This is the ninth entry in the Bible Junkies Online Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles.
The first entry covered some of the major critical,
technical and background issues that will concern us as we read through and
comment on the Acts. The second post, found here, considered the prologue to the Acts of the Apostles. In the third column, we began to examine the founding of the
Jerusalem Church. In the fourth blog post, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost
and the beginning of Peter’s speech was discussed. In the fifth post, the bulk of Peter’s speech was examined. In the sixth entry, Peter’s speech concludes with a successful
response according to Acts. The seventh blog post deals with the formation of the apostles
and other disciples into a community and the practices of the earliest
community.
In
the eighth column Peter and John heal a man who was lame. In this, the
ninth entry, Peter explains how the lame man was healed and what this means
about Jesus and his salvific power.
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3. Contents:
C) Work of Peter and
the Apostles (3:1-5:42): II) Peter Explains How the Lame Man was Healed (3:11-26):
11 While he clung to
Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called
Solomon's Portico, utterly astonished. 12 When Peter saw it, he addressed the
people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why
do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our
ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over
and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14
But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given
to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To
this we are witnesses. 16 And by faith in his name, his name itself has made
this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. 17
"And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as
did also your rulers. 18 In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through
all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. 19 Repent
therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 so that times
of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the
Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, 21 who must remain in
heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago
through his holy prophets. 22 Moses said, "The Lord your God will raise up
for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen
to whatever he tells you. 23 And it will be that everyone who does not listen
to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.' 24 And all the
prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also
predicted these days. 25 You are the descendants of the prophets and of the
covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, "And in your
descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' 26 When God raised
up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning
each of you from your wicked ways." (NRSV)
What we find here in response to Peter’s healing of the lame
man is something often lacking in the Gospels: an extended story of what
happened after a miracle. We are
given a sense of what the lame man does and what the crowd does in Acts 3:11-26.
So, “while he {the lame man who was healed} clung to Peter and John, all the
people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's Portico, utterly
astonished” (Acts 3:11). But this verse is only to set the scene for what
follows. Peter will now explain to the gathering crowd on the Temple Mount how
and what just took place.
Peter speaks directly to the crowd in a lengthy speech. As discussed
previously (see
2)A in Acts of the Apostles Online Commentary (1) and Acts
of the Apostles Online Commentary (5), footnote 1) these speeches are likely
not direct reports from Peter, but accounts passed onto Luke most likely from
the oral tradition and then reworked by Luke from his sources into the text we
have. This does not mean that the accounts are not accurate in terms of the
basic content and form of the speeches, only that Luke’s role must be
acknowledged: the speeches are likely indirect reports sourced by Luke who
shaped them in the form of the earliest Christian kerygma, while acknowledging of course that Peter is one of the
major shapers of the very kerygma
Luke is passing on.
Peter’s speech begins by addressing the crowd as Israelites
and at the same time aligning himself with his fellow people by mentioning “our
ancestors”:
You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you
stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors
has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the
presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. (Acts 3:12-13)
First, Peter states that it was not human power or his piety
(eusebeia) which made the lame man walk, positioning himself as simply an
ordinary man who follows Jesus. Peter attributes the power which worked through
him as deriving from God through Jesus. And Luke has Peter speak in the first
person plural, though the healing and the speech are both performed by Peter
alone. Luke’s point is probably not so much to include John the apostle, but to
indicate that this power rests with God and not one individual, which makes it
accessible to the whole Church.
Second, though the translation speaks of God glorifying “his
servant Jesus” (ton paida autou), the
phrase ton paida autou is more literally
“his child,” with paida the accusative
singular form of pais. It is the case
that pais was used as a diminutive
and derogative term for slaves and that it often translates the Hebrew ‘ebed (servant, slave) in the Septuagint,
but “child” (and even “son” in this particular case) might be the best
translation. Jesus was God’s child. Whether this changes the meaning of this
particular passage is not apparent, although it could indicate that an Aramaic word
used here is talya, which has the
sense of child and servant. It also has the meaning of lamb, but we can put
that aside for the time being.
Third, in a not so subtle way, though Peter identifies with
his countrymen and countrywomen, he also lets Pilate off the hook and blames
the Jewish people as a whole when he says, “whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate.” Unless the
crowd is composed entirely of Jewish authorities, Peter blames all of the
Jewish people for Jesus’ death.
Certainly, as we look back at this claim with
historical hindsight, and forward in this passage, we can see that the goal of
this speech as composed in Acts is to create a sense of spiritual conviction
and to encourage a positive response, a conversion of heart and mind, with
respect to Jesus. To the extent that
such passages have created or contributed to anti-Semitism, that must be
rejected. As Nostra Aetate 4 says, “True,
the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death
of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all
the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.”
Peter’s speech should not today be accepted as a blanket condemnation of the
Jewish people, but a rhetorical device used to impact the Jewish crowds.
The following verses continue this theme.
But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have
a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised
from the dead. To this we are witnesses. (Acts 3:14-15)
It is possible that the phrase “Holy and Righteous One” is
being used as a Messianic title (see Isaiah 53:11, and 43:3), but it is also
used as a sharp contrast to a murderer who was preferred over the righteous
one. Another phrase on which it is necessary to focus theological attention is “the
author of life” (archêgon tês zôês). What
is intended by this? The key word is archêgos,
which has a wide range of possible meanings, such as “first entrant,” “pioneer,”
“founder,” “source,” “author,” and even in some older translations “prince” or “leader.”
T.E. Page writes that in classical Greek
archêgos is used to denote the
founder of a race (Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus,
60) or city (Plato, Timaeus, 21e) or even a general (Aeschylus, Agamemnon,
259; Thucydides, I.132) (Acts of the Apostles, 100).
The meaning here seems to me, in light of the
fact that Peter will stress that God raised Jesus from the dead, to
focus on Jesus’ resurrection and not divinity. Peter is not describing Jesus as
the founder of all life, but as the “leader” or “source” of life through his
resurrection. In this sense, we can compare the phrase to Paul’s description of
Jesus the resurrected one as the “first fruits” of all those who will be raised
(1 Corinthians 15:23). Jesus is the
first, the founder, the source of all those to be resurrected. The fact that
Peter adds, “to this we are witnesses,” cements this reading, for the first task
of the apostles was to be witnesses to the resurrection (see Acts 1:22 and Acts
of the Apostles Online Commentary (3)).
What is necessary to participate in the new life offered by
the “author of life,” such as witnessed in the healing of the lame man? “And by
faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and
know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in
the presence of all of you” (Acts 3:16). It was faith in Jesus’ name (as seen
in Acts
of the Apostles Commentary (5), Acts
of the Apostles Commentary (6), and Acts
of the Apostles Online Commentary (8) as well) that healed the man, “his
name itself has made this man strong.”
It is at this point that Peter’s rhetorical purpose in “blaming”
the crowd comes to the fore. Peter interprets the previous accusation in two
different ways: they acted out of
ignorance; and they acted to fulfill God’s plans. First, “And now, friends, I
know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (Acts 3:17). The
Jews, leaders or ordinary people, did not kill Jesus out of malice but out of
ignorance. Second, even more, “In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold
through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer” (Acts 3:18). In their ignorance, according to Peter, Jesus
has fulfilled God’s plan. It is not mentioned which prophecy Peter has in mind,
but one suspects it must be Isaiah 52:11-53:12. There is a clear tension here between
the necessity for Christ to suffer and die and the responsibility laid on the
Jewish crowd. Nevertheless, Peter’s rhetorical purpose has reached its
crescendo.
Given the fact that Jesus’ name has power, that God raised
him, the author of life, to new life, the path forward is clear: “Repent
therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of
refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the
Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the
time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy
prophets.” (Acts 3:19-21). Repentance is necessary to conquer sins, but what
has changed is the centrality of Jesus, the Messiah in the religious schema.
It seems that the repentance of the people will lead to “times
(kairoi) of refreshing” in the
presence of God – this speaks to the establishment of God’s kingdom in its
fullness – and it is linked to the return of Jesus “who must remain in heaven
until the time of universal restoration that God announced through his holy
prophets.” Peter seems to understand the repentance of the people as the key to
the return of Jesus to establish the eternal kingdom.
Peter then cites Moses as evidence or proof of God’s announcement
of this time of universal restoration through the prophets from Deuteronomy
18:15, 18-19 in Acts 3:22-23:
Moses said, "The Lord your God will raise up for you
from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells
you. And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be
utterly rooted out of the people.'
Jesus is the prophet of whom Moses spoke and so the proper
response to him is necessary for all of the Jewish people. Peter, that is, has
drawn a new criterion to remain in the people of God, or rather, has put a
specific name to the criterion: if you do not want to be “utterly rooted out of
the people,” follow Jesus. Peter also states that it is not just Moses, but “all
the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also
predicted these days” (Acts 3:24). This is not something new, or something Peter
has concocted; he sees this as a matter of all prophetic teaching.
Since the Jewish people “are the descendants of the prophets
and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors” (Acts 3:25a), says Peter, “when
God raised up his servant {paida: see
above}, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your
wicked ways” (Acts 3:26). This is a matter, for Peter of order: to the Jew
first, then to the rest of humanity. How do we know it is for the rest of
humanity? From Genesis 22:18, Peter cites God speaking to Abraham, “And in your
descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Acts 3:25b).
Next entry, Peter and John get into trouble at the Temple.
John W. Martens
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This entry is cross-posted at America Magazine The Good Word
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