{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ACT","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Acts","commonName":"Acts","introduction":"THIS book is to the Gospels what the fruit is to the tree that bears it. In the Gospels we see the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying: in the Acts we see it bringing forth much fruit (Joh 12:24). There we see Christ purchasing the Church with His own blood: here we see the Church, so purchased, rising into actual existence; first among the Jews of Palestine, and next among the surrounding Gentiles, until it gains a footing in the great capital of the ancient world--sweeping majestically from Jerusalem to Rome. Nor is this book of less value as an Introduction to the Epistles which follow it, than as a Sequel to the Gospels which precede it. For without this history the Epistles of the New Testament--presupposing, as they do, the historical circumstances of the parties addressed, and deriving from these so much of their freshness, point, and force--would in no respect be what they now are, and would in a number of places be scarcely intelligible.\n\nThe genuineness, authenticity, and canonical authority of this book were never called in question within the ancient Church. It stands immediately after the Gospels, in the catalogues of the Homologoumena, or universally acknowledged books of the New Testament (see Introduction to our larger Commentary, Vol. V, pp. iv, v). It was rejected, indeed, by certain heretical sects in the second and third centuries--by the Ebionites, the Severians (see EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.29), the Marcionites, and the Manicheans: but the totally uncritical character of their objections (see Introduction above referred to, pp. xiii, xiv) not only deprives them of all weight, but indirectly shows on what solid grounds the Christian Church had all along proceeded in recognizing this book.\n\nIn our day, however, its authenticity has, like that of all the leading books of the New Testament, been made the subject of keen and protracted controversy. DE WETTE, while admitting Luke to be the author of the entire work, pronounces the earlier portion of it to have been drawn up from unreliable sources (New-Testament Introduction, 2a, 2C). But the Tubingen school, with BAUR at their head, have gone much farther. As their fantastic theory of the post-Joannean date of the Gospels could not pretend even to a hearing so long as the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles remained unshaken, they contend that the earlier portion of this work can be shown to be unworthy of credit, while the latter portion is in flat contradiction to the Epistle to the Galatians--which this school regard as unassailable--and bears internal evidence of being a designed distortion of facts for the purpose of setting up the catholic form which Paul gave to Christianity in opposition to the narrow Judaic but original form of it which Peter preached, and which after the death of the apostles was held exclusively by the sect of the Ebionites. It is painful to think that anyone should have spent so many years, and, aided by learned and acute disciples in different parts of the argument, should have expended so much learning, research, and ingenuity in attempting to build up a hypothesis regarding the origination of the leading books of the New Testament which outrages all the principles of sober criticism and legitimate evidence. As a school, this party at length broke up: its head, after living to find himself the sole defender of the theory as a whole, left this earthly scene complaining of desertion. While some of his associates have abandoned such heartless studies altogether for the more congenial pursuits of philosophy, others have modified their attacks on the historical truth of the New Testament records, retreating into positions into which it is not worth while to follow them, while others still have been gradually approximating to sound principles. The one compensation for all this mischief is the rich additions to the apologetical and critical literature of the books of the New Testament, and the earliest history of the Christian Church, which it has drawn from the pens of THIERSCH, EBRARD, and many others. Any allusions which it may be necessary for us to make to the assertions of this school will be made in connection with the passages to which they relate--in Acts, First Corinthians, and Galatians.\n\nThe manifest connection between this book and the third Gospel--of which it professes to be simply the continuation by the same author--and the striking similarity which marks the style of both productions, leave no room to doubt that the early Church was right in ascribing it with one consent to Luke. The difficulty which some fastidious critics have made about the sources of the earlier portion of the history has no solid ground. That the historian himself was an eye-witness of the earliest scenes--as HUG concludes from the circumstantiality of the narrative--is altogether improbable: but there were hundreds of eye-witnesses of some of the scenes, and enough of all the rest, to give to the historian, partly by oral, partly by written testimony, all the details which he has embodied so graphically in his history; and it will appear, we trust, from the commentary, that De Wette's complaints of confusion, contradiction, and error in this portion are without foundation. The same critic, and one or two others, would ascribe to Timothy those later portions of the book in which the historian speaks in the first person plural--\"we\"; supposing him to have taken notes of all that passed under his own eye, which Luke embodied in his history just as they stood. It is impossible here to refute this gratuitous hypothesis in detail; but the reader will find it done by EBRARD (The Gospel History, sect. 110, Clark's translation; sect. 127 of the original work, Wissenschaftliche Kritik der Evangelische Geschichte, 1850), and by DAVIDSON (Introduction to New Testament, Vol. II, pp. 9-21).\n\nThe undesigned coincidences between this History and the Apostolic Epistles have been brought out and handled, as an argument for the truth of the facts thus attested, with unrivalled felicity by PALEY in his HorÃ&brvbr PaulinÃ&brvbr, to which Mr. BIRKS has made a number of ingenious additions in his HorÃ&brvbr ApostolicÃ&brvbr. Exception has been taken to some of these by JOWETT (St. Paul's Epistles, Vol. I, pp. 108 ff.), not without a measure of reason in certain cases--for our day, at least--though even he admits that in this line of evidence the work of PALEY, taken as a whole, is unassailable.\n\nMuch has been written about the object of this history. Certainly \"the Acts of the Apostles\" are but very partially recorded. But for this title the historian is not responsible. Between the two extremes--of supposing that the work has no plan at all, and that it is constructed on an elaborate and complex plan, we shall probably be as near the truth as is necessary if we take the design to be to record the diffusion of Christianity and the rise of the Christian Church, first among the Jews of Palestine, the seat of the ancient Faith, and next among the surrounding Gentiles, with Antioch for its headquarters, until, finally, it is seen waving over imperial Rome, foretokening its universal triumph. In this view of it, there is no difficulty in accounting for the almost exclusive place which it gives to the labors of Peter in the first instance, and the all but entire disappearance from the history both of him and of the rest of the Twelve after the great apostle of the Gentiles came upon the stage--like the lesser lights on the rise of the great luminary. \n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 1\n\n","order":44,"numberOfChapters":28,"sha256":"c94aad3dd7e20061c0935f668f020beecd42d660333a1ba60e42c592e5a6a94e","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":28,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/28.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":28},"totalNumberOfVerses":775},"chapter":{"number":2,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, &c.--\"The whole description is so picturesque and striking that it could only come from an eye-witness\" [OLSHAUSEN]. The suddenness, strength, and diffusiveness of the sound strike with deepest awe the whole company, and thus complete their preparation for the heavenly gift. Wind was a familiar emblem of the Spirit (Eze 37:9; Joh 3:8; Joh 20:22). But this was not a rush of actual wind. It was only a sound \"as of\" it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["cloven tongues, like as of fire, &c.--\"disparted tongues,\" that is, tongue-shaped, flame-like appearances, rising from a common center or root, and resting upon each of that large company:--beautiful visible symbol of the burning energy of the Spirit now descending in all His plenitude upon the Church, and about to pour itself through every tongue, and over every tribe of men under heaven!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["they . . . began to speak with . . . tongues, &c.--real, living languages, as is plain from what follows. The thing uttered, probably the same by all, was \"the wonderful works of God,\" perhaps in the inspired words of the Old Testament evangelical hymns; though it is next to certain that the speakers themselves understood nothing of what they uttered (see on 1Co. 14:1-25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation--not, it would seem, permanently settled there (see Act 2:9), though the language seems to imply more than a temporary visit to keep this one feast.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Parthians, &c.--Beginning with the farthest east, the Parthians, the enumeration proceeds farther and farther westward till it comes to Judea; next come the western countries, from Cappadocia to Pamphylia; then the southern, from Egypt to Cyrene; finally, apart from all geographical consideration, Cretes and Arabians are placed together. This enumeration is evidently designed to convey an impression of universality [BAUMGARTEN].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["PETER FOR THE FIRST TIME, PUBLICLY PREACHES CHRIST. (Acts 2:14-36)\n\nPeter, standing up with the eleven--in advance, perhaps, of the rest.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["these are not drunken--meaning, not the Eleven, but the body of the disciples. \n\nbut the third hour--nine A.M. (see Ecc 10:16; Isa 5:11; Th1 5:17).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["in the last days--meaning, the days of the Messiah (Isa 2:2); as closing all preparatory arrangements, and constituting the final dispensation of God's kingdom on earth. \n\npour out of my Spirit--in contrast with the mere drops of all preceding time. \n\nupon all flesh--hitherto confined to the seed of Abraham. \n\nsons . . . daughters . . . young men . . . old men . . . servants . . . handmaidens--without distinction of sex, age, or rank. \n\nsee visions . . . dream dreams--This is a mere accommodation to the ways in which the Spirit operated under the ancient economy, when the prediction was delivered; for in the New Testament, visions and dreams are rather the exception than the rule.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["I will show wonders, &c.--referring to the signs which were to precede the destruction of Jerusalem (see on Luk 21:25-28).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved--This points to the permanent establishment of the economy of salvation, which followed on the breaking up of the Jewish state.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["a man approved of God--rather, \"authenticated,\" \"proved,\" or \"demonstrated to be from God.\" \n\nby miracles . . . which God did by him--This is not a low view of our Lord's miracles, as has been alleged, nor inconsistent with Joh 2:11, but is in strict accordance with His progress from humiliation to glory, and with His own words in Joh 5:19. This view of Christ is here dwelt on to exhibit to the Jews the whole course of Jesus of Nazareth as the ordinance and doing of the God of Israel [ALFORD].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["determinate counsel and foreknowledge--God's fixed plan and perfect foresight of all the steps involved in it. \n\nye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain--How strikingly is the criminality of Christ's murderers here presented in harmony with the eternal purpose to surrender Him into their hands!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["was not possible he should be holden of it--Glorious saying! It was indeed impossible that \"the Living One\" should remain \"among the dead\" (Luk 24:5); but here, the impossibility seems to refer to the prophetic assurance that He should not see corruption.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["wilt not leave my soul in hell--in its disembodied state (see on Luk 16:23). \n\nneither . . . suffer thine Holy One to see corruption--in the grave.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["Thou hast made known to me the ways of life--that is, resurrection-life. \n\nthou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance--that is, in glory; as is plain from the whole connection and the actual words of the sixteenth Psalm.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["David . . . is . . . dead and buried, &c.--Peter, full of the Holy Ghost, sees in this sixteenth Psalm, one Holy Man, whose life of high devotedness and lofty spirituality is crowned with the assurance, that though He taste of death, He shall rise again without seeing corruption, and be admitted to the bliss of God's immediate presence. Now as this was palpably untrue of David, it could be meant only of One other, even of Him whom David was taught to expect as the final Occupant of the throne of Israel. (Those, therefore, and they are many, who take David himself to be the subject of this Psalm, and the words quoted to refer to Christ only in a more eminent sense, nullify the whole argument of the apostle). The Psalm is then affirmed to have had its only proper fulfilment in JESUS, of whose resurrection and ascension they were witnesses, while the glorious effusion of the Spirit by the hand of the ascended One, setting an infallible seal upon all, was even then witnessed by the thousands who stood listening to Him. A further illustration of Messiah's ascension and session at God's right hand is drawn from Psa 110:1, in which David cannot be thought to speak of himself, seeing he is still in his grave.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Therefore--that is, to sum up all. \n\nlet all the house of Israel--for in this first discourse the appeal is formally made to the whole house of Israel, as the then existing Kingdom of God. \n\nknow assuredly--by indisputable facts, fulfilled predictions, and the seal of the Holy Ghost set upon all. \n\nthat God hath made--for Peter's object was to show them that, instead of interfering with the arrangements of the God of Israel, these events were His own high movements. \n\nthis same Jesus, whom ye have crucified--\"The sting is at the close\" [BENGEL]. To prove to them merely that Jesus was the Messiah might have left them all unchanged in heart. But to convince them that He whom they had crucified had been by the right hand of God exalted, and constituted the \"LORD\" whom David in spirit adored, to whom every knee shall bow, and the CHRIST of God, was to bring them to \"look on Him whom they had pierced and mourn for Him.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["pricked in their hearts--the begun fulfilment of Zac 12:10, whose full accomplishment is reserved for the day when \"all Israel shall be saved\" (see on Rom 11:26). \n\nwhat shall we do?--This is that beautiful spirit of genuine compunction and childlike docility, which, discovering its whole past career to have been one frightful mistake, seeks only to be set right for the future, be the change involved and the sacrifices required what they may. So Saul of Tarsus (Act 9:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["Repent--The word denotes change of mind, and here includes the reception of the Gospel as the proper issue of that revolution of mind which they were then undergoing. \n\nbaptized . . . for the remission of sins--as the visible seal of that remission.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["For the promise--of the Holy Ghost, through the risen Saviour, as the grand blessing of the new covenant. \n\nall afar off--the Gentiles, as in Eph 2:17), but \"to the Jew first.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["with many other words did he testify and exhort--Thus we have here but a summary of Peter's discourse; though from the next words it would seem that only the more practical parts, the home appeals, are omitted. \n\nSave yourselves from this untoward generation--as if Peter already foresaw the hopeless impenitence of the nation at large, and would have his hearers hasten in for themselves and secure their own salvation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["BEAUTIFUL BEGINNINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. (Act 2:41-47)\n\nthey that gladly received his word were baptized--\"It is difficult to say how three thousand could be baptized in one day, according to the old practice of a complete submersion; and the more as in Jerusalem there was no water at hand except Kidron and a few pools. The difficulty can only be removed by supposing that they already employed sprinkling, or baptized in houses in large vessels. Formal submersion in rivers, or larger quantities of water, probably took place only where the locality conveniently allowed it\" [OLSHAUSEN]. \n\nthe same day there were added to them about three thousand souls--fitting inauguration of the new kingdom, as an economy of the Spirit!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":42,"content":["continued steadfastly in--\"attended constantly upon.\" \n\nthe apostles' doctrine--\"teaching\"; giving themselves up to the instructions which, in their raw state, would be indispensable to the consolidation of the immense multitude suddenly admitted to visible discipleship. \n\nfellowship--in its largest sense. \n\nbreaking of bread--not certainly in the Lord's Supper alone, but rather in frugal repasts taken together, with which the Lord's Supper was probably conjoined until abuses and persecution led to the discontinuance of the common meal. \n\nprayers--probably, stated seasons of it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":43,"content":["fear came upon every soul--A deep awe rested upon the whole community.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":44,"content":["all that believed were together, and had all things common--(See on Act 4:34-37).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":46,"content":["daily . . . in the temple--observing the hours of Jewish worship. \n\nand breaking bread from house to house--rather, \"at home\" (Margin), that is, in private, as contrasted with their temple-worship, but in some stated place or places of meeting. \n\neat their meat with gladness--\"exultation.\" \n\nand singleness of heart.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":47,"content":["Praising God--\"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works\" (Ecc 9:7, also see on Act 8:39). \n\nhaving favour with all the people--commending themselves by their lovely demeanor to the admiration of all who observed them. \n\nAnd the Lord--that is, JESUS, as the glorified Head and Ruler of the Church. \n\nadded--kept adding; that is, to the visible community of believers, though the words \"to the Church\" are wanting in the most ancient manuscripts. \n\nsuch as should be saved--rather, \"the saved,\" or \"those who were being saved.\" \"The young Church had but few peculiarities in its outward form, or even in its doctrine: the single discriminating principle of its few members was that they all recognized the crucified Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. This confession would have been a thing of no importance, if it had only presented itself as a naked declaration, and would never in such a case have been able to form a community that would spread itself over the whole Roman empire. It acquired its value only through the power of the Holy Ghost, passing from the apostles as they preached to the hearers; for He brought the confession from the very hearts of men (Co1 12:3), and like a burning flame made their souls glow with love. By the power of this Spirit, therefore, we behold the first Christians not only in a state of active fellowship, but also internally changed: the narrow views of the natural man are broken through; they have their possessions in common, and they regard themselves as one family\" [OLSHAUSEN].\n\n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 3\n\n"]}],"introduction":"DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT--THE DISCIPLES SPEAK WITH TONGUES--AMAZEMENT OF THE MULTITUDE. (Act 2:1-13)\n\nwhen the day of Pentecost was fully come--The fiftieth from the morrow after the first Passover sabbath (Lev 23:15-16). \n\nwith one accord--the solemnity of the day, perhaps, unconsciously raising their expectations.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/2.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":2},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/3.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":3},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/1.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":1},"numberOfVerses":27}