17“But so that it will not spread any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no longer to any man in this name.” 18And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; 20for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
The name of Jesus was powerful. The apostles repeatedly asserted that it was in the name of Jesus that the lame man was healed (Acts 3:6, 16, 4:10). The name of Jesus incensed the religious leaders, including the high priests. The animosity was against the one in whose name the apostles preached and healed.
We can draw a number of points from the passage. The early believers were closely associated with Jesus Christ, the God-man. Contrary to liberal scholars, the apostles and early believers did not distinguish between the human figure, Jesus, and the spiritual person, Christ. He was “Jesus Christ the Nazarene” (Acts 4:10). Secondly, those to whom they witnessed understood that identification. In other words, the witness of the apostles was not a generic call to restoration to God but focused on believing in Jesus Christ. He was the pivot of faith, the fulcrum of God’s judgment. He is the watershed separating the righteous from the unrighteous. Salvation hangs in the balance on Him. One cannot remain neutral about Jesus Christ but must make a choice.
The world (religious unbelievers in particular) will listen to and debate many things religious and philosophic, but the world reacts to the name of Jesus Christ. Preaching centered on the crucified God-man will invoke the core reaction of the soul—either for Him or against Him. It divides the sheep from the goats. And the religious leaders showed their colors when “they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” This is a complete rejection of not only the believers but the message of Jesus Christ, whom they preached.
At this point, the apostles showed their loyalty. Regardless of the threat to their lives, they responded in a manner which Jesus often used: by asking them a penetrating, binary question, one that begs a yes or no answer. Is it right to obey God or to obey men? The healing was evidence that the apostles carried the authority of God, for who can heal except God? Peter and John proclaimed they were siding with God, insisting that integrity forced them to be true to what they saw and heard. Was this what Martin Luther, fifteen hundred years later, had in mind when he defiantly asserted, “Here I stand; I can do no other”?
Lord, strengthen me to stand on what You have shown me and done in my life.
0 Comments