NOTES for Act 5:27-33

It would seem familiar to us to understand the Cross and the Resurrection as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. Yes, the author of Acts says this (see Acts 5:31), but right away he also mentions repentance. This is striking. We understand that the Lord came into the world so that we would repent and receive Him and the Father. But the fact that He also rises in order to "give repentance to Israel" (and then to all who live) can escape our attention.

On the other hand, how else could it be? A mission is a mission, and it is carried out by every possible means. Indeed, when we look at the events described in Acts and at the increase of believers in the Church (see, for example, Acts 2:41, 5:14, 17:4), we see that people repent precisely after hearing the message about the crucified and risen Lord. The message that Someone came for your salvation and was killed through your own fault, yet rose in spite of it, strikes a person deeply. And if he listens to this message and truly hears it, acknowledging Jesus as Savior, the Lord does not delay His joy over the hundredth sheep that has been found (see Matt. 18:12-14).

At first glance, everything is clear. Of course, God is the main one in our life; we must obey Him in everything. One can even say that all our troubles come from disobedience to God, since original sin itself is nothing other than disobedience. Do we not try to obey Him? True, it does not always work out... But that is all right, God will help, and everything will work out for us!

Stop, but what exactly will work out for us? Did the people who sent Jesus to the Cross and then judged the Apostles consciously disobey God? And the people who stoned the first deacon Stephen were absolutely certain that they were fulfilling the will of God. Look into the history of the Church: intolerance, crusades, the Inquisition - these too were supposedly done out of obedience to God. And present-day terrorism also tries to declare itself holiness, even if Islamic!

How are we to understand that what we consider the will of God truly is His will? There is a seemingly simple answer: check it against the Bible. But recently someone told me that both warring extremist parties in Northern Ireland justify their murders and bombings with quotations from the Bible! The point is not only what is written in it, but also how we understand it, and that is already the sphere of the Spirit's action. Remember how Jesus, when His disciples wanted to interpret a biblical passage incorrectly, said to them: "You do not know what spirit you are of" (Luke 9:55)

So how are we to obey God?

Speaking of the traditional Synagogue, one should keep in mind that, both spiritually and religiously, it was by no means homogeneous. Evidence of this is the speech in the Sanhedrin by one of the most famous teachers of the Torah of that time, Gamaliel, who had many disciples, among whom, incidentally, was Shaul, or Saul, the future apostle Paul. Gamaliel belonged to the school of Hillel, one of the two main theological schools of that era; the second was the school of Shammai. Hillel, who lived about two centuries before the events described, focused chiefly on the experience of direct, immediate communion with God, which, as he taught, was available to every seeker, provided that seeker was ready to follow the Torah.

This concerned, of course, not only the external Torah, but also the inner Torah. Hillel was not a religious formalist. He considered thoughtful, prayerful reading of the Torah, continuous inner prayer, and attention to one's inner life, to the intentions that determine the quality and direction of a person's spiritual life, to be central in spiritual life. He certainly did not reject the traditional forms of the Jewish religion, but he regarded them only as a religious shell for the main thing, for spiritual life itself.

Gamaliel also belonged to this school and, judging by the testimony of contemporaries, had absorbed its best features. It was he who spoke in the Sanhedrin in defense of the new movement. Gamaliel himself, of course, was not a Christian, though later Christian circles circulated legends about his conversion to Christ. But he was spiritually sensitive enough to understand that what was involved here was possibly an act of God. And so he advised the temple leadership and the synagogue leaders not to hurry.

Simply leave these new messianists alone and see what would happen next. He also offered a weighty argument in favor of such a decision, pointing to other messianic movements that had come to nothing, and such movements often flared up in Judea in those days. For the authorities this was a no-lose option: if the new movement was like the former ones, it would end on its own; if not... well, then they would have to think about what to do next. For the moment, they did not need to worry. That is what they decided to do: the apostles were punished for formal disobedience to the Sanhedrin's ban on preaching the new sacred name and then released. And they began to watch what would happen next.

The thought that a Pharisee, too, can be righteous and respected among the people is not immediately easy to accept if we habitually divide people into categories: here are our people, who are good, and there are the outsiders, who are bad. But Scripture constantly breaks down stereotypes, including those that appear pious and grounded in spiritual tradition.

The criterion proposed by Gamaliel, who was trying to persuade the Jewish leaders not to harm the apostles, is simple and practical. It is based on long experience of observing the rise and disappearance of numerous movements that swelled and burst like soap bubbles. One might object to Gamaliel that many things displeasing to God last for quite a long time, with no end to them in sight for centuries. Yet, even with this qualification, he is still right in essence: what is not from God will collapse sooner or later. Much that seems strange and unfamiliar to us, however, may be taking place according to His will, so we should not pass hasty judgment on what does not fit our customary ideas.

The apostles were released, but this time only after being beaten. They had won again, but now the victory was harder won than the first time. Still more difficult trials lay ahead.

At times one hears debates about Christianity’s future—whether it is still relevant in the modern world, whether it faces oblivion or, on the contrary, a new flourishing. Perhaps analysts who reason about these subjects should heed the words of Gamaliel in today’s reading. Though not himself a Christian, he left it to God—in whom he certainly believed—to decide whether the new teaching would endure. Why, then, did Luke include in his history of the early Church these words belonging to a man who was in many respects opposed to Christianity? Perhaps he saw the immense importance for Christians themselves of this testimony: the destiny of their Church, their community, their work, their ministry, and life itself rests solely in God’s hands and exists only because it is pleasing to Him.

Today's reading shows us the limit that religious consciousness can reach. This limit is marked by Gamaliel's speech (vv. 34-39). Gamaliel belonged to the rabbinic school founded by Hillel, a teacher of the Torah who lived approximately two centuries before the Nativity of Christ. Representatives of this school were never religious formalists, believing that the Torah should be written in the human heart, determining a person's whole life and helping him build a relationship with God. For them the first place belonged not to ritual, but to intimate, mystical communion with God. Hillel is credited with the words: "Where two or three gather in the name of the Torah, there the Shekinah dwells among them" (in Judaism, the Shekinah is the presence of God). It is no surprise that a representative of this very school spoke before the Sanhedrin in support of the apostles.

The situation did not at all seem clear and unambiguous to Gamaliel either, but he was not afraid of what the temple leadership feared: that the new movement that had begun among the people would turn against them (vv. 27-28). His absence of fear and readiness to accept everything that truly comes from God distinguish him from most representatives of the official religious authorities.

Gamaliel cannot say anything definite about the apostles and their preaching, and that is not surprising: he remains a bearer and guardian of a religious tradition, in no way connected either with Jesus or with His disciples. But his spiritual and religious experience tells him that movements of this kind succeed only when they come from God. Therefore he is calm: if the apostles are doing God's work, he has nothing to worry about; if not, then there is no need to be anxious anyway, because in that case it will sooner or later come to nothing.

Such a position appears neutral and watchful, but it could not have been otherwise: Gamaliel remained within religious boundaries, although his faith was sincere and his religiosity consistent. He truly knew nothing either about Jesus or about the apostles, and no religious experience could reveal to him what is revealed only through contact with the Kingdom. At the same time, however, Gamaliel, as we can see, remains absolutely open to God's action and ready to accept everything that comes from God. His position presupposes, above all, absolute honesty before himself and before God. And this is, apparently, the best that religion can give a person. In such a state of spirit a person will neither rush after false prophets and false messiahs, nor grab stones whenever some new religious movement appears. His religion gives him inner peace. That peace, of course, does not replace the Kingdom, but it gives him the possibility of seeing it.

Describing the life of the first Christian community, the sacred writer draws attention to those manifestations of the power of the Kingdom that should have been obvious to everyone. Healings, conversions, the freeing of the possessed from the power of dark forces - all this was well known and described in the Gospels, and in the earliest Christian times, when the Gospels had not yet been written, accounts of these events were passed from mouth to mouth. And now, before the eyes of many, something similar was taking place. The history of the Kingdom in the world continued.

There was something more as well: to leave prison through a locked door was something altogether incredible... but the risen Jesus also passed through locked doors, and they were no obstacle to Him. In the untransformed world such a thing is impossible; in the Kingdom it is entirely possible. The author of the book describes what is happening precisely as something happening in the Kingdom. What is taking place is not the spread of a new religion through Jerusalem and Judea, but the spread of the Kingdom there. It is a spread to which, naturally, each person responds in his own way. The religious authorities are also forced to respond somehow: everything that is happening is becoming too visible.

Visible, and frightening. Frightening because it is uncontrollable and unpredictable. Frightening in the way anything is frightening to any authority simply because it is authority. The religious authorities of Judea were no exception: power is always power first of all, and whether it is secular or religious is a secondary question. What frightens the temple leadership and the whole Sanhedrin most of all is the spread of a new name by which one can be saved. This is understandable: a new sacred name means a new path to God.

What is this new path? Who can make use of it, and how? What does all this mean for the former paths? The apostles and all the members of the new movement are obvious and explicit messianists; they speak constantly about the Messiah, whose name for them is equivalent to the name of God. They speak about the Kingdom. What is this Kingdom? Is there a place in it for the Temple? For the old priesthood? Or will everything in this new Kingdom be new: the Temple, the priesthood, and worship? And what about earthly authority?

All these questions gave no peace to the temple leadership and the spiritual leaders of the traditional Synagogue. If the spiritual leaders of the new movement had first coordinated their activity with the Sanhedrin, or at least notified it, everything would have been different. But they did nothing of the kind. Meanwhile, the Temple and the Sanhedrin watched the new messianists tensely. Who were they: allies or competitors? And the further things went, the more obvious it became both to the Temple and to the traditional Synagogue that these new messianists would not become their allies.