3. Second opposition (5:12-42)

The apostles, manifesting the presence and power of God, attract even more attention by the old covenant community (5:12-16). Increasing numbers of people respond and enter into the new experience of relationship with God. Even those who do not respond, either out of concern for the depth of consecration required or out of fear of the religious authorities, have high regard for the Christians.

For the religious authorities, it is bad enough to have people flocking to this new movement; but when even those who do not join hold it in awe and high regard, it is time to do something (5:17-18). Not only are the religious leaders blind to the presence and power of God in the life and activities of the Christian community, they also seem incapable of seeing God’s action in the miraculous release of the apostles from prison and their unintimidated boldness in going right back to teaching in the temple (vv.19-26). The only concern of the authorities seems to be the security of their own roles and their maintaining control of the people. This concern is revealed not only in the charge that the apostles have disobeyed the injunction to be silent, but also in their fear that the apostles' witness to the Resurrection will put the Jewish authorities in a bad light with the people (vv.27-28).

The apostles refuse to be intimidated by those in authority, repeating their earlier response (4:19) of obedience to God and directly charging the authorities with the death of Jesus (5:29). As if that were not enough, the apostles also reiterate their witness that God has acted not only to undo this work of the religious leaders through the resurrection of Jesus, but that God has instituted a new structure of covenant relationship through repentance and forgiveness, a relationship that is attested by the experience of the presence of God in the lives of those who obey God (vv.31-32).

It is no wonder that the authorities are enraged and ready to kill the apostles (5:33). They now realize that the apostles are the “authorities” of a movement that threatens their whole structure of existence. To accept the truth of the apostles' claims requires them to acknowledge that they rejected and killed God’s Messiah, accept God’s overturning of their action, and recognize that God is doing something new that does away with the whole structure of religion upon which their roles rely. Providentially, Gamaliel, Paul’s teacher (22:3), brings wisdom to the deliberations (5:34-39). He is at least open to the possibility that God just might be active in all this. Of course Gamaliel, as a Pharisee, accepts the possibility of resurrection while the aristocratic Sadducees do not.

Gamaliel at least succeeds in reducing murderous rage to vindictive wrath (5:40). Even the first experience of punishment, however, does not dissuade the apostles from bearing witness to the Resurrection and to Jesus as Messiah (vv.41-42)—both in the temple, center of the old covenant community, and in the gathering of the new covenant community, the house (see above on 2:42, 46).