RELIGION VS. CHRISTIANITY

ACTS 4:1-22

NASB

1 As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, 2 being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming [a]in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the [a]message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

5 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. 7 When they had placed them in the center, they began to inquire, “By what power, or in what name, have you done this?” 8 Then Peter, [a]filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “[b]Rulers and elders of the people, 9 if we are [a]on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, [b]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 [a]by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead —[a]by [b]this name this man stands here before you in good health. 11 [a]He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. 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.”

13 Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them [a]as having been with Jesus. 14 And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. 15 But when they had ordered them to leave the [a]Council, they began to confer with one another, 16 saying, “What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy [a]miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 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.” 18 And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all [a]in the name of Jesus. 19 But 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; 20 for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” 21 When they had threatened them further, they let them go (finding no basis on which to punish them) on account of the people, because they were all glorifying God for what had happened; 22 for the man was more than forty years old on whom this [a]miracle of healing had been performed.

4:2 [a]Or in the case of  4:4 [a]Lit word  4:8 [a]Or having just been filled  [b]Lit Rulers of the people and elders  4:9 [a]Lit answering  [b]Or by whom  4:10 [a]Or in  [b]Or Him  4:11 [a]Lit This One  4:13 [a]Lit that they had been  4:15 [a]Or Sanhedrin  4:16 [a]Or sign  4:18 [a]Or on the basis of  4:22 [a]Or sign 

NLT

1 While Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees. 2 These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead. 3 They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail until morning. 4 But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of men who believed now totaled about 5,000.

5 The next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest. 7 They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?”

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people, 9 are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? 10 Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene,[*] the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead. 11 For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says,

‘The stone that you builders rejected

has now become the cornerstone.’[*]

12 There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

13 The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing right there among them, there was nothing the council could say. 15 So they ordered Peter and John out of the council chamber[*] and conferred among themselves.

16 “What should we do with these men?” they asked each other. “We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it. 17 But to keep them from spreading their propaganda any further, we must warn them not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name again.” 18 So they called the apostles back in and commanded them never again to speak or teach in the name of Jesus.

19 But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? 20 We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”

21 The council then threatened them further, but they finally let them go because they didn’t know how to punish them without starting a riot. For everyone was praising God 22 for this miraculous sign —the healing of a man who had been lame for more than forty years.

[4:10] Or Jesus Christ of Nazareth.   [4:11] Ps 118:22.   [4:15] Greek the Sanhedrin.  

In the early sixties, a transforming work of God took place on Greenville Avenue in Dallas, Texas. It happened in a church that had never experienced anything like it. They had no pastor at the time and struggled for existence. They had only one adult class; it numbered four on average —five when everybody showed up. Those four or five people got their heads together and thought, There’s got to be a better way than this.

They dipped into the student body of an evangelical seminary not far away and found a young, first-year student named Harold. They had never met him. Though he struggled to get his head together in Greek and Hebrew and theology and church history, he agreed to teach the class on Sundays. He took the Bible as his only text, opened it, and began to teach —chapter by chapter, verse by verse —through a book of the Bible, something that had never been done in this church before. These people had been exceedingly religious, but most had not been born again. How they loved discovering what God had to say through that young teacher!

By and by, the class doubled. And then doubled again —and then again.

As that school year came to an end, this first-year student decided that he should look into the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, which required training in San Bernardino, California, that summer. He asked another young man if he would teach the class in his place. He did. Through the summer, the class grew even larger —fifty, sixty . . . seventy. In fact, the room would seat only about sixty-five uncomfortably, so people stood along the back and side walls of this adult class. Meanwhile, the search for a pastor continued.

Fall and winter came, and the class approached one hundred. By that time, they had been through several books of the Bible and were studying the book of Jonah. The members began to learn how to study the Bible on their own, to see the truth of God for themselves and all the relevance of authentic Christianity. Numerous people came to know Christ.

Before long, the church called a pastor, who told the young seminary student that he could no longer stay and teach the class. The new (liberal) minister complained that the people were becoming too serious about the Bible, talking too much about Jesus rather than talking about how to grow the church.

In the place of the seminary student, the pastor’s wife began to teach. She began with a series on great Americans. Within a matter of weeks, the class dwindled back to five.

My friend, Harold, was the first teacher; I was the second. And that was my first blunt encounter with religion and its destructive power. I never forgot that experience; in fact, I made a point to keep those memories alive. Not out of bitterness, but so I would forever remain on guard against its intrusion, both in my own life and in any ministry I would serve.

Karl Marx once wrote, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”[32] Not Christianity —which is what he thought he meant. Religion. Religion has a deadening, dulling effect. Religion puts structure in place of the Savior. Religion tells the individual that denomination holds the answers to the big questions of life and that more religious involvement will feed a hungry soul. Religion says, “Fit into the system rather than turn your life over to Christ.” Religion says, “Work hard, appease God’s anger, gain His favor, and God will be impressed with you and one day will allow you to enter heaven.” But it’s a deadly lie. Biblical Christianity means God is finding us and meeting our needs, knowing that we could never meet our needs on our own.

After God healed the disabled man, Peter and John had taken the opportunity to preach. Peter’s sermon affected many who heard (4:4), and it also captured the attention of the religious authorities in the temple. In the confrontation that followed, the church faced its first great challenge: religion.

— 4:1-3 —

While Peter and John addressed the gathered crowd in the portico of Solomon, men representing three groups approached.

THE SADDUCEES

ACTS 4:1

The Sadducees were a peculiar breed. While Hebrew blood coursed through their veins, they lived and behaved like Greeks. Wealthy, aristocratic, and politically ambitious, these men chose a theological perspective that best served their earthly motivations. They adopted a theologically conservative stance, accepting no teaching or tradition beyond what could be found in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. Accepting only the writings of Moses could appear noble at first glance, but in fact, it was the doctrine most convenient to their personal goals. The prophets had condemned Israel’s cooperating with foreign powers, so the Sadducees discredited those writings as later tradition.

Based on their reading of the Pentateuch, the Sadducees rejected all notions of life after death, resurrection, angels, and eternal punishment or reward. They believed God to be utterly remote, leaving each person free to craft his or her own fate —a kind of divine hands-off policy. The Sadducees resembled the deists of the eighteenth century, vehemently rejecting the possibility of supernatural activity and therefore being fatalistic to the core. They believed each person had free will and therefore was responsible for the events of his or her life, including sickness, poverty, misfortune, and even manner of death. Moreover, they thought punishment for sin was the duty of people and should be merciless and severe.[33]

With God uninvolved in human affairs and people in charge of the world, the Sadducees seized religious and political power as their birthright, finding all the theological justification they needed to have the ultimate power of God among men.

The religious authorities had three problems with Peter and John. First, these followers of the man they had killed were teaching the people. Second, they were teaching in the name of this same man. Third, they were claiming this murdered man had risen from the dead and that people who believe in Him can be resurrected too.

They would have questioned Peter and John, but sundown had nearly arrived, and nighttime trials violated their law. Of course, that didn’t prevent their trying Jesus at night; but in this case, time was on their side. They thought a night in jail might rattle the two apostles, making them more pliable when questioned in the morning. The Fortress of Antonia would have been the most logical place to hold the two men. Both Jewish and Roman forces kept watch over the temple grounds from this garrison adjacent to the temple; no place in Jerusalem would have been more secure.

No doubt the two apostles had a difficult night, physically at least. The next morning the Sanhedrin would learn an important lesson about the gospel: You can lock up the messengers, but you can’t contain or restrain the message.

— 4:4-6 —

The temple authorities undoubtedly knew they had a serious public-relations problem to manage. They had to squelch these rogue teachers, but their preaching had already won at least five thousand converts —“five thousand men,” not including their families (4:4)! These five thousand men represented a significant political force on the side of Peter and John. Therefore, simply killing the apostles would only cause more problems; the temple elite needed them to recant so that their following would disintegrate. Religious people are easily threatened.

“Rulers and elders and scribes” (4:5) refers to the constituent members of the Sanhedrin. This governing body of seventy Jewish statesmen was, for Israel, the equivalent of a parliament and supreme court combined into one institution. A presiding elder, called the nasi, worked closely with the high priest to set the council’s agenda, which included making laws, setting the official Jewish ritual calendar, deciding national policy, regulating the temple, and ruling on serious court cases. According to Jewish tradition, the nasi during this time was Gamaliel, the grandson of the great rabbi Hillel and teacher of a young Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus (22:3).

The following day, as the Sanhedrin gathered for the hearing, four men, who on most occasions would not have been present, joined the proceedings.

Luke mentions Annas and his relatives because their presence adds a sinister element to an already-dark scene. The Sanhedrin wielded the visible power of Jerusalem; Annas controlled the invisible elements, the dark world of organized crime clothed in religious garb. In contemporary terms, Peter and John had been brought before a joint session of Congress and the Mafia.

This is a remarkable display of how power operates in the absence of truth. People in power (especially religious power) who have no concern for truth will follow a predictable pattern when challenged by their constituents:

Some things never change.

— 4:7 —

The Sanhedrin met in an area of the temple where elders could rule on cases and make community decisions. The petitioner or the accused, depending upon the case, stood in the center, surrounded by the members of the council. To appreciate the pressure Peter and John faced, imagine two American, high-school-educated, working-class, regular Joes hauled before a joint session of Congress and the Supreme Court without the benefit of legal representation. Keep in mind that this is where Jesus stood not long before to face a mock trial, His fate already decided by two nighttime trials with Annas and Caiaphas officiating in different areas of their large home. (I believe they shared the same large palace.)

Religion finds security in numbers, in formalism, in rank, in protocol, in status, in class, in what is “proper.” Religion doesn’t think creatively; it emphasizes precedent. And religious people use all of that to intimidate.

Model by Alec Garrard; photo © Leen Ritmeyer

At the east end of the Royal Portico in the temple, seventy-one elders sat in semicircular rows around an area resembling a threshing floor. The Sanhedrin officially met here to set national and religious policy and to rule on civil and criminal cases. All of their deliberations and decisions were open to the public.

It is noteworthy that the first question the council asked did not probe the men for truth but challenged their authority. They didn’t ask Peter and John to offer a defense for their views, to back up their preaching with Scripture or factual evidence; they asked for their résumés and credentials. Bear in mind that Peter and John had healed a man paralyzed from birth, an undeniable miracle witnessed by literally hundreds of people! Despite this irrefutable proof of the power of Jesus’ name, Israel’s religious and political officials were determined to silence the men.

— 4:8 —

As Peter stood and responded, he didn’t have to rely on his own wisdom and courage; he was “filled with the Holy Spirit.” The word “filled” here is another example of a divine passive, indicating that God did the filling. Peter simply yielded to the Spirit, and the Spirit empowered Peter, guiding his decisions and words.

Peter’s defense addresses two key points: authority (4:9-10) and truth (4:11-12).

— 4:9-10 —

Peter understood, of course, that the question of authority wasn’t a genuine question but a charge: You don’t have the authority to preach or teach because we have not authorized you. The apostle reminded the leaders of the man’s miraculous healing. If the Sanhedrin was genuinely worried about the question of authority, they need only consider the fact that a forty-year-old man, disabled from birth, was now dancing somewhere in Jerusalem while Peter and John languished in a jail cell. Their authority came directly from the resurrected Messiah, to whom the Sanhedrin should have rendered complete submission and obedience.

— 4:11-12 —

Peter boldly and shrewdly turned the Sadducees’ accusation of insurrection around to show that they —not he and John —were the treasonous ones. His cryptic reference to “the stone which was rejected” points back to Jesus’ words when these same men had challenged Jesus’ authority:

When [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” . . .

Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,

‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,

THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone;

THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD,

AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?

Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because [the people] considered Him to be a prophet. (Matt. 21:23, 42-46)

In the Lord’s reply to the religious authorities, He drew upon a metaphor in Psalm 118:22 to declare Himself the Messiah. The Jewish scholars understood His claim. The Messiah is the chief cornerstone in the building called the kingdom of God. But these very men had schemed to arrest Jesus, try Him illegally, and hand Him over to the Romans for execution so they could retain political and religious power for themselves. By killing their Messiah, the Sanhedrin had subverted the rightful government of the kingdom of God.

Far from shrinking back because of intimidation, Peter and John used this earlier memory to turn the accusation of sedition around. Then Peter drove home the final point in his countercharge, saying, in effect, “The King you killed is alive again, He is God, and you must come to Him —and no other —for salvation.” Peter spoke with invincible confidence.

— 4:13-16 —

The reaction of the Sanhedrin would be comical if this were a work of fiction. It surprised them to find that their intimidation had no effect on the two men. Most of them were probably used to seeing results from good old-fashioned bullying. After all, they were the Sanhedrin! But they had just gone head to head —seventy-four against two —with “uneducated and untrained” fishermen from rural Galilee (4:13) —and lost.

Peter and John were not “uneducated” in the same sense as the majority of Gentiles at the time; as Jews, they had learned how to read and write Hebrew in the synagogues, memorized Scripture, and knew the history of Israel as well as anyone. But they were not formally trained in higher education to debate theology and discuss philosophy, like the Sadducees, scribes, and wealthy Gentiles. They couldn’t quote Rabbi So-and-So to defend their point of view. The apostles stood on Christ’s authority, not their own.

Another huge factor in the Sanhedrin’s defeat: “Seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply” (4:14). Ah, but they weren’t about to let a simple, undeniable miracle stand in their way. The word translated “miracle” (sēmeion [4592]) could also mean “sign.” Luke highlights it to make it plain that the Sanhedrin didn’t reject the testimony of Peter and John because they couldn’t believe but because they wouldn’t believe. Their response was a matter of the will, not of intellect or evidence. They acted to preserve their power irrespective of the truth. Religious authorities operate the same way to this day.

— 4:17-22 —

The council sent the two men out in order to confer. Not to determine the truth, but to stifle the two men and thereby preserve their hold on religious and political power —the ability to control the people of Israel. When intimidation didn’t work and their appeal to tradition failed, the council resorted to coercion. But they failed to understand their opponents. Peter and John would not succumb to the threats of power or the suppression of truth because the apostles had both —the truth of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit!

The two “uneducated and untrained men” (4:13) could have remained quiet in the trial, left the chamber, and simply resumed their preaching. Instead, they openly rejected the Sanhedrin’s gag order, stating their intention to continue proclaiming the risen Jesus as Messiah. I detect no hint of arrogance or insolence, just the humble declaration of two confident men with news too good to keep quiet.

Eventually, the Sanhedrin backed down for fear of the people —the power of public opinion. But it was only a tactical retreat. The campaign to crush the church had only begun.

APPLICATION: ACTS 4:1-22

Three Qualities of Godly Courage

Careful examination of this passage reveals no fewer than three qualities that distinguish a godly person courageously choosing to do what is right. Each quality points to a principle that can help us imitate Peter and John in the face of intimidation and coercion.

First, observe the confidence of Peter and John. This is not arrogance. When the Holy Spirit fills someone, humility displaces arrogance. Arrogance comes from insecurity; these two men spoke with confidence because they found security in the Lord, not in themselves.

Second, consider the authority of Peter and John. They never received formal training to debate theology and philosophy like the powerful and intelligent temple leaders. They had only the basic education given to all Jewish children in Galilee. The apostles stood on Christ’s authority, not their own. They possessed a direct line to absolute truth: Jesus Christ, the living Word of God.

Third, see the effectiveness of Peter and John. By yielding to the control of the Holy Spirit, the men became instruments of God’s will. Doing what is right in the face of intimidation and coercion produces results. The price might be high, even the sacrifice of one’s life. But the Lord will honor obedience. The undeniable effect of the apostles’ obedience stood beside them —a formerly paralyzed man restored to perfect health.

When you choose to do what is right, you can walk and speak with secure, humble confidence. Your thoughts and actions proceed from a clear understanding of truth. Though perhaps misunderstood, maligned, or even persecuted, you can still walk with steadfast peace deep within, knowing that the Lord understands, approves, and rewards those who remain faithful.