Acts 2:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Either this is what the words "by the hands of lawless men" mean, or he is speaking here of the soldiers. His thought would then be this: you did not simply kill Him, but did so through lawless men. Notice how everywhere the Apostles are careful that His sufferings be acknowledged first of all. As for the Resurrection, since this was a great matter, Peter covers it for a time and only later brings it into view.

The present illumination of the Spirit of God opened for Peter's speech a new source of power and proof in the prophecies. Until now they had been obscure, and could not so strongly influence the minds of the Jews. Now they were intelligible to everyone who wished to know the truth. The sign from heaven, which the Jews had so often and vainly asked of Jesus, now appeared by itself from Him who had ascended into heaven. It testified where the Crucified One dwelt, whom they had considered powerless. The ability to speak in new and unknown tongues was an extraordinary gift among miracles known from ancient and more recent times.

In another place, Saint Paul sets forth the same name as an advantage distinct from the general title of Hebrews: “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I.”

Therefore Saint Peter, by his address, calls his hearers to turn their attention to the ancient prophecy and to the present work of God. He wishes thereby to teach the people to look into them as befits the true people of God.

They must be Jews not outwardly, but in secret, and must have the circumcision of the heart in the Spirit.

“Hear these words,” the words of the prophecy and of its fulfillment in the event.

The prophecy contains not one subject, but many. Namely, it contains the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon all people, the signs that must precede a certain special day of the Lord, the coming of that day, and the universality of salvation for all nations.

The explanation of the prophecy in the preacher’s word is presented in a partly reverse order. First come the signs, as testimonies striking and clear for all. Then comes the great day of the Lord, then the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and then the universality of salvation.

First, the signs. “Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God among you by mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know. Him, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you took, and by lawless hands nailed and killed.”

What a true succession of miracles, appearances, and signs must now have presented itself to the Apostle’s hearers. They had filled all Jerusalem only fifty days earlier, when Jesus Christ the Nazarene was on the cross.

The prophecy speaks especially of three signs: blood, fire, and vapor of smoke. These were precisely fulfilled on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion.

The moon was turned into blood. The sun, the fire, was darkened. Darkness was over all the earth, darkness with smoke, since on that same day there was also an earthquake.

In such an earthquake, especially pungent smoke is usually torn out from cracks in the earth.

Together with this, those miracles which Jesus had wrought among the Israelites were especially brought to the hearers’ minds of themselves. They had been as if forgotten on the day of the crucifixion.

They were the many kinds of healing of incurably sick people, the cleansing of lepers, the enlightening of the blind, the saving of sinners, and the raising of the dead.

The repeated testimonies of God in the voice from heaven, descending upon Jesus amid gatherings of the people, must also be counted here as “wonders in heaven above.”

“All such signs,” Peter seemed to be saying, “were long and continuously among you, our hearers. You yourselves know all this. Are these not divine testimonies that Jesus is from God?

Did not many of you yourselves say that a man could not do such signs unless God were with him?

Judging by the way Jesus was testified to from above, and by the benefits He did for you, it would seem that what happened to Him could not have happened. Yet all human considerations vanished in the depth of God’s counsel concerning Him.

You took Him as though not by your own will. He was delivered to you. You killed Him, not yourselves, but by the hands of lawless Gentiles.

Yet all this was done to Him according to God’s predetermined purpose and foreknowledge.”

Meanwhile, with what consoling thoughts, as far as possible, the heaviest word for the Israelites is surrounded here: that they killed Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God among them by powers, wonders, and signs, which God did through Him in their midst, as they themselves knew.

And what kind of language this is! Truly, it is the language of the boundless love of Jesus Christ Himself, handed on to the Apostles immediately after the resurrection, that it might be communicated to all without exception, excluding no one.

The Apostle now communicates it to them. He communicates it not with flattering speech, but on his own part calls everything as it is.

“You killed Jesus,” he says directly. Yet he seems at the same time to explain, “Such an act disappears in the abyss of God’s love and predestinations, if you desire it.”

Next the preacher of God explains that great and glorious day of the Lord mentioned in the cited prophecy. Before its coming, there had to be the wonders in heaven and the signs on earth mentioned in the prophecy.

In fact, they had occurred only a day before the very arrival of the day of the Lord.

Therefore the guilt for this killing is the guilt of the whole people as a nation. In a broader sense, it is the act of all mankind, since Christ had to die for the sins of the whole world. "You took" means, into your power. In particular, this refers to the Lord's seizure by the Jews in the garden of Gethsemane, at the indication of the disciple and betrayer. "By the hands of lawless men" means Gentiles, who did not keep the Law of Moses. This refers not only to the Roman soldiers who carried out the Lord's crucifixion, but also to the procurator who authorized this execution. In his person it refers to Gentile authority generally. But how could it happen that such a Man, attested by God, could be crucified by the hands of lawless men? Having in view this question, which could naturally arise in the minds of the hearers and give occasion for stumbling, the Apostle points to the divine side of the matter. Namely, this happened according to the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God. All this was not the work of unrestricted human malice and sinfulness alone. Human malice could not have gone so far unless the will of God had allowed it. God not only foresaw all this, but also predetermined it. This means the eternal foreknowledge and predestination, the pre-eternal counsel of God, according to which the Son of God was to suffer willingly for the sins of the world. Compare Rom 8:29 and Heb 10:5-7. "He says, 'according to the predetermined counsel,' showing by this that they did not accomplish what they dared by their own power, but because He Himself consented to it and it had been determined from above" (Theophylact).

According to the explanation of Saint John Chrysostom, "the Apostle speaks here almost in the same words as Joseph, who likewise said to his brothers, 'Do not be afraid. It was not you who betrayed me, but God who sent me here' (see Gen 45:5). And since he said that God's will was in this, lest they say, 'Then we acted well,' he forestalls this thought by adding, 'You killed Him by the hands of lawless men.' Here he alludes to Judas, or speaks of the Roman soldiers, expressing this thought: you did not simply kill Him, but did so through lawless men. At the same time he shows that they would not have been able to do this if God had not permitted it and had not delivered Him to you." But since the soldiers were subordinate men, blind executors of orders, the lawless men here also mean the Roman rulers. They condemned the Lord through ignorance of the essential content of God's law. That law taught of Christ the Savior with sufficient clarity and fullness in the many prophecies contained in the Law of Moses, in the books of the prophets, and in the psalms. These resounded not only by the rivers of Babylon, but in every region of the Roman Empire.