Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 6.djvu/57

Rh Chief Priests, heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow. 25. Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people.

Never did any good work go on with any hope of success, but it met with opposition; they that are bent to do mischief, cannot be reconciled to them who make it their business to do good. Satan, the destroyer of mankind, ever was, and will be, an adversary to those who are the benefactors of mankind; and it would have been strange, if the apostles had gone on thus teaching and healing, and had had no check. In these verses we have the malice of hell and the grace of heaven struggling about them; the one to drive them off from this good work, the other to animate them in it.

I. The priests were enraged at them, and clapt them up in prison, v. 17, 18. Observe,

1. Who their enemies and persecutors were. The High-Priest was the ringleader, Annas or Caiaphas, who saw their wealth and dignity, their power and tyranny, that is, their all, at stake, and inevitably lost, if the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of Christ get ground and prevail among the people. Those that were most forward to join with the High-Priest herein, were the sect of the Sadducees, who had a particular enmity to the gospel of Christ, because it confirmed and established the doctrine of the invisible world, the resurrection of the dead, and the future state, which they denied. It is not strange if men of no religion be bigoted in their opposition to true and pure religion.

2. How they were affected toward them; ill affected, and exasperated to the last degree; when they heard and saw what flocking there was to the apostles, and how considerable they were become, they rose up in a passion, as men that could no longer bear it, and were resolved to make head against it, being filled with indignation at the apostles for preaching the doctrine of Christ, and curing the sick; at the people for hearing them, and bringing the sick to them to be cured; and at themselves and their own party, for suffering this matter to go so far, and not knocking it on the head at first. Thus are the enemies of Christ and his gospel a torment to themselves. Envy slays the silly one.

3. How they proceeded against them; (v. 18.) They laid their hands on them, perhaps their own hands, (so low did their malice make them stoop,) or, rather, the hands of their officers, and put them in the common prison, among the worst of malefactors. Hereby they designed, (1.) To put a restraint upon them; though they could not lay any thing criminal to their charge, worthy of death or of bonds, yet while they had them in prison, they kept them from going on in their work, and that they reckoned a good point gained. Thus early were the ambassadors of Christ in bonds. (2.) To put a terror upon them, and so to drive them off from their work; the last time they had them before them, they had only threatened them; (ch. 4. 21.) but now, finding that did not do, they imprisoned them, to make them afraid of them. (3.) To put a disgrace upon them, and therefore they chose to clap them up in the common prison, that, being thus vilified, the people might not, as they had done, magnify them. Satan has carried on his design against the gospel very much by making the preachers and professors of it despicable

II. God sent his angel to release them out of prison, and to renew their commission to preach the gospel; the powers of darkness fight against them, but the Father of lights fights for them, and sends an angel of light to plead their cause. The Lord will never desert his witnesses, his advocates, but will certainly stand by them, and bear them out.

1. The apostles are discharged, legally discharged, from their imprisonment; (v. 19.) The angel of the Lord by night, in spite of all the locks and bars that were upon them, opened the prison-doors, and, in spite of all the vigilance and resolution of the keepers that stood without before the doors, brought forth the prisoners, (see v. 23.) gave them authority to go out without crime, and led them through all opposition. This deliverance is not so particularly related as that of Peter; (ch. 12. 7, &c.) but the miracle here was the very same. Note, There is no prison so dark, so strong, but God can both visit his people in it, and, if he pleases, fetch them out of it. The discharge of the apostles out of prison by an angel, was a resemblance of Christ's resurrection, and his discharge out of the prison of the grave, and would help to confirm the apostles' preaching of it.

2. They are charged, and legally charged, to go on with their work, so as thereby to be discharged from the prohibition which the High-Priest laid them under; the angel bid them, Go, stand, and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life, v. 20. When they were miraculously set at liberty, they must not think it was that they might save their lives by making their escape out of the hands of their enemies. No; it was that they might go on with their work with so much the more boldness. Recoveries from sickness, releases out of trouble, are granted us, and are to be looked upon by us as granted, not that we may enjoy the comforts of our life, but that God may be honoured with the services of our life. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee, Ps. 119. 175. Bring my soul out of prison, (as the apostle here,) that I may praise thy name, Ps. 142. 7. See Isa. 38. 22.

Now in this charge given them, observe, (1.) Where they, must preach; Speak in the temple. One would think, though they might not quit their work, yet it had been prudence to go on with it in a more private place, where it would give less offence to the priests than in the temple, and so would the less expose them. No; "Speak in the temple, for that is the place of concourse, that is your Father's house, and is not to be as yet quite left desolate. "It is not for the preachers of Christ's gospel to retire into corners, as long as they can have any opportunity of preaching in the great congregation. (2.) To whom they must preach; "Speak to the people; not to the princes and rulers, for they will not hearken; but to the people, who are willing and desirous to be taught, and whose souls are as precious to Christ, and ought to be so to you, as the souls of the greatest. Speak to the people, to all in general, for all are concerned." (3.) How they must preach; Go, stand, and speak: which intimates, not only that they must speak publicly, Stand up, and speak, that all may hear; but that they must speak boldly and resolutely, Stand, and speak; that is, "Speak it as those that resolve to stand to it, to live and die by it." (4.) What they must speak; ''all the words of this life. This'' life which you have been speaking of among yourselves; referring perhaps to the conferences concerning heaven, which they had among themselves for their own and one another's encouragement in prison; "Go, and preach the same to the world, that others may be comforted with the same comforts with which you yourselves are comforted of God." Or, "of this life which the Sadducees deny, and therefore persecute you; preach that, though you know that is it which they have indignation at." Or, "of this life emphatically; this heavenly, divine life, in comparison with which the present earthly life does not deserve the name." Or, "these words of life, the very same you have