What does it mean that we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)?

Scripture is very careful to press the respect and obedience which are due to authority, but it is not a Christian's work to occupy himself with settling questions of the earth. He has nothing to do with the ways and means whereby kings or other governors have reached their place of authority. There may have been wars, and revolutions, and all sorts of questionable means for them to arrive at such exaltation. What he has to do is to obey, as a matter of fact, those who are in authority. "Let every soul be subject unto higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." (Rom. 13:1.) Scripture does not demand obedience to the powers that ought to be, but to "the powers that be." No doubt this may expose to danger where a revolutionary leader usurps authority for a season; but God will care for results, and the duty of the Christian remains simple and sure. He obeys the powers that be. Notwithstanding, all obedience in man has its limits. There are cases where the Christian is bound, I do not say to be disobedient, still less to set up his own authority (which is never his duty), but "to obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29.) Where earthly authority demands sin against God, for instance where a Government interferes with and forbids the stewardship of the believer in proclaiming the name of Christ, it is evident that it is a question of a lower authority setting aside the highest. Consequently the principle of obedience to which the Christian is bound forbids his being swayed by what is of man to abandon what he knows to be the will of God.

The decree would be easily understood: it was simple and brief, and the penalty was plain. Nor was there much, according to human thoughts, required. An act of prostration before the king's idol at the appointed moment, and the whole thing was over. But the decree needs a little examination. It was, as before observed, the intrusion of man's will into God's domain. Obedience to the powers that be, as may be hereafter more fully explained, is a sacred duty; but obedience to the powers that be can only be rendered within the circle of their own lawful authority. If they step out of this circle, as the rulers in Jerusalem did when they commanded the apostles not to teach or to preach in the name of Jesus, they must be told, as Peter and John answered, "We must obey God rather than men." Absolute monarch, therefore, as Nebuchadnezzar was, he stepped outside of his own domain, and claimed for himself what was due to God alone, when he issued his decree.

6 Nor does anything ever affect this essential principle: nothing but sin can draw a man out of it. The doing our own will is always sin, always the acting of the old man, not subject to God or it would do His will, not its own - the nature which does not bring in God, but acts for itself. The object of obedience may be in question, but self-will is always wrong. Thus Peter, when charged before the high priest's council with disobedience to its behests, does not plead a right to do his own will - a right to do what he pleased; he had no such right. As towards God, it would have been the expression of self-will; he would not have been honouring God therein. His word was not, 'I have a right to do what I like without reference to you'; but, "We ought to obey God rather than men." It would have been really disobedience to have obeyed them. God would have been disobeyed in the result. Peter would have acquiesced, yea, taken a leading part in disobedience, as far as he was concerned.

Hence, if collision come between God's word and the ruler's requirement, the believer's path is clear: God must be obeyed, but in suffering perhaps, not resistance to authority. He is always to obey, though in some cases it may be God rather than men. Nothing is so humble, nothing so firm. Naturally the believer might be feeble and timid; obedience by grace gives strength and courage. He might be self-confident and unyielding; obedience gives distrust in self and meekness in doing God's will. 'He that does the will of God abides for ever'; even as sin is self-will or lawlessness, and its end judgment and perdition. Therefore is obedience not only an inalienable duty, but the true pathway of power, and the sure means of extrication from every snare of the enemy. So the blessed Lord defeated Satan, and so the apostles now lay bare the tremendous fact that the Jewish heads and people were as wholly beguiled by Satan, as they themselves were wholly in simple-hearted subjection to God. Once the elect nation had God in the world, as they had the Messiah in hope. Now that they had rejected their Messiah, they were not only without God like the Gentiles but the proved adversaries of God. They were only 'men' like others, and 'obedience must be to God rather than men.'

This Peter proceeds to demonstrate in a few plain, pointed, irrefragable words. 'The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, Whom ye slew by hanging on a tree: Him God exalted with His right hand as Leader and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. And we are [His] witnesses of these things, and the Holy Ghost Whom God gave to those that obey Him.' Here the proof is short and unanswerable, the antagonism to the God of Israel in chiefs and people beyond question. The God of their fathers (how unlike them the children!) raised up Jesus Whom ye slew (and with the deepest ignominy too) by hanging on a tree. Here, it is no longer the ambiguous word ἀνέστησεν, but the more determinate ἤγειρεν, not merely raising Him up as a living Messiah on earth, as in Acts 3:22, 26; Acts 7: (18), 37; Acts 13:33, but waking Him up after death. Nor was resurrection all: for God exalted Him (not 'to' as in Webster and Wilkinson, but) by His right hand (as Peter had preached, Acts 2:33, in fulfilment of the undeniably Messianic Psalm 110). For 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 guilty of the great transgression; and He could afford by that blood to free them even from their guilt in shedding it. Surely Christ will appear in judgment one day. Meanwhile He is announced as Leader and Saviour to give Israel just what they wanted — repentance and remission of sins.

“For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.” This is certainly the normal state. There is a point surely beyond which we must render no obedience either to rulers or anyone else except God. If they were to demand of us what is due only to God — worship, for instance, as in the case of Daniel with Darius, or his three friends with Nebuchadnezzar — we must firmly refuse. If they require us to definitely sin against God, it is for us to boldly use the language of Peter — “We ought to obey God rather than men.” But this is far different even than unjust statutes or practices that are hard and oppressive. So long as a good conscience toward God is not compromised, it is better that we suffer in subjection, and commit the keeping of our souls to God, as unto a faithful Creator. We must remember that “the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: He turneth it whithersoever He will.”

If, however, God allows them to suffer a martyr's death they are prepared to accept the fiery ordeal as God's way of deliverance from the king, rather than disobey God. For them it is simply a question of obeying God or man. This is still the real question between the Christian and the rulers of the world. Obedience to the powers that be is the plain direction of the word of God for His people (Rom. 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13-17). It is not for us to raise questions as to how the authority is constituted, or as to the character of the one wielding the authority; our part is to obey. But when the will of man clashes with the word of God, and seeks to impose that will upon our consciences, we must obey God rather than man. (Acts 4:19).

This attitude of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego defines with exactitude, as already remarked, the true position of the believer in relation to the powers that be. Everywhere in the New Testament submission to these is enjoined, and such is to be the path of the Christian in the midst of political agitations and confusions. He is neither to raise questions, nor to examine the lawfulness of constituted authorities. It is enough for him that they are in power, and he pursues his way in peace as he renders the required obedience. But if these authorities, whether they be emperors, kings, or magistrates, travel outside of their own province, as Nebuchadnezzar did, and seek to substitute their will for the word of God, and to impose that will on the consciences of their subjects — putting themselves, in fact, in the place of God — then, in very faithfulness to God, like these three children of the captivity, and at whatever cost, the believer is bound to disobey. The limit of his obedience to kings is obedience to God in obeying them. The moment he is called upon to disobey God by yielding to a monarch's demands, he must, if he would retain a good conscience towards God, refuse the demanded subjection, even at the cost of life. Such was the ground taken in this conflict between Nebuchadnezzar and these three subjects of his realm.

Respect for the authorities set up by God is important (Rom. 13), as is our testimony before the world, which should be a positive one (Phil. 2:15) and, as a general rule, include submission to the authorities and the laws they have enacted (1 Pet. 2:13–17). However, where the two conflict, ‘we ought to obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29). Peter’s words are not limited to overt governmental acts aimed at supressing the Christian testimony. Rather, their application is universal. God always comes first.

Another point therefore is brought out here: the authority with which our souls are directly in communion, on which our conduct rests, the rule by which it is guided, and the application to the individual soul of that authority and rule. Is this mediate or immediate? Is it by the intervention of the church, as an authority between me and God? or is it the direct and immediate connection of my soul with God, and immediate subjection to His authority in His word? It is the latter, not the former. This is no rejection of ministry. If another knows the word better than myself — has more spiritual power, he can help me; and this is according to the mind and will of God. But he does not come between my soul and the word, but brings me more fully into acquaintance with what God says to me in it. My soul is only the more in immediate relationship with God by His word. This only is the rule and measure of my responsibility, the expression of the authority of God over me. Another may be the means of my being more completely so; but he puts me thereby in immediate relationship to God by the word, more fully and more in detail, but does not take me out of the relationship. It remains immediate, as before, and there can be no other; it is direct with God; and God's title is absolute, and embraces the whole of my being in obedience. He exercises His authority immediately by the word. This may sanction, and does, duties towards others; but these are acknowledged by the authority of, and in obedience to, the word — to God in His word. I am to fulfil every relationship in which God has placed me, but by and according to the word. My first, immediate, and all-ruling relationship is with God by the word. It has precedence of all others, rules in all others, and claims absolute and immediate subjection. "We ought to obey" is the Christian's ensign; but "we ought to obey God rather than men" is the absolute claim of God, who has revealed Himself fully, and reveals Himself immediately to us by the word.

And now, in answer to the high priest, Peter, a second time the spokesman, and here for all his colleagues, thus delivered himself: "We ought to obey God rather than men." Did the rulers raise a question of disobedience of the authorities? There was another authority greater than them - even God. If these two are in conflict, God must be obeyed and human authorities be disregarded. That question simply settled, the charge of filling Jerusalem with their doctrine was next taken up. How could they help that, considering what God had done, and was doing by the presence of the Holy Ghost. So Peter proceeded: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance unto Israel , and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him" (v.29-32). The offence was repeated, and the guilt of the rulers in crucifying the Lord was reaffirmed to their face. Their anger was therefore kindled.