Acts 5:28Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Did we not strictly command you,” they say, “not to teach?” Yes. If they had promised to obey you, you would accuse them justly. But if they had already refused beforehand, then the accusations are needless, and the prohibitions needless as well.

See the inconsistency and utter folly of the charges. Notice also here the apostles’ meekness, how they do not contradict them, and the high priest’s hypocrisy. He speaks to them with an appearance of modesty, as though he feared something.

He is more ready to forbid than to kill, since he could not do that. Yet he stirs everyone up and presents the matter as though it were the greatest danger: “You intend,” he says, “to bring this Man’s blood upon us.”

Does He still seem to you to be a mere man? He said this because he thought it necessary to give them an impulse.

But they say, "Did we not strictly command you...?" What then, if you did command? If the apostles had then agreed with you and decided to obey you, your present demands would be just. But if they said then that they would not obey, what meaning do your present demands have? "And you intend to bring this Man's blood upon us." Even now they still think that He is a mere man. They speak this way because they wish to show that the prohibition was necessary for them. They had given such orders, they say, to spare their own lives. Rather, they said this in order to stir up the crowd against them.

The high priest forgot the debt that he himself had earlier called down upon himself and his own, saying, "His blood be on us and on our children"; Mt 27:25.

Having received a new sign confirming God’s favor, 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, this time in the public prison, as disturbers of public peace. The chief actors were again the Sadducees.

In mockery of their vain designs, an angel, though they denied the very existence of angels, opened the prison doors for the apostles. They are again in the temple and teaching.

From there they are taken and presented to the Sanhedrin. They are questioned as violators of the authorities’ command.

They are not asked how they left the prison. They are asked why they preach about Him whose name is hateful to them.

Yet those who crucified the Lord remain cruelly consistent even now. When the session opened, it became clear that the apostles had been freed from prison by the right hand of God. The prison doors had been carefully locked, and the guard was awake.

Nevertheless, the Sanhedrin ordered them brought to trial as criminals. The captain of the guard, carrying out this command, did not use violence against the innocent. He brought them out of the temple without force, because the people defended the apostles, their benefactors.

The high priest begins the interrogation, which the sacred historian gives only in its main outlines. “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name?”

These words revealed their fear of terrible retribution for the shameless cry, "His blood be on us and on our children"; Mt 27:25. At that time the Sanhedrin did not fear Jesus. Now it trembled at the thought of vengeance that might be brought down upon it by two of the most despised disciples. This phrase is also noteworthy because it gives the first example of the Jews avoiding the use of Christ's name. The Talmud does the same, usually calling Him by the indefinite term "a certain one."

“Did we not command you?” This refers to the preceding session of the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:17; Acts 5:21). They are now blamed for violating this prohibition of the Sanhedrin, and are called to account for it.

Disobedience to the decisions of the Sanhedrin usually entailed certain kinds of punishment.

“In this name.” The high priest contemptuously does not name this name.

“You intend to bring this Man’s blood upon us.” That is, you intend to present us as deserving God’s punishment for the shedding of this Man’s blood, as though He had been innocently killed.

The meaning is this: the apostles accuse the members of the Sanhedrin, and in their persons the whole people, of murdering their Messiah. They lay upon them all responsibility and guilt for this killing.

The presiding question shows that they wished to accuse the apostles of disobedience. Its consequence was agitation of minds, which could lead to a popular revolt against the members of the Sanhedrin for having put Jesus Christ to death.

Falsehood is often especially strong because particles of truth enter into it. So it was here in the accusation brought against the apostles.

The agitation of the people’s minds was undoubted. So also was their readiness to put to death the rulers of the people whom they hated.

But the apostles were not guilty of any of this. They taught not this, but love and complete forgiveness in the name of the Savior. In infinite love He suffered for all sinners, to save sinners and give them an example of holy love.