—like Daniel under the Medes and the Persians—you obey God rather than man.
We live in a hostile world, the kosmic system, and we are always going to be opposed by those who oppose God. Jesus recognized this and taught His disciples what to expect in John chapter fifteen. After the discourse on abiding in Him Jesus began to talk about what believers could expect. John 15:18 NASB "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you." The kosmic system hates us. It may be cloaked in all kinds of disguises but it hates us. [19] "John 15:18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you. John 15:18 NASB "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love its own…" That is why the world loves some television preachers. They are teaching a kosmic gospel, an ecumenical gospel. "… but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. [20] Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also." There is no guarantee, no matter in what country you were born, that you and I will not be persecuted for our faith in the Scripture and in Jesus Christ before we die. [21] "But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. [22] If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] He who hates Me hates My Father also."
He goes on to explain that. John 16:1 "These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. [2] They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. [3] These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me."
So how do we handle opposition? Romans 13:1-4 NASB "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God." Even the unbelieving authorities of Rome, and Paul wrote this during about the third or fourth year of Nero's reign, just before Nero killed his mother and everything turned bad in Nero's life and he went crazy.
An argument has been heard that the authority in this country is the Constitution, and that is true. But the argument is that the authority in this country is not necessarily the President or the Congress but it is the Constitution. And that argument is set forth by people who wish to say that when the Congress or the Congress violates the Constitution our responsibility is to obey the Constitution and not the individual who is in office. But that is not what this chapter says, and we had better pay attention.
Romans 13:2 NASB "Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves." In verse 3 Paul shifts from the term "authorities" to rulers, he is using them synonymously. He is not talking about abstract legal authority, he is saying the abstract legal authority is always instantiated in a person. [3] "For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? …" He moves back and forth from ruler to authority as if they are equally synonymous. This is Paul writing during the good years of Nero. Do we think that things changed during the bad years under persecution of Christians? Well Peter, the same Peter who tells the Sanhedrin twice we have to obey God rather than men, says in 1 Peter 2:13 NASB "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, [14] or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right." Obviously this is not the ordinance or institution that directly contradicts specific commands of Scripture—not principles but specific revelation. Otherwise Peter would be inconsistent.
1. In Scripture we have seen that there are several examples of disobedience for legitimate reasons, e.g. the Egyptian midwives in the Old Testament.
2. The only time a Christian is authorized to disobey an authority is when that authority is directly commanding the Christian to do something contrary to a specific command or prohibition by God. Rebellion and the assassination of a government leader is never authorized by Scripture.
3. In 1 Samuel 14 we have an episode where King Saul is leading the army of Israel against the Philistines. Saul issued a foolish command. The command of the king is law. So he issues the command that no one is to eat that day until they finally defeat the Philistines, and if they do they will forfeit their life. Jonathan his son wasn't present when he issued the command. He comes in later in the day and as the Israelite army is marching off against the Philistines they go through this area where there is a lot of honey. Everyone is so scared of this command that nobody reaches out to get any honey and they are starving. Jonathan who doesn't know about the command takes his staff and swipes a honeycomb as he goes by and eats it. His energy is restored and he is ready to go into battle. They go into battle and Jonathan wins the day. Saul finds out afterward and he is going to execute Jonathan, but the people stop him. It is an unjust law. He would be violating the Law of Moses, it was a foolish law and the people intervene to stop him.
4. Later on we saw the examples in 1 Samuel 24 where Saul was pursuing David to kill him. Saul has been rejected by God, he is out of fellowship, he is beyond the pale of the Mosaic Law, and he is seeking to commit murder. David we would think would have every right to defend himself and to take Saul's life. That tells us that no matter how out of line a governing king can be we don't have the authority from God to rebel against him or to take his life.
5. Three examples come out of Daniel. In Daniel chapter one Daniel and his friends are mandated to eat the diet that is prohibited by the Mosaic Law. Daniel gives us a wonderful example of how we are to handle that. He goes and presents a case to the chief eunuch that he would let them eat their diet for a few weeks and everybody else sticks with their diet we will show you that we will perform better, will be smarter, in better health than the others. He appeals to the bottom line of what really matters to the chief eunuch to whom the spirituality has no meaning.
A modern example of this kind of thing. This happened to a friend of a friend of someone we know, recently in a university in the Baltimore area. She went to this school on a scholarship. As part of this scholarship she was required to take a number of courses, one of which was a course in lesbian studies. There were 29 girls and one boy in the lesbian studies class. Probably ten or twelve of these girls were Christians. One of these girls, named Shariah, was the daughter of a man who has actually spoken in this pulpit. If she didn't take the course she would be kicked out and would lose her scholarship. Beginning on the first day the students were required to watch a semi-pornographic movie with a lot of lesbian action. These films were going to be a regular event in every class throughout the semester. The "professorette" announced that she would consider herself a failure as a teacher if anyone in the class at the end of the semester were no pro-lesbian in their beliefs. This made young Shariah very uncomfortable. She was not only a Christian but her father had been teaching Charlie Clough's Framework series in his Persian Christian church for many years and she considers Charlie Clough "Uncle Charlie." So she decided to go to Charlie and her father to get counsel and they suggested that she take her case to the academic Dean to see if there was some solution. She appealed to the academic Dean and was told no, she didn't have to stay in that course that semester but she could take it later on in the summer. She was allowed to drop the course with the proviso that she would eventually take the course. As the semester went by other Christian girls in that course became increasingly uncomfortable and they told her how courageous she was, and they envied her because she had taken the stand when they were stuck with this lesbian propaganda in this classroom. Her reputation was enhanced because of that. But those other Christians represent most of evangelicalism today. They just roll over and take it without appealing in a winsome way to the appropriate authority. At the end of the semester, as the Lord would have it, the lesbian professor was fired! The academic Dean had to let her go because of numerous other complaints, and this happened at a secular university outside of Baltimore.
That is just one example. There are many other ways that Christians need to be involved in these kinds of things.
Another example of a young Christian woman who was working on her Masters degree at Eastern Michigan University. She was in a counselling program, a psychotherapy program, and in 2009 she was assigned a potential client who was a homosexual who was really seeking affirmation of his homosexual orientation from a counsellor. Because she was a Christian and an African-American Christian her religious beliefs were being violated and so she was permitted to refer the client to another counsellor. But she was told that she had to remain in the counselling program and in order for her to remain in the program she would have to undergo a remediation program that would help her see the error of her ways. When she refused the faculty committee dismissed her from the program and she brought a law suit against Eastern Michigan University. This is correct; it is appealing on the basis of law. The lower court found in favour of Eastern Michigan University but when it went to the sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals they stated that a university cannot compel a student to alter or violate her belief systems based on a phantom policy as the prize for obtaining a degree… The lower court ruling was overturned and the school was told that whether or not they agreed with a student's brand of Christianity they had to respect the student's religious beliefs no matter what they were.
Another example is that there is a recent mandate coming down from Health and Human Services that is going to mandate that every organisation, every hospital, every organisation, no matter what their religious beliefs are, have to participate in funding various birth control devices. This doesn't necessarily affect something that you or I would focus on and believe in but it does attack every Catholic institution in this country, and it mandates that they have to participate in something that violates their religious convictions. The First Amendment rights are based upon the fact people who have clearly stated religious convictions have the right of conscience. This is in the legal literature of this nation. For the government to force them to violate that at any level is a violation of the First Amendment. This is the same principle that came under attack in San Francisco last year when the City Council wanted to pass an ordinance banning circumcision in San Francisco. Cirumcision is a significant part of the beliefs of Jews. We may or may not believe in circumcision but that is not the issue. The issue is that every group has the right to practice within the legitimate framework their religious convictions and the government is prohibited from interfering. These directives that come down from the Obamacare legislation just show that the Federal Government is again wanting to attack Christians and Christian beliefs.
Last week what happened was that every Catholic pulpit in this country read from their pulpits what the issue was, taught their congregations what the biblical and legal basis was for why they should contact their congressman and why they should encourage their representatives to vote for a bill that has been set forth in Congress in order to protect religious liberties from intrusion from the Federal Government. What did most evangelical churches do? Probably much like what we do. They had their usual announcements, went on and had their service and everybody went home and nobody mentioned it. But in these kinds of things, once the camel's nose gets under the tent, threaten everyone—everyone's religious liberties and the interpretation of the First Amendment. Whether you are Jewish, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Mormon, Christian, it doesn't matter. Everybody has the same rights and if the Federal Government comes in and starts dictating what is acceptable and what is not, and mandating monies, then we are all in trouble. We have to be involved. This is following the pattern of those Jews who told Saul you can't enforce an unjust law; you cannot take Jonathan's life. It is not overthrowing the government; it is not resisting it in an illegitimate way; it is simply standing up and making the voice heard so that true justice is being carried out. This is exactly the kind of thing that Christians need to be doing.
We are living in a terrible time today when there are forces at work who have achieved a status of legitimization in Washington who seek to do nothing more than to completely destroy the impact and influence of biblical Christianity and religion as a whole. And if Christians do not take a stand and do what they can within the law, by being involved as citizens of this nation, then if we come under tyranny it will be our own fault.
