Acts 5:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

You too, beloved, hope to receive the kingdom of heaven. But do you have patience? You too have received the Spirit. But do you undergo the same things and face the same dangers?

Before they had found rest from their former afflictions, they again fell into others. How beautiful it was that they did not become proud and vainglorious.

And that they spoke with meekness, is this not a very profitable thing? Truly, not all this was the work of grace. Much of their own zeal is also visible here.

Even the fact that the gifts of grace shone in them was the fruit of their zeal. Look from the very beginning how solicitous Peter was, how watchful and careful.

Look how the believers left their possessions, had nothing of their own, continued in prayer, showed one mind, and fasted. Tell me, of what grace was this the action?

Therefore even their own servants convicted the Jews. As those sent to Christ said, “No man ever spoke like this Man” (Jn 7:46), so these too returned and reported what they had seen.

But let us hear what this very fearful man became after the descent of the Spirit. An assembly of rulers and elders gathers. Death is announced to the apostles, so that they not speak in the name of Jesus.

Peter answers with great boldness: “We must obey God rather than men.” And again: “Judge whether it is right before God to listen to you rather than to God” (Acts 4:19-20).

“And they departed from the Sanhedrin rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 5:41).

Behold, Peter rejoices under blows, though before he feared words. He who had once been frightened by a servant girl’s question, after the descent of the Holy Spirit despises the power of the rulers under blows.

It is pleasing to lift the eye of faith to the power of this Artist. In various places of the New and Old Testaments, let us look upon the Fathers.

Opening this very eye of faith, I see David, Amos, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and Matthew. I wish to consider what kind of Artist this Holy Spirit is, but in the very act of considering I grow weak.

For He fills a young harp player and makes him the Psalmist (1 Sam 16:18). He fills a shepherd who gathered sycamore fruit and makes him a prophet (Amos 7:14).

He fills a chaste youth and makes him judge of the elders (Dan 13:46 and following). He fills a tax collector and makes him a preacher (Mt 4:19).

He fills a persecutor and makes him teacher of the nations (Acts 9:1 and following). He fills a tax collector and makes him an Evangelist (Lk 5:27-28).

O what an Artist this Spirit is! For Him there is no delay in teaching whatever He wills. As soon as He touches the mind, He teaches at once. For Him, to touch is to teach.

By illumination He immediately changes the human spirit. Suddenly He causes it no longer to be what it was. Suddenly He disposes it to be what it was not.

Every man pleases the one for whose sake he does something. The one he pleases, he serves, for to serve and to please are one.

Thus, when you serve your master in order to please him and not God, you serve man and not God.

So also anyone who withdraws from sin and seemingly does a good deed, not in order to please God but to please men, does not please God but men. He serves not God but men. He is a slave of men, not of the Lord.

Every deed is judged by God according to the disposition of the heart and its aim.

But the apostles, without hesitation, say that one must obey God rather than men. They preach the resurrection of Jesus and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

The Sadducees can endure this no longer. They wish to kill the apostles. But the voice of the learned Pharisee Gamaliel, respected by all the people, served the work of God. They were only punished and released.

The high priest does not mention Jesus by name, wishing thereby to show contempt for Him. In his contempt, he considers himself unworthy even to pronounce the name of Him whom the apostles preach.

Yet their teaching about Christ is such that the high priest and the others, the chief authors of Christ’s death, are directly accused of the innocent murder of the Righteous One.

This especially angered the judges: “Behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this Man’s blood upon us.”

But the apostles, as Peter and John had done before (Acts 4:19), calmly and powerfully bore witness. They spoke directly and decisively, saying that one must obey God rather than men.

They bore witness to God, who truly raised from the dead the One crucified by the Jewish rulers. Through His Ascension into heaven, God exalted Him as the Author and Perfecter of faith, and as the Savior of men from their sins.

They themselves were witnesses of this as eyewitnesses. So also was the Holy Spirit, who dwells in those who believe in Christ and works through them many great and majestic miracles to the glory of Christ.

In explaining this truth, that one must obey God rather than men, whoever they may be, if their demands contradict the divine demands, the apostle then briefly expresses the true teaching concerning the person of Christ.

He points to his teaching about this as divine teaching. The apostle expresses it almost in the same words as in his previous speeches.

He acts in their sanctification and in their being filled with manifest gifts of grace. Thanks be to the God of truth, who so clearly reveals His truth to us!”

By “men” the apostle evidently means the authorities, and those appointed by a special, purely human influence. According to Josephus, the Sadducees, with the help of the Herodians and procurators, attained the highest priestly positions (Antiquities, XX, 9, 1).

“Almost all the high-priestly families from the time of Herod were Sadducean. The high-priestly family of Annas, whose son-in-law Caiaphas initiated the judicial proceedings against Jesus Christ and the apostles, probably belonged to the Sadducees.

Josephus directly calls the son of Annas a Sadducee. The preaching of the apostles and the miracles performed by them had a captivating effect on the common people, who accepted Christianity in great numbers.

The Sadducees, already unpopular among the people, looked unfavorably on the growth of the new sect and the rise of the apostles’ authority. They were filled with envy (5:17).

This remark of the sacred historian is characteristic. The Sadducees feared that the new preachers might alienate the people still more from their influence.

If the Pharisees agreed with the people in relation to Roman power, this cannot at all be said of the Sadducees.

The Sadducees take the initiative in persecuting the apostles, not so much because the content of the apostolic preaching irritated them, as because they viewed this preaching as a banner of disturbance and revolt.”

The same witnesses remain in force to our own day. What the holy apostles say is the same as though we ourselves had seen and heard it with our own eyes and ears.

The Spirit of grace acts without ceasing in the Holy Church: in miracles, in the conversion of sinners, and especially in the transformation of those who diligently labor for the Lord.

He acts in their sanctification and in their being filled with manifest gifts of grace. The latter gives great strength to the former.

Together both are powerful to form a firm conviction in the truth of Christ in all truth-loving souls. Thanks be to the God of truth, who so clearly reveals His truth to us!