But Peter answering, and the apostles, said, God must be obeyed rather than men.
The council had jailed the apostles for preaching and ordered them to stop using the name of Jesus. Now they stand before that council again. Peter's answer settles an old question: what does a believer do when human authority commands one thing and God commands another?
Peter did not defend his freedom to do as he liked.
The high priest's council charged Peter with disobeying its orders. He did not plead a right to do his own will — a right to do what he pleased. He had no such right. Towards God, that would have been self-will showing itself. He would not have been honouring God in it. His word was not, "I have a right to do what I like without reference to you," but, "We must obey God rather than men." To have obeyed them would have been real disobedience.
The sentence has two halves, and each half strikes at a different error.
We meet unbelief in all its forms, in all its stages, and in its very deepest roots. We meet it with this one weighty sentence: "We must obey." And we meet superstition, in every dress it puts on, with the all-important clause: "We must obey God."
This is no licence to ignore government. Scripture presses obedience to rulers as they stand, whatever we think of how they came to power.
Scripture does not demand obedience to the powers that ought to be, but to "the powers that be." This may bring danger when a revolutionary leader seizes power for a time. But God will care for the results, and the duty of the Christian stays simple and sure. He obeys the powers that be. Still, all obedience in man has its limits. In some cases the Christian is bound to obey God rather than men. I do not say he is bound to be disobedient, and still less to set up his own authority, which is never his duty.
Their authority runs inside a boundary.
Obedience to the powers that be is a sacred duty. But we can give that obedience only within the circle of their own lawful authority. The rulers in Jerusalem stepped outside that circle when they ordered the apostles not to teach or preach in the name of Jesus. When rulers do that, they must be told what Peter and John answered: "We must obey God rather than men."
The men they defied were religious leaders, not the government.
These religious leaders of men were opposed to Christ. The apostles were not setting themselves up against the civil power. That a Christian must never do.
This explains the word "men" in Peter's answer.
Israel, the chosen nation, once had God in the world, and they had the Messiah in hope. Now that they had rejected their Messiah, they were not only without God like the other nations, but the proved enemies of God. They were only "men" like everyone else, and obedience must be to God rather than men.
This path may cost the believer, and it reshapes him.
Sometimes God's word and the ruler's demand collide. Then the believer's path is clear. He must obey God, perhaps by suffering, and not by resisting authority. He is always to obey, though in some cases it may be God rather than men. Nothing is so humble, nothing so firm. By nature the believer might be weak and timid; obedience by grace gives strength and courage. He might be self-confident and stubborn; obedience gives distrust of self and meekness in doing God's will.
Peter does not stop at the principle. He goes straight on to the message itself — and it is an offer, not a verdict. An older translation is quoted below, where the ESV reads "Leader and Savior".
"God exalted Him at His right hand" — oh, how blessed — "to be a Prince and a Saviour" — not a Prince and a judge. That He will be one day, but meanwhile "a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."
The men in front of him had killed Jesus. They were the very people the offer was for.
The door of grace was still open. God was waiting to be gracious to His people, though they were guilty of the great transgression. By that very blood He could free them even from their guilt in shedding it.
- Obey. The believer's question is never "what are my rights?" It is "whom must I obey?" Self-will is wrong whichever way it points.
- Obey God. The word "God" answers those who use human authority to override God's word. The word "obey" answers those who use freedom to override authority itself.
- Obey within limits. Government deserves real submission, whatever its origin — but only inside its own circle. When it forbids what God commands, the lower authority has overreached.
- Obey and suffer. The refusal takes the form of suffering, not resistance. It makes timid people brave and confident people meek.
- Obey and speak. They refused to stop saying one thing: the Man they crucified is now Prince and Saviour. He gives repentance and forgiveness — the door stands open even to His own killers.
The God of our fathers has raised up Jesus, whom *ye* have slain, having hanged on a cross.
Peter and the apostles are back before the council. The council had already ordered them to stop speaking. Instead of defending themselves, they repeat the charge that got them arrested. In one sentence Peter names two acts: what the rulers did to Jesus, and what God did.
Peter does not soften the accusation. He says you, to the men in front of him.
Verses 30 to 32 add another clear, brief statement of the vital facts that were so unwelcome to the council. "The God of our fathers" is the God all Israel claimed to serve. He had raised up Jesus, whom "you killed by hanging him on a tree." They knew this was true: they had plotted and insisted on His crucifixion.
The title reaches back into Israel's whole history with God. What the leaders did to Jesus was not a sudden lapse. It was the latest step in a long pattern.
At Sinai God speaks to Israel, thundering out His righteous demands on man with His own voice. God's presence is dreadful — even Moses said, "I tremble with fear." Yet before Moses comes down from the mountain, the people have made the golden calf. They have broken the first link binding them to the service of the LORD (Ex. 32). In the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ we see God visiting the Jew. He deals with sinners in grace in the Person of His Son. And Him they kill and hang on a tree (Acts 5:30).
"Raised up" can mean two things in Acts. It can mean God bringing forward a Messiah among the living. It can also mean God bringing Him back out of death. The Greek word here settles which one Peter means.
Here the proof is short and unanswerable, and the hostility of the chiefs and people towards the God of Israel is beyond question. The God of their fathers — how unlike the fathers the children were! — raised up Jesus, whom you killed, and with the deepest disgrace too, by hanging on a tree. Here the word is no longer the ambiguous anestēsen, but the more definite ēgeiren. It is not just raising Him up as a living Messiah on earth, as in Acts 3:22, 26; 7:37; 13:33. It is waking Him up after death.
Peter uses a phrase from Israel's own law. It carries more than cruelty.
Death by hanging on a tree carries not only shame, disgrace and dishonour. There is also a curse. Deuteronomy 21:23 says, "a hanged man is cursed by God."
That same law, read alongside the cross, turns out to be about more than punishing a criminal.
This may not call for a long comment, but it does call for serious thought and deep thankfulness. In grace God turns the worst shame and suffering that man heaped on Jesus into the purposes of redeeming love. For who does not know that Jesus took this place of the curse on the cross, to bear our judgment in the sight of God? He too knew what it was to be hanged on a tree — He knew what it was to be made a curse for us.
The cross was man's verdict on Jesus. Peter points the council to God's.
Men had scorned and rejected Him. They had made His words the target of their jokes. They handed Him a criminal's cross, but God raised Him from the dead. So Peter, in the power of the Holy Spirit, pressed the truth on the guilty Jews. "You crucified Him," he cried, "but God has raised Him." His resurrection was His vindication. It was God's answer to the way men treated Him.
The charge does not end in condemnation. The blood they shed is the very blood that can clear them.
The door of grace was still open. God was waiting to be gracious to His people, though they were guilty of the great transgression. By that blood He could afford to free them even from their guilt in shedding it.
- Charged. Peter tells the council to their faces that they killed Jesus. He uses no soft wording, because they knew it was true.
- Cursed. "Hanging on a tree" was the law's public mark of a man cursed by God, and Jesus took that place to bear our judgment.
- Raised. The word Peter uses means waking Him out of death, not just bringing forward a Messiah among the living.
- Reversed. They handed Him a criminal's cross; God raised Him — His resurrection was God's answer to how men treated Him.
- Offered. The blood they shed could free them from the guilt of shedding it. The door of grace stayed open.
Him has God exalted by his right hand as leader and saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins.
Peter and the apostles stand before the council that condemned Jesus. They tell them that God has raised the Man they executed and set Him at His own right hand. The striking thing is why God put Him there: not to sentence them, but to give them the very things they most need.
The apostles set two facts side by side — human crime and God's answer. The title they give the exalted Jesus is not the one His judges would expect:
"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree. Him God has exalted at His right hand" — oh, how blessed — "to be a Prince and a Saviour" — not a Prince and a judge. He will be that one day, but meanwhile, "a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."
The very blood they shed is what clears their guilt in shedding it:
In what relation to them did He take His place in heaven? As Leader and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. The door of grace was still open. God was waiting to be gracious to His people, though they were guilty of the great transgression. By that blood He could afford to free them even from their guilt in shedding it.
Older translations put "Prince" where the ESV has "Leader." The word does not point to a crown:
The word here translated "Prince" does not speak of royal rank, but of a "leader" or "captain," as in Hebrews 2 and 12.
It points to someone who opens a road that others can then walk:
It is a "leader," but it is more. It describes one who begins and sets a matter in motion... For simple readers, in most cases, we might put it as "the first to tread the path." Take Acts 3:15, where He is called the Prince of life. To say that our Lord was the first to tread the path of life through death in resurrection gives a very clear meaning... and having trodden it He becomes the Leader in it of all His people.
The phrase carries two ideas at once — a place, and a power:
Jesus has been exalted to God's right hand, but Peter tells us that He was also exalted with His right hand to be "a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." God allowed the leaders and nation of Israel to crucify His Son so that His purposes might be fulfilled. In no other way could He grant remission of sins to Israel or to any other nation on earth. But God stepped in after man had slain Him. His right hand brought Him out of death and took Him to the highest place in heaven.
Repentance comes down as a gift, not up from human effort:
How simple is the answer. He who was crucified is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins. The coming and unerring Judge is the One who gives repentance to those needing it, who will receive it. He gives it. Efforts, hard work, punishing yourself — all are in vain. He gives it, as we learn; for the word of God works it in the soul, acting on the conscience by the power of the Spirit.
This gift goes deeper than a change of opinion:
In repentance the soul is subject to God. His word judges the soul, instead of the soul judging His word. So there is a moral revolution in the heart. It takes God's side against itself. It condemns not only the acts of evil that rise before the conscience, but the whole ground and state of being that gave rise to them. Repentance, then, is as much towards God as faith is towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And He is in fact exalted by God's right hand to give repentance as well as remission of sins.
The gift is first named for one nation:
Note this: the Lord in heaven is raised from the dead and exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour. He is there to give repentance to Israel. This shows how God lingered over His ancient people.
Commentators also read the verse as an open offer to anyone who will take it:
Is not a Saviour just what you want? It is — and what you need God sends to you. He is a Saviour in glory today for every anxious soul who wants Him. God gives repentance, and forgiveness of sins through Him. He gives them not to Israel only, but to any needy sinner who will bow to Him.
- Crime. They killed Him by hanging Him on a tree. God answered by raising Him and lifting Him to the highest place by His own right hand.
- Title. He is exalted as Prince and Saviour, not Prince and judge. He first trod the path of life through death, and now He leads His people in it.
- Gift. Repentance is given, not earned. Effort and self-punishment are useless. The exalted Christ gives it through God's word working on the conscience.
- Depth. He gives more than a change of opinion. The heart turns to God's side against itself, and He forgives sins.
- Reach. Named first for Israel, showing how God lingered over His people, and held out to any needy sinner who will bow to Him.