Progress through opposition
1. Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the
temple, and the Sadducees came upon them,
2. being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in
Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
3. And they laid hands on them, and put them in
custody until the next day, for it was already evening.
4. However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of
the men came to be about five thousand.
We go to the account of the preaching of the gospel in Jerusalem, to the Jew first, as the apostle Paul later taught, and almost all the first believers are Jews. The crucifixion of Jesus has recently taken place and the proclamation of the gospel is still accompanied with great opposition, especially from the council in Jerusalem… the 70 Jewish leaders. After the healing of the crippled man, there is an openness to the gospel among the city’s population, but the enemy of their souls moves in to halt the movement. The source of the opposition is principally spiritual and that principle is still true today and will always be true. It is a fight to the death “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
On the human
level, the preaching of the gospel was a threat to the Jewish leadership. They
had a military force, perhaps better defined as a police force, inside the
temple, led by a captain. Among the Sanhedrin
were the Pharisees and Sadducees, but the Sadducees were especially agitated,
because they did not believe in the doctrine of the resurrection, which the
disciples emphasized. They appear now to bring an end to the preaching and the
phrase, “came upon them,” describes the violence of the interruption (v.
1). They do not arrest the two gently, when they imprison them.
The teaching of
Peter and John was a challenge to the status quo, in which the
leadership found their authority and positions. The apostles’ authority is
found “in Jesus,” not in themselves, and they are His mouthpiece, now
that Jesus has left this world and gone into heaven. The leaders are greatly
disturbed at this earth-shaking development (v. 2).
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