In yesterday's study we found an angel setting the apostles free from jail, after which the apostles went right back to teaching about Jesus at the temple. When their enemies find out about this they are furious. "At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them." (Acts 5:26) The officers retrieve the apostles from the temple. They peacefully request that the men accompany them for fear that the people, upon seeing the apostles seized or mistreated, will rise to their defense.
"The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 'We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,' he said. 'Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.'" (Acts 5:27-28) Bible scholar Thomas Scott, who wrote A Commentary On The Whole Bible, says of this passage, "See how those who with presumption will do an evil thing, yet cannot bear to hear of it afterward, or to have it charged upon them. They could cry daringly enough, 'His blood be on us,' but now they take it as a heinous affront to have Christ's blood laid upon them."
The words of the high priest make me think he is painfully aware of his guilt in helping to put an innocent man to death. I don't think he believes he put the Son of God to death, but deep in his heart he knows he committed a great evil against a fellow human being. As Thomas Scott points out, the high priest had no problem saying to Pontius Pilate, "His blood be upon us and upon our children." But now that the deed is done, he wants it forgotten. He wants to forget it himself and he wants everyone else to forget it.
The blood of Christ is going to be on us all one way or another. It will either cleanse our hearts and souls because we have accepted Christ as Savior and Lord, or it will stain our hands with guilt because we have rejected Him as Savior and Lord. We see an example of this as the apostles stand before the high priest and the Sanhedrin. The apostles are washed clean by the blood of Christ while the enemies of Jesus are desperately trying to deny the fact that His blood is on their hands.
"Peter and the other apostles replied: 'We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead---whom you killed by hanging Him on a cross. God exalted Him to His own right hand as Prince and Savior that He might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.'" (Acts 5:29-32) Peter, the man who once denied Jesus three times in the same night, now proclaims, "I won't deny Him ever again! I will never stop preaching in His name! I am a witness to the fact that He has been raised from the dead and nothing can persuade me to stop telling this good news to the world."
"When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death." (Acts 5:33) The enemies of the apostles are overwhelmed with rage. How dare these men suggest they need to repent of anything? How dare they claim Jesus of Nazareth is seated at the right hand of God? These men want to put the apostles to death for confronting them with their guilt and for committing what they consider blasphemy by crediting Jesus with being the Son of Almighty God.
But in tomorrow's study we find a great rabbi among the Pharisees standing up in the apostles' defense, not because he necessarily accepts their message, but because he genuinely wants to obey the will of God. If these men are doing the will of God, then he feels no one should stand against them. His calm and moderate attitude is a sharp contrast to the venomous prejudice many in the Sanhedrin harbor toward the apostles. This is the same rabbi under which the Apostle Paul studied, and tomorrow we get an idea of what a great influence he must have been on Paul, and we can better understand why Paul immediately accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior when he met Him on the Damascus road.
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