Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 4:27

"for of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together," — Acts 4:27 (ASV)

The church’s response to the apostles’ release was a spontaneous outburst of praise, psalmody, and petition. It begins (v.24) by addressing God as “Sovereign Lord” (GK 1305), a common title in the Greek world for rulers and one that appears occasionally in Jewish circles as an address to God (cf. Lk 2:29; Revelation 6:10). It is especially appropriate here in conjunction with the “servant” (GK 4090) names used of David (v.25), Jesus (vv.27, 30), and believers themselves (v.29). Structurally, the church’s response includes an ascription to God drawn from Hezekiah’s prayer in Isa 37:16–20 (v.24b), a quotation of Ps 2:1–2 (vv.25–26), the reference to Jesus’ passion in terms of the psalm just cited (vv.27–28), and a petition for divine enablement in the Christians’ present circumstances (vv.29–30).

In the prayer of the church two matters of theological interest stand out.

First, using a common Jewish method of interpreting the OT (cf. comments on 2:16), these Christians saw in Ps 2 the persons and groups involved in Jesus’ crucifixion: “the kings of the earth” corresponds to King Herod, “the rulers” to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, “the nations” to the Gentile authorities, and “the people” to “the people of Israel.” Sometime just prior to the Christian period, Psalms 2 was beginning to be used within some Jewish circles as a messianic psalm, and the early Jewish Christians knew of this usage, approved it, and applied it to Jesus of Nazareth (cf. also the use of Ps 2:7 in Ac 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; Hebrews 5:5; and Ps 2:9 in Rev 2:27; Hebrews 12:5; Hebrews 19:15).

Second, in the church’s prayer the sufferings of Christian believers are related directly to the sufferings of Christ and inferentially to the sufferings of God’s righteous servants in the OT. This theme of the union of the sufferings of Christ and those of his own people is a theme that is developed in many ways throughout the NT (cf. esp. Mark 8–10; Acts 9:4–5; Romans 8:17; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 2:20– 25; 3:14–4:2; Colossians 4:12–13). It reaches its loftiest expression in Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ.

Most significant is the fact that these early Christians were not praying for relief from oppression or judgment on their oppressors but for enablement “to speak your word with great boldness” amid oppression and for God to act in mighty power “through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (v.30). Their concern was for God’s word to go forth and for Christ’s name to be glorified, leaving to God himself their own circumstances. With such prayer surely God is well pleased. Luke has evidently taken pains to give us this prayer so that it might serve as something of a pattern to be followed in our own praying.