Acts 5:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

There was a double guard, as at Christ's tomb: a seal and men. See how they fought against God! Tell me, is what happened to them characteristic of men? Who led them through locked doors?

How did they pass by the guards standing before the doors? Truly, their words are the words of madmen and of men drunk with wine.

Those whom neither prison, nor bonds, nor locked doors had restrained, they hoped to overcome, acting like foolish children. Their own servants came and reported what had happened, so as to refute every excuse of theirs.

Do you see the various signs following upon signs? Some came from the apostles, others concerned them. The latter were even more glorious.

This image needs no voice to explain why the saints left the darkness of the prison. He announced it beautifully beforehand, showing that they were ministers of light, like lamps lit on a lampstand, illuminating the whole house; see Mt 5:14-16. No night overcomes those whom the Light Himself calls light, and who proved worthy of God's gifts and testimony. How could that place hide in its caverns such an array of suns? Through them the earth was counted worthy to know the eternal light, so as to conquer darkness by overcoming errors.

Having received a new sign as confirmation of God's good pleasure, for the place where they prayed was shaken, they preached the gospel with still greater boldness. This became the cause of the apostles' second imprisonment, now in the public prison, as disturbers of public peace.

The Sadducees were again the chief actors. To mock their vain designs, an angel opened the prison doors for the apostles, though they denied the very existence of angels. They were again in the temple and teaching.

From there they were taken and brought before the Sanhedrin. They were examined as men who had violated the command of the authorities. They were not asked how they had come out of prison. They were asked why they preached about Him whose name was hateful to them.

The increase in the number of believers and the fame of the preachers of the risen Christ greatly irritated the high priest and the other members of the Sanhedrin. This was especially true of those who belonged to the heresy of the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection from the dead (Acts 4:2).

So the apostles were imprisoned. This time the Sanhedrin decided to deal far more harshly with the apostles than it had dealt with Peter and John (Acts 4:21). It did not intend to end the matter with beatings alone.

Yet on this occasion the apostles' sufferings were limited to beatings (Acts 5:40). The Sanhedrin wished to put them to death (v. 33). But the Lord Himself showed them help by wondrously bringing them out of prison.

In the morning, when they were sent from the Sanhedrin to the prison to bring the apostles, the officers came and did not find them in the prison. They returned and reported, saying, "We found the prison locked with all security, and the guards standing before the doors.

But when we opened them, we found no one inside" (vv. 21-22). After leading the apostles out of prison, the angel said, "Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life."

The angel encourages the apostles and confirms them in unwavering service to the gospel preaching. The gospel teaching is the teaching of life. This teaching proclaims Jesus Christ, who is eternal, self-existent life.

"The high priest came," and so forth: he came, that is, he arrived in the meeting chamber of the Sanhedrin. "All the elders" is an expression found only here.

It denotes those elders of the people who did not belong to the regular membership of the Sanhedrin, but enjoyed special honor among the people and probably held honorary offices.

The affair of the apostles seemed so important to the high priest and the Sadducees, or they wished to conduct it so decisively and persistently, that they assembled not only the Sanhedrin in its full composition.

To strengthen it, they also invited the elders of the people, so that the decisions of the Sanhedrin would have special force. "They sent to the prison": they did not yet know of the apostles' miraculous release from prison during the night.

Nor did they know that the apostles were already teaching the people in the temple. This indicates that the Sanhedrin assembled very early in the morning, for the matter seemed to them incapable of delay.

The second assembly of the Sanhedrin for the trial of the apostles was as unlawful as the first, because the apostles had no guilt. The assembly took place precisely to give the accusation the appearance of lawful force and significance.

Here it is fitting to cite the words of one interpreter: "The stronger the persecution of the newly established Church becomes in the persons of the apostles, the more clearly the Lord shows His all-powerful help to the persecuted.

He does this partly to instruct and terrify the persecutors, and generally for the spreading and strengthening of the newly established Church." To free the apostles from prison, He sent an angel.