Witness: The Hostility (Acts 5:29-42)

Authenticity

For years, a German husband and wife who were art collectors, sold pieces of their collection over the years for more than one hundred million dollars. Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi had inherited their collection from Helene’s grandfather, a business magnate who acquired the collection from a Jewish art dealer fleeing Nazi Germany. In 2009, they sold the painting of a well-known German painter for more than three and a half million dollars. One year later, an analyst studying the paint used in the painting stumbled across an odd detail. One of the pigments contained titanium. The painter in question died in 1914 in the Netherlands. Titanium wasn’t used in Dutch paints until the 1920s. After the discovery, the entire world surrounding the Beltracchis collapsed. The paintings were complex forgeries. The grandfather was not a friend of a Jewish art dealer. In fact, the grandfather was a member of the Nazi party. Some art experts even lost their jobs after being duped by well-done forgeries. Their forgeries were so extensive, their artwork continues to be found, much of it still hanging in museums and collections around the world. They spent years in jail and were force to pay millions in restitution. All undone by one very insignificant detail undetectable to the naked eye: titanium pigment.

Have you ever been duped? A few years back I was duped online.. I bought a Cincinnati Reds jersey and when it arrived in the mail, it was immediately apparent that I was looking at a very bad knock-off jersey. How do you feel when that happens?

The question before us this morning is: can you spot a fake gospel when you hear it? How do you know you have the real thing? How do you know that what you’ve been told and what you’ve believed isn’t some elaborate forgery? That is the question in front of Israel’s religious supreme court in our passage this morning.

The Backstory

Last week, we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus. Jesus, the Messiah, the Promised One of the Old Testament, dies on a cross, and three days later rises from the dead. He appears to many of his friends and 40 days or so after his resurrection, he ascends into heaven in a cloud. One week later, the church has its birth at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descends in fire, Peter preaches a sermon for the ages and thousands put their faith in Jesus. It’s a great story. Jesus promised that He was going to use His people as His witnesses, and that’s exactly what happens. The expansion of the church and multiple congregations throughout Jerusalem continues in the weeks and months after Pentecost. People continue to embrace Jesus every day.

There’s only one problem. The same Jewish religious leaders who killed Jesus aren’t all that happy about this new thing happening, and they certainly aren’t happy that the rapid expansion of people following Jesus’ disciples is tied to the news that the Jesus they killed has risen from the dead. Their world is in disarray. It has been for more than 3 years to this point. Jesus shows up, grabs all of their headlines, attracts all of their crowds, all the while claiming to know the Bible better than they do. Life is more about forgiveness than it is about God’s do’s and don’ts. God’s Kingdom is about a different kind of power, one that isn’t about trying to gain the upper hand, but about weakness and forgiveness and grace and eternal life. God’s Kingdom is wherever Jesus is, not where the Torah is being used to control people. That kind of message is subversive.

And it’s not going away. Jesus is gone, but his friends continue to talk about Jesus and life and death and resurrection and forgiveness of sins. And those religious leaders have a problem. They round up Jesus’ friends, warn them to stop preaching the Good News of Jesus, put them in jail… and in one instance, an angel lets them all out of jail and they go back to building the church and community with the Good News of Jesus. And they are arrested again. And that’s where our text today began.

The Litmus Test

The disciples are not ready to give up talking about Jesus and the Resurrection. In fact, the same message that Peter gave to the crowd gathered at the temple weeks before is delivered here at the Jewish Religious Supreme Court: “You killed Jesus, and we saw him exalted to the right hand of the Father.” Not exactly the kind of message you’d like to give when your life is on the line. But Peter does. Peter is willing to stake his life on the gospel. They respond like you would expect: they are ready to kill Jesus’ friends, just like they killed Jesus.

But one of them proposes a litmus test. Gamaliel, who ends up playing a pretty significant role in the history of the church through one of his students, seems to have some nagging doubts, not just about the way they are playing their hand, but about the friends of Jesus. Gamaliel holds out the possibility that this could all be true. So he provides a history lesson. He wants a test of authenticity. The claim is that the friends are simply going along with Jesus’ grand forgery of Israel’s history. Gamaliel says, let’s test it:

Acts 5:35-39 Gamaliel said to them, “Men of Israel, be careful about what you’re about to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, and all his followers were dispersed and came to nothing. After this man, Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and attracted a following. He also perished, and all his followers were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, stay away from these men and leave them alone. For if this plan or this work is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even be found fighting against God.”

Theudas, a fraud. Judas the Galilean (not the Judas who betrayed Jesus), a fraud. We know they are frauds because once they were off the scene, their impact ending up amounting to nothing. People don’t follow frauds. Once the forgery is exposed, all the work is totally worthless. Gamaliel has two examples of popular teachers whose life work amounted to nothing. Once the charismatic leader is off the scene, there’s no staying power. Maybe, just maybe, with Jesus off the scene, the same thing will happen.

But the funny thing is, Gamaliel’s litmus test includes this caveat:

If this plan or this work is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.

It’s amazing these guys listen to Gamaliel, because this is a paraphrase of an argument that Jesus himself had made against them some time back. At one point in Jesus’ ministry, these same religious leaders accuse Jesus of doing all the great things he’s doing through the devil. And Jesus tells them, look, there’s no way the devil is going to go to war against himself. If what I’m doing is of the devil, it will fall. If what I do is of God, well then, you’ve got a problem.

Gamaliel, then, is using a variation of Jesus’ argument for his litmus test. He’s not saying this is of the devil. But he suggests it might be of human origin. If it’s of God, though, we have a problem.

Can you spot a Gospel forgery?

The reality is that these religious leaders did have a problem. This new movement isn’t going away. This isn’t Theudas or Judas. These guys weren’t frauds. In fact, we gather here this morning because Gamaliel was right. The movement never went away. No one packed up their tent and went home once Jesus left this world. It really was of God. The Good News was authentic. Jesus really did rise from the dead. Jesus really is exalted at the right hand of God.

But Gamaliel’s litmus test is also a bit flawed. Staying power is not the sign of an authentic gospel. There are religions around the world that are hundreds and thousands of years old. We have them in our communities. In fact, staying power is simply another theology of glory.

What is it that makes the Gospel authentic? Not so ironically, any answer that doesn’t involve Jesus and his resurrection and the forgiveness of sins is a forgery. A theology of glory. We live with a lot of gospel forgeries even among Christians. The Gospel is said to be putting our faith in Jesus, or surrendering to Jesus.

The Gospel provokes hostility

The gospel as Luke describes it is what creates so much hostility. And it has nothing to do with any decision we make or any posture we take before Jesus. The death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus. For you. Unconditional grace for sinners. Unconditional forgiveness for those who don’t deserve it. That is subversive.

The earliest known creed used by the early church shows up in the pages of the Bible from time to time: Jesus is Lord. That is a confession of the gospel. In fact, Luke talks about Jesus being Lord in ways that are quite foreign to us. Here’s what Peter says about Jesus being ruler and Savior:

Acts 5:31 “God exalted this man to his right hand as ruler and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

Ruler and Savior. How is Jesus ruler and Savior? He exercises his rule and provides his salvation by giving repentance and giving forgiveness. That creates hostility. Nobody wants a King who exercises His power, not by trying to control the halls of power, but by giving repentance and forgiveness to people who don’t deserve it. Unconditionally.

Theudas and Judas were all about power and politics. Jesus’ friends were all about the Good News of Jesus giving repentance and forgiveness. The Good News that Jesus is alive and risen and exalted and exercising his rule and reign through His Word and through His Sacraments.

When Jesus said "You will be my witnesses", he presumed there would be hostility. But the hostility that unfolds in the rest of the story is always about the Gospel. Always. That's shocking. In ways that don't fit our worldview. In ways that really offend us. Too much of our American Christianity seems to go looking for hostility by proclaiming behavior change. That’s not why there is hostility in the book of Acts or most of the New Testament. Hostility, whether it comes from religious people or the seats of power, in the New Testament is squarely about Jesus and His claim to be a King, but that Kingship and Kingdom are experienced and wielded through the gospel of forgiveness and life.

In fact, this problem of the wrong gospel shows up in the way Acts 5:29 is used.

Acts 5:29 “We must obey God rather than people.”

Few verses are taken out of context more than this one. Few verses have been used more to justify bad behavior by Christians. Few verses have been weaponized to support all sorts of stuff God either hasn’t said or at the expense of people desperately in need of Jesus. When Peter said this, he wasn’t making a defense for preaching morality or behavior change. The context here is the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. The gospel. The gospel of forgiveness and grace. The context is preaching Christ crucified, which was Paul’s way of talking about the Gospel for all of life.

The Good News of Jesus creates hostility. And in the face of hostility, we continue to talk about King Jesus who was crucified and rose and now rules and reigns through the Gospel.

You want to see Jesus rule and reign? Come hear the Word. Come taste the Sacrament. THAT is Jesus ruling and reigning in our world. Anything other message is a forgery.

Let’s Pray.

The hostility against Jesus rule and reign is right here. A body given for you. Blood shed for you. For the forgiveness of your sins.