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Loyalty to God Under Persecution
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been stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before
the council: and the high priest asked them, saying, Did not we
straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and,
behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to
bring this Man’s blood upon us.” They were not as willing to bear
the blame of slaying Jesus as when they swelled the cry with the
debased mob: “His blood be on us, and on our children.”
Peter, with the other apostles, took up the same line of defense he
had followed at his former trial: “Then Peter and the other apostles
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answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.” It was
the angel sent by God who delivered them from prison, and who
commanded them to teach in the temple. In following his directions
they were obeying the divine command, which they must continue
to do at any cost to themselves. Peter continued: “The God of our
fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him
hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour,
for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are
His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom
God hath given to them that obey Him.”
The Spirit of inspiration was upon the apostles, and the accused
became the accusers, charging the murder of Christ upon the priests
and rulers who composed the council. The Jews were so enraged at
this that they decided, without any further trial and without authority
from the Roman officers, to take the law into their own hands and
put the prisoners to death. Already guilty of the blood of Christ,
they were now eager to imbrue their hands in the blood of His
apostles. But there was one man of learning and high position
whose clear intellect saw that this violent step would lead to terrible
consequences. God raised up a man of their own council to stay the
violence of the priests and rulers.
Gamaliel, the learned Pharisee and doctor, a man of great rep-
utation, was a person of extreme caution, who, before speaking in
behalf of the prisoners, requested them to be removed. He then
spoke with great deliberation and calmness: “Ye men of Israel, take
heed to yourselves what we intend to do as touching these men. For
before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody;
to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves:
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who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and