Acts 4:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It goes without saying that this prohibition and threat had no effect on the apostles. They returned home after they had experienced the first persecution for the name of Christ. They had also seen the first experience of the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ had foretold that it would not be they who spoke at the trial, but the Holy Spirit. Therefore they made it their first task to pray to God that He would continue His help to them. They asked for signs and wonders for the conversion of unbelievers. And when they received a new sign in confirmation of God’s good pleasure, the place where they prayed was shaken. Then they preached the gospel with still greater boldness.

It is understandable how the members of the Sanhedrin must have received this answer from the defendants. Yet for a time they were forced to suppress their malice. In this case the people were on the side of the Apostles. The miracle of the healing of the lame man had made a powerful impression on them, and this impression was still very vivid and fresh. Therefore they released the Apostles, only ordering them not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But already from this it is clear what position those who sit on Moses' seat would take in the future toward the followers of Christ.

“More than forty years old.” Through this, the miracle became more striking for the people and stirred in them still more the feeling of wonder and the glorification of God. Thus this first openly hostile attack by the Jewish authorities upon the apostles after the Lord’s departure ended in the complete moral victory of the latter over the former. Yet already here there were ominous signs of the future for the apostles and the believers. The consciousness among the members of the Sanhedrin that unlettered and unlearned men had won this victory over them could undoubtedly irritate the self-loving enemies of the Galilean Teacher whom they had crucified. They could not forgive the apostles this victory. Now they feared the people.

The apostles were released because they had not been convicted. But this was also helped considerably by the fact that the people saw in the miracle the manifest power of God, for which they glorified God. To detain the wonderworkers, and still more to condemn them under such circumstances, was unsafe. Finally, the healed man himself was of sufficient age to come forward in defense of his benefactors. He was now no longer a feeble lame man, but a man in the flower of years and fullness of strength. If it had proved necessary, he probably could have spoken no less powerfully than the man born blind had spoken before a similar assembly. Then the rumor unfavorable to the judges would have grown still stronger.