The Christian Response to Persecution
Acts 4:23-31
In America, where I live, we formally have freedom to worship and express our religious views. I use the word “formally” because there is increasing erosion to these freedoms. We have not suffered the severe persecution our Christian brothers suffer in places like the Middle East, China and North Korea. Although I would like to continue n this freedom, I realize that times are changing even here. How shall we deal with persecution, if and when it arrives here? And where it has already arisen in this world, what do we do to comfort our brethren? If we don’t feel the pain of their suffering, then we are poor Christians indeed.
We can be thankful that God has given us the Scripture to stand upon. And in the Book of Acts, we see much persecution of the early church. We do not have to develop a new theology of dealing with persecution. We instead need to look at the Book of Acts. How did they respond to persecution? The Bible says that the Scriptures have been provided for our instruction. So it would be foolish indeed not to study them. Martyn Lloyd Jones, a British pastor and theologian of the last century, points us to the Book of Acts as the blueprint of God’s church. It is the DNA of what our church ought to be.
The Bible teaches us that all who would live godly lives in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus teaches again and again about the reality of persecution. We might not desire it, but God uses even our suffering to our benefit (Romans 8:28). So, realizing that we have to respond to persecution, let us examine Acts 2:23-31 to see what we can learn.
Peter and John, and probably the healed lame man, were released from the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin would like to have done away with them, but they feared the people. We will see a progression of persecution in Acts. The next time, they would be beaten, and then Stephen would be stoned. It is good to know that God will not let us be tempted above our means to resist (1 Corinthians 10:13). God provides for us, even when we might be tempted not to preach or teach in Jesus’ name like Peter and John here, or when we are tempted to deny Jesus or water down the gospel to avoid persecution.
Peter and John had said they had to obey God rather than man to the Sanhedrin. So even before they left the Council, they had boldly stated that they would continue preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus. They would not stand down. They were dismissed and returned to the rest of the church. The Greek literally reads: “And they came to their own people.” The Book of Acts repeatedly stresses the unity of the early church. I would suppose the rest of the body had been in prayer for Peter and John, It does not say so here, but it can be implied from other passages in Acts that they did. They were all in this together. This should be in the DNA of the church today as well. The first response to persecution is to stand together with the persecuted members of the church. Their pain is our pain.
Peter and John told them what had happened. How did the rest of the church respond? We should note that they responded in unison. It wasn’t Peter, John or another spokesman. They responded together. This must have been the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The persecuted church cannot stand together apart from the active presence of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles had failed miserably in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested. The Spirit made all the difference.
They all responded by reminding themselves who God is. The call upon God together with the words “You, Master.” God is God. He is above all. He is the ultimate power in the universe. This is because He is the Creator. They remind each other that He created the heavens, the earth and the sea. God, then, is bigger than the problems they faced. The church under persecution realizes that God is sovereign.
Then they zero in on their identification as God’s people. God had spoken to their father David. He had spoken by the same Holy Spirit who was now directing their unified response to persecution. God had spoken through David in the second psalm which they now quote. The Church stands in times of persecution by remembering that they are God’s chosen people. They also realize that the answer to persecution is grounded in the promise of Scripture. We have the advantage of having the New Testament as well as the Old to draw upon. God speaks to them through the Scripture, through the written Word.
The second psalm starts with: Why do the Heathen rage?” Another translation of “Heathen” is “the Nations.” Why are they so angry. The nations represent the people that are in the nation. The whole world is united in anger. What a terrible unity to be united in hate for one another. The world is delusional. It is deranged. The problem with the world is that they are fuming with anger. This is as true now as it is then. It should be implied, then, that the church is not to be motivated by hate and rage. We do not overcome evil with evil, but with good. Vengeance properly belongs to God and not us.
The church is then reminded that all the rage, hate and scheming of the world will come to naught. The final state of things will not be the imaginations of mankind, but the fulfillment of God’s promise and the coming of the Kingdom. The world vainly imagines that they can overthrow God and nullify His purpose.
It is interesting that words employed in Greek to refer to the church also refers to the world as well. The Greek words “epi to auto” which is translated “together” indicates that the leaders of the world were all of one heart and mind when it considers the things of God. They are all divided when it comes to the wars they fight against each other. But when it comes to the rule of God over them. They equally reject it. They stand together against God and His Anointed One (Messiah).
It is not recorded here in Acts, but the Lord’s response to the futility of the rulers of this world’s opposition to God in the second psalm is scornful laughter. The will of the LORD cannot be overthrown by people. People will either do the LORD’s will willingly or unwillingly. This does not mean that we are puppets. We are responsible for our own actions. But is does give comfort to us in persecution that nothing can happen to us apart from the LORD.
The united church now applies the psalm to their situation. Whatever God said to David in his day as far as application, or what Psalm 2 might have meant, God was speaking directly to the church assembled here. In the modern method of grammatical-historical exegesis, we want to find out what it might have meant to David in his day and then generalize what it might mean to us. But the Holy Spirit is much more direct. He is speaking to Peter, John and the rest of the church. It helps the church stand up in times of persecution to realize that God is personally involved in our lives, in the here and now and not just way back then. We do have the consolation of Scripture, but it is Scripture breathed by the Holy Spirt, and is made alive to us today by the same Holy Spirit. It was said that the first covenant was administered by angels. And it would be a mistake to think that in the second that God just gave us an ancient book to guide us. Instead, the word is living and powerful as the Book of Hebrews reminds us.
Let us not look how the second psalm is applied to the church gathering. They saw Pilate and Herod are representatives of the leaders who stood together against Christ, even though they could not personally stand each other. Now is added “the nation and the people of Israel.” This is shocking! Was not Israel the people of God? It doesn’t just say the leaders as though Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin had led the people astray. The people of Israel had identified with the nations! They, too, were united against Christ. Everyone in the world was set against Christ. They tried to frustrate the will of God by killing the LORD’s Anointed One. But their united council of all the people who hated each other less than they hated Christ could not be frustrated. It was all in vain! It is true that the world acts out of ignorance. In some cases, like Paul’s, they thought they were obeying God by doing so. We are reminded by Paul that others were maliciously ignorant. It is said of them that had they known what they were doing, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). The first group could find forgiveness by repentance. The Holy Spirit would have to change their thinking (repentance). The second group did not care for the truth, but if they weren’t so delusional and deranged, they would have acted differently, not out of love for the truth, but for pragmatic necessity.
The church now petitions the LORD for boldness. The counsel of the wicked can not stand. The only hope anyone has is in Jesus Christ. The persecuted church needed boldness to confront the deluded world with the truth. There is no talk about sending a petition to the world’s leaders for understanding. The persecuted church instead petitions the LORD. The problems of the world cannot be soved at the voting booth. At best, this can only provide partial relief to the world’s ills. And unfortunately, even this can have the effect of masking the real trouble that everyone in the world is in. Only the Gospel can save. This is the weapon of our warfare. We don’t ask for persecution, but when we are persecuted, we need to petition the LORD and double down on boldly proclaiming the Word.
The LORD responded to the prayer by causing the place to shake. This was the LORD’s way of appriving of the prayer. He who can shake the gathering can also shake the world as well. He is the true power in the universe takes care of his own. The church responded to the shaking by being even bolder in proclaiming the powerful words of the Gospel. We must respond to power with the power of the Word and of the Holy Spirit, not to kill in war as the world does, but to save whosoever will hear. The church must remember what power it has, even when it seems powerless. We have a power greater than Pontius Pilate, Herod or our equivalents in the world today. It’s time for the church to stop cowering and to stand up. If we cower, the world will come knocking on our door, sooner of later, to persecute us. And if it does not, it will be because we have joined them in the world’s uprising against God and His Anointed One. So let us “Rise Up, O Church of God.”
