Acts 4 Extracting - Expecting - Explaining (part 4)

Arraignment

Peter and John were held in custody overnight. But God’s word is not chained and even as they spent an uncomfortable night in the cell, many homes of those who had heard the good news that day, were rejoicing. The religious authorities had pulled Peter and John off the streets but the number of Christians was swelling (4.3,4).

They were arraigned before the religious council in the morning and commanded to say what authority they had to do ‘this’ (4.7) – the authorities choked on confessing the actual event, that a man congenitally crippled was leaping around and praising God for his deliverance!

Affirmation

Peter explained who did it. Jesus had already promised that he would make sure that they had the words to speak when dragged before such councils. Luke 12.11,12 “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Peter’s response to the Sanhedrin was to make a very strong affirmation that Jesus Christ was the author of the man’s restoration. First, he highlighted the irony that they had been arrested for a good deed! (4.9) And Peter reminded them that God was now contradicting the decision they had made about Jesus (that he was worthless) by having him continue his work as evidenced by the lame man standing in front of them. This Jesus is the same person that Jerusalem and its had leaders rejected and he was back in business!

Peter challenged them with the words of Jesus that they had mocked when he had first begun his public ministry 3 or 4 years earlier (see John 2.18-22). 18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. Peter said that Jesus was the cornerstone of a new Temple. The religious men had cast him aside as rubble, but God had set him in place. It was no longer the Temple and certainly never the decisions of religious men who would grant salvation to people. Here in front of them, in the leaping ex-lame man, was the evidence that a strong new name was announcing himself as the only salvation for humankind. I am the way the truth and the life – no one comes to the Father, except by me! (John 14.6). And Peter confessed it to the council: And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved! (4.12).

As Peter explained the meaning of Jesus’ works, so must the church do it. We must immerse ourselves in God’s word so our lives become crystal clear and shining examples of God’s grace. We must be expectant and alert to the works of Jesus in and around us. And we must explain with sharp focus on Jesus Christ who is the author and perfecter of these good things – including the challenge and invitation for people to repent and give way to him.