Acts
4:13-18 … Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived
that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they
recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed
standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had
commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying,
“What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed
through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny
it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn
them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” So they called them and charged
them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
These guys were fishermen from up at the Sea of Galilee.
They fished for a living and didn’t have time to spend on a rabbinical education.
However, they were disciples of Jesus and these leaders recognized a good job
of teaching. Once again having that extremely happy guy standing and bouncing
around next to them was a very bad idea for the Sanhedrin. The Greek word for
resurrection is anastasis (ἀνάστασις) and means to rise again or stand again.
John and Peter had an example of salvation standing with them in the person of
the man born lame. So the authorities dismissed John and Peter along with their
happy friend and discussed what they should do.
This is an interesting issue of authority. This council
was responsible for all things associated with Judaism. This was the only true
religion and therefore they were the world authority on right relationships
with God … except they had rejected the Christ and their day of leadership was
ending.
The logical sequence here is laughable but it is also
deadly serious:
1) Verse
7 – Question; by what power or name did you do this?
2) Verse
10 – Answer; by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
3) Verse
12 – Further exposition; there is no other name under heaven given to men by
which we must be saved.
4) Verse
17 – Response: We must warn these men to speak no more to anyone in this name.
Instead of an appropriate response to this – in their
words – notable sign, they struggle to remain the religious authority. They
can’t reproduce this sign and they won’t submit to the authority of Jesus as
Christ so they are left with the ridiculous conclusion of trying to suppress
the name that provided the authority. All authority in heaven and on earth
belongs to Jesus Christ. There is no other ultimate authority at this point and
their conclusion is to avoid using Jesus’ name. It is a desperate, crazy, and
obviously temporary solution (if you are generous enough to even call it a
solution).
Acts
4:19-22 … But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight
of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but
speak of what we have seen and heard.” And when they had further threatened
them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people,
for all were praising God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign
of healing was performed was more than forty years old.
Intimidation was the only tool that the authorities had
available because the sign that the Holy Spirit had provided was so wonderful
that Peter and John couldn’t be harmed at this point because of the people.
They thought that they had successfully dealt with Jesus and now here were His
disciples doing similar things and clearly proclaiming the Gospel. They had
suddenly grabbed them while they were speaking, thrown them in jail, and then
told them not to use the authority that God had given them.
Peter and John enter into the area of civil disobedience
here. The state is ordained by God and we must obey the state to please God – almost
all of the time. But almost all of the time isn’t all the time. Our sin natures
make us especially prone to rebellion so we need to be very careful in
examining our hearts prior to taking a stand like Peter and John. Francis
Schaeffer pointed out that there are times at which Christians are obligated to
disobey the state. Peter and John were in one of those situations. Schaeffer
got some static from evangelicals when he said situations may develop that make
it right to disobey because the authorities that exist are ordained by God.
Romans
13:1-2 … Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For
there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God
has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
Well there is a time to very carefully disobey and suffer
the consequences. This must be done while watching and realizing that you’ll be
tempted to simply rebel in your flesh. Christians have struggled through the
ages over this issue. I think our inclinations to sinful rebellion make it
especially contentious for us. For example, if one nation was using military
force to protect us from other nations and then, to defray the costs, decided
to tax our tea we might vandalize and destroy their property. We have a natural
inclination to react badly to authorities and especially to taxes. However, an
authority may tell us to do something that is not what God wants or they may
tell us not to do something that God does want. At that point we need to
carefully refuse. Peter and John didn’t say they were not under the authority
of the Sanhedrin. They said they had to obey God and then the Sanhedrin would
need to judge if they had done the right thing or not.
When you are faced with a “God or Caesar” decision then
there are 4 basic solutions. First, there is a Monastic Option. This is an old
solution in which the individuals in a community, or individually, seek to be
subject to God alone and reject all earthly rulers. If they live in isolation
then they may even become a source of entertainment and people may come to see
their lifestyle. Think of the Dutch Amish and realize that their pacifism was
not just based simply on not wanting to fight but also on a rejection of the
government. The Anabaptists were not our forefathers (as Baptists) but rather
the forefathers of the Amish, the Brethren, the Hutterites, and the Mennonites.
These were the radical fringe of the Reformation and they were especially
subject to persecution, in part because they were viewed as traitors because
they would subject themselves to kings. We should remind the state that their
authority comes from God and that they will answer someday for how they
exercise that authority. However, we must remind ourselves that they do have
authority.
Secondly, you can take a purely secular viewpoint and
accept Caesar as the authority and deny that God has authority. This is most
like the United States of today. Religion in private is viewed as acceptable but
it is generally not accepted in the political arena. Our checks and balances in
pitting the judicial branch, executive branch, and legislative branches of
government against themselves are a response to the recognition 200 years ago
of the sinful nature of man. However, in our day, if the government legalizes
something then it is assumed to be moral. So if the government legalizes
“domestic partners” then the public inclination is to assume that is moral and
in fact it generally reflects the public’s inclination already. To say that sex
outside of marriage is a sin becomes outdated because Caesar (our government) says
it is OK and the authority of God is excluded from the secular debate.
Thirdly, you can make a cowards blend of God and Caesar
but give Caesar the trump card. This is the position taken by Pilate at Jesus’
trial. He knew that Jesus did not deserve death but he was more afraid of
Caesar than God. As a result he acted inappropriately.
The fourth option is the biblical option. It was exercised
by Peter and John in recognizing both God and Caesar but giving God the trump
card. The point that Francis Schaeffer was trying to drive home was that we are
members of God’s kingdom and that kingdom will never end. The United States
will eventually come to an end (I hope we have hundreds of years left) but the
Kingdom of Heaven will never end. When we’ve been there 10 thousand years,
bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we
first begun. We want to be extraordinarily careful in coming to the conclusion
that we must obey God and not Caesar and that Caesar must judge us for it
because we want to please God and if we are wrong we will not please God.
I don’t think any of this was lost on John and Peter
because they immediately wanted the prayers of the Church for God’s power and
guidance. They didn’t want to be rebels but they wanted to be pleasing to God.
Acts
4:23-31 … When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what
the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they
lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the
heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth
of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the
Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set
themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against
his Anointed’— for truly in this city there were gathered together against your
holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along
with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your
plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and
grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while
you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through
the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in
which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the
Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
They didn’t want to act rashly and they didn’t want to
fail to act from fear. They quote from Psalm 2 using a verse that deals with
the rule of God versus the rule of men. It includes a warning to rulers to
submit before God’s judgment.
Psalm
2:10-12 … Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be
angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are
all who take refuge in him.
I love the stand they take against fear. They start their
prayer with “Sovereign Lord” and go on from there. They confess that those who
oppose them also oppose Jesus and that has God bounded (set hedges around) their
enemies rebellion and caused the enemy to act according to His hand and His
plan. Each of these wicked men acted according to their own corrupt will but
always within the sovereign will of God. Keep God’s sovereignty settled in your
heart because it is the source of comfort and peace in turmoil.
Then do you see what they ask for? They don’t ask for the
authorities to die or even go away. They ask for boldness to preach the Gospel
and for God to confirm their ministry with signs and wonders through the name
of God’s holy servant Jesus.
The Church was having its collective mind transformed as
individual minds were transformed. They were devout Jews and they knew the
Scriptures but now the Holy Spirit was bringing revelation in the understanding
of Scripture.
Earlier in Psalm 2 the nations want to break the rule of
God over them. You may remember when we studied the Gospel of John that the
people shouted that we have no King but Caesar. The core of their rebellion
against God was expressed in claiming Caesar. The Sanhedrin was to be “under
God” but they refused to recognize Christ. In Psalm 2, God laughs at the
presumption of struggling against His rule. Every knee shall bow.
In Tolkien’s writing – in the Lord of the Rings – he
presents the Steward of Gondor, Denethor II as a man who has made a terrible
fall from being a steward to usurping power for himself because the true king
had been gone for so long. He has two sons; one named Boromir who follows after
his father’s lead and tries to seize power and then dies. The other so is
Faramir who tries to please his corrupt father and almost dies in the attempt
but shows a determination not to grasp for a throne that isn’t his or his
fathers. His father goes mad. His love for righteousness and hatred of evil
made him the steward that hands the kingdom to the true king. Tolkien was a
genius in developing characters as a meditation on right and wrong. Apart from
God’s grace, our sin will grow until we deny we are stewards of our lives and
all our resources. Gradually we creep up on the throne of our lives and then
get comfortable and then we become cemented in our rebellion against the true
king.
That Sanhedrin, in ruling Israel, had forgotten that they
were stewards and had they were hanging onto a throne that was God’s. When the
Son of God was in front of them they crucified Him. When John and Peter
performed a wonderful sign then they had to ask whose authority was in play
because they knew it wasn’t their authority. How said it is that they couldn’t
recognize God’s authority.
One of the phrases that we throw around pretty freely is
that “Jesus is Lord” and we sometimes say it without thinking of what that
means. If Jesus is my Lord then He has all authority and rule in my life. I
answer to Him for all my life and all the resources that He has given me. If I
forget that I’m a steward then I’m headed for correction from the Father. It
may be painful but it is still an act of grace – unmerited favor and undeserved
blessing – in my life. I pray I’ll always have the clarity of mind by the power
of the Holy Spirit to praise Him for discipline and correction.
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