“You are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Servant, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”
So they should listen. For they are the ‘sons of the prophets', that is they come from the same background ideas and thoughts and mind-stream and nationality of the prophets, and look to the prophets as their ‘fathers' and are the ones who would expect therefore to obey their prophecies. To be thought of as ‘the sons of the prophets' would certainly please most of them.
Furthermore they are the sons ‘of the covenant' which God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They have first right to this promise and covenant if only they will receive it. And the promise given there was that in their seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 22:18; Genesis 26:4). But Scripture also promised that from the seed of Abraham God would raise up His Servant (Isaiah 41:8), through whom that blessing would come. The whole world was to enjoy the blessing, but the Servant had brought it to them first.
‘Unto you first.' Before the earth as a whole receives His blessing, as Isaiah has made clear that it will one day through the Servant (Isaiah 49:6), God has first appointed it to them, (to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile). That is why He has ‘raised up' His Servant (caused Him to come forth in His purposes - compare Acts 3:22), so that Israel might receive the anticipated blessing of Abraham and be blessed in turning away from their iniquities. The choice now therefore lies with them. They can refuse to hear His words and be cut off from Israel (Acts 3:23). Or they can respond and enter into the blessing of the new Israel, turning from their sin and having them blotted out as He has promised (Acts 3:19).
‘In your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' In Isaiah 41:8 the Servant whom God will raise up is said to be ‘the seed of Abraham My friend'. Initially that Servant and seed was the children of Jacob/Israel, but gradually the idea narrowed down to the One Who in Himself was Israel (Isaiah 49:3). It is then finally the unique Servant Who is the seed of Abraham through which the nations of the world will be blessed (for the outworking of this see our commentary on Isaiah). But Peter probably arrived there by inspiration.
It is informative to consider how many seed thoughts for the future there were in Peter's words. They are not expounded on in depth, but they are here because Peter was taught by his Master, both before and after His resurrection, and was now inspired by the Holy Spirit Who brought them to the forefront of his thinking. These include, for example, Jesus as: the Messiah, the Holy One, the Righteous One, the Source and Sustainer of Life, the Servant, and the Great Prophet. And supporting these claims, and behind Him in them, are Moses, and all the prophets, and the patriarch Abraham himself.
Chapter 4 The Arrest of the Apostles, Their Response Through Peter And A Further Inundation From God.
It is a recognised principle of Scripture that once God begins to bless His people opposition will arise in order to seek to prevent it (consider Jesus' words in Luke 12:4; Luke 12:11; Luke 21:12-19; John 15:18-19; John 16:2-3; John 16:33; see Acts 3:25-26 below). It was inevitable. It was after all what happened to Jesus (see Luke 4:29; Luke 5:21; Luke 5:30; Luke 6:2; Luke 6:7; Luke 6:11 etc.). Indeed it is what was prophesied to happen to the Servant (Isaiah 50:8-9; Isaiah 53:8), and the followers of Jesus are also the Servant (Acts 13:47). Luke now therefore introduces the first stage in the opposition. Peter and John are arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish body politic. But Peter is undeterred and sees it as an opportunity for witness to the leading authorities of Israel (compare Acts 3:17). This is then followed by a further infusion of the Holy Spirit, and a picture of the progression of the new Israel.
A further importance of this section is that it establishes what the crucial difference was between the old Israel and the new Israel, and that was the Name of Jesus. The old Israel rejected the name and its bearer. They would not hear it under any circumstances. The new Israel claimed that there was salvation in no one else. In chapter 2 the emphasis had been on the enthronement of the King. In chapter 3 it had been on the work of the Servant and Prophet of God. Here it is now on the Name of Jesus, and the salvation that He has brought.
In this chapter we also have illustrated the approach taken by the Jewish authorities to judicial situations. It was a good principle of their system of justice that unless persons were aware of the consequences of their crimes they could not justly be punished for them. Thus when a ‘common' person (untrained in the Law) had committed a crime, not of a capital nature, it was considered necessary that on the occasion of the first offence such a person be given a legal admonition before witnesses. They would then only be punished if they committed the offence again (when of course they could no longer claim ignorance). In this situation ignorance of the Law was considered to be an excuse. In view of the complexity of some of the laws this was very necessary.
This explains why in the first example below stress is laid on the fact that they were ‘unlearned and ignorant men' (that is, untrained in the Law), which is why they are let off with a warning and a legal admonition. On any repetition of the offence they will be punished in accordance with their supposed crime. Then they could no longer be seen as ignorant of their ‘crime', because they would have been legally admonished. So rather than the accounts of the trials being duplicates of the same event as suggested by some, they beautifully illustrate the stages that would necessarily have occurred, given the attitude of the Jewish Law and the determination of the disciples.