3. The outbreak of persecution
Luke has painted an idyllic picture of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. Its members, having received forgiveness and the Holy Spirit, were conscientious in their learning from the apostles, their worship of God, their care of one another and their witness to those as yet outside their fellowship. Everything was sweetness and light. Love, joy and peace reigned. Commissioned by Christ and empowered by his Spirit, they stood on the threshold of the great missionary adventure which Luke is going to describe. The good ship Christ-church was ready to catch the wind of the Spirit and to set sail on her voyage of spiritual conquest. But almost immediately a perilous storm blew up, a storm of such ferocity that the church’s very existence was threatened.
Alternatively, we might say that, if the chief actor in the story of Acts 1 and 2 is the Holy Spirit, the chief actor in Acts 3 – 6 almost seems to be Satan. True, he is identified only once by name, but his activity may be discerned throughout. His one specific mention is when Peter confronts Ananias: ‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit . . . ?’ (5:3). Here the Holy Spirit and that evil spirit often called the devil stand in opposition to one another. According to outward appearance, two men faced each other, and one of them lied to the other, but Peter had the spiritual discernment to see behind the appearance to the unseen reality: Satan had lied to God (5:3–4). Indeed, Satan had ‘filled’ Ananias’s heart to induce him to do so – a kind of diabolical equivalent to Peter’s being filled with the Spirit.
For a full understanding of the early church we need to read the Acts of the Apostles and the book of Revelation side by side. Both tell much the same tale of the church and its experience of conflict, but from a different perspective. Luke in Acts chronicles what unfolded on the stage of history before the eyes of observers; John in Revelation enables us to see the hidden forces at work. In Acts, human beings oppose and undermine the church; in Revelation, the curtain is lifted and we see the hostility of the devil himself, depicted as an enormous red dragon, aided and abetted by two grotesque monsters and a lewd prostitute. Indeed, Revelation is a vision of the age-long battle between the Lamb and the dragon, Christ and Satan, Jerusalem the holy city and Babylon the great city, the church and the world. Moreover, it can hardly be a coincidence that the symbolism of the dragon’s three allies in Revelation corresponds to the devil’s three weapons wielded against the church in the early chapters of Acts, that is, persecution, moral compromise, and the danger of exposure to false teaching when the apostles became distracted from their chief responsibility, namely ‘prayer and the ministry of the word’.
The devil’s crudest weapon was physical violence, and Luke describes two outbreaks of persecution by the Sanhedrin. In the first Peter and John are arrested, jailed, tried, forbidden to preach, warned and released (4:1–22); in the second they and others (‘the apostles’ in general) are arrested, jailed and tried, and this time flogged before being again forbidden to preach and released (5:17–40). Luke sees this as a fulfilment of Jesus’ own predictions, which he has recorded in his Gospel, that his disciples would be hated, insulted and rejected (Luke 6:22, 26), brought to trial before ‘rulers and authorities’ (Luke 12:11), and persecuted and imprisoned on account of his name (Luke 21:12ff.).
It is worth noting that the structure Luke adopts in chapters 3 and 4 is the same as in chapter 2. First, he describes a miraculous event from a spectator’s viewpoint – in chapter 2 the coming of the Spirit (2:1–13), in chapter 3 the healing of a lame man (3:1–10). The story is told in an objective, matter-of-fact way, although in both cases the crowd are said to have been utterly amazed and ‘unable to explain’ what had happened. Second, Luke records a speech by Peter which takes the miraculous event as its text and interprets it in such a way as to glorify Christ, whom his hearers had killed but God had raised, as the apostles had witnessed. In addition, the now-exalted Christ had both poured out the Spirit and healed the lame man, thus demonstrating the power of his name to those who believe (2:23–39; 3:13–16; 4:12). In each case Peter concluded his speech with an appeal to the crowd to repent, so that they might receive the promised blessing (2:38ff. and 3:17ff.). Third, Luke describes the consequences of the miraculous event and Peter’s explanation of it, namely a Spirit-filled church which in the first case learns, worships, shares and witnesses (2:42–47) and in the second is persecuted, but also prays and shares (4:1–37).
As Luke develops this second picture of the post-Pentecost church, he focuses successively on the lame man who was healed (3:1–10), on the apostle Peter who addressed the crowd (3:11–26), on the Council which arrested and prosecuted the apostles (4:1–22) and on the church which turned to God in prayer (4:23–31).
1. A lame man is healed (3:1–10)
What triggered the opposition of the Jewish authorities was the healing of the lame man, together with Peter’s sermon which followed it. Luke began his second volume by telling his readers that he was going to record what Jesus continued, after his ascension, ‘to do and to teach’ through his apostles (1:1–2). He has also told us that ‘many wonders and signs [were] performed by the apostles’ (2:43). Now he supplies a particularly dramatic example. Peter and John were going up to the temple. The date is not given (it happened one day), but the time is, namely, at three in the afternoon, which is the time of prayer (1). This took place shortly after the evening sacrifice and was observed by all pious Jews like Daniel and ‘God-fearers’ like Cornelius. The apostles’ arrival at the temple coincided with the arrival of a man who was lame from birth, who was being carried there, presumably by friends and/or relatives, so that he could beg from those who came to worship and who thought (incidentally) that they would gain some merit by their almsgiving.
The beggar’s pitch, Luke says, was the temple gate called Beautiful. Commentators mostly identify this as the Nicanor Gate, which was the main eastern entrance to the temple precincts from the Court of the Gentiles. Because Luke names it ‘the Beautiful Gate’, it is probably the one made of Corinthian brass which Josephus said ‘greatly excelled those that were only covered over with silver and gold’. It was about 75 ft high and had huge double doors. But at the foot of this magnificent gate the lame man sat begging. Luke’s medical interest seems to be indicated by the brief clinical history he gives. It was a congenital case, he tells us; the man was now ‘over forty years old’ (4:22); and he was so severely handicapped that he had to be carried and put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts (2). As Peter and John were about to enter the temple, he asked them for money (3). The apostles stopped and looked straight at him, and Peter gave him two commands. First, Look at us! (4). So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them (5). But by his second command Peter told him he had something better to give him than money: Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk (6). The apostle did not then stand back and watch the man struggle to his feet; he leaned forward and, taking him by the right hand, he helped him up (7a). As Thomas Walker comments, ‘the power was Christ’s, but the hand was Peter’s’. It was not a gesture of unbelief, but of love. Besides, it was something Peter had seen Jesus do when he took Jairus’s daughter by the hand. Then instantly, Dr Luke continues, the man’s feet and ankles became strong (7b) – so strong and agile that he jumped to his feet and began to walk, which he had never done before. Not only so, but he now accompanied the apostles into the temple courts, all the time walking and jumping, and praising God (8). It was an outstanding fulfilment of the messianic prophecy ‘Then will the lame leap like a deer.’
A crowd quickly gathered. For they saw him walking and praising God (9). This is the fourth time that Luke describes the man as walking, as if to emphasize the incredible fact that his poor crippled legs and feet were now fully operational for the first time. They recognised him as the same man who had been a familiar sight for decades, since he used to sit every day begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him (10).
2. The apostle Peter preaches to the crowd (3:11–26)
While the man held on to Peter and John, cured but still clinging to them and not yet confident, all the people were astonished and came running to them, and assembled in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade (11). This was a cloister or ‘portico’ (neb), formed by a double row of marbled columns and roofed with cedar, which ran all the way along the eastern wall of the outer court. Jesus himself sometimes walked and taught in it.
Peter seized the opportunity to preach. Just as the Pentecost event had been the text for his first sermon, so the lame man’s healing became the text for his second. Both were mighty acts of the exalted Christ. Both were signs which proclaimed him Lord and Saviour. Both aroused the crowd’s amazement.
Peter began by attributing all the credit to Jesus. Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? he asked (12), presumably pointing to the healed man. And Why do you stare at us, presumably making a gesture which pointed to themselves, as if it had been by our own power or godliness that we had made this man walk? (12). Instead, he redirected their gaze to Jesus, by whose powerful name the miracle had taken place. For the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus (13a). Peter’s description of God expressed his conviction that what was new in Jesus nevertheless enjoyed a direct continuity with the Old Testament. Then, in contrast to the honour that God had given to Jesus, Peter is outspoken in describing the fourfold dishonour which the inhabitants of Jerusalem have shown him: (a) You handed him over to be killed, and (b) you disowned him before Pilate [as indeed Peter had himself ‘disowned’ or ‘denied’ him before a servant girl and others], though he had decided to let him go (13b). (c) You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you (14), thus demanding both ‘the condemnation of the innocent’ and ‘the acquittal of the guilty’. (d) You killed the author of life, a striking oxymoron in which the pioneer or giver of life (archēgos could mean either) is himself deprived of life, but God, wonderfully reversing this fourfold rejection of Jesus, raised him from the dead, and of this mighty resurrection we [apostles] are witnesses (15). So, then, it is by faith in the name of Jesus, of the once rejected but now resurrected and reigning Jesus, that this man whom you see and know was made strong. Peter goes on to repeat it for emphasis, this time separating the name and the faith which takes hold of it. For it was Jesus’ name (all he is and has done), together with the faith that comes through him, being aroused by him in those who grasp the implications of his name, which has completely healed him, as you can all see (16).
The most remarkable feature of Peter’s second sermon, like his first, is its Christ-centredness. He directed the crowd’s attention away from both the healed man and the apostles to the Christ whom people disowned by killing him but God vindicated by raising him, and whose name, having been taken hold of by faith, was strong enough to heal the man completely. Moreover, in his testimony to Jesus Peter attributed to him a cluster of significant titles. He began by calling him ‘Jesus Christ of Nazareth’ (6), but went on to style him God’s ‘servant’ (13), who first suffered and then was glorified in fulfilment of Isaiah 52:13ff. (cf. 18 and 26; 4:27, 30). Next he was ‘the Holy and Righteous One’ (14) and ‘the author [or pioneer] of life’ (15), while in the concluding part of the sermon Peter called him the ‘prophet’ foretold by Moses (22) and, before the Sanhedrin, the rejected stone which has become the cornerstone (4:11). Servant and Christ, Holy One and source of life, Prophet and stone – these titles speak of the uniqueness of Jesus in his sufferings and glory, his character and mission, his revelation and redemption. All this is summed up in his ‘name’ and helps to explain its saving power.
Having exalted the name of Jesus, Peter ended his sermon by challenging his hearers (fellow Israelites, he calls them) with the need for and the blessings of repentance. I know, he says, that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders (17). His purpose in saying this was neither to excuse their sin, nor to imply that forgiveness was unnecessary, but to show why it was possible. Peter was echoing the Old Testament distinction between sins of ‘ignorance’ and sins of ‘presumption’. Next, although they did not know what they were doing, God knew what he was doing. For what happened to Jesus was the fulfilment of prophecy, for this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, especially that his Messiah would suffer (18). Neither their ignorance nor God’s predictions took away the blame, however. They must repent . . . and turn to God (19a). Then three successive blessings would take place.
The first is that your sins may be wiped out (19b), even their sin of doing to death the author of life. Exaleiphō means to wash off, erase, obliterate. It is used in the book of Revelation both of God who wipes away our tears and of Christ who refuses to erase our name from the book of life. William Barclay explains the allusion:
Ancient writing was upon papyrus, and the ink used had no acid in it. It therefore did not bite into the papyrus as modern ink does; it simply lay upon the top of it. To erase the writing a man might take a wet sponge and simply wipe it away.
Just so, when God forgives our sins, he wipes the slate clean.
The second promised blessing is that times of refreshing may come from the Lord (19c). The Greek word anapsyxis can mean rest, relief, respite or refreshment. It seems here to be the positive counterpart to forgiveness, for God does not wipe away our sins without adding his refreshment for our spirits.
The third promised blessing is that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you – even Jesus (20). Although during the present interim period he continuously gives us his forgiveness and his refreshment, yet heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets (21). Some commentators believe that the word ‘everything’ in this sentence refers not to the universe which God will ‘restore’ but to the promises which he will ‘establish’. But apokatastasis is more naturally understood of the eschatological ‘restoration’, which Jesus called a ‘regeneration’, when nature will be liberated from its bondage to pain and decay and God will make a new heaven and earth. This final perfection awaits the return of Christ.
These Christ-centred promises of total forgiveness (sins wiped out), spiritual refreshment and universal restoration were all foretold in the Old Testament. So Peter concludes with more significant quotations and allusions. He refers to three major prophetic strands which are associated with Moses, Samuel (and his successors) and Abraham. First,
Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you [for] anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’
(22–23)
Second, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days, the days of the Messiah (24). Although this is a very general statement, perhaps the chief reference is to God’s promise, which began with Samuel, to establish the kingdom of David. At all events, Peter assured his hearers, you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers (25a). It is impressive that Peter regards the many and varied strands of Old Testament prophecy as a united testimony applying to ‘these days’ because fulfilled in Christ and his people.
Third, God said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed’ (25b). This was a foundation promise of the Old Testament. Consider both the recipients and the nature of the promised blessing. As for the recipients, when God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you (26a), the physical descendants of Abraham, as is emphasized by Paul several times. But later Paul argues, especially in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians, that the promised blessing is for all believers, including Gentiles who by faith have become Abraham’s spiritual children. And what is the blessing? It is not forgiveness only, but righteousness. For God sent Jesus Christ his servant to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways (26).
Looking back over Peter’s Colonnade sermon, it is striking that he presents Christ to the crowd ‘according to the Scriptures’ as successively the suffering servant (13, 18), the Moses-like prophet (22–23), the Davidic king (24) and the seed of Abraham (25–26). And if we add his Pentecost sermon, and glance on to his speech before the Sanhedrin (4:8ff.), it is possible to weave a biblical tapestry which forms a thorough portrait of Christ. Arranged chronologically according to the events of his saving career, the Old Testament texts declare that he was descended from David (Ps. 132:11 = Acts 2:30); that he suffered and died for us as God’s servant (Isa. 53 = 2:23; 3:18); that the stone the builders rejected has nevertheless become the cornerstone (Ps. 118:22 = 4:11), for God raised him up from the dead (Isa. 52:13 = 2:25ff.), since death could not hold him and God would not abandon him to decay (Ps. 16:8ff. = 2:24, 27, 31); that God then exalted him to his right hand, to wait for his final triumph (Ps. 110:1 = 2:34–35); that meanwhile through him the Spirit has been poured out (Joel 2:28ff. = 2:16ff., 33); that now the gospel is to be preached across the world, even to those afar off (Isa. 57:19 = 2:39), although opposition to him has been foretold (Ps. 2:1ff. = 4:25–26); that people must listen to him or pay the penalty of their disobedience (Deut. 18:18–19 = 3:22–23); and that those who do listen and respond will inherit the blessing promised to Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 22:18 = 3:25–26).
This comprehensive testimony to Jesus as rejected by human beings but vindicated by God, as the fulfilment of all Old Testament prophecy, as demanding repentance and promising blessing, and as the author and giver of life, physically to the healed man and spiritually to those who believe, aroused the anger and antagonism of the authorities. The devil cannot endure the exaltation of Jesus Christ. So he stirred up the Sanhedrin to persecute the apostles.
3. The Council brings the apostles to trial (4:1–22)
Luke makes it plain that both waves of persecution were initiated by the Sadducees (4:1 and 5:17). They were the ruling class of wealthy aristocrats. Politically, they ingratiated themselves with the Romans, and followed a policy of collaboration, so that they feared the subversive implications of the apostles’ teaching. Theologically, they believed that the messianic age had begun in the Maccabean period; so they were not looking for a Messiah. They also denied the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which the apostles proclaimed in Jesus (2b). They thus saw the apostles as both agitators and heretics, both disturbers of the peace and enemies of the truth. In consequence, they were greatly disturbed, ‘annoyed’ (rsv), even ‘exasperated’ (neb), by what the apostles were teaching the people (2a), for this was ‘unauthorized preaching by unprofessional preachers’.
Led by the captain of the temple guard (1), that is, the chief of the temple police, who was responsible for the maintenance of law and order, and who held a priestly rank second only to the high priest, they seized Peter and John and, because it was evening and too late to convene the Council, they put them in jail overnight (3). Luke assures his readers immediately that human opposition did not hinder the word of God. The Sadducees could arrest the apostles, but not the gospel. On the contrary, many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand (4) – not counting the women and children, he seems to mean.
The next day the rulers (that is, the Sanhedrin, which consisted of seventy-one members, presided over by the high priest), including both the elders (probably clan leaders) and the teachers of the law (the scribes who copied, conserved and interpreted it), met in Jerusalem (5). Annas . . . was there, Luke tells us. He also calls him the high priest because, although the Romans had deposed him in ad 15, he retained his prestige, influence and title among the Jews. Annas’s son-in-law Caiaphas was there too. Both men had figured prominently in the trial and condemnation of Jesus. Luke also mentions John and Alexander (of whom nothing is known for certain) and others of the high priest’s family (6). As they sat in their customary semicircle, and Peter and John were brought before them (7a), memories of the trial of Jesus must have flooded the apostles’ minds. Was history to repeat itself? They could hardly expect justice from that court, which had listened to false witnesses and unjustly condemned their Lord. Were they to suffer the same fate? Would they too be handed over to the Romans and crucified? They must have asked themselves such questions.
a. Peter’s defence (4:8–12)
The court began their interrogation with a straight question to Peter and John: By what power or what name did you do this [i.e. heal the lame man]? We are reminded of the Jewish leaders who had asked Jesus by what authority he had cleansed the temple. In reply, the apostles bore witness to Jesus Christ. Whether they were preaching to the crowd in the temple or answering accusations in court, their preoccupation was not their own defence but the honour and glory of their Lord. In that moment of need, and in fulfilment of Jesus’ promise that ‘words and wisdom’ would be given them whenever they were brought to trial, Peter was freshly filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them:
Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame [for what could be objectionable about that?] and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is
‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’
(8–11)
This is the third time that Peter has used the graphic formula ‘you killed him, but God raised him’ (2:23–24; 3:15), for Jesus is the stone of Psalm 118 which the builders rejected but God has promoted to be the cornerstone (11), a text which Jesus himself had quoted. Moreover, salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved (12). We notice the ease with which Peter moves from healing to salvation, and from the particular to the general. He sees one man’s physical cure as a picture of the salvation which is offered to all in Christ. His two negatives (no one else and no other name) proclaim the positive uniqueness of the name of Jesus. His death and resurrection, his exaltation and authority demonstrate that he is the one and only Saviour, since nobody else possesses his qualifications.
b. The court’s decision (4:13–22)
The court was astonished by the courage of Peter and John, particularly because they were unschooled (agrammatoi, meaning not that they were illiterate, but that they had received no proper training in rabbinic theology) and ordinary men (idiōtai, meaning ‘laymen’ or ‘non-professionals’). But then they took note that these men had been with Jesus, who also lacked both a formal theological education and professional status as a rabbi (13). Nevertheless, they could also see before their eyes the undeniable evidence of the healed man. Although it was well known in the city that he had never walked in his life, there he was, standing with the apostles. So there was nothing they could say (14). They could not deny it and they would not admit it. Embarrassed, they ordered them out of court, so that they could confer in private (15).
Liberal critics have enjoyed themselves in asking how Luke could have known what went on in the Sanhedrin’s confidential discussion. ‘The author reports the closed deliberations’, comments Haenchen sarcastically, ‘as if he had been present.’ But Paul may have been there. More likely, Gamaliel was, and he could have told Paul later what happened. At all events, the Council was in a real quandary. On the one hand, a notable sign had been performed, as everyone living in Jerusalem knew well; so they could not deny it (16). On the other hand, they must stop this thing from spreading any further among the people (17a). (We note in passing that they made no attempt to discredit the apostles’ witness to the resurrection, although they knew that it was the centre of their message, verse 2.) So what could they do? All they could think of was to warn them, as a legal admonition before witnesses, to speak no longer to anyone in this name (17b) – the powerful name by which the lame man had been healed, which Peter had preached and which they were reluctant even to pronounce.
So they called the apostles in again and solemnly forbade them to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus (18). Peter and John made the spirited reply to this ban that the court must judge whether the accused would be right in God’s sight to obey them or God (19), for, they added: we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard (20). The court threatened them further, and then let them go. It did not seem possible to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened (21), especially because the lame man who had been miraculously cured was over forty years old (22).
4. The church prays (4:23–31)
How did the apostles react to the Council’s ban and threats? On their release, Luke tells us, they went straight to their own people, their relatives and friends in Christ, reported everything the Council had said to them (23) and then immediately turned together in prayer to God (24a). Here is the Christian koinōnia in action. We have seen the apostles in the Council; now we see them in the church. Having been bold in witness, they were equally bold in prayer. Their first word was Despotēs, Sovereign Lord, a term used of a slave owner and of a ruler of unchallengeable power. The Sanhedrin might utter warnings, threats and prohibitions, and try to silence the church, but their authority was subject to a higher authority still, and human rulings cannot overturn the decrees of God.
Next we observe that, before the people came to ask anything, they filled their minds with thoughts of divine sovereignty. First, he is the God of creation, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them (24). Second, he is the God of revelation, who spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of . . . David, and in Psalm 2 (already in the first century bc recognized as messianic) had predicted the world’s opposition to his Christ, with nations raging, peoples plotting, kings standing and rulers assembling against the Lord’s Anointed (25–26). Third, he is the God of history, who had caused even his enemies (Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews, united in a conspiracy against Jesus, 27) to do what his power and will had decided beforehand should happen (28). This, then, was the early church’s understanding of God, the God of creation, revelation and history, whose characteristic actions are summarized by the three verbs ‘you made’ (24), ‘you spoke’ (25) and ‘you decided’ (28).
Only now, with their vision of God clarified, and themselves humbled before him, were they ready at last to pray. Luke tells us their three main requests. The first was that God would consider their threats (29a). It was not a prayer that their threats would fall under divine judgment, nor even that they would remain unfulfilled, so that the church would be preserved in peace and safety, but only that God would consider them, would bear them in his mind. The second petition was that God would enable them, his servants (literally, ‘slaves’), to speak his word with great boldness (29b), undeterred by the Council’s ban and unafraid of their threats. The third prayer was that God would stretch out his hand to heal, and to perform signs and wonders in and through the name of . . . Jesus (30). As Alexander pointed out, ‘their demand is not now for miracles of vengeance or destruction, such as fire from heaven, but for miracles of mercy’. Moreover, the word and the signs would go together, the signs and wonders confirming the word proclaimed with boldness.
In answer to their united and earnest prayers, (a) the place . . . was shaken, and as Chrysostom commented, ‘that made them the more unshaken’; (b) they were all again filled with the Holy Spirit; and (c), in response to their specific request (29), they spoke the word of God boldly (31). Nothing is said in this context of an answer to their other specific prayer, namely for miracles of healing (30), but it is reasonable to see 5:12 as the answer: ‘The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people.’
5. Conclusion: signs and wonders
Perhaps the three most notable features of Luke’s narrative in Acts 3 and 4 are (a) the spectacular healing miracle and the prayer for more, (b) the Christ-centred preaching of Peter, and (c) the outbreak of persecution. Because Peter’s testimony to Christ has already been considered in some detail, and because we will come back to the subject of persecution in the next chapter, we will concentrate now on the other topic of miracles.
Controversy over signs and wonders should not lead us into a naïve polarization between those who are for them and those who are against. Instead, the place to begin is the wide area of agreement which exists among us. All biblical Christians believe that, although the Creator’s faithfulness is revealed in the uniformity and regularities of his universe, which are the essential bases of the scientific enterprise, he has also sometimes deviated from the norms of nature into abnormal phenomena we call ‘miracles’. But to think of them as ‘deviations from nature’ is not to dismiss them (as did the eighteenth-century deists) as ‘violations of nature’ which cannot happen, and therefore did not and do not happen. No, our biblical doctrine of the creation, that God has made everything out of an original nothing, does not allow this kind of scepticism. In addition, since we believe that the miracles recorded in the Bible, and not least in Acts, did happen, there is no good reason for asserting that they cannot recur today. We have no right to dictate to God what he is allowed to do and not to do. And if we have hesitations about some claims to ‘signs and wonders’ today, we must make sure that we have not confined both God and ourselves in the prison of Western rationalistic unbelief.
A popular exponent of ‘signs and wonders’ teaching in the charismatic renewal movement was John Wimber, a founding leader of the Vineyard Movement. He and Kevin Springer summarized his position in Power Evangelism (1985) and Power Healing (1986). Although it is impossible to do justice to it in a few sentences, its leading ideas were (a) that Jesus inaugurated the kingdom of God, demonstrated its arrival by signs and wonders, and means us similarly both to proclaim and to dramatize its advance; (b) that signs and wonders were ‘everyday occurrences in New Testament times’ and ‘a part of daily life’, so that they should characterize ‘the normal Christian life’ for us too; and (c) that church growth in Acts was largely due to the prevalence of miracles. ‘Signs and wonders occurred fourteen times in the book of Acts in conjunction with preaching, resulting in church growth. Further, on twenty occasions church growth was a direct result of signs and wonders performed by the disciples.’
John Wimber argued his case with sincerity and force. But some unanswered questions remain. Let me ask three, especially in relation to our study of Acts. First, is it certain that signs and wonders are the main secret of church growth? John Wimber supplied a table of fourteen instances in Acts in which, he claimed, signs and wonders accompanied the preaching and ‘produced evangelistic growth in the church’. One or two cases are indisputable, as when the Samaritan crowds ‘heard Philip and saw the signs he performed’ and so ‘paid close attention to what he said’ (8:6, 12). In a number of other cases, however, the connection between miracles and church growth is made by John Wimber, not by Luke. For example, to take the only two cases he gives from the chapters we have so far considered, there is no evidence in the text that the Pentecostal phenomena of wind, fire and languages (2:1–4) were the direct cause of the three thousand converts of verse 41, nor that the healing of the lame man (3:1ff.) was the direct cause of the increase to five thousand (4:4), as John Wimber’s table claims. Luke seems rather to attribute the growth to the power of Peter’s preaching. In this sense all true evangelism is ‘power evangelism’, for conversion and new birth, and so church growth can take place only by the power of God through his Word and Spirit.
Second, is it certain that signs and wonders are meant by God to be everyday occurrences? I do not think so. Not only are miracles by definition ‘abnorms’ rather than norms, but there is no evidence in Acts that they were widespread. Luke’s emphasis is that they were performed mostly by the apostles (2:43; 5:12), and especially by the apostles Peter and Paul on whom he focuses our attention. It is true that Stephen and Philip also did signs and wonders, and perhaps others did. But it can be argued that Stephen and Philip were special people, not so much because the apostles had laid hands on them (6:5–6) but because each was given a unique role in laying the foundations of the church’s worldwide mission (see 7:1ff. and 8:5ff.). Certainly the thrust of the Bible is that miracles clustered round the principal channels of revelation at fresh periods of revelation, particularly Moses the lawgiver, the new prophetic witness spearheaded by Elijah and Elisha, the messianic ministry of Jesus, and the apostles, so that Paul referred to his miracles as ‘the marks of a true apostle’. There may well be situations in which miracles are appropriate today; for example, on the frontiers of mission and in an atmosphere of pervasive unbelief which calls for a power encounter between Christ and Antichrist. But the Bible itself suggests that these will be special cases, rather than a part of daily life.
Third, is it certain that today’s claimed signs and wonders are parallel to those recorded in the New Testament? Some are, or seem to be. But in his public ministry, by turning water into wine, stilling a storm, multiplying loaves and fishes, and walking on water, Jesus gave a preview of nature’s final, total submission to him – a submission which belongs not to the ‘already’ but to the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom. We should not, therefore, expect to do these things ourselves today. Nor should we expect to be miraculously rescued from prison by the angel of the Lord or to see church members struck dead like Ananias and Sapphira. Even the healing miracles of the Gospels and Acts had features which are seldom seen today.
Let me come back to Acts to illustrate this, and take the healing of the lame man as my example. It is the first and longest miraculous cure described in the book. It had five noteworthy characteristics, which together indicate what the New Testament means by a miracle of healing. (a) The healing was of a grave, physical condition, and could not be regarded as a psychosomatic cure. Luke is careful to tell us that the man had been lame from birth (3:2), was now more than forty years old (4:22) and was so handicapped that he had to be carried everywhere (3:2). Humanly speaking, his case was hopeless. Doctors could do nothing for him. (b) The healing took place by a direct word of command in the name of Christ, without the use of any medical means. Not even prayer, the laying-on of hands or anointing with oil was used. It is true that Peter gave the man a helping hand (3:7), but this was not part of the cure. (c) The healing was instantaneous, not gradual, for ‘instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong’, so that he jumped up and began to walk (3:7–8). (d) The healing was complete and permanent, not partial or temporary. The man had been ‘completely healed’, Peter said to the crowds (3:16). (e) The healing was publicly acknowledged to be undeniable. There was no doubt or question about it. The lame man was well known in the city (3:10, 16). Now he was healed. It was not only the disciples of Jesus who were convinced, but also the enemies of the gospel. The as-yet-unbelieving crowd were ‘filled with wonder and amazement’ (3:10), while the Council called it ‘a notable sign’ which they could not deny (4:14, 16).
If, then, we take the Bible as our guide, we will avoid opposite extremes. We will describe miracles neither as ‘never happening’, nor as ‘everyday occurrences’; neither as ‘impossible’ nor as ‘normal’. Instead, we will be entirely open to the God who works both through nature and through miracle. And when a healing miracle is claimed, we will expect it to resemble those in the Gospels and Acts and so to be the instantaneous and complete cure of a physical condition, without the use of medical or surgical means, inviting investigation and persuading even unbelievers. For this is how it was with the lame man. Peter took his miraculous healing as the text of both his sermon to the crowd and his speech to the Council. Word and sign together bore testimony to the uniquely powerful name of Jesus. The healing of the man’s body was a vivid dramatization of the apostolic message of salvation.