ACC ~ Acts 4 v5 - 12

OVERVIEW:

Peter’s speech was directed first to the people and then the leaders. Again the theme is the power of the risen Christ manifest in the healing of the lame man. Jesus had already prepared the apostles for the fact that they would be brought before the authorities (CHRYSOSTOM). By his resurrection he gave life to his own temple (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). The cornerstone joins two walls—the Old and New Testaments (BEDE). Not merely to Israel but to all humanity is the one Mediator given (AUGUSTINE). The faithful of the Old Testament were saved by the incarnation and passion of the same Savior (BEDE).

4:8 | Filled with the Holy Spirit

THE PROMISE FULFILLED. CHRYSOSTOM: And now recall what Christ said, “When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.” HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 10.

4:10 | Crucified by People, Raised by God

THE WORK OF THE FATHER AND THE SON. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: That the Father is said to have raised from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ (the effect of the act being on his flesh, clearly) is not in doubt. He, being the life-creating and active power of the Father, gave life to his own temple, as in “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” What was made alive was not another’s body, nor indeed one belonging to a man among us, but his own, the body of the Word. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 4.10.

4:11 | The Stone Rejected by the Builders

THE CORNERSTONE EMBRACES TWO WALLS. BEDE: The builders were the Jews, while all the Gentiles remained in the wasteland of idols. The Jews alone were daily reading the law and the prophets for the building up of the people. As they were building, they came to the cornerstone, which embraces two walls—that is, they found in the prophetic Scriptures that Christ, who would bring together in himself two peoples, was to come in the flesh. And, because they preferred to remain in one wall, that is, to be saved alone, they rejected the stone, which was not one-sided but two-sided. Nevertheless, although they were unwilling, God by himself placed this [stone] at the chief position in the corner, so that from two Testaments and two peoples there might rise up a building of one and the same faith. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 4.11.

4:12 | Salvation in No One Else

HE EXTENDS THROUGHOUT HISTORY. AUGUSTINE: For “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” since “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved,” and “in him God has defined to all men their faith, in that he has raised him from the dead.” Now without this faith, that is to say, without a belief in the one Mediator between God and humankind, the man Christ Jesus; without faith, I say, in his resurrection by which God has given assurance to all people and which no one could of course truly believe were it not for his incarnation and death; without faith, therefore, in the incarnation and death and resurrection of Christ, the Christian truth unhesitatingly declares that the ancient saints could not possibly have been cleansed from sin so as to have become holy and justified by the grace of God. And this is true both of the saints who are mentioned in holy Scripture and of those also who are not indeed mentioned therein but must yet be supposed to have existed—either before the deluge or in the interval between that event and the giving of the law or in the period of the law itself—not merely among the children of Israel, as the prophets, but even outside that nation, as for instance Job. For cleansing from sin was by the self-same faith. The one Mediator cleansed the hearts of these too, and there also was “shed abroad in them the love of God by the Holy Spirit,” “who blows where he wills,” not following people’s merits but even producing these very merits himself. For the grace of God will in no wise exist unless it be wholly free. ON ORIGINAL SIN 2.24.28.

SALVATION IS NOT IN ANY OTHER. BEDE: If the salvation of the world is in no other but in Christ alone, then the fathers of the Old Testament were saved by the incarnation and passion of the same Redeemer, by which we also believe and hope to be saved. For although the sacramental signs differed by reason of the times, nevertheless there was agreement in one and the same faith, because through the prophets they learned as something to come the same dispensation of Christ which we learned through the apostles as something which has been done. For there is no redemption of human captivity [to sinfulness] except in the blood of him who gave himself as a redemption for all. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 4.12.