In these days, Peter stood up in the middle of the disciples (and the number of names was about one hundred twenty), and said, “Brothers, it was necessary that this Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to those who took Jesus. For he was counted with us, and received his portion in this ministry. Now this man obtained a field with the reward for his wickedness, and falling headlong, his body burst open, and all his intestines gushed out. It became known to everyone who lived in Jerusalem that in their language that field was called ‘Akeldama,’ that is, ‘The field of blood.’
For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his habitation be made desolate. Let no one dwell in it;’ and, ‘Let another take his office.’
“Of the men therefore who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, to the day that he was received up from us, of these one must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”
They put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. They prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two you have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place.” They drew lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven apostles.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 15. It was meet that Matthias should be chosen…
15. It was meet that Matthias should be chosen into the place of Judas, lest, through the treachery of one man, all that might seem to have been made of none effect which Christ had once appointed. He did not unadvisedly choose the twelve in the beginning, as principal preachers of his gospel. For when he said that they should be judges of twelve tribes of Israel, Luke 6:13, John 6:70; he showeth here that it was done of set purpose, that they might gather together the tribes of Israel unto one faith. But after that the Jews had refused the grace offered unto them, it was behoveful that the Israel of God should be gathered together out of all countries.
This, therefore, was, as it were, a holy number, which, if it should have been diminished through the wickedness of Judas, then should the preaching of the gospel both have had, and also have, less credit at this day, if the beginning thereof had been imperfect. Although, therefore, Judas would (as much as in him lay) have disappointed the purpose of Christ, yet nevertheless it stood firm and stable. He perished as he was worthy, yet did the order of the apostles remain whole and sound.
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The company of names It is uncertain whether he meaneth the men who only have the name properly, seeing the women are comprehended under the name of the men; or whether he taketh names simply for all the heads, as the Hebrews call them souls. This may also be called in question, whether they were wont daily to frequent that parlor in which the apostles did dwell, or they did continually dwell there with them. For the place was scarce able to contain so great a multitude, to serve them for all necessary uses. Surely it seemeth to me a thing more like to be true, that Luke doth in this place express the number of them, that we may know that they were all gathered together when Peter made this sermon. Whereby we may guess that they were not always present there. Although I dare not affirm any certain thing concerning this matter, yet being moved with a probable conjecture, I do rather lean unto this part, that the church was gathered together them because they had to intreat of a serious matter, and to this end also tendeth this word rising, [standing up.]
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 Peter is made the mouth and interpreter of the…
Peter is made the mouth and interpreter of the whole company of the Apostles, either by secret revelation of the holy Ghost, or by express judgment of the Congregation.
Because men are commonly billed and enrolled by their names.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 15 And in those days Peter stood up in…
15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)
Ver. 15. The number of names] Nominum, id est, hominum, or of the chieftains that were fit to act in the election.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv15–26 In those days, between our Saviour’s ascension and Pentecost.
In those days, between our Saviour’s ascension and Pentecost.
Peter, as generally, spake for and amongst the apostles; but now especially, to express his zeal and faithfulness to our Saviour, whom he had so lately denied, he being also designed the minister of the circumcision, which place he began now to execute.
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The number of the names, or persons, together were about an hundred and twenty; probably Christ had converted many men, but these might be either men of name or quality, or meant of such as, Act 1:21, had accompanied with Christ and his apostles, and were designed for the ministry.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv15, 21 During the ten days stay and continuance of the…
During the ten days stay and continuance of the apostles at Jerusalem, before the feast of Pentecost, a motion was made among them for filling up the vacancy in the sacred college of the apostles, which was occasioned by the death of the traitor Judas; and here we have observable,
1. The person that made this motion, St. Peter: In those days Peter stood up, and said. Whence the church of Rome would infer his supremacy, byt very groundlessly.
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For St. Peter’s being the chief speaker, and sometimes the sole speaker, is not to be attributed to his superiority; but,
1. To his seniority, he being probably elder than the rest.
2. To his apostolical office! he was appointed to be the first and chief minister of the circumcision, to preach among the Jews: and therefore no wonder that Peter if first mentioned, when any thing relating to the Jewish affairs is recited.
3. His forwardness to speak and act for Christ and his interest, may be imputed to his repentance, it being but necessary that he, who had so scandalously fallen, should, by his future zeal, convince the world both of his repentance and recovery.
And accordingly he speaks, acts, and labours more abundantly than all the apostles; not that the rest were idle or insignificant; for they were equal with him, having an equal authority, an equal gift of miracles, an equal number of tongues, and equal power to preach the gospel, an equal wisdom in preaching of it:
For the reasons above mentioned, St. Peter spake and did so much; having dishonoured Christ before by his cowardly denial of him, he now resolves to signalize himself by shewing extraordinary measures of zeal nad activity for him.
Observe, 2. The honourable office and station which Judas once had; He was numbered with the apostles, and obtained part of that ministry with them. Judas though (secretly) a thief, a traitor, yea, a devil, yet had he by Christ’s own choice, a part or office in the apostolic order.
O Lord! how possible, and yet how sad is it to preach to others, and to become castaways ourselves! to prophecy in thy name, and yet to perish in thy wrath! to cast devils out of others, and yet be cast to the devil ourselves! to have our ministry blessed to others comfort and salvation, and at the same time to minister to our own condemnation! Quistalia fando temperet a lachrymis?
Observe, 3. Judas’s sin described; He was guide to them that took Jesus, verse 16. A guide to the chief priests in thier counsels, as to the manner of apprehending Christ; and a guide to the soldiers, as to the time and place of his apprehension.
Note thence, That there cannot be a greater sin, than for a person to be a guide and leader of others into sin. Woe to magistrates! woe to ministers! woe to parents! that are found guilty of this sin.
Observe, 4. Judas’s punishment declared;
1. He was hanged or strangled; some think by his own hand: others by the devil’s. No doubt that Satan, who had so great a hand in his sin, had more than a finger in his punishment. Of all mortals, no wretch ever deserved so direful a fate as this traitor Judas: And doubtless it was the dreadfulest that the devil could inflict.
2. It is added, that he burst asunder, and his bowels gushed out. The rope, or that to which it was fastened, breaking, he fell down headlong, and burst asunder, and his bowels gushed out. A just and suitable punishment for his want of bowels to his kind and innocent Master.
3. He went to his own place; that is, he went and was sent to hell and damnation, the proper place for the son of perdition: called his own place, because of his own choosing, of his own deserving, of his own procuring; it was what he had purchased to himself by the wages of iniquity, and justly deserved for his final impenitency.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v15 The sin of Judas was not only his shame…
The sin of Judas was not only his shame and ruin, but it made a vacancy in the college of the apostles. They were ordained twelve, with an eye to the twelve tribes of Israel, descended from the twelve patriarchs; they were the twelve stars that make up the church's crown (Rev 12:1), and for them twelve thrones were designated, Mat 19:28. Now being twelve when they were learners, if they were but eleven when they were to be teachers, it would occasion every one to enquire what had become of the twelfth, and so revive the remembrance of the scandal of their society; and therefore care was taken, before the descent of the Spirit, to fill up the vacancy, of the doing of which we now have an account, our Lord Jesus, probably, having given directions about it, among other things which he spoke pertaining to the kingdom of God. Observe,
I. The persons concerned in this affair. 1. The house consisted of about a hundred and twenty. This was the number of the names, that is, the persons; some think the men only, distinguished from the women. Dr. Lightfoot reckons that the eleven apostles, the seventy disciples, and about thirty-nine more, all of Christ's own kindred, country, and concourse, made up this one hundred and twenty, and that these were a sort of synod, or congregation of ministers, a standing presbytery (Act 4:23), to whom none of the rest durst join themselves (Act 5:13), and that they continued together till the persecution at Stephen's death dispersed them all but the apostles (Act 8:1); but he thinks that besides these there were many hundreds in Jersualem, if not thousands, at this time, that believed; and we have indeed read of many that believed on him there, but durst not confess him, and therefore I cannot think, as he does, that they were now formed into distinct congregations, for the preaching of the word and other acts of worship; nor that there was any thing of this till after the pouring out of the Spirit, and the conversions recorded in the following chapter. Here was the beginning of the Christian church: this hundred and twenty was the grain of mustard-seed that grew into a tree, the leaven that leavened the whole lump. 2. The speaker was Peter, who had been, and still was, the most forward man; and therefore notice is taken of his forwardness and zeal, to show that he had perfectly recovered the ground he lost by his denying his Master, and, Peter being designed to be the apostle of the circumcision, while the sacred story stays among the Jews, he is still brought in, as afterwards, when it comes to speak of the Gentiles, it keeps to the story of Paul.
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II. The proposal which Peter made for the choice of another apostle. He stood up in the midst of the disciples, Act 1:15. He did not sit down, as one that gave laws, or had any supremacy over the rest, but stood up, as one that had only a motion to make, in which he paid a deference to his brethren, standing up when he spoke to them. Now in his speech we may observe,
1. The account he gives of the vacancy made by the death of Judas, in which he is very particular, and, as became one that Christ had breathed upon, takes notice of the fulfilling of the scriptures in it. Here is,
(1.) The power to which Judas had been advanced (Act 1:17): He was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry which we are invested with. Note, Many are numbered with the saints in this world that will not be found among them in the day of separation between the precious and the vile. What will it avail us to be added to the number of Christians, if we partake not of the spirit and nature of Christians? Judas's having obtained part of this ministry was but an aggravation of his sin and ruin, as it will be of theirs who prophesied in Christ's name, and yet were workers of iniquity.
(2.) The sin of Judas, notwithstanding his advancement to this honour. He was guide to those that took Jesus, not only informed Christ's persecutors where they might find him (which they might have done effectually though he had kept out of sight), but he had the impudence to appear openly at the head of the party that seized him. He went before them to the place, and, as if he had been proud of the honour, gave the word of command: That same is he, hold him fast. Note, Ringleaders in sin are the worst of sinners, especially if those that by their office should have been guides to the friends of Christ are guides to his enemies.
(3.) The ruin of Judas by this sin. Perceiving the chief priests to seek the life of Christ and his disciples, he thought to save his by going over to them, and not only so, but to get an estate under them, of which his wages for his service, he hoped, would be but an earnest; but see what came of it. [1.] He lost his money shamefully enough (Act 1:18): He purchased a field with the thirty pieces of silver, which were the reward of his iniquity. He did not purchase the field, but the wages of his unrighteousness did, and it is very elegantly expressed thus, in derision of his projects to enrich himself by this bargain. He thought to have purchased a field for himself, as Gehazi did with what he got from Naaman by a lie (see Kg2 5:26), but it proved the purchase of a field to bury strangers in; and what was he or any of his the better for this? It was to him an unrighteous mammon, it deceived him; and the reward of his iniquity was the stumbling-block of his iniquity. [2.] He lost his life m ore shamefully. We were told (Mat 27:5) that he went away in despair, and was suffocated (so the word signifies there, and no more); here it is added (as latter historians add to those who went before) that, being strangled, or choked with grief and horror, he fell headlong, fell on his face (so Dr. Hammond), and partly with the swelling of his own breast, and partly with the violence of the fall, he burst asunder in the midst, so that all his bowels tumbled out. If, when the devil was cast out of a child, he tore him, threw him down, and rent him, and almost killed him (as we find Mar 9:26; Luk 9:42), no wonder if, when he had full possession of Judas, he threw him headlong, and burst him. The suffocation of him, which Matthew relates, would make him swell till he burst, which Peter relates. he burst asunder with a great noise (so Dr. Edwards), which was heard by the neighbours, and so, as it follows, it came to be known (Act 1:19): His bowels gushed out; Luke writes like a physician, understanding all the entrails of the middle and lower ventricle. Bowelling is part of the punishment of traitors. Justly do those bowels gush out that were shut up against the Lord Jesus. And perhaps Christ had an eye to the fate of Judas, when he said of the wicked servant that he would cut him in sunder, Mat 24:51.
(4.) The public notice that was taken of this: It was known to all the dwellers in Jerusalem. It was, as it were, put into the newspapers, and was all the talk of the town, as a remarkable judgment of God upon him that betrayed his Master, Act 1:19. It was not only discoursed of among the disciples, but it was in every body's mouth, and nobody disputed the truth of the fact. It was known, that is, it was known to be true, incontestably so. Now one would think this should have awakened those to repentance that had had any hand in the death of Christ when they saw him that had the first hand thus made an example. But their hearts were hardened, and, as to those of them that were to be softened, it must be done by the word, and the Spirit working with it. Here is one proof of the notoriety of the thing mentioned, that the field which was purchased with Judas's money was called Aceldama - the field of blood, because it was bought with the price of blood, which perpetuated the infamy not only of him that sold that innocent precious blood, but of those that bought it too. Look how they will answer it, when God shall make inquisition for blood.
(5.) The fulfilling of the scriptures in this, which had spoken so plainly of it, that it must needs be fulfilled, Act 1:16. Let none be surprised nor stumble at it, that this should be the exit of one of the twelve, for David had not only foretold his sin (which Christ had taken notice of, Joh 13:18, from Psa 41:9, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up the heel against me), but had also foretold, [1.] His punishment (Psa 69:25): Let his habitation be desolate. This Psalm refers to the Messiah. Mention is made but two or three verses before of their giving him gall and vinegar, and therefore the following predictions of the destruction of David's enemies must be applied to the enemies of Christ, and particularly to Judas. Perhaps he had some habitation of his own at Jerusalem, which, upon this, every body was afraid to live in, and so it became desolate. This prediction signifies the same with that of Bildad concerning the wicked man, that his confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and shall bring him to the king of terrors: it shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his; brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation, Job 18:14, Job 18:15. [2.] The substitution of another in his room. His bishopric, or his office (for so the word signifies in general) shall another take, which is quoted from Psa 109:8. With this quotation Peter very aptly introduces the following proposal. Note, We are not to think the worse of any office that God has instituted (whether magistracy or ministry) either for the wickedness of any that are in that office or for the ignominious punishment of that wickedness; nor will God suffer any purpose of his to be frustrated, any commission of his to be vacated, or any work of his to be undone, for the miscarriages of those that are entrusted therewith. The unbelief of man shall not make the promise of God of no effect. Judas is hanged, but his bishopric is not lost. It is said of his habitation, that no man shall dwell therein, there he shall have no heir; but it is not said so of his bishopric, there he shall not want a successor. It is with the officers of the church as with the members of it, if the natural branches be broken off, others shall be grafted in, Rom 11:17. Christ's cause shall never be lost for want of witnesses.
2. The motion he makes for the choice of another apostle, Act 1:21, Act 1:22. Here observe, (1.) How the person must be qualified that must fill the vacancy. It must be one of these men, these seventy disciples, that have companied with us, that have constantly attended us, all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, preaching and working miracles for three years and a half, beginning from the baptism of John, from which the gospel of Christ commenced, unto that same day that he was taken up from us. Those that have been diligent, faithful, and constant, in the discharge of their duty in a lower station, are fittest to be preferred to a higher; those that have been faithful in a little shall be entrusted with more. And none should be employed as ministers of Christ, preachers of his gospel, and rulers in his church, but those that are well acquainted with his doctrine and doings, from first to last. None shall be an apostle but one that has companied with the apostles, and that continually; not that has visited them now and then, but been intimately conversant with them. (2.) To what work he is called that must fill up the vacancy: He must be a witness with us of his resurrection. By this it appears that others of the disciples were with the eleven when Christ appeared to them, else they could not have been witnesses with them, as competent witnesses as they, of his resurrection. The great thing which the apostles were to attest to the world was Christ's resurrection, for this was the great proof of his being the Messiah, and the foundation of our hope in him. See what the apostles were ordained to, not to a secular dignity and dominion, but to preach Christ, and the power of his resurrection.
III. The nomination of the person that was to succeed Judas in his office as an apostle.
1. Two, who were known to have been Christ's constant attendants, and men of great integrity, were set up as candidates for the place (Act 1:23): They appointed two; not the eleven, they did not take upon them to determine who should be put up, but the hundred and twenty, for to them Peter spoke, and not to the eleven. The two they nominated were Joseph and Matthias, of neither of whom do we read elsewhere, except this Joseph be the same with that Jesus who is called Justus, of whom Paul speaks (Col 4:11), and who is said to be of the circumcision, a native Jew, as this was, and who was a fellow-worker with Paul in the kingdom of God and a comfort to him; and then it is observable that, though he came short of being an apostle, he did not therefore quit the ministry, but was very useful in a lower station; for, Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Some think this Joseph is he that is called Joses (Mar 6:3), the brother of James the less (Mar 15:40), and was called Joses the just, as he was called James the just. Some confound this with that Joses mentioned Act 4:36. But that was of Cyprus, this of Galilee; and, it should seem, to distinguish them, that was called Barnabas - a son of consolation; this Barsabas - a son of the oath. These two were both of them such worthy men, and so well qualified for the office, that they could not tell which of them was the fitter, but all agreed it must be one of these two. They did not propose themselves nor strive for the place, but humbly sat still, and were appointed to it.
2. They applied to God by prayer for direction, not which of the seventy, for none of the rest could stand in competition with these in the opinion of all present, but which of these two? Act 1:24, Act 1:25. (1.) They appeal to God as the searcher of hearts: "Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, which we do not, and better than they know their own." Observe, When an apostle was to be chosen, he must be chosen by his heart, and the temper and disposition of that. Yet Jesus, who knew all men's hearts, for wise and holy ends chose Judas to be one of the twelve. It is comfortable to us, in our prayers for the welfare of the church and its ministers, that the God to whom we pray knows the hearts of all men, and has them not only under his eye, but in his hand, and turns them which way soever he will, can make them fit for his purpose, if he do not find them so, by giving them another spirit. (2.) They desire to know which of these God had chosen: Lord, show us this, and we are satisfied. It is fit that God should choose his own servants; and so far as he in any way by the disposals of his providence or the gifts of his Spirit, shows whom he hath chosen, or what he hath chosen, for us, we ought to comply with him. (3.) They are ready to receive him as a brother whom God hath chosen; for they are not contriving to have so much the more dignity themselves, by keeping out another, but desire to have one to take part of this ministry and apostleship, to join with them in the work and share with them in the honour, from which Judas by transgression fell, threw himself, by deserting and betraying his Master, from the place of an apostle, of which he was unworthy, that he might go to his own place, the place of a traitor, the fittest place for him, not only to the gibbet, but to hell - this was his own place. Note, Those that betray Christ, as they fall from the dignity of relation to him, so they fall into all misery. It is said of Balaam (Num 24:25) that he went to his own place, that is, says one of the rabbin, he went to hell. Dr. Whitby quotes Ignatius saying, There is appointed to every man idios topos - a proper place, which imports the same with that of God's rendering to every man according to his works. And our Saviour had said that Judas's own place should be such that it had been better for him that he had never been born (Mat 26:24) - his misery such as to be worse than not being. Judas had been a hypocrite, and hell is the proper place of such; other sinners, as inmates, have their portion with them, Mat 24:51. (4.) The doubt was determined by lot (Act 1:26), which is an appeal to God, and lawful to be used for determining matters not otherwise determinable, provided it be done in a solemn religious manner, and with prayer, the prayer of faith; for the lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is of the Lord, Pro 16:33. Matthias was not ordained by the imposition of hands, as presbyters were, for he was chosen by lot, which was the act of God; and therefore, as he must be baptized, so he must be ordained, by the Holy Ghost, as they all were not many days after. Thus the number of the apostles was made up, as afterwards, when James, another of the twelve, was martyred, Paul was made an apostle.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv15–26 And in those days Peter stood up,.... That is,…
And in those days Peter stood up,.... That is, in one of the days after Christ's ascension, and before the day of Pentecost, whilst the disciples were waiting for the promise of the Spirit. The Ethiopic version reads, "on that day"; as if it was the same day they came first into Jerusalem, and went into the upper room; and which is likely enough; for no time was to be lost in choosing one in the room of Judas; when Peter, not only as a forward person, and who had been used to be the first mover and actor in any affair; but as willing to show his zeal for Christ, whom he had so lately denied, and as being the senior man in company, as well as the minister of the circumcision, rises, and stands up, as persons used to do, when about to make an oration, and in respect and reverence to the persons addressed:
in the midst of the disciples; not only the other ten, but the whole hundred and twenty. The Alexandrian copy, and some others, read, "in the midst of the brethren", and so reads the Vulgate Latin version; and the Ethiopic version, "in the midst of his own brethren",
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and he said what is expressed in the following verses, which before the historian relates, he inserts in a parenthesis this clause,
the number of the names; that is, of persons; see Rev 11:13. Some copies read, "of the men", and so the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions; who
together, all put together in one sum, or as meeting together in one and the same place, or as agreeing in the same faith and judgment, so the Arabic version, "and there was there a company whose names and wills agreed in this same opinion"; they were all in one place, and of the same mind; and the sum of them
were about an hundred and twenty; among whom were the eleven apostles, and seventy disciples, which made eighty one; so that there were thirty nine persons more in this company: not that it is to be thought that these were all that were in Jerusalem that believed in Christ; but these were the number of the persons that met and embodied together in a church state, and who not only gave themselves to the Lord, but to one another, by the will of God; and their names being taken and registered, the historian calls the account of them, the number of the names, and not persons; though he means persons. This was a number pretty famous among the Jews; the sanhedrim of Ezra, called the men of the great synagogue, consisted of an "hundred and twenty elders"; the last of which was Simeon the just, and he comprehended the hundred and twenty (h). And such a number was requisite for a sanhedrim in any place; it is asked,
"how many must there be in a city, that it may be fit for a sanhedrim? "an hundred and twenty"; R. Nehemiah says two hundred and thirty (i):
but the decision is according to the former: hence they say (k), that "they fix in every city in Israel, where there is an "hundred and twenty", or more, a lesser sanhedrim.---A city in which there is not an hundred and twenty, they place three judges, for there is no sanhedrim less than three.
(h) Juchasin, fol. 13. 2. Bartenora in Pirke Abot, c. 1. sect. 1. Elias Levit. prefat. 3. ad Sepher Masoret. (i) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 1. sect. 6. Vid. Maimon. & Bartenora in. ib. & T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 17. 2. (k) Maimon. Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 1. sect. 3, 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 The number of persons together - Who were together…
The number of persons together - Who were together in the upper room. were a hundred and twenty - But he had undoubtedly many more in other places; of whom more than five hundred saw him at once after his resurrection, 1 Cor. xv, 6.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv15–26 Verse 15. In the midst of the disciples] μαθητων;…
Verse 15. In the midst of the disciples] μαθητων; but instead of this, αδελφων, brethren, is the reading of ABC, a few others, with the Coptic, AEthiopic, Armenian, and Vulgate. This seems the best reading, because of what immediately follows; for it was not among the disciples merely that he stood, but among the whole company, which amounted to one hundred and twenty. It is remarkable that this was the number which the Jews required to form a council in any city; and it is likely that in reference to this the disciples had gathered together, with themselves, the number of one hundred and twenty, chosen out of the many who had been already converted by the ministry of our Lord, the twelve disciples, and the seventy-two whom he had sent forth to preach, Lu 10:1, &c., thus they formed a complete council in presence of which the important business of electing a person in the place of Judas was to be transacted.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26 Act 1:15. In those days — While they were…
Act 1:15. In those days — While they were waiting for the promise of the Spirit; Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples — Probably being under a peculiar divine influence on this occasion. The number of the names, or persons, together — That is, who were together in the upper room; were a hundred and twenty — It seems the greater part of the five hundred to whom Christ had appeared (see 1Co 15:6) continued in Galilee during this interval between the feast of the passover and that of pentecost. Dr. Lightfoot reckons that the eleven apostles, the seventy disciples, and about thirty-nine more, all of Christ’s own kindred, country, and company, made up this one hundred and twenty; and that these were a sort of synod, or congregation of ministers, a standing presbytery, (Act 4:23,) to whom none of the rest durst join themselves, Act 5:13; and that they continued together till the persecution at Stephen’s death dispersed them all but the apostles, Act 8:1. But he thinks that, besides these, there were many hundreds, if not thousands, in Jerusalem at this time who believed; and indeed we read of many who believed on him there, but durst not confess him. Here was the beginning of the Christian Church; this one hundred and twenty was the grain of mustard-seed that was to grow into a tree, the leaven that was to leaven the whole lump.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv15–26 In those days - On one of the days…
In those days - On one of the days intervening between the ascension of Jesus and the day of Pentecost.
Peter stood up - Peter standing up, or rising. This is a customary expression in the Scriptures when one begins to do a thing, Luk 15:18. The reason why Peter did this may be seen in the notes on Mat 16:16-17. It is not improbable, besides, that Peter was the most aged of the apostles; and from his uniform conduct we know that he was the most ardent. It was perfectly characteristic, therefore, for him to introduce the business of the election of a new apostle.
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The disciples - This was the name, which was given to them as being learners in the school of Christ. See the notes on Mat 5:1.
The number of the names - The number of the persons, or individuals. The word “name” is often used to denote “the person,” Rev 3:4; Act 4:12; Act 18:15; Eph 1:21. In Syriac it is, “The assembly of people was about an hundred and twenty.” This was the first assembly convened to transact the business of the church; and it is not a little remarkable that the vote in so important a matter as electing apostle was by the entire church. It settles the question that the election of a minister and pastor should be by the church, and that a pastor should not be placed over a church by a patron, or by an ecclesiastical body. If a case could ever occur where it would be right and proper that one should be selected to exercise the office of a minister of Christ by the ministry only, the election of one to fall the office of an apostle was such a case. And yet in this the entire church had a voice. Whether this was all the true church at this time does not appear from the history. This expression cannot mean that there were no more Christians, but that these were all that had convened in the upper room. It is certain that our Saviour had, by his own ministry, brought many others to be his true followers. Compare 1Co 15:6.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv15, 18, 20, 21, 25, 26 Peter, rising up, &c. Peter, says St. John Chrysostom[2]…
Peter, rising up, &c. Peter, says St. John Chrysostom[2] on this place, who was prince, or chief of the apostolical college, who had authority over them all, who by his place and dignity, might, without them, have chosen, and appointed a new apostle to succeed Judas, (Christ having said to him, confirm thy brethren,) &c. yet he consults them. (Witham) --- Here Peter acts and ordains in virtue of his supremacy, and the other apostles agree to his appointment.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om.g.tou chorou protos, &c.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 in those days--of expectant prayer, and probably towards the…
in those days--of expectant prayer, and probably towards the close of them, when the nature of their future work began more clearly to dawn upon them, and the Holy Ghost, already "breathed" on the Eleven (Joh 20:22), was stirring in Peter, who was to be the leading spirit of the infant community (Mat 16:19).
the number . . . about an hundred and twenty--Many, therefore, of the "five hundred brethren" who saw their risen Lord "at once" (Co1 15:6), must have remained in Galilee.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv15–26 4. The recompletion of the apostolic number. Act_1:15-26.
4. The recompletion of the apostolic number. Act_1:15-26.
On the apostolic number twelve, see our vol. ii, p. 81. As Jesus is now enthroned on high over the house of Israel, temporal and spiritual, so it befits that his viceroys (see our note on Mat_19:28) should in their complete significant number receive the unction of the Pentecostal Spirit. Accordingly, we see (Act_2:14) that the full twelve stand up on that occasion as the divinely recognised number. In this we recognise the full disproof of the opinion sometimes maintained, that Paul, not Matthias, was “the twelfth apostle.” If the apostles in this election acted mistakenly and without Divine guidance, it was an act of most officious impertinence, and it is utterly unsupposable that Luke should record it in full as among truly apostolic acts. His closing assertion that Matthias was “numbered with the eleven apostles” no doubt expresses the permanent acceptance of the Church, even after the day of Pentecost. We do not hesitate, therefore, to reckon it as one of the preparatories for the Pentecost that the organic number of the apostles should be complete.
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15. In those days—The ten days between the ascension and the Pentecost.
Peter stood up.—After his terrible fall, and his full restoration by Jesus himself, (see John’s account in the closing chapter of his Gospel,) Peter resumes his place as eminent among his equals of the apostolic body. He has, indeed, no popish power to elect an apostle or a bishop, but he is leader in the process of election by others equally with himself.
Names— For the persons bearing the names, which were probably enrolled upon some record. So Rev_3:4, “Thou hast a few names (for persons) even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments,” where, doubtless, allusion is made to the Church record. (See note on Act_3:16.)
About a hundred and twenty—The hundred and twenty satraps, says Grotius, of a kingdom much greater than the realm of Darius. (Dan_6:1.) We rather think this number to be the apostolic twelve, multiplied by the Gentile or national ten: just as the seventy deacons were the sacred seven multiplied by ten, and the forty days (see note on Act_1:3) are the sacred four multiplied by ten. So the beast of seven heads has ten Gentile or national horns; and the commandments for all nations are ten. We suppose that the number of Christians in Jerusalem was larger than this; and very probably this exact number was seldom present, but only about that named figure. Hence it is hardly too much to suspect that this about one hundred and twenty were an enrolled organic number hinted here by Luke to be symbolically representative of the whole Church of the Christian ages. (See on Sacred Numbers, vol. i, pp. 79, 105.) As such they received the pentecostal outpouring. (See note on Act_2:1.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv15–26 15–26. Election of an Apostle into the place of…
15–26. Election of an Apostle into the place of Judas Iscariot
15. And in those days] i.e. the days intervening between the Ascension and Pentecost.
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Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples] The best MSS. read brethren for disciples. Here we have a formal assembling of all those who were avowed followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, and the rising of Peter to address them bespeaks the importance which he attached to the duty they were about to perform in electing a successor to Judas.
the number, &c.] Render, and there was a multitude of persons (Gr. names) gathered together, about a hundred and twenty. For this use of names = persons cp. Rev_3:4, “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments.”
The hundred and twenty here collected is in no way inconsistent with St Paul’s statement (1Co_15:6) that Christ shewed Himself on one occasion, before His Ascension, to more than five hundred brethren at once. Those were gathered from all parts of the land, and we have now mention made only of such as had continued in the Holy City.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 (15) The number of names together were about an…
(15) The number of names together were about an hundred and twenty.—The number probably included the Seventy of Luk_10:1, perhaps also Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, and some of the “five hundred” who had seen their risen Lord in Galilee or elsewhere (1Co_15:6). The use of “names” may be merely as a synonym for “persons,” but It suggests the idea of there having been a list from which St. Luke extracted those that seemed most conspicuous.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv15–26 These for those, A.V.; brethren for disciples, A.V and…
These for those, A.V.; brethren for disciples, A.V and T.R.; and there was a multitude of persons gathered together for the number of names together were, A.V.; a for an, A.V. Peter justifies his primacy by taking the lead in the first onward movement of the Church. Names is a common Hebraism for "persons". (see Rev_3:4 Num_1:2) Gathered together; i.e. to one place and at one time (see the same phrase,. (Act_2:1, Act_2:44) Wordsworth quotes Ignat., "Ad Magnes" 7., and Clem. Rom_1:4, where the same phrase, ejpi to aujto, indicative of Church unity occurs.
Vers. 15-26. The rewards of iniquity.
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The physical laws by which the material world is governed are not more fixed and certain than the moral laws which secure to iniquity its just reward. Nor has the patient and honest inquirer more difficulty in ascertaining those laws than the physicist has in ascertaining the laws of nature by observation and experiment. Neither is it peculiar to Holy Scripture to set forth the sequences of cause and effect which occur under those moral laws; the history of the world and our own daily experience do so likewise. Holy Scripture does but record and exhibit typical and striking instances by which our own observation and experience are confirmed. Now, there is one feature common to a great many, perhaps more or less to all, acts of iniquity, viz. that they have, so to speak, a double reward. There is the reward which the worker contemplated as the fruit of his misdoing; and there is the reward which he lost eight of, but which followed by an inevitable necessity of the moral Law of God. Both are clearly exhibited in the awful case of Judas. The reward which he looked for, and for the sake of which he betrayed the innocent blood, was the possession of thirty pieces of silver. We know the poverty of the Son of man, and that he had no silver or gold, no houses or lands, with which to reward his followers. We know how days of toil succeeded one the other during which the gains were indeed immense-souls nourished, enlightened, instructed in the Word of God, prepared for the kingdom of heaven, weaned from sin, won to righteousness but not such gains as would please the worldly mind. And we know the mind of Judas, that it was very covetous and greedy of lucre. We know with what eyes he looked upon Mary"s costly offering of love, and how he was wont to rob the bag which contained the alms for the poor. We can well believe, therefore, that to a mind so constituted and so depraved the possession of thirty pieces of silver appeared no mean reward. It would be some consolation for the loss of the portion of the three hundred pence which he might have abstracted from the bag had the ointment been sold and the price given to the poor. Perhaps he had set his heart upon that very field which was bought with the price of blood, and which was to become the strangers" burial-ground. Anyhow, he got his reward. He did the deed and he got the money, "the reward of iniquity the reward which he looked for as the fruit of his sin. And sinners very often do get their expected reward. Adam and Eve became "as gods, knowing good and evil;" Gehazi obtained his two talents of silver and his two changes of garments; Ahab got possession of the coveted vineyard; Zimri gained a throne by the slaughter of the house of Bassha; the men of Gibeah slaked their lust on the Levite"s concubine; hatred, revenge, ambition, continually by iniquity obtain their reward, and the pages of Scripture and of profane history, as well as our own experience, teem with examples of the reward of successful wickedness. But now let us look at the other reward of iniquity; that which comes in due season as the inevitable fruit of the just judgment of God; that of which Horace, heathen as he was, spoke, when he hid
Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede poena claudo.
Judas has got his money. Perhaps he has concluded his bargain for the field. He is no longer a poor man like his Master. The former gains of robbery have been swelled by the price of treachery. But he had forgotten his manhood. He had forgotten that man has a conscience, and that a guilty conscience is like the raging sea, which cannot be stilled. He had shut his eyes to everything but the reward he coveted. But now the storm is rising. Remorse begins her terrible work. Vain regret, agonizing fear, terrible serf-reproach, unbearable shame, all rush upon his soul, and distract and tear it. The remembrance, perhaps, of the Lord"s goodness; some distinct impressions of his wonderful love; the recollections, maybe, of some true happiness in his service before the curse of covetousness lit upon him; flashes of the hope once entertained of the kingdom of heaven, but now turned into despair; these move his heart only to make it capable of feeling more bitterly what he now was, and what he must be for ever. His whole existence a curse by his own exceeding wickedness! "Good were it for me if I had not been born! I have no place to hide in from the terrors of God the terrors of God"s goodness! I am, and must be forever. And God is, and must be forever! But I cannot abide God"s presence! I cannot abide my own consciousness!" Such were the maddening thoughts of the son of perdition-of him whose iniquity had gained its reward. He tries to rush from consciousness, to escape from himself and from God. He flings from him the accursed silver; but he cannot fling away the guilt of blood. And so he takes a halter and hangs himself, and goes to his own place. But let us reckon up his gains and losses. He had gained thirty pieces of silver the reward of his iniquity. But he had lost his apostleship, the highestoffice on earth; his throne, the highest place of man in heaven, under Jesus Christ; his peace of mind, his serf-respect, his power of enjoying life, the esteem of all good men; any place among men save that of shame, and ignominy, and disgrace, and abhorrence, lie had lost his own soul his life; all the pleasures of time, all the jeers of eternity. This was "the reward of iniquity," which came upon him by the inevitable justice of God. And this is written for our learning, that we may ponder it and be wise. And we are led to the same conclusion by following up in any other case, and comparing, the twofold rewards of iniquity. The conclusion to which we are inevitably led is
I That the three things which are necessary to a man"s happiness are:
1. The approval of his own conscience.
2. The sense of being approved by God.
3. The esteem of his fellow men, and of all God"s rational creatures.
II That by iniquity all these three are forfeited, and that the gains or reward of iniquity are as inadequate a compensation for such loss as Esau"s mess of pottage was for the loss of his birthright. The gains, the pleasures, the temporal rewards of iniquity, come and go like a dream, like a tale, like a flash of lightning. The eternal reward of iniquity abides; terrible in its undiscovered vastness, awful in its unknown horrors, and in its fixity of tenure; fixity written in the phrase which tells us of Judas that he went "to his own place.
III We learn that every man has the place in eternity which he made his own in time. A man"s own place in the eternal world is that which falls to him by the unchanging laws of God, according to his choice of good or evil in this world. The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ has, indeed, opened a way of righteousness to those who had seemed to have lost it for ever; but to those who obstinately love darkness rather than light, and cling to iniquity in the very face of mercy, there remains in the nature of things no other end than that, like Judas, they go each one "to his own place.
Vers. 15-26. The path of sin and the way of the righteous.
The passage treats of the miserable end of the traitor apostle and of the elevation of Matthias to the office from which "Judas by transgression fell." We are reminded of
I THE PATH OF SIN. (Vers. 16-20.) This is a gradual descent. "No one ever became most vile all at once," wrote the Roman; and he was right. Some men descend much more rapidly than others the path of folly and of sin, but no one leaps at once from the summit to the foot. We do not suppose that one day Judas was devoted to Christ and the next day Began to think how he should betray him. Probably his evil course was this: first, surprise at the Lord"s slower and more quiet method of ministering; then impatience and even positive dissatisfaction with him; then growing doubt of his claims; then cupidity; then treachery; then remorseful despair; then suicide, and the "going to his own place" (ver. 25). Those who from being virtuous become vicious men, fall in the same way, i.e. by degrees; more or less slowly: first, the harboring of one evil thought and another; then laxity in word; then carelessness and looseness of action; then occasional transgression; then habitual vice; and then the miserable end. Similarly the passage from godliness to absorbing worldliness is through weakening of a sense of obligation; decline of sacred joy; relaxation of holy habits; grooving abandonment of devotional exercises; losing the soul in temporal anxieties and passing pleasures. In all such oases as that of Judas there is:
1. A gradual withdrawal of the soul from sympathy and intercourse with its Lord.
2. Acts which pain and injure him.
3. A disastrous end death; the reprobation of the good and true, the retribution of the righteous Judge.
II THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS. (Vers. 21-26.) In the course of Peter, Matthias, and the other ten apostles, there were three things exceptional and peculiar to their position.
1. Bodily attendance on the Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 21).
2. Consequent witness-bearing to the facts of his life and his resurrection (ver. 22).
3. Appointment by direct Divine selection: in the case of the eleven by the Lord himself at the commencement of his work, and in the case of Matthias by appeal to supernatural guidance (vers. 23-26). But though these features were not meant to be perpetual, there are those of which they are suggestive which ought to characterize all true and earnest followers of Christ.
(1) Intimate association with him; the intimacy which is not "after the flesh", (see Joh_20:17) but that which is "after a spiritual and heavenly manner.
(2) Bearing witness to Christ; not only to the facts of his life and of his victory over death, but to the graciousness of his character, the tenderness of his spirit, the excellency of his service, the joy of his friendship.
(3) Continual resort to the throne of grace for Divine guidance. We do not now use "the lot," but none the less do we seek, and gain by patient, trustful inquiry, the guidance of our God and Savior as we walk the path of life and as we labor in the field of holy usefulness. C.
Vers. 15-26The Church"s first corporate action.
I A GLIMPSE INTO PRIMITIVE CHURCH LIFE, showing:
1. Its purity and simplicity. No pomp, no complicated organization, appeal to the body of the Church.
2. Its separation from the world. The names" were recorded in some way, and numbered; probably a written record kept from this time in the upper room. They were all regarded as "brethren.
3. Its reverence for Scripture. The quotation of the Apostle Peter is not either exactly from the Hebrew nor from the Septuagint, but the manner of it denotes entire subjection to scriptural guidance and study of the Messianic prophecies.
4. Obedience to the law of risk. In the acknowledged leadership of Peter. In the desire to complete and maintain the apostleship. In the strict condition of apostolic testimony recognized, the knowledge of the facts from the baptism of John to the Ascension.
5. Realization of the presence and guidance of the Divine Spirit. In the appeal by lot; preceded by prayer and thoughtful action in selection of two, and acquiesced in without a difference.
II THE SOLID FOUNDATIONS ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY RESTS. Care taken that the witnesses be divinely appointed. The treachery and punishment of Judas thus conspicuously mentioned, that the solemnity of the apostolic office may be there impressively seen. The whole tone of the transaction is that of men feeling their responsibility, not of fanatics carried away with the dream of power, certainly not of impostors "cunningly devising" a statement to take the world captive. The reference to Scripture shows that the apostles and their brethren would follow the track of the Old Testament in their testimony. The publicity of the gospel facts is proclaimed and appealed to. "Known to all the dwellers at Jerusalem.
III JUDGMENT BEGINNING AT THE HOUSE OF GOD. (Ver. 16 or 25.) R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 21, 23 And in those days Peter stood up in the…
Act_1:15
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples.
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Peters attitude
Mark the bearing of Peter towards his fellow-believers. No priestly attitude does he assume. Though he leads, he associates the whole assembly with himself. He will have them to choose candidates for the apostleship; he accepts their nomination; and though it is all but certain that in laying these two before the Lord, he was the spokesman, this is not said. Nor was it only on this first occasion, when he might be supposed rather to shrink, that he thus acted, but on every subsequent occasion his procedure was in keeping with this. So little ground is there not only for the lordly assumptions of those who call themselves successors of the prince of the apostles, but for that ecclesiastical ambition which has proved the bane and blight of many who repudiate Romish pretensions. (D. Brown, D. D.)
A model church meeting
This was a meeting--
I. To transact business of very grave importance. To elect an apostle--an eye-witness of the resurrection--in the place of Judas. The resurrection is the key-stone of the Christian system. The fact was so extraordinary, and clashed so mightily with popular prejudices that no one would dare to proclaim it who had not been deeply convinced of it by irresistible evidence. To be able to do this was necessary to constitute an apostle.
II. In which the assembled members had a duty to fulfil, and all of them, male and female, were called upon to exercise their best judgment, and to give their conscientious vote. The candidates were set up not by the apostles, but by the whole body of disciples. The appointment of ministers is not the right of an individual, however distinguished in Church and state, but by the assembled Church.
III. Competent in itself to discharge the business. They sought no counsel from any body of men external to themselves, nor would they have submitted to dictation from any person or society outside, however dignified. The power of a Church for its own business is in itself inspired and guided by Christ its Head.
IV. Superintended by its ablest member. Peters conduct shows that he was the most competent--the man to direct affairs. Observe--
1. His sketch of the miserable man who had once occupied the vacant post.
2. His counsel as to present duty. Peters principle was that the new apostle should be selected from those who were most intimate with the Master--a principle to be for ever observed. He only is qualified for the highest office in the Church whose alliance with Christ is most vital.
V. In which they engaged in united prayer to heaven for direction. The prayer implies--
1. A recognition of the Divine omniscience. A deep impression of Gods acquaintance with all hearts is essential to devotion.
2. A desire to have their choice regulated by the Divine. We only desire to vote for Him whom Thou hast ordained. Conclusion: Would that all church meetings had ever been ruled by this model. Gathered not for trivial but important business; recognising the right of every member to a voice; holding the power to transact all its affairs independently of external authority, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Preparing for ecclesiastical business
Notice that the company was--
1. Comparatively small. But it was the first part of Christs mighty kingdom. Despise not the day of small things.
2. Business-like. Names suggests that a list was probably drawn up--a sign of intelligence and earnestness.
3. Imperfect. One place was vacant, and the company could not be content till it was filled.
4. Every member of it acknowledged the authority of Holy Scripture. The company was prepared--
I. By being adequately instructed. Peters speech showed--
1. That the place of Judas must be filled up. The number of apostles followed that of the twelve tribes of Israel. They were commonly designated as the Twelve, both before and after the death of Judas.
2. That the whole assembly must take part in filling up the vacancy.
3. That the Word of God was to give the assembly present direction.
4. That definite qualifications were required in an apostle.
5. That a definite work had to be done by the apostles. This instruction probably cleared up vague thinkings for many a member of the company.
II. By being strongly warned against sin. In the case of Judas they saw--
1. Sin working in one who had held office under Jesus--the Saviour from sin. What qualifications had they which Judas had not had? Yet sin turned him out of his office. Then let all beware.
2. Sin working in one who had been chosen for office by Jesus Himself.
3. Sin growing to great enormity.
4. Sin making its perpetrator infamous.
5. Sin ending in a doom of darkness.
Conclusion: Here we see--
1. The true primacy of Peter. He led in preparation, interpretation and prayer. The fulfilment of the words, Thou art Peter, etc., is here begun. The foundation is not the confession, but the man (Gal_2:9; Eph_2:20; 1Ti_3:15; 1Pe_2:4-6). Christ is the one foundation stone (1Co_3:11); but there is also a foundation of the apostles and prophets, and this is laid in Peter. Accordingly he founded the Jewish portion of the Church, as we see in the early chapters of this book. On him, standing on Christ, were laid in one day three thousand souls. And he also founded the Gentile portion (chaps. 10., 11.). But Peter had no special primacy of rank after his own special work was completed. And he could have no successor.
2. The true functions of the preacher. Peter gave the sense of Scripture, and applied it to the circumstances of the time so directing the hearers. The Acts is the best treatise on homiletics.
3. A good example for all Christians. Under Peters direction the company prayed, considered their duty, and so proceeded to action--prayer, meditation, work, describe the whole sphere of Christian duty. (W. Hudson.)
The premature election
1. In those days Peter stood up. It was a pity he did so, for he had been told to sit down. But who can wait ten days? Yet those periods of waiting are interposed in every life, for the trial of patience and for the perfecting of faith. They also serve who only stand and wait. Stand still and see the salvation of God. Your strength is to sit still. But Peter was a man who could not wait. He was always more or less of a talkative man. Instead of embodying it in patience and endurance his energy evaporated in speech. He will become a better man by and by; yes, even in this opening speech, he begins to show that delicacy of touch which made him conspicuous amid all the apostolic writers. It was to be feared that he would begin with a mistake, because he ended with one (Joh_21:21). The fussy church must be doing something, if it is only mischief; the mechanical church cannot stand still; they consider that if they are walking up and down very much, they are doing something, but if they be sitting quietly still in expectancy and eager love, they are doing nothing. Peter will have a vote taken, or a ballot; he will complete the broken circle--he who broke the circle most.
2. Peter begins where all wise teachers begin, if they would continue efficiently, and conclude beneficently. He founds what he has to say upon the Scriptures. This is the peculiarity of Christian teaching: it founds itself upon the Written Word. Even where there may be differences of interpretation, it rests upon something deeper than merely verbal exposition. Herein is that sublime possibility of all Christian sections being substantially and integrally right. It is the spirit that unites, it is the letter that divides and kills. It is quite possible for a heterodox man to have an orthodox spirit, and it is by his spirit that he will be saved, and not by his letter.
3. Grounding himself upon Scripture, and only partially interpreting it, Peter proceeded to take a ballot for an apostle to succeed the apostate Judas. Who asked him to rise and address the disciples at all? The disciples were told to wait for the baptism of power. Peter was not endued with the Holy Ghost in the Pentecostal sense when he made this speech. The conditions of succession to the apostolate are very beautiful (verses 21, 22). That is the law of the ministry to-day. Lay hands suddenly on no man. The Christian ministry must be composed of men who have companied with us and known the Lord Jesus Christ all the time. You cannot make ministers; they must be born, not of blood, etc. This is the mischief against which we have to guard, that you can buy ministers with money. This genius is not in the market.
4. Having elected two men for choice, the disciples prayed: they left the case in the hands of God, but unfortunately they had first taken it into their own. Never take your own case into your own hand. Persons say, Be prudent--if ever you can for a moment sit yourself down, resolving to be prudent, God has forsaken you! Persons say, Beware of exaggeration, of enterprises that are dangerous--those persons never did anything for the world; they cannot; cold water never drove an engine, and a body without wings never knew the danger, the mystery, the joy of flight. Seek an inspired life. So the apostles committed themselves in prayer to God for guidance. So would I take every matter to God day by day.
5. The disciples gave forth their lots. How pitiful. In a few more days they will have had the Holy Ghost. There are men now who would decide everything by lot: it seems a short and easy method, but it is no method in the house of God; we are now under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. There is no such way of discovering Gods thought. We do not decide things by lot in our own narrow sphere, nor do we carry things unanimously ourselves. Thus, these are the voters that live in you--Judgment, Self-interest, immediate Success, Curiosity, Speculation, Family considerations, Health, Time, and some twenty more voters all have a seat in the council of your mind. Now those who are in favour of this course say, Aye, those who oppose say, No, and then you, that innermost You, says, The ayes have it--or the noes, so that in reality you do not carry your own personal decisions unanimously. Sometimes your judgment does not vote at all, then the resolution is said to be carried nem. con. Sometimes you carry your resolutions unanimously, the whole man stands up and says, Let it be done. When I have wished in critical hours to know what was right, I have submitted myself to three tests--
(1) What is my own deepest conviction.
(2) What is the concurrent voice of my most trusted counsellors.
(3) What is the fair inference from conspiring circumstances? With these, I have said, There is none other than Gods will: if it be not, Lord, stop me. Not my will but Thine be done.
6. In the case before us the lot fell upon Matthias, and you hear no more about him. I do not want to be a balloted minister: here because I had six votes, and another man had only five: I want to stand in my ministry by right Divine, by credentials not written by men and that cannot be expunged by men. That is the calling of the whole Church: do not imagine that Episcopalianism, Congregationalism, etc., will save you. We are not saved by name, nor are we an influential Church because we bear an illustrious name. Every day needs its own inspiration, as every day requires its own bread. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Christian life organic
I. The suicide of Judas created a vacancy in the number of the twelve apostles. Christ does not seem to have spoken concerning this, but leaves it to be filled by the Church. And this is the duty to which Peter summons them. The little handful of believers were waiting for the promise of the Father. They were called not to activity, but to stillness and expectancy. But Peter at once organises a council and proceeds to an Episcopal election. And, unquestionably, Peter was right, and the disciples recognised it to be their first duty to fill up the ranks and perfect the organisation, and so enlarge the influence and increase the working power of that Divine agency which Christ had committed to their charge.
II. Let us admit freely that organisation is not life, but without organisation there can be no life. In nature we know of life at all, only as it exhibits itself under organised forms, and so St. Paul affirms must the life of Divine truth in the world, be an organised life with a head, and hands and feet--in other words with that which governs and that which communicates and that which obeys. When a farmer in the Salt Lake Valley constructs that ingenious system of sinuous and interlacing the watercourses by which the melting snows of the Wausatch Mountains are conducted to every remotest corner of his vineyards and cornfields, he has not thereby secured the smallest guarantee that the snow will fall, or that it will melt, or that it will obey the law of gravitation and run down hill into his tanks. These things are ordered by God, and his orchards blossom and his corn sprouts, not because he has laid so many feet of drain-pipe, but because God has put into the melted snow or the chance shower some mysterious power of making that arid desert of sand with its silex and potash to burst forth, straightway so soon as the water has touched it, and bud and blossom as a rose. But none the less, as things are, that arid and desert valley would never have burst into flower if the farmers simple machinery had not so organised and utilised these forces of nature that the baptism of the one became the new birth and resurrection of the other.
III. And this, at any rate, is the lesson of such a parable, as it is of all history. The church of God is in the world, not as a human invention, but as a Divine appointment to be applied by human hands. Its fellowship is not salvation, but it is a means of salvation. Its sacraments are not grace, but they are channels of grace. Its Bible is not a charm or a talisman, but it is a teacher and guide. Its services are not spells, but they are helps and refreshments. I honour with my whole soul that protest against the formalism of the Church, which resents the tendency to make of these things the whole of religion. I honour no less that vehement and robust indignation which denounces the temper that hands over all men who do not belong to your Church or mine or some other of equal historic pretensions, to the uncovenanted mercies of God. But all this does not affect in the smallest degree, the question whether or no Christ has founded a Church, whether or no you and I have sought, and found its fellowship. The Church exists in the world not to enjoy our patronage, to invite our criticism, to gratify our taste, but to accept our discipleship. Her organised life, her ministry, her sacraments, her worship, the proclamation of her Lords message--all these things are not less essential to-day, than when in the beginning Peter convened the hundred and twenty disciples to choose Matthias. This Christian organisation is Divine, and as such it speaks its message and holds forth its ministrations. It may be that some of us have come to regard the Church as a kind of social appendage, a rather more dignified marrying and burying and baptising association, which we are to make use of when tradition or custom or decorum constrains us to, and at other times conveniently forget. But the moment that we look into it we find that it asserts of itself nothing less than a Divine origin, and it demands a definite obedience. We may say that that authority is groundless, but until we have proved it, our allegiance is not an option, it is a debt.
IV. And so I plead with parents to train children in ways of reverent familiarity with Gods word, Gods house, and Gods day. Let them understand that something higher than your taste or preference makes these things sacred and binding. And that you may do this the more effectually, give them, I entreat you, that mightiest teaching which consists in your own consistent and devout example. And in your holidays remember that wherever you go, you are a baptised member of the Church, and treachery to your baptismal vow is as disloyal under a foreign flag as it would be under your own. (Bp H. C. Potter, D. D.)
Lessons from the pre-Pentecostal period
In this paragraph we have--
I. The law of leadership in Christian communities.
1. Society without leadership sinks into confusion.
2. In the long run leadership resolves itself into a question of personal qualification. Sooner or later unqualified men have to resign positions they ought never to have assumed.
3. In a great leader many elements are combined. Others may excel him in detached points, but taken as a whole, he rules not by one dominant faculty, but by a noble proportion of gifts.
4. The position of leader is not so easy as it seems to unreflecting observers. Men see the elevation, not the strain and responsibility.
5. The only sound rule for promotion is wisdom which should be recognised irrespective of age or position.
6. He leads best who knows the art of wise following. The leader is often, as here, but the mouthpiece of the whole community.
7. All human leadership is to be subjected to the Headship of the Divine Redeemer.
II. The construction of the Christian ministry.
1. It was required that the successor to the vacant bishopric be a man who had known Christ. Those who now sustain the office of witnesses for Christ must be men whose spiritual intimacy with Him is intense and fully tested. Every minister must have seen Christ and known the power of His resurrection.
2. It is clear from the election of Matthias that there is in the Scriptures a distinct claim to apostolic succession. Who then are in this succession? Those who are animated by the apostolic spirit. It is not question of ecclesiastical descent, but of spiritual illumination and sympathy.
3. The twelfth minister was chosen by the whole Church subject to a distinct expression of the Divine Will. The election was not determined by personal taste, much less by the industrious canvassing of ambitious candidates. The minister was sought by prayer and as a consequence was received with submission and thankfulness. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v24 Chapter 4
Chapter 4
THE ELECTION OF MATTHIAS.
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Act_1:24-26
We have selected the incident of this apostolic election as the central point round which to group the events of the ten days expectation which elapsed between the Ascension and Pentecost. But though this election is a most important fact, in itself and in the principles involved therein, yet there are numerous other circumstances in this waiting time which demand and will amply repay our thoughtful attention.
I. There is, for instance, the simple fact that ten days were allowed to elapse between Christs departure and the fulfilment of His promise to send the Comforter to take His place with His bereaved flock. The work of the worlds salvation depended upon the outcome of this Divine agent. "Tarry ye in the city till ye be endued with power from on high"; and all the time souls were hurrying on to destruction, and society was becoming worse and worse, and Satans hold upon the world was daily growing in strength. God, however, acted in this interval according to the principles we see illustrated in nature as well as in revelation. He does nothing in a hurry. The Incarnation was postponed for thousands of years. When the Incarnation took place, Christ grew up slowly, and developed patiently, till the day of His manifestation to Israel. And now that Christs public work on earth was done, there is no haste in the further development of the plan of salvation, but ten days are suffered, to elapse before His promise is fulfilled. What a rebuke we read in the Divine methods of that faithless, unbelieving haste which marks and mars so many of our efforts for truth and righteousness, and specially so in these concluding years of the nineteenth century. Never did the Church stand more in need of the lesson so often thus impressed upon her by her Divine Teacher. As Christ did not strive nor cry, neither did any man hear His voice in the streets, so neither did He make haste, because He lived animated by Divine strength and wisdom, which make even apparent delay and defeat conduce to the attainment of the highest ends of love and mercy. And so, too, Christs Church still does not need the bustle, the haste, the unnatural excitement which the world thinks needful, because she labours under a sense of Divine guidance, and imitates His example who kept His Apostles waiting ten long days before He fulfilled His appointed promise. What a lesson of comfort, again, this Divine delay teaches! We are often inclined to murmur in secret at the slow progress of Gods Church and kingdom. We think that if we had the management of the worlds affairs things would have been ordered otherwise, and the progress of truth be one long-continued march of triumph. A consideration of the Divine delays in the past helps us to bear this burden, though it may not explain the difficulty. Gods delays have turned out to His greater glory in the past, and they who wait patiently upon Him will find the Divine delays of the present dispensation equally well ordered.
II. Then again, how carefully, even in His delays, God honours the elder dispensation, though now it had grown old and was ready to vanish away. Christianity had none of that revolutionary spirit which makes a clean sweep of old institutions to build up a new fabric in their stead. Christianity, on the contrary, rooted itself in the past, retained old institutions and old ideas, elevating indeed and spiritualising them, and thus slowly broadened down from precedent to precedent. This truly conservative spirit of the new dispensation is manifest in every arrangement, and specially reveals itself in the times selected for the great events of our Lords ministry-Easter, Ascension, then the ten days of expectation, and then Pentecost. And it was most fitting that it should be so. The old dispensation was a shadow and picture of the higher and better covenant one day to be unfolded. Moses was told to make the tabernacle after the pattern shown to him in the mount, and the whole typical system of Judaism was modelled after a heavenly original to which Christ conformed in the work of mans salvation.
At the first Passover, the paschal lamb was offered up and the deliverance from Egypt effected; and so, too, at the Passover the true Paschal Lamb, Jesus Christ, was presented unto God as an acceptable sacrifice, and the deliverance effected of the true Israel from the spiritual Egypt of the world. Forty days after the Passover, Israel came to the mount of God, into which Moses ascended that he might receive the gifts for the people; and forty days after the last great Paschal Offering, the great spiritual Captain and Deliverer ascended into the Mount of God, that He, in turn, might receive highest spiritual blessings and a new law of life for Gods true people. Then there came the ten days of expectation and trial, when the Apostles were called to wait upon God and prove the blessings of patient abiding upon Him, just as the Israelites were called to wait upon God while Moses was absent in the mount. But how different the conduct of the Apostles from that of the more carnal Jews! How typical of the future of the two religions - the Jewish and the Christian! The Jews walked by sight, and not byfaith; they grew impatient, and made an image, the golden calf, to be their visible Deity. The Apostles tarried in patience, because they were walking by faith, and they received in return the blessing of an ever-present unseen Guide and Comforter to lead them, and all who like them seek His help, into the ways of truth and peace. And then, when the waiting time is past, the feast of Pentecost comes, and at Pentecost, the feast of the giving of the old law, as the Jews counted it, the new law of life and power, written not on stony tables, but on the fleshy tables of the heart is granted in the gift of the Divine Comforter. All the lines of the old system are carefully followed, and Christianity is thus shown to be, not a novel invention, but the development and fulfilment of Gods ancient purposes. We can scarcely appreciate nowadays the importance and stress laid upon this view among the ancient expositors and apologists. It was a favourite taunt used by the pagans of Greece and Rome against Christianity that it was only a religion of yesterday, a mere novelty, as compared with their own systems, which descended to them from the dawn of history. This taunt has been indeed most useful in its results for us moderns, because it led the ancient Christians to pay the most careful attention to chronology and historical studies, producing as the result works like "The Chronicle of Eusebius," to which secular history itself owes the greatest obligations.
The heathens reproached Christians with the novelty of their faith, and then the early Christians replied by pointing to history, which proved that the Jewish religion was far older than any other, maintaining at the same time that Christianity was merely the development of the Jewish religion, the completion and fulfilment in fact and reality of what Judaism had shadowed forth in the ritual of the Passover and of Pentecost.
III. We notice again in this connection the place where the Apostles met, and the manner in which they continued to assemble after the ascension, and while they waited for the fulfilment of the Masters promise: "They returned unto Jerusalem, and they went up into an upper chamber." Round this upper room at Jerusalem has gathered many a story dating from very early ages indeed. The upper room in which they assembled has been identified with the chamber in which the Last Supper was celebrated, and where the gift of the Holy Ghost was first received, and that from ancient times. Epiphanius, a Christian writer of the fourth century, to whom we owe much precious information concerning the early ages of the Church, tells us that there was a church built on this spot even in Hadrians time, that is, about the year 120 A.D. The Empress Helena, again, the mother of Constantine the Great, identified or thought she identified the spot, and built a splendid church to mark it out for all time; and succeeding ages have spent much care and thought upon it. St. Cyril of Jerusalem was a writer little referred to and little known in our day, who yet has much precious truth to teach us. He was a learned bishop of Jerusalem about the middle of the fourth century, and he left us catechetical lectures, showing what pains and trouble the Early Church took in the inculcation of the fundamental articles of the Christian creed. His catechetical lectures, delivered to the candidates for baptism, contain much valuable evidence of the belief, the practice, and the discipline of the early ages, and they mention among other points the church built upon Mount Zion on the spot once occupied by this upper room. The tradition, then, which deals with this chamber and points out its site goes back to the ages of persecution; and yet it is notable how little trouble the book of the Acts of the Apostles takes in this matter. It is just the same with this upper chamber as with the other localities in which our Lords mighty works were wrought. The Gospels tell us not where His temptations occurred, though man has often tried to fix the exact locality. The site of the Transfiguration and of the true Mount of Beatitudes has engaged much human curiosity; the scene of Peters vision at Joppa and of St. Pauls conversion on the road to Damascus, -all these and many other divinely honoured localities of the Old as well as of the New Testament have been shrouded from us in thickest darkness, that we might learn not to fix our eyes upon the external husk, the locality, the circumstances, the time, which are nothing, but upon the interior spirit, the love, the unity, the devotion and self-sacrifice which constitute in the Divine sight the very heart and core of our holy religion. They assembled themselves, too, in this upper chamber in a united spirit, such as Christianity, though only in an undeveloped shape, already dictated. The Apostles "continued steadfastly in prayer, with the women also, and Mary, the mother of Jesus." The spirit of Christianity was, I say, already manifesting itself.
In the temple, as in the synagogues to this day, the women prayed in a separate place; they were not united with the men, but parted from them by a screen. But in Christ Jesus there was to be neither male nor female. The man in virtue of his manhood had no advantage or superiority over the woman in virtue of her womanhood; and so the Apostles gathered themselves at the footstool of their common Father in union with the women, and with Mary the mother of Jesus. How simple, again, this last mention of the Blessed Virgin Mother of the Lord! how strangely and strongly contrasted the scriptural record is with the fables and legends which have grown up round the memory of her whom all generations must ever call blessed. Nothing, in fact, shows more plainly the historic character of the book we are studying than a comparison of this last simple notice with the legend of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin as it has been held since the fifth century, and as it is now believed in the Church of Rome. The popular account of this fabled incident arose in the East amid the controversies which rent the Church concerning the Person of Christ in the fifth century. It taught that the Holy Virgin, a year or so after the ascension, besought the Lord to release her; upon which the angel Gabriel was sent to announce her departure in three days time. The Apostles were thereupon summoned from the different parts of the world whither they had departed. John came from Ephesus, Peter from Rome, Thomas from India, each being miraculously wafted on a cloud from his special sphere of labour, while those of the apostolic company who had died were raised for the occasion. On the third day the Lord descended from heaven with the angels, and took to Himself the soul of the Virgin. The Jews then attempted to burn the body, which was miraculously rescued and buried in a new tomb, prepared by Joseph of Arimathaea in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. For two days the angels were heard singing at the tomb, but on the third day their songs ceased, and the Apostles then knew that the body had been transferred to Paradise. St. Thomas was indeed vouchsafed a glimpse of her ascension, and at his request she dropped him her girdle as a token, whereupon he went to his brother Apostles and declared her sepulchre to be empty. The Apostles regarded this as merely a sign of his customary incredulity, but on production of the girdle they were convinced, and on visiting the grave found the body gone.
Can any contrast be greater or more striking between the inspired narrative, composed for the purpose of ministering to godly life and practice, and such legendary fables as this, invented to gratify mere human curiosity, or to secure a temporary controversial triumph? The Divine narrative shrouds in thickest darkness details which have no spiritual significance, no direct bearing on the work of mans salvation. The human fable intrudes into the things unseen, and revels with a childish delight in the regions of the supernatural and miraculous.
What a striking likeness do we trace between the composition of the Acts and of the Gospels in this direction! The self-restraint of the evangelical writers is wondrous. Had the Evangelists been mere human biographers, how they would have delighted to expatiate on the childhood and youth and earlier years of Christs manhood. The apocryphal Gospels composed in the second and third centuries show us what Our Gospels would have been had they been written by men destitute of an abundant supply of the Divine Spirit. They enter into the most minute incidents of our Lords childhood, tell us of His games, His schoolboy days, of the flashes of the supernatural glory which ever betrayed the awful Being who lay hidden beneath. The Gospels, on the other hand, fling a hallowed and reverent veil over all the details, or almost all the details, of our Lords early life. They tell us of His birth, and its circumstances and surroundings, that we might learn the needful lesson of the infinite glory, the transcendent greatness of lowliness and humiliation. They give us a glimpse of our Lords development when twelve years old, that we may learn the spiritual strength and force which are produced through the discipline of obedience and patient waiting upon God; and then all else is concealed from human vision till the hour was come for the manifestation of the full-orbed God-Man. And as it was with the Eternal Son, so was it with that earthly parent whom the consensus of universal Christendom has agreed to honour as the type of devout faith, of humble submission, of loving motherhood. Fable has grown thick round her in mere human narrative, but when we turn to the inspired Word, whether in the Gospels or in the Acts, - for it is all the same in both, - we find a story simple, restrained, and yet captivating in all its details, ministering indeed to no prurient curiosity, yet rich in all the materials which serve to devout meditation, culminating in this last record, where the earthly parent finally disappears from out of sight, eclipsed by the heavenly glory of the Divine Son:-"These all continued stedfastly in prayer, with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus."
IV. And then we have the record of the apostolic election, which is rich in teaching. We note the person who took the first step, and his character, so thoroughly in unison with that picture which the four Gospels present. St. Peter was not a forward man in the bad sense of the word, but he possessed that energetic, forcible character to which men yield a natural leadership. Till St. Paul appeared St. Peter was regarded as the spokesman of the apostolic band, just as during our Lords earthly ministry the same position was by tacit consent accorded to him. He was one of those men who cannot remain inactive, especially when they see anything wanting. There are some men who can see a defect just as clearly, but their first thought is, What have I to do with it? They behold the need, but it never strikes them that they should attempt to rectify it. St. Peter was just the opposite: when he saw a fault or a want his disposition and his natural gifts at once impelled him to strive to rectify it. When our Lord, in view of the contending rumours afloat concerning His ministry and authority, applied this searching test to His Apostles, "But whom do ye say that I am?" it was Peter that boldly responded, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Just as a short time afterwards the same Peter incurred Christs condemnation when he rebuked the Saviour for the prophecy of His forthcoming death and humiliation. The character of St. Peter as depicted in the Gospels and the Acts is at unison with itself. It is that of one ever generous, courageous, intensely sympathetic, impulsive, but deficient, as impulsive and sympathetic characters often are, m that staying power, that capacity to bear up under defeat, discouragement, and darkness which so conspicuously marked out the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and made him such a pillar in the spiritual temple of the New Jerusalem. Yet St. Peter did his own work, for God can ever find employment suitable to every type of that vast variety of temperament which finds shelter beneath the roof of Christs Church. St. Peters impulsiveness, chastened by prayer, solemnised by his own sad personal experience, deepened by the bitter sorrow consequent on his terrible fall, urged him to take the first conscious step as the leader of the newly-constituted society. How very similar the Peter of the Acts is to the Peter of St. Matthew; what an undesigned evidence of the truth of these records we trace in the picture of St. Peter presented by either narrative! Just as St. Peter was in the Gospels the first to confess at Caesarea, the first to strike in the garden, the first to fail in the high priests palace, so was he the first "to stand up in these days in the midst of the brethren," and propose the first corporate movement on the Churchs part.
Here again we note that his attitude at this apostolic election proves that the interviews which St. Peter held with Christ after the Resurrection must have been lengthened, intimate, and frequent, for St. Peters whole view of the Christian organisation seems thoroughly changed. Christ had continued with His Apostles during forty days, speaking to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God; and St. Peter, as he had been for years one of the Lords most intimate friends, so he doubtless still held the same trusted position in these post-resurrection days. The Lord revealed to him the outlines of His kingdom, and sketched for him the main lines of its development, teaching him that the Church was not to be a knot of personal disciples, dependent upon His manifested bodily presence, and dissolving into its original elements as soon as that bodily presence ceased to be realised by the eye of sense; but was rather to be a corporation with perpetual succession, to use legal language, whose great work was to be an unceasing witness to Christs resurrection. If Peters mind had not been thus illuminated and guided by the personal instruction of Christ, how came it to pass that prior to the descent of the Spirit the Apostles move with no uncertain step in this matter, and unhesitatingly fill up the blank in the sacred college by the election of Matthias into the place left vacant by the terrible fall of Judas? The speech of St. Peter and the choice of this new Apostle reflect light back upon the forty days of waiting. No objection is raised, no warm debate takes place such as heralded the solution of the vexed question concerning circumcision at the council of Jerusalem; no one suggests that as Christ Himself had not supplied the vacancy the choice should be postponed till after the fulfilment of the Masters mysterious promise, because they were all instructed as to our Lords wishes by the conversations held with Christ during His risen and glorified life.
Let us pause a little to meditate upon an objection which might have been here raised. Why fill up what Christ Himself left vacant? some shortsighted objector might have urged; and yet we see good reason why Christ may have omitted to supply the place of Judas, and may have designed that the Apostles themselves should have done so. Our Lord Jesus Christ gifted His Apostles with corporate power; He bestowed upon them authority to act in His stead and name; and it is not Gods way of action to grant power and authority, and then to allow it to remain unexercised and undeveloped. When God confers any gift He expects that it shall be used for His honour and mans benefit. The Lord had bestowed upon the Apostles the highest honour, the most wondrous power ever given to men. He had called them to an office of which He Himself had spoken very mysterious things. He had told them that, in virtue of the apostolic dignity conferred upon them, they should in the regeneration of all things sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. He had spoken, too, of a mysterious authority with which they were invested, so that their decisions here upon earth would be ratified and confirmed in the region of heavenly realities. Yet when a gap is made by successful sin in the number of the mystical twelve, who are to judge the twelve tribes, He leaves the selection of a new Apostle to the remaining eleven, in order that they may be compelled to stir up the grace of God which was in them, and to exercise the power entrusted to them under a due sense of responsibility. The Lord thus wished to teach the Church from the earliest days to walk alone. The Apostles had been long enough depending on His personal presence and guidance, and now, that they might learn to exercise the privileges and duties of their Divine freedom, He leaves them to choose one to fill that position of supernatural rank and office from which Judas had fallen. The risen Saviour acted in grace as God ever acts in nature. He bestowed His gifts lavishly and generously and then expected man to respond to the gifts by making that good use of them which earnest prayer, sanctified reason, and Christian common-sense dictated.
St. Peters action is notable, too, in another aspect. St. Peter was undoubtedly the natural leader of the apostolic band during those earliest days of the Churchs history. Our Lord Himself recognised his natural gifts as qualifying him to fulfil this position. There is no necessity for a denial on our part of the reality of St. Peters privilege as contained in such passages as the verse which says, "I will give unto thee (Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven." He was eminently energetic, vigorous, quick in action. But we find no traces of that despotic authority as prince of the Apostles and supreme head over the whole Church with which some would fain invest St. Peter and his successors. St. Peter steps forward first on this occasion, as again on the day of Pentecost, and again before the high priest after the healing of the impotent man, and yet again at the council of Jerusalem; for, as we have already noted, St. Peter possessed in abundance that natural energy which impels a man to action without any desire for notoriety or any wish to thrust himself into positions of undue eminence. But then on every occasion St. Peter speaks as an equal to his equals. He claims no supreme authority; no authority, in fact, at all over and beyond what the others possessed. He does not, for instance, on this occasion claim the right as Christs vicar to nominate an Apostle into the place of Judas. He merely asserts his lawful place in Christs kingdom as first among a body of equals to suggest a course of action to the whole body which he knew to be in keeping with the Masters wishes, and in fulfilment of His revealed intentions.
V. The address of St. Peter led the Apostles to practical action. He laid the basis of it in the book of Psalms, the mystical application of which to our Lord and His sufferings he recognises, selecting passages from the sixty-ninth and the one hundredth and ninth Psalms as depicting the sin and the fate of Judas Iscariot; and then sets forth the necessity of filling up the vacancy in the apostolic office, a fact of which he had doubtless been certified by the Master Himself. He speaks as if the College of the Apostles had a definite work and office; a witness peculiar to themselves as Apostles, which no others except Apostles could render. This is manifest from the language of St. Peter. He lays down the conditions of a possible Apostle: he must have been a witness of all that Jesus had done and taught from the time of His baptism to His ascension. But this qualification alone would not make a man an Apostle, or qualify him to bear the witness peculiar to the apostolic office. There were evidently numerous such witnesses, but they were not Apostles, and had none of the power and privileges of the Twelve. He must be chosen by his brother Apostles. and their choice must be endorsed by heaven; and then the chosen witness, who had known the past, could testify to the resurrection in particular, with a weight, authority, and dignity he never possessed before. The apostolic office was the germ out of which the whole Christian ministry was developed, and the apostolic witness was typical of that witness to the resurrection which is not the duty alone, but also the strength and glory of the Christian ministry; for it is only as the ministers and witnesses of a risen and glorified Christ that they differ from the officials of a purely human association.
After St. Peter had spoken, two persons were selected as possessing the qualifications needful in the successor of Judas. Then when the Apostles had elected they prayed, and cast lots as between the two, and the final selection of Matthias was made. Questions have sometimes been raised as to this method of election, and attempts have been sometimes made to follow the precedent here set. The lot has at times been used to supersede the exercise of human judgment, not only in Church elections, but in the ordinary matters of life; but if this passage is closely examined, it will be seen that it affords no justification for any such practice. The Apostles did not use the lot so as to supersede the exercise of their own powers, or relieve them of that personal responsibility which God has imposed on men, whether as individuals, or as gathered in societies civil or ecclesiastical. The Apostles brought their private judgment into play, searched, debated, voted, and, as the result, chose two persons equally well qualified for the apostolic office. Then, when they had done their best, they left the decision to the lot, just as men often do still; and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer and a particular Providence ordering the affairs of men, I do not see that any wiser course can ever be taken, under similar circumstances, than that which the Apostles adopted on this occasion. But we must be careful to observe that the Apostles did not trust to the lot absolutely and completely. That would have been trusting to mere chance. They first did their utmost, exercised their own knowledge and judgment, and then, having done their part, they prayerfully left the final result to God, in humble confidence that He would show what was best.
The two selected candidates were Joseph Barsabas and Matthias, neither of whom ever appeared before in the story of our Lords life, and yet both had been His disciples all through His earthly career. What lessons for ourselves may we learn from these men! These two eminent servants of God, either of whom their brethren counted worthy, to succeed into the apostolic College, appear just this once in the sacred narrative, and then disappear for ever. Indeed it is with the Apostles as we have already noted in the case of our Lords life and the story of the Blessed Virgin, the self-restraint of the sacred narrative is most striking. What fields for romance! What wide scope for the exercise of imagination would the lives of the Apostles have opened out if the writers of our sacred books had not been guided and directed by a Divine power outside and beyond themselves. We are not, indeed, left without the materials for a comparison in this respect, most consoling and most instructive for the devout Christian.
Apocryphal histories of all the Apostles abound on every side, some of them dating from the second century itself. Many of them indeed are regular romances. The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions form a religious novel, entering into the most elaborate details of the labours, preaching, and travels of the Apostle Peter. Every one of the other Apostles, and many of the earliest disciples too, had gospels forged in their honour; there was the Gospel of Peter, of Thomas, of Nicodemus, and of many others. And so it was with St. Matthias. Five hundred years after Christ the Gospel of Matthias was known and repudiated as a fiction. A mass of tradition, too, grew up round him, telling of his labours and martyrdom, as some said in Ethiopia, and as others in Eastern Asia.
Clement, a writer who lived about the year 200, at Alexandria, recounts for us some sayings traditionally ascribed to St. Matthias, all of a severe and sternly ascetic tone. But in reality we know nothing either of what St. Matthias did or of what he taught. The genuine writings of apostolic times carry their own credentials with them in this respect. They are dignified and natural. They indulge in no details to exalt their heroes, or to minister to that love of the strange and marvellous which lies at the root of so much religious error. They were written to exalt Christ and Christ alone, and they deal, therefore, with the work of Apostles merely so far as the story tends to increase the glory of the Master, not that of His servants. Surely this repression of the human agents, this withdrawal of them into the darkness of obscurity, is one of the best evidences of the genuineness of the New Testament. One or two of the earliest witnesses of the Cross have their story told at some length. Peter and Paul, when compared with James or John or Matthias, figure very largely in the New Testament narrative. But even they have allotted to them a mere brief outline of a portion of their work, and all the rest is hidden from us. The vast majority even of the Apostles have their names alone recorded, while nothing is told concerning their labours or their sufferings. If the Apostles were deceivers, they were deceivers who sought their rewards neither in this life, where they gained nothing but loss of all things, nor in the pages of history, where their own hands and the hands of their friends consigned their brightest deeds to an obscurity no eye can pierce. But they were not deceivers. They were the noblest benefactors of the race, men whose minds and hearts and imaginations were filled with the glory of their risen Redeemer. Their one desire was that Christ alone should be magnified, and to this end they willed to lose themselves in the boundless sea of His risen glory. And thus they have left us a noble and inspiriting example. We are not apostles, martyrs, or confessors, yet we often find it hard to take our part and do our duty in the spirit displayed by Matthias and Joseph called Barsabas. We long for public recognition and public reward. We chafe and fret and fume internally because we have to bear our temptations and suffer our trials and do our work unknown and unrecognised by all but God. Let the example of these holy men help us to put away all such vain thoughts. God Himself is our all-seeing and our ever-present Judge. The Incarnate Master Himself is watching us. The angels and the spirits of the just made perfect are witnesses of our earthly struggles. No matter how low, how humble, how insignificant the story of our spiritual trials and struggles, they are all marked in heaven by that Divine Master who will at last reward every man, not according to his position in the world, but in strict accordance with the principles of infallible justice.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26 15. And in those days. The interval of ten…
15. And in those days. The interval of ten days. Were about a hundred and twenty. This was the number of disciples at Jerusalem, but not all who were then disciples. See 1 Cor. 15:6.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v15 Act_1:15. Those days lay between the Ascension and Pentecost.…
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_1:15. Those days lay between the Ascension and Pentecost. For disciples, μαθητῶν, the R.V. reads brethren, ἀδελφῶν, as in Mat_25:40; Act_9:30; Act_11:29; 1Co_5:11. Names = persons, as in Rev_3:4; Rev_11:13. Unclassical. Together, ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, has always a local signification. (See Act_3:1; Luk_17:35.)
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Act_1:16. Scripture … which the Holy Ghost spake.—A testimony to the Inspiration of the Old Testament. Compare 2Pe_1:21. By the mouth of David seems to guarantee that David was the author of some parts of the Psalter—in particular of Psalms 69, and perhaps also of Psalms 41. Who was (or became) guide. Originally a disciple, Judas turned to be a traitor, and acted as a leader to the Roman cohort which apprehended Christ (Mat_26:47; Joh_18:3).
Act_1:17. For, ὅτι, indicates that Judas supplied the conditions that were requisite to enable him to fulfil the Scripture. The figurative expression lot, κλῆρος, used in its literal sense in Act_1:26, is here employed, as in Act_8:21, Act_26:18, to denote anything obtained by lot, and hence generally any portion, share, or office without regard to the mode of its attainment. The term “clergy” is derived from κλῆρος, the order of the ministry being viewed as divinely appointed.
Act_1:18. Purchased.—Obtained (R.V.), got possession of (Plumptre), or caused to be purchased (Hackett); what was bought with Judas’s money being considered as bought by himself. Qui facit per alium facit per se. Falling headlong.—Having probably first hanged himself, and afterwards, through the breaking of the rope, fallen to the ground, which would cause him to burst asunder in the midst. Matthew’s account (Act_27:5) suggests this. “The traitor may have struck in his fall upon some pointed rock, which entered the body and caused his bowels to gush out” (Hackett). Papias was acquainted with a version of this story, which reported that Judas died of a loathsome disease.
Act_1:19. Aceldama, Ἀκελδαμὰ, formed from the Syro-Chaldaic הֲקַל דְּמָא, and signifying “field of blood”—i.e., either purchased by the blood money paid to Judas and returned by him (Matthew), or sprinkled with the traitor’s blood when he fell (Luke). Perhaps both reasons contributed to the fixing of the name subsequently borne by the potter’s field, which became a burial place for strangers. According to tradition Aceldama lay on the south side of Mount Zion.
Act_1:18-19 are commonly regarded as no part of Peter’s speech, but an interposition by Luke (Calvin and others); yet οὖν (Act_1:18) renders this doubtful (Holtzmann).
Act_1:20. In the Book of Psalms.—The two citations (Psa_69:25; Psa_109:8), given with slight modifications from the LXX. recite the doom of the enemies of David and his kingdom, and therefore of the enemies of Christ and His kingdom, of which the former were types; consequently also of Judas, “as the first and most notable of these” (Alford).
Act_1:21. Went in and out among us.—“An exact construction of the Greek would have placed ‘unto us,’ ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς, after ‘went in’ or ‘came in,’ and inserted ‘from us,’ ἀφʼ ἡμῶν, after ‘went out’ ” (Hackett). Compare Act_9:28; Joh_10:9.
Act_1:22. The baptism of John signified not John’s baptism of Christ, but John’s baptism generally as a well-known date.
Act_1:23. They, i.e., the congregation and the apostles, appointed, or put before God, or before themselves for selection.
Act_1:24. Thou Lord.—Whether addressed to God or Christ is disputed. For the former opinion (Meyer, Plumptre, Holtzmann) appeal is taken to Act_15:7-8, in which God is called Καρδιογνώστης, and Peter represents himself as being chosen by God. For the latter (Olshausen, Alford, Hackett, Spence) it is argued
(1) that in the N.T. generally Christ is usually styled Lord;
(2) that Christ is stated in Act_1:2 to have selected the other apostles;
(3) that the first Christians were in the habit of praying to Him (Act_7:59, Act_9:14); and
(4) that Peter in the Gospel (Joh_21:17) ascribes to Christ the knowledge of all things, which certainly include the hearts of all men.
Act_1:25. Fell.—Went aside by transgression. His own place.—His own proper destiny, Gehenna, or the place of punishment, from which he (Judas) was kept back so long as he was in the apostleship.
Act_1:26. Lots.—These were either tablets or slips of parchment with the names of the candidates written upon them, which were cast into a vase or other vessel, which was then shaken, when the first tablet or slip thrown out indicated the candidate elected.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_1:15-26
Completing the Apostleship; or, the Election of Matthias
I. The vacancy in the apostolic college.—
1. The honoured place of Judas.
(1) Numbered with the apostles (see Luk_6:16). Peter explains not the motives (he could not) which led Christ, who knew the traitor from the beginning (Joh_6:70), to select him for this signal favour, but dwells upon the fact that in being so selected he received a mark of special confidence. Many besides Judas have obtained high privileges, and been called to important trusts by Christ, who, like him, have misapplied the one and abused the other.
(2) Invested with ministerial office. Generally like his colleagues, but particularly also by being made the treasurer of the company (Joh_13:29). The management of their finances appears to have been “his portion in this ministry,” or the duty assigned to him in connection with the apostolate. If the Twelve required a treasurer, it cannot be sinful for churches and congregations either to have secular affairs or to depute persons to attend to them.
2. The melancholy fall of Judas.
(1) Tenderly referred to, not with vituperation, but in mildness. He was “guide to them that took Jesus.” Even the worst sins of the worst men should be under rather than over stated.
(2) Sufficiently indicated. What Peter says implies the rest of the pathetic story of the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver. Hence he dilates not on the sad theme, but leaves his hearers’ imaginations to call it up to their own thoughts. A lesson for preachers, never to enlarge more than they can help upon the backsliding, of individual believers.
(3) Divinely foreseen. By the Holy Ghost, who inspired David to pen words and thoughts exactly fitting the traitor’s case, and depicting his ejection from office, “Let his habitation be made desolate, and let no man dwell therein” (Psa_69:26), and “His office let another take” (Psa_109:8).
3. The appalling end of Judas. Slain—
(1) In his own field, which he, or the priests (Mat_27:7), purchased with the blood money received for betraying Christ.
(2) By his own hand, it being most likely that he hanged himself on a tree in his field, and that the rope breaking he fell heavily to the ground, with the consequence stated by Peter.
(3) To his own shame, the name given to the field, “Aceldama,” or “The field of blood,” perpetuating the memory at once of his wickedness and of his woe. (For the apparent discrepancy between Matthew’s account and Luke’s, see “Critical Remarks.”)
II. The proposal to fill the vacancy.—
1. Made by Peter. “And in those days Peter stood up,” etc. Peter’s forwardness on this occasion was completely in harmony
(1) with the place assigned him in the lists of the apostles,
(2) with his ardent and impulsive character,
(3) with his practice in pre-crucifixion days to take the lead among his brethren and be their spokesman,
(4) with the charge given him by Christ, when once he had been converted, to strengthen his brethren (Luk_22:32), and
(5) with the foreshadowings that were beginning to appear of that spiritual pre-eminence to which he was henceforth to attain in the New Testament Church. 2. Defined by Peter.
(1) As to the qualifications demanded of those who should fill the office. They must have companied with the apostles and been eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus from His baptism by John to the day of His taking up. (Compare 1Co_9:1.)
(2) As to the business to be done by the elected candidate, “To witness,” with his colleagues, “to Christ’s resurrection.” (Compare Act_4:33.)
(3) As to the urgency for proceeding with the election. “Of these must one become a witness.” Peter has been accused of precipitation in filling up the ranks of the Twelve; but as Peter acted in this under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, such an indictment is inadmissible.
III. The method of carrying out the proposal.—
1. The nomination of candidates. Joseph, called Barsabas, or son of Sabas, surnamed Justus, and Matthias. Both, mentioned only here, probably belonged to the Seventy, and, it may be assumed, possessed the requisite qualifications. Of neither does historical information survive. Eusebius states, on the authority of Papias, that the former drank a cup of poison without being hurt—a legend modelled upon Mar_16:18. The latter, according to one tradition, suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, according to another in Colchis, according to a third in Judæa, by being stoned. Justus was a Roman cognomen, “probably assumed according to prevalent custom” (Alford).
2. The asking of divine direction. The prayer of the congregation, presumably led by Peter, was
(1) directed to the glorified Christ, in the context styled “Lord” (Act_1:21),
(2) on the ground that He knew the hearts of all men (Joh_1:50; Joh_2:25; Joh_6:64; Joh_21:17),
(3) requesting Him to show of the two candidates which He had chosen, since Christ’s choice was indispensable to the holding of apostleship (Joh_6:70; Joh_13:18; Joh_15:16).
3. The casting of lots. “These were probably tablets with the names of the persons written on them, and shaken in a vessel or in the lap of a robe (Pro_16:33); he whose lot first leaped out being the person designated” (Alford). This method of ascertaining the divine decision, derived from the Old Testament Church, in which “lotcasting “was common (Lev_16:8—over the two goats on the great day of atonement; Num_34:13; Jos_14:2; Jos_18:2—at the dividing of the land; 1Ch_24:5; 1Ch_25:8—in the appointment of temple singers), appears to have never again been followed in the election of office-bearers in the New Testament Church. Instead of lot-casting, vote-giving by show of hands seems to have been substituted (Act_14:23, which see).
4. The enrolling of the chosen. Matthias the elected was numbered with the eleven apostles. That he was formally “voted” in by the suffrages of the congregation, which thereby, as it were, confirmed the divine selection, may be suggested by the verb (Plumptre), but hardly appears admissible in the circumstances. If the congregation added anything to the decision of lot it was merely an intimation (unanimous doubtless) of its acquiescence in the appointment.
Lessons.—
1. The danger of falling.
2. The heinousness of betraying Christ.
3. The appalling doom of apostates.
4. The grand theme of apostolic preaching.
5. The cessation of the apostolate in the New Testament Church.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_1:15. The first Christian Assembly.
I. The ornament of Jerusalem.—Its members more distinguished in Heaven’s eye than Caiaphas, Annas, or any other Jerusalem dignitary.
II. The glory of Christ.—Having been called into existence by Him.
III. The commencement of God’s kingdom.—The hundred and twenty persons have since grown into an innumerable company.—Oosterzee.
Act_1:16. Old Testament Scripture—Its fourfold relation:
I. To the Holy Ghost.—Indicated by the words “which the Holy Ghost spake.” Though perhaps the express authority of the Holy Ghost should not be claimed—in this place, at least—for more than the two citations from the Book of Psalms which are given in Act_1:20; yet it cannot be doubted that both Christ and His apostles regarded the Holy Ghost as the Author of the whole book in such a way and to such an extent as to make Him responsible for its contents. (See Mat_22:31; Mat_22:43; Luk_1:70; Act_28:25; 2Ti_3:16; Heb_1:1; 1Pe_1:11; 2Pe_1:21.)
II. To David.—As representing its writers. This pointed to by the clause “spake by the mouth of David.” Although this appears to guarantee that David had a hand in producing the Psalter—an honour which modern critics are extremely anxious to deny him—it does not necessarily signify that David (or the other holy prophets and psalmists) were merely passive instruments in the hand of the Spirit, who mechanically reproduced what the Spirit inbreathed. All the facts go to show that, while the writers of Old Testament Scripture maintained their personalities and individualities in what they spoke or penned, they were nevertheless in a mysterious (and probably incomprehensible) manner superintended and controlled by the Holy Spirit.
III. To Jesus.—A glimpse of this looks out from the words, “It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled.” Besides being the sacred books of His people, the Old Testament Scripture was for Him, Jesus, the Father’s and the Holy Ghost’s vade mecum, which they had prepared for Him to be used as a light unto His feet and a lamp unto His path—a sort of Messianic programme—when He entered on His public career. What Old Testament Scripture was to Jesus the whole Bible should be to His people—a directory for daily life.
IV. To Judas.—Referred to in the words “concerning Judas.” That the traitor’s person, character, and transgression were outlined beforehand in Old Testament Scripture neither compelled him to act as He did nor relieved him of responsibility for his deeds, any more than in ordinary matters the divine foreknowledge destroys the individual’s liberty of will.
Concerning Judas.
I. His early fame.—“Numbered among the apostles.”
II. His guilty fall.—“Guide to them that took Jesus.”
III. His woful fate.—Committed suicide, and went to his own place.
Act_1:19. Aceldama, the field of blood.
I. Purchased by the price of blood.—Whether Judas or the chief priests were the purchasers is immaterial. The money payment was the thirty pieces of silver delivered to the traitor in reward for his iniquity. The field was “the clay-yard of a potter of the town” (Geikie), and to purchase this the blood money was devoted, because to cast it into the treasury would have been unlawful.
II. Defiled by the stain of blood.—Somewhere in this clay-yard the traitor put an end to his life by hanging. “Nor was even this the end, for the cord by which he had suspended himself gave way, and he fell beneath, ruptured and revolting” (Geikie). Matthew agrees with Luke in reporting the suicide; Luke differs from Matthew in describing the rupture.
III. Kept as a memorial of blood.—The name could not fail to preserve a recollection of both of Judas’s crimes—his infamous treachery towards his Master, and his cowardly execution of himself. “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance, but the name of the wicked shall rot.”
Act_1:17-20. The Wages of Sin; or, the Miserable End of Judas.
I. He ought to have been a disciple of Christ, and he betrayed his Lord.
II. He ought to have performed the duties of his bishopric, and he acquired the field of blood.
III. He ought to have proclaimed the Risen One, and he perished as a suicide.
IV. He ought to have received the Holy Ghost, and he went into condemnation.—Florey, in Lange.
Act_1:23. Justus and Matthias.
I. Justus the equal of Matthias, in being:
1. A disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Esteemed by his fellow-believers.
3. Proposed for the apostleship.
4. Honoured with a place in sacred history.
II. Matthias preferred to Justus.—
1. Elected to the apostleship.
2. Chosen by Christ.
3. Numbered with the Eleven.
Act_1:24. Prayer addressed to Christ.
I. As a personal divine Being.—“Thou, Lord.”
II. As a possessor of Omniscience.—“Who knowest the hearts of all men.”
III. As the director of His people.—“Show us!”
IV. As the disposer of offices in the Church.—“Show of these two the one whom Thou hast chosen.”
Act_1:16-25. The Personal History of Jesus.
I. His baptism by John.
II. His companionship with the apostles.
III. His betrayal by Judas.
IV. His arrestment by the Romans.
V. His death upon the cross.
VI. His resurrection.
VII. His ascension.—In all these points Peter agrees with the Gospel writers.
Act_1:25. Individual Destiny.
I. Every man’s destiny is prepared for him beforehand.—As Daniel had his lot (Dan_12:13), so had Judas his own place. The Father’s kingdom is prepared for Christ’s people from the foundation of the world (Mat_25:34). Paul speaks of vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction, and vessels of mercy prepared unto glory (Rom_9:22-23).
II. Every man’s destiny will correspond with the character which he possesses.—Like Judas, every man will go to his own place—he who by patient continuance in well doing has sought for glory and honour and incorruption, to eternal life; he that has obeyed not the truth, but obeyed unrighteousness, to tribulation and anguish (Rom_2:7-9). In every case the environment will correspond with the life.
III. Every man’s destiny will be the outcome of his own doings.—Each individual on earth will ultimately be what he makes himself. He may permit himself to become the victim of his surroundings, but the fault will be his own. He may be helped by divine grace, but even divine grace does not enable him to dispense with personal exertion. The solemnity which this gives to life needs no remark.
Natural Selection in the Spiritual World.—The subject of the text of practical moment to us, is one of moral adjustment, and involves fitness for the sphere occupied. Every realm of creation—mind or matter, animate or inanimate—has its order and label because of its nature, its identity, its surroundings peculiar to itself, with relations and dependencies—essential adjuncts of the nature and surroundings of the realm. That this principle may be seen in its tangible actuality turn to the pages of natural history, where we find represented the families, tribes, and species of the different continents, each with its peculiar nature and the environment contributing most to its vigorous development. Also in logic and psychology, in the sense of a peculiar office or sphere, than “place” there is no more pregnant term nor more requisite factor. It is the third foot of a tripod—a sine quâ non. But interesting as it may be for us to consider the import of “place” in the spheres of natural and intellectual science, still greater is its significance amid the species and graduations of the moral and spiritual world; for here the term is used not only in mechanical arrangement and scientific analysis, but it has also all the additional gravity of the moral and eternal world, with its attraction and repulsion, its reward and retribution.
I. The preservation intact of the families, species, and habitat of the spiritual world requires that the members of each great family, the redeemed and the unredeemed, should be assigned to their fittest place or habitat for eternity.
1. This must be true out of respect for the harmony, purity, and order of heaven. There is no one in the city of God of whom it could be said: “He is a disturber of the peace, a shame and grief to his relatives, and a disgrace to the avenue on which he lives.” Such a character or species cannot be permitted there. The order of the celestial community may not be so disturbed. The rôle of eternal praise and the spotaneity of the currents of felicitous thought are inviolable rights which inhere in the citizenship of heaven.
2. Not only for order’s sake, but from moral considerations must he go to his “own place.” All the opportunity which unfathomed depths of compassion and the sweep of mercy’s unbounded forecast could provide have been extended. By all the inducements which life’s opportune and sanguine day of probation could proffer, he has been overturned. The die is cast. Before God and His government he stands unacquitted—a rebel. Through all life’s paths he has afforded the material for the record of a rebel—the habits and the development of a rebel; the wishes, heart, and character of a rebel—against his own soul’s requirements, the provisions for an eternity of peace and the beneficent laws of God. Probation is past; and now to the place of what grade or species of character does he belong?
II. Let us now consider the means of reaching one’s moral grade, destination, or “place” in the spirit world. We need not falter in the belief that God, whose scrutiny none can evade, is able by His word directly to appoint each to his place. But in the apportionment to the abodes of the righteous and wicked—heaven and hell—the respective habitat of each of the two great families under the genus Spirit, there are certain natural forces or laws of moral adjustment which may well claim our attention.
1. There are characteristic functions of privilege or duty in every position of honour; and this is intuitively true of the home of the saints of God.
2. A second function of the life in heaven is fellowship. Now, if permitted, could the unrepentant soul endure such association?
3. Another function of the heavenly life is unveiled mental vision and untrammeled mental freedom. What kind of freedom here could the impenitent soul enjoy—whose habits of life have drilled him in wrong methods and whose sources of pleasure have blinded, deafened, and paralysed his conscience and spiritual functions in company with the redeemed whose pinions never tire? But another mighty agency in moral adjustment and consequent assignment to “place” to which sinners are subject and which is a positive and not a negative factor in the work of adjustment is natural retribution, one of the forces of which is the reason, which now sees the effect of a wrong ideal, a practical idolatry, selfish and gross, by which the soul which might have been assimilated into the likeness of Christ—the model of heaven—has been gradually metamorphosed into a type of moral degradation. The conscience also presents its unmet claims, and sad regret causes memory, as another factor in natural retribution, to point backward to days of opportunity, and a conscientious reflection iterates:
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these; it might have been.”
4. But still another force, which is decisive in effecting God’s own proclamation of a separation between the redeemed and unredeemed, may be mentioned; it is the law of sustentation. Just because the ponderous iron mass or the stone block should see the balloon sustained in mid-air, ascending to the clouds, shall they say, “Oh, we shall fly too”? Never in their present gross form. Never, until by fiercest heat they become sublimated into gaseous matter. Never as iron and stone will they fly. So the fact that the inhabitants of heaven can remain there sustained and enjoy the fulness of bliss is only by the support and protection of the laws of the kingdom of God; and to the sinner in “outer darkness “there is no protection or support from the laws of the kingdom of God, therefore he cannot remain in heaven—nor enter there. To illustrate: The rigor of the frigid zone is so great that only such animals as are provided to endure its exposures can there sustain life. The sloth and ant-eater are animals which are not provided to endure the exposures of the frigid zone; therefore they cannot there sustain life. Let us now briefly notice—
III. The sense in which the hell of the hereafter is the unrepentant sinner’s “own place.” The adjective “own” signifies a “place” peculiar to himself, But it is his own also as a member of a class or grade. Students belong to a class, and yet each holds his “own place” according to his standing. So you, if you choose the way of death, must take your place according to your proficiency in the customs of that dark abode, along with adulterers, the lustful, the hypocrites, unbelievers, drunkards, liars, and all that is profane and abominable. It is peculiarly his “own place,” then—
1. By course of preparation, which course may be termed the conservation of energy in the spiritual realm—i.e., all the forces of the sensibilities, intellect, and will are differentiated into a unit of essential wickedness. In natural science, heat and electricity are proved to be only different phenomena of a single force; so in this course of preparation for his “own place,” the different faculties and functions, conscience, moral accountability, etc., are by the voluntary course in sin transmuted into the distinctive features of a unity and substance of wickedness.
2. It is peculiarly his “own place,” in that it is a greatly curtailed sphere of activity. The fish of Mammoth Cave are blind—not by accident nor special creation, but being so situated that the organs of vision may not be exercised, the energies or life force which would have utilised these avenues of communication with the outer world were applied elsewhere and that apartment abandoned, and the fish left blind in a dark cave as a consequence of the disuse of its eyes. So the moral and spiritual faculties are atrophied and the privilege of their healthful functions lost through disuse. It is the sinners’ own place, then, because it is the contracted and degraded sphere in which he has enclosed himself.
IV. The eternity of this doom.
1. This doom is eternal, because it is the verdict of moral government. The protection of the good demands it. The finale is pronounced, and to no higher court can you appeal.
2. It is a self-imposed destiny, and never, until “the Ethiopian can change his skin and the leopard his spots” and transmute themselves into a different type or species, will there be any commutation of the sentence.
3. This matter is eternal with the lost, who abide in their own “place” not only because they have cut themselves off from agencies and appliances in the kingdom of grace, but because all the conditions are now complied with for growing worse and worse.—C. R. Hunt.
Act_1:12-26. The Waiting Time.—What were its characteristics? It was:
I. A time of transition.—“It stood midway between Christ’s work on earth now completed and the yet unopened work of the Spirit from heaven. In the history of redemption the first or preparatory chapter closed on the day of the Incarnation.” The second, “though ending tragically, in a sense unknown to human history, brought life and immortality to light through the darkness and death of the cross.” The third and last chapter, the dispensation of the Spirit, was about to open.
II. A time of felt need.—As yet the eleven had no clear conception of the tale they were to tell, while they could not but feel that they had neither the position, culture, nor influence to move the world, and not one ground to hope for success save in their assurance of the truth of their story and the help they might receive from above in the telling of it.
III. A time of expectancy.—How often would they recall, and find it indispensable to recall, such words as these, “Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you”; “Ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”
IV. A time of prayer.—“These all continued with one accord steadfastly in prayer.” And who can have any doubt what would be the burden of their prayers?
V. A time of fraternal conference.—It seems only reasonable to assume that the intervals (between the prayers) would be filled up by free interchange of recollections and reflections on the astonishing events and thrilling scenes in the earthly life of their now glorified Lord and the encouragements thence arising.
VI. A time of action.—“On one of these days Peter—now fully restored, and, as originally designed, taking the lead—rose and explained to the assembly why the vacancy amongst the Twelve which the fall of Judas had created required to be filled up; and having pointed out the qualifications required, he left it to themselves to select one of their number whom they might lay before their enthroned Lord for His approval.” This resulted in the choice of Matthias.—David Brown, D.D.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv15, 18, 20, 25 15-26. Now Peter, in his recognized seniority, proceeds to…
SUICIDE, SUCCESSION AND DOOM OF JUDAS
15-26. Now Peter, in his recognized seniority, proceeds to have the vacuum created by the fall of Judas Iscariot supplied. The prophecies here quoted predicting the treason of Judas, did not necessitate him to perpetrate the atrocious crime. You must bear in mind that God is not tied to the prophecies, but the prophecies to God. The prophecies are in the past tense, from the simple fact that they are histories in anticipation, seen by the Omniscient Eye, with whom all events in all ages are present. Christ came into the world to die, a substitute for fallen humanity. If Judas had never been born, Jesus would have died a ransom for a lost world just the same. In Act 1:17 we learn that Judas received a lot of the apostolic ministry. We can not conclude that our Savior ever sent out a sinner or a devil to preach His holy gospel. Joh 6:70 : “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” If you will notice the gospel harmony you will find these words were spoken after about two years of the apostolic ministry had passed away. Unfortunately, Judas was the apostolical treasurer and financier, — a very dangerous office. The love of money fought Jacob with desperation twenty years, and would have conquered and sent him to hell if he had not triumphed in the Peniel experience after that memorable night of prayer, when the love of money and all other phases of depravity were sanctified out of him. We doubt not but poor Judas has an alarming ministerial following at the present day. Could you uncap the bottomless pit and look down upon Judas, doubtless you would see him surrounded by multiplied thousands of preachers and church officials who were ruined by the love of money, sold out their Lord for filthy lucre, and made their bed in hell. Jesus condemns the hireling shepherd and says he will play the coward when the wolf comes. No wonder Satan’s wolves at the present day are making awful havoc, slaying, devouring and scattering the Lord’s sheep when a hireling ministry is the established order of all ecclesiasticisms. Judas sold Jesus for fifteen dollars. Many a preacher nowadays sells Him for fifteen hundred, and not a few for fifteen thousand. I seriously doubt whether any other apostle has a larger ministerial following than Judas. Reader, beware of filthy lucre; it sent an apostle to hell! There is no disharmony between Matthew and Luke as to the suicide of Judas, and their dissimilarity of phraseology but clinches the argument in favor of the veracity of both, as there is no probability that either had seen the record of the other. The statement in E. V. that Judas repented is not correct. When man repents in the true Bible sense, God always forgives, because a genuine repentance is the work of the Holy Ghost and the infallible antecedent to a free pardon. If Judas had repented, he would have been forgiven and saved. The Greek word does not mean repent, but “flooded with remorse,” an actual prelude of hell torment, so utterly intolerable as to precipitate him into suicide. For the same reason millions besides Judas have hurried to end their misery by suicide, a stratagem of the devil to expedite their damnation. Amid this horrific and unbearable remorse, Judas, seeking in vain to rescind the contract, throws down the money in the temple and runs away off to a rugged precipice beyond the deep valley of Hinnom [pointed out to me by my guide when I was there in 1895] with furious expedition, gets hold of a rope too weak to bear his robust, corpulent, Jewish body, ties it round his neck, swings off from the precipice, the rope breaks, he falls precipitately on the great rocks beneath, bursting in twain, as the Greek says, with a great noise, all of his internal organs gushing out. Thus he dies a most horrible death, weltering in his own blood. The popular superstition recognized the spot on which he fell as polluted, and, in modern parlance, haunted and unfit for human occupancy. Hence, they satisfy the proprietor by paying for it with Judas’s money which he had thrown down in the temple, and erect on it a sepulcher for the interment of the homeless and friendless dying at Jerusalem.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v21 Act 1:21 - Act 1:22.
Acts
THE APOSTOLIC WITNESSES
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Act 1:21 - Act 1:22.
The fact of Christ’s Resurrection was the staple of the first Christian sermon recorded in this Book of the Acts of the Apostles. They did not deal so much in doctrine; they did not dwell very distinctly upon what we call, and rightly call, the atoning death of Christ; out they proclaimed what they had seen with their eyes-that He died and rose again.
And not only was the main subject of their teaching the Resurrection, but it was the Resurrection in one of its aspects and for one specific purpose. There are, speaking roughly, three main connections in which the fact of Christ’s rising from the dead is viewed in Scripture, and these three successively emerge in the consciousness of the Early Church.
It was, first, a fact affecting Him, a testimony concerning Him, carrying with it necessarily some great truths with regard to Him, His character, His nature, and His work. And it was in that aspect mainly that the earliest preachers dealt with it. Then, as reflection and the guidance of God’s good Spirit led them to understand more and more of the treasure which lay in the fact, it came to be to them, next, a pattern, and a pledge, and a prophecy of their own resurrection. The doctrine of man’s immortality and the future life was evolved from it, and was felt to be implied in it. And then it came to be, thirdly and lastly, a symbol or figure of the spiritual resurrection and newness of life into which all they were born who participated in His death. They knew Him first by His Resurrection; they then knew ‘the power of His Resurrection’ as a pledge of their own; and lastly, they knew it as being the pattern to which they were to be conformed even whilst here on earth.
The words which I have read for my text are the Apostle Peter’s own description of what was the office of an Apostle-’to be a witness with us of Christ’s Resurrection.’ And the statement branches out, I think, into three considerations, to which I ask your attention now. First, we have here the witnesses; secondly, we have the sufficiency of their testimony; and thirdly, we have the importance of the fact to which they bear their witness. The Apostles are testimony-bearers. Their witness is enough to establish the fact. The fact to which they witness is all-important for the religion and the hopes of the world.
I. First, then, the Witnesses.
Here we have the ‘head of the Apostolic College,’ the ‘primate’ of the Twelve, on whose supposed primacy-which is certainly not a ‘rock’-such tremendous claims have been built, laying down the qualifications and the functions of an Apostle. How simply they present themselves to his mind! The qualification is only personal knowledge of Jesus Christ in His earthly history, because the function is only to attest His Resurrection. Their work was to bear witness to what they had seen with their eyes; and what was needed, therefore, was nothing more than such familiarity with Christ as should make them competent witnesses to the fact that He died, and to the fact that the same Jesus who had died, and whom they knew so well, rose again and went up to heaven.
The same conception of an Apostle’s work lies in Christ’s last solemn designation of them for their office, where their whole commission is included in the simple words, ‘Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.’ It appears again and again in the earlier addresses reported in this book. ‘This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.’ ‘Whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.’ ‘With great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection.’ ‘We are His witnesses of these things.’ To Cornelius, Peter speaks of the Apostles as ‘witnesses chosen before of God, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead’-and whose charge, received from Christ, was ‘to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.’ Paul at Antioch speaks of the Twelve, from whom he distinguishes himself, as being ‘Christ’s witnesses to the people’-and seems to regard them as specially commissioned to the Jewish nation, while he was sent to ‘declare unto you’-Gentiles-the same ‘glad tidings,’ in that ‘God had raised up Jesus again.’ So we might go on accumulating passages, but these will suffice.
I need not spend time in elaborating or emphasising the contrast which the idea of the Apostolic office contained in these simple words presents to the portentous theories of later times. I need only remind you that, according to the Gospels, the work of the Apostles in Christ’s lifetime embraced three elements, none of which were peculiar to them-to be with Christ, to preach, and to work miracles; that their characteristic work after His Ascension was this of witness-bearing; that the Church did not owe to them as a body its extension, nor Christian doctrine its form; that whilst Peter and James and John appear in the history, and Matthew perhaps wrote a Gospel, and the other James and Jude are probably the authors of the brief Epistles which bear their names-the rest of the Twelve never appear in the subsequent history. The Acts of the Apostles is a misnomer for Luke’s second ‘treatise.’ It tells the work of Peter alone among the Twelve. The Hellenists Stephen and Philip, the Cypriote Barnabas, and the man of Tarsus-greater than them all- these spread the name of Christ beyond the limits of the Holy City and the chosen people. The solemn power of ‘binding and loosing’ was not a prerogative of the Twelve, for we read that Jesus came where ‘the disciples were assembled,’ and that ‘the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord’; and ‘He breathed on them, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted.”‘
Where in all this is there a trace of the special Apostolic powers which have been alleged to be transmitted from them? Nowhere. Who was it that came and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord hath sent me that thou mightest be filled with the Holy Ghost’? A simple ‘layman’! Who was it that stood by, a passive and astonished spectator of the communication of spiritual gifts to Gentile converts, and could only say, ‘Forasmuch, then, as God gave them the like gift, as He did unto us, what was I that I could withstand God?’ Peter, the leader of the Twelve!
Their task was apparently a humbler, really a far more important one. Their place was apparently a lowlier, really a loftier one. They had to lay broad and deep the basis for all the growth and grace of the Church, in the facts which they witnessed. Their work abides; and when the Celestial City is revealed to our longing hearts, in its foundations will be read ‘the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.’ Their office was testimony; and their testimony was to this effect-’Hearken, we eleven men knew this Jesus. Some of us knew Him when He was a boy, and lived beside that little village where He was brought up. We were with Him for three whole years in close contact day and night. We all of us, though we were cowards, stood afar off with a handful of women when He was crucified. We saw Him dead. We saw His grave. We saw Him living, and we touched Him, and handled Him, and He ate and drank with us; and we, sinners that we are that tell it you, we went out with Him to the top of Olivet, and we saw Him go up into the skies. Do you believe us or do you not? We do not come in the first place to preach doctrines. We are not thinkers or moralists. We are plain men, telling a plain story, to the truth of which we pledge our senses. We do not want compliments about our spiritual elevation, or our pure morality. We do not want reverence as possessors of mysterious and exclusive powers. We want you to believe us as honest men, relating what we have seen. There are eleven of us, and there are five hundred at our back, and we have all got the one simple story to tell. It is, indeed, a gospel, a philosophy, a theology, the reconciliation of earth and heaven, the revelation of God to man, and of man to himself, the unveiling of the future world, the basis of hope; but we bring it to you first as a thing that happened upon this earth of ours, which we saw with our eyes, and of which we are the witnesses.’
To that work there can be no successors. Some of the Apostles were inspired to be the writers of the authoritative fountains of religious truth; but that gift did not belong to them all, and was not the distinctive possession of the Twelve. The power of working miracles, and of communicating supernatural gifts, was not confined to them, but is found exercised by other believers, as well as by a whole ‘presbytery.’ And as for what was properly their task, and their qualifications, there can be no succession, for there is nothing to succeed to, but what cannot be transmitted-the sight of the risen Saviour, and the witness to His Resurrection as a fact certified by their senses.
II. The sufficiency of the testimony.
Peter regards {as does the whole New Testament, and as did Peter’s Master, when He appointed these men} the witness which he and his fellows bore as enough to lay firm and deep the historical fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The first point that I would suggest here is this: if we think of Christianity as being mainly a set of truths-spiritual, moral, intellectual-then, of course, the way to prove Christianity is to show the consistency of that body of truths with one another, their consistency with other truths, their derivation from admitted principles, their reasonableness, their adaptation to men’s nature, the refining and elevating effects of their adoption, and so on. If we think of Christianity, on the other hand, as being first a set of historical facts which carry the doctrines, then the way to prove Christianity is not to show how reasonable it is, not to show how it has been anticipated and expected and desired, not to show how it corresponds with men’s needs and men’s longings, not to show what large and blessed results follow from its acceptance. All these are legitimate ways of establishing principles; but the way to establish a fact is only one-that is, to find somebody that can say, ‘I know it, for I saw it.’
And my belief is that the course of modern ‘apologetics,’ as they are called-methods of defending Christianity-has followed too slavishly the devious course of modern antagonism, and has departed from its real stronghold when it has consented to argue the question on these {as I take them to be} lower and less sufficing grounds. I am thankful to adopt all that wise Christian apologists may have said in regard to the reasonableness of Christianity; its correspondence with men’s wants, the blessings that follow from it, and so forth; but the Gospel is first and foremost a history, and you cannot prove that a thing has happened by showing how very desirable it is that it should happen, how reasonable it is to expect that it should happen, what good results would follow from believing that it has happened-all that is irrelevant. Think of it as first a history, and then you are shut up to the old-fashioned line of evidence, irrefragable as I take it to be, to which all these others may afterwards be appended as confirmatory. It is true, because sufficient eye-witnesses assert it. It did happen, because it is commended to us by the ordinary canons of evidence which we accept in regard to all other matters of fact.
With regard to the sufficiency of the specific evidence here, I wish to make only one or two observations.
Suppose you yield up everything that the most craving and unreasonable modern scepticism can demand as to the date and authorship of these tracts that make the New Testament, we have still left four letters of the Apostle Paul, which no one has ever denied, which the very extremest professors of the ‘higher criticism’ themselves accept. These four are the Epistles to the Romans, the first and second to the Corinthians, and that to the Galatians. The dates which are assigned to these four letters by any one, believer or unbeliever, bring them within five-and-twenty years of the alleged date of Christ’s resurrection.
Then what do we find in these undeniably and admittedly genuine letters, written a quarter of a century after the supposed fact? We find in all of them reference to it-the distinct allegation of it. We find in one of them that the Apostle states it as being the substance of his preaching and of his brethren’s preaching, that ‘Christ died and rose again according to the Scriptures,’ and that He was seen by individuals, by multitudes, by a whole five hundred, the greater portion of whom were living and available as witnesses when he wrote.
And we find that side by side with this statement, there is the reference to his own vision of the risen Saviour, which carries us up within ten years of the alleged fact. So, then, by the evidence of admittedly genuine documents, which are dealing with a state of things ten years after the supposed resurrection, there was a unanimous concurrence of belief on the part of the whole primitive Church, so that even the heretics who said that there was no resurrection of the dead could be argued with on the ground of their belief in Christ’s Resurrection. The whole Church with one voice asserted it. And there were hundreds of living men ready to attest it. It was not a handful of women who fancied they had seen Him once, very early in the dim twilight of a spring morning-but it was half a thousand that had beheld Him. He had been seen by them not once, but often; not far off, but close at hand; not in one place, but in Galilee and Jerusalem; not under one set of circumstances, but at all hours of the day, abroad and in the house, walking and sitting, speaking and eating, by them singly and in numbers. He had not been seen only by excited expectants of His appearance, but by incredulous eyes and surprised hearts, who doubted ere they worshipped, and paused before they said, ‘My Lord and my God!’ They neither hoped that He would rise, nor believed that He had risen; and the world may be thankful that they were ‘slow of heart to believe.’
Would not the testimony which can be alleged for Christ’s Resurrection be enough to guarantee any event but this? And if so, why is it not enough to guarantee this too? If, as nobody denies, the Early Church, within ten years of Christ’s Resurrection, believed in His Resurrection, and were ready to go, and did, many of them, go to the death in assertion of their veracity in declaring it, then one of two things-Either they were right or they were wrong; and if the latter, one of two things-If the Resurrection be not a fact, then that belief was either a delusion or a deceit.
It was not a delusion, for such an illusion is altogether unexampled; and it is absurd to think of it as being shared by a multitude like the Early Church. Nations have said, ‘Our King is not dead-he is gone away and he will come back.’ Loving disciples have said, ‘Our Teacher lives in solitude and will return to us.’ But this is no parallel to these. This is not a fond imagination giving an apparent substance to its own creation, but sense recognising first the fact, ‘He is dead,’ and then, in opposition to expectation, and when hope had sickened to despair, recognising the astounding fact, ‘He liveth that was dead’; and to suppose that that should have been the rooted conviction of hundreds of men who were not idiots, finds no parallel in the history of human illusions, and no analogy in such legends as those to which I have referred.
It was not a myth, for a myth does not grow in ten years. And there was no motive to frame one, if Christ was dead and all was over. It was not a deceit, for the character of the men, and the character of the associated morality, and the obvious absence of all self-interest, and the persecutions and sorrows which they endured, make it inconceivable that the fairest building that ever hath been reared in the world, and which is cemented by men’s blood, should be built upon the mud and slime of a conscious deceit!
And all this we are asked to put aside at the bidding of a glaring begging of the whole question, and an outrageous assertion which no man that believes in a God at all can logically maintain, viz. that no testimony can reach to the miraculous, or that miracles are impossible.
No testimony reach to the miraculous! Well, put it into a concrete form. Can testimony not reach to this: ‘I know, because I saw, that a man was dead; I know, because I saw, a dead man live again’? If testimony can do that, I think we may safely leave the verbal sophism that it cannot reach to the miraculous to take care of itself.
And, then, with regard to the other assumption-miracle is impossible. That is an illogical begging of the whole question in dispute. It cannot avail to brush aside testimony. You cannot smother facts by theories in that fashion. Again, one would like to know how it comes that our modern men of science, who protest so much against science being corrupted by metaphysics, should commit themselves to an assertion like that? Surely that is stark, staring metaphysics. It seems as if they thought that the ‘metaphysics’ which said that there was anything behind the physical universe was unscientific; but that the metaphysics which said that there was nothing behind physics was quite legitimate, and ought to be allowed to pass muster. What have the votaries of pure physical science, who hold the barren word-contests of theology and the proud pretensions of philosophy in such contempt, to do out-Heroding Herod in that fashion, and venturing on metaphysical assertions of such a sort? Let them keep to their own line, and tell us all that crucibles and scalpels can reveal, and we will listen as becomes us. But when they contradict their own principles in order to deny the possibility of miracle, we need only give them back their own words, and ask that the investigation of facts shall not be hampered and clogged with metaphysical prejudices. No! no! Christ made no mistake when He built His Church upon that rock-the historical evidence of a resurrection from the dead, though all the wise men of Areopagus hill may make its cliffs ring with mocking laughter when we say, upon Easter morning, ‘The Lord is risen indeed!’
III. There is a final consideration connected with these words, which I must deal with very briefly-the importance of the fact which is thus borne witness to.
I have already pointed out that the Resurrection of Christ is viewed in Scripture in three aspects: in its bearing upon His nature and work, as a pattern for our future, and as a symbol of our present newness of life. The importance to which I refer now applies only to that first aspect.
With the Resurrection of Jesus Christ stands or falls the Divinity of Christ. As Paul said, in that letter to which I have referred, ‘Declared to be the Son of God, with power by the resurrection from the dead.’ As Peter said in the sermon that follows this one of our text, ‘God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.’ As Paul said, on Mars Hill, ‘He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.’
The case is this. Jesus lived as we know, and in the course of that life claimed to be the Son of God. He made such broad and strange assertions as these-’I and My Father are One.’ ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.’ ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’ ‘He that believeth on Me shall never die.’ ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and the third day He shall rise again.’ Thus speaking He dies, and rises again and passes into the heavens. That is the last mightiest utterance of the same testimony, which spake from heaven at His baptism, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!’ If He be risen from the dead, then His loftiest claims are confirmed from the throne, and we can see in Him, the Son of God. But if death holds Him still, and ‘the Syrian stars look down upon His grave,’ as a modern poet tells us in his dainty English that they do, then what becomes of these words of His, and of our estimate of the character of Him, the speaker? Let us hear no more about the pure morality of Jesus Christ, and the beauty of His calm and lofty teaching, and the rest of it. Take away His resurrection from the dead, and we have left beautiful precepts, and fair wisdom, deformed with a monstrous self-assertion and the constant reiteration of claims which the event proves to have been baseless. Either He has risen from the dead or His words were blasphemy. Men nowadays talk very lightly of throwing aside the supernatural portions of the Gospel history, and retaining reverence for the great Teacher, the pure moralist of Nazareth. The Pharisees put the issue more coarsely and truly when they said, ‘That deceiver said, while He was yet alive, after three days I will rise again.’ Yes! one or the other. ‘Declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead,’ or-that which our lips refuse to say even as a hypothesis!
Still further, with the Resurrection stands or falls Christ’s whole work for our redemption. If He died, like other men-if that awful bony hand has got its grip upon Him too, then we have no proof that the cross was anything but a martyr’s cross. His Resurrection is the proof of His completed work of redemption. It is the proof-followed as it is by His Ascension-that His death was not the tribute which for Himself He had to pay, but the ransom for us. His Resurrection is the condition of His present activity. If He has not risen, He has not put away sin; and if He has not put it away by the sacrifice of Himself, none has, and it remains. We come back to the old dreary alternative: ‘if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, and our preaching is vain. Ye are yet in your sins, and they which have fallen asleep in Christ’ with unfulfilled hopes fixed upon a baseless vision-they of whom we hoped, through our tears, that they live with Him-they ‘are perished.’ For, if He be not risen, there is no resurrection; and, if He be not risen, there is no forgiveness; and, if He be not risen, there is no Son of God; and the world is desolate, and the heaven is empty, and the grave is dark, and sin abides, and death is eternal. If Christ be dead, then that awful vision is true, ‘As I looked up into the immeasurable heavens for the Divine Eye, it froze me with an empty, bottomless eye-socket.’
There is nothing between us and darkness, despair, death, but that ancient message, ‘I declare unto you the Gospel which I preach, by which ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised the third day according to the Scriptures.’
Well, then, may we take up the ancient glad salutation, ‘The Lord is risen!’ and, turning from these thoughts of the disaster and despair that that awful supposition drags after it, fall back upon sober certainty, and with the Apostle break forth in triumph, ‘Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept’!
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv15–26 15-18. We next have an account of the selection…
15-18. We next have an account of the selection of an apostle to fill the place of Judas. There is no intimation that Jesus had authorized this procedure; on the contrary, it would be presumed that, as he himself had selected the original twelve, he would, in like manner, fill the vacancy, if he intended that it should be filled. Neither had the apostles yet received that power from on high which would enable them to act infallibly in a matter of this kind. From these considerations, it has been supposed by some that the whole procedure was both unauthorized and invalid. But the fact that Matthias was afterward " numbered with the eleven apostles," and that the whole body were from that time called "the twelve," shows that the transaction was sanctioned by the apostles even after they were fully inspired. This gave it the sanction of inspired authority, whatever may have been its origin. Moreover, Jesus had promised them that they should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and the fulfillment of this promise required that the number should be filled up. The Apostle Paul was not reckoned among "the twelve." He distinguishes himself from them in 1 Cor 15:5, 8 . "He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve, " and "he was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time."
The particular time within the ten days, at which this selection was made, is not designated. The incident is introduced in these terms: (15) " And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of the names together was about one hundred and twenty,) (16) Brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of David, spoke before concerning Judas, who was guide to them that seized Jesus. (17) For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. (18) Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. "
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The parenthetical statement that the number of names together were about one hundred and twenty is not to be understood as including all who then believed on Jesus, but only those who were then and there assembled. Paul states that Jesus was seen, after his resurrection, by "above five hundred brethren at once." The hundred and twenty were, perhaps, all who were then in the city of Jerusalem.
The statement in reference to the fate of Judas is supposed by most commentators to be part of a parenthesis thrown in by Luke, though some contend that it is part of Peter's speech. If the latter supposition is true, there is no ambiguity in it to the original hearers, for they all well knew that the field referred to was purchased by the Sanhedrim with money which Judas forced upon them, and which was invested in this way because they could find no other suitable use for it. Knowing this, they could but understand Peter as meaning that Judas had indirectly caused the field to be purchased. But whether the words are Peter's or Luke's, it must be admitted that a reader unacquainted with the facts in the case would be misled by them. Luke, however, presumed upon the information of his first readers, and that knowledge of the facts which they possessed has been transmitted to us by Matthew, so that we have as little difficulty as they did in discovering the true meaning of the remark.
As respects the manner of the death of Judas, the common method of reconciling Luke's account with that of Matthew is undoubtedly correct. We must suppose them both to be true, and combine the separate statements. The whole affair stands thus: "He went out and hanged himself;" and, by the breaking of either the limb on which he hung, or the cord, "falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out."
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv20, 25 (Greek - ναός, overseership). See "elders" (See Scofield "Tit…
bishoprick
(Greek - ναός, overseership). See "elders" (See Scofield "Tit 1:5")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv15, 21 The address of Peter:
The address of Peter:
v. 15. And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)
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v. 16. Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
v. 17. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.
v. 18. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.
v. 19. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, the field of blood.
v. 20. For it is written in the Book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein; and his bishopric let another take.
"In those days," on one of the ten days intervening between the ascension of Christ and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. At one of the meetings held during those days Peter assumed the initiative by rising up and standing before the disciples in addressing them on a very important matter. Upon this occasion there were some hundred and twenty disciples assembled together, probably all of those in Jerusalem that had professed adherence to the Lord at that time. Note that they are called brethren, bound together by a common faith and by a common love more closely than by the bonds of blood relationship. Mark also that Peter, although acting as spokesman, yet is one of the brethren; he acts with their consent, and does nothing in an imperious manner. Very solemnly Peter addresses the assembly as "men and brethren," the importance of his subject being reflected throughout his discourse. He points out that it was necessary first of all for the Scripture to be fulfilled in the defection of Judas Iscariot. His betrayal of Christ had been foretold, Psa 41:9. More than a thousand years before the Messiah had bitterly denounced the shamelessness of the traitor. It was Judas that was the leader of the enemies’ band at the capture of Jesus, that showed the soldiers and servants the way to the probable place of Christ’s abode on that night. Note with what tact Peter handles his delicate subject throughout, not heaping scorn or abuse upon the traitor, but speaking of him with all lenity. His example might well be followed at the present time, no matter whose death is spoken about. Judas had been numbered with the twelve apostles; he had been chosen by the Lord as one of the men that were to serve as His messengers and ambassadors to bring the Gospel to all people; he had obtained a lot, or share, in this ministry by actual selection of Jesus; he was supposed to receive a charge as well as the other apostles actually did. The call of Jesus is always sincere and with the intention of keeping the believer at His side; the unbeliever’s defection must be placed entirely to his own charge.
Verses 18 and 19 are probably to be regarded as a note inserted by Luke for the understanding of the Gentile readers. Judas had received a certain sum of money, thirty denarii, the price of a slave, as the price of blood for the betrayal of his Master. When he was then seized by repentance and fear on account of his horrible deed, he brought back the money to the high priests, and since they refused to accept it, he threw it into the Temple. With this money, which the hypocritical Jewish leaders still considered as belonging to Judas, they bought the potter’s field, which thus was really the property of Judas, and might have been claimed by his heirs. Thus the reward of iniquity, of unrighteousness, bought the burial-ground for the unknown strangers. This fact, especially after. the terrible end of the traitor, became known throughout the city, and that field, since all the inhabitants of the city knew the history of that piece of ground therefore soon acquired a name, in the Aramaic, or Chaldeo-Syriac, language Akeldama, which means "a field of blood," bought with the price of the life of blood of the Lord Jesus. And Judas himself had a horrible end. It seems that after he hanged himself, the rope broke, and he pitched over backward down some declivity, with the result that his body burst open and all his intestines gushed forth. That was evidently the judgment of God upon this hardened sinner; he had gone to the place provided for such as he was the place of the damned. But in all these happenings, horrible as they sound in the narration, Peter finds the fulfillment of Scriptures. In Psa 69:25 the Lord had prophesied: Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell In their tents, and in Psa 109:8: Let another take his office. The exposition of Peter shows that these passages found their strictest fulfillment in Judas Iscariot and his fate, as a warning to all men for all times. The habitation of Judas had become desolate; he had lost his ministry, his office, when he denied the faith and betrayed his Lord. Note the deep impression which the end of the traitor had made upon the other disciples, and how they heeded the warning contained in the story, just as all believers will remember the horrible end of the apostates, either here or hereafter, lest they fall into the same example of unbelief.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv15, 17, 20, 21, 24 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
This event happened during the time that Peter and the other believers were staying together in the upper room.
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In those days
These words mark the beginning of a new part of the story. They refer to the period of time after Jesus ascended while the disciples were meeting in the upper chamber. AT: "During that time" (See: Introduction of a New Event)
120 people
"one hundred and twenty people" (See: Numbers)
in the midst of the brothers
Here the word "brothers" refers to fellow believers and includes both men and women.
it was necessary that the scripture should be fulfilled
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the things that we read about in scripture had to take place" (See: Active or Passive)
by the mouth of David
The word "mouth" refers to the words that David wrote. AT: "through the words of David" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Peter
brother
word of God
fulfill
Holy Spirit
David
Judas Iscariot
Jesus
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv16, 18, 20, 21, 23 1:16-17 the Scriptures had to be fulfilled: See 1:20.
1:16-17 the Scriptures had to be fulfilled: See 1:20.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.