Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 5:31

"Him did God exalt with his right hand [to be] a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." — Acts 5:31 (ASV)

Him hath God exalted.—It is significant that Saint Peter should use a word which, while it does not occur applied to our Lord in the first three Gospels, we find so applied in Saint John (John 3:14; John 12:32: “lifted up” in the English version). It had also been used of the righteous sufferer in the LXX version of Isaiah 3:13, and was afterwards used of the ascended and glorified Christ by Saint Paul in Philippians 2:9.

A Prince.—See Note on Acts 3:15.

To give repentance.—We note, as in Acts 2:38, the essential unity of the teaching of the Apostles with that of the Baptist (Matthew 3:2). The beginning and the end were the same in each; what was characteristic of the new teaching was a fuller revelation:

1. Of the way in which forgiveness had been obtained;
2. Of the spiritual gifts that followed on forgiveness;
3. And the existence of the society which was to bear its witness of both.