Acts 5:28-30

²⁸ 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. ²⁹ Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. ³⁰ The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

With instructing the people in the inspired Word, and yet they preferred to teach the t raditions of men, rather than Him who is the subject of all of Scripture, ho were these that were commanding the apostles NOT to preach the Gospel? These were none other than the religious leaders of the day, those charged

Jesus Christ the Messiah.

The attacks of works religion against the Christ of grace go all the way back to the Fall of Adam where Satan (the seed of the Serpent) questioned the authority

of God in directing Adam and Eve not eat freely of the Tree of Life (a type of our LORD Jesus) and not to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, [Genesis 2:9 with Genesis 3]. God declared that for the rest of time there would be enmity between the seed of the serpent [those of Adam’s race that God purposed to condemnation along with the devil and his fallen angels, Matthew 25:41].That enmity continued early on with Cain killing Abel, works versus grace [Genesis 4]. Cain was angry that God should accept Abel because of his blood sacrifice (a picture of Christ and His sacrificial death,) and not accept Cain, who brought the fruit of his hands and hard labor, yet, ‘without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins, [Hebrews 9:22].

It was this same enmity that crucified our LORD [Acts 2:23]. The death of our LORD Jesus was plotted in the hearts of self-righteous, religious, works-mongers,

and carried out from the synagogues where these preached. After Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, the apostles faced the same enmity. They sought to lay their hands on the apostles because they could no longer put their hands on the risen LORD. From this opposition, the Spirit of the LORD caused Peter to declare that it is better to obey God than men. What is it to obey God?

1. To obey God is to hear God. The word ‘obey’ here means to hearken to God. In order to hearken to God, the LORD God Himself must by His Spirit grant spiritual ears to hear [1 Corinthians 2:10-12]. Any who do hear God, hear His Son, and are drawn to Christ in repentance and faith, and thereby obey Him in hearing His Word and following Him. Our LORD Jesus said, ‘My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.’ [John 10:27]. All are sons of disobedience in whom the Spirit of God has not revealed Christ [Ephesians 2:2]. All are sons of obedience whom the LORD has caused to be obedient to THE FAITH (the revelation of Christ as revealed in God’s Word).
2. To obey God is to be submitted to the LORD Jesus as God’s righteousness. The apostle Peter declared His allegiance to the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob against all of their religious traditions. His faith in the God of their fathers, the Old Testament patriarchs, was a faith in the ONE whom He had sent into the world in the fullness of the time, to redeem those that were under the law [legal condemnation]. Christ so effectively paid the debt that those for whom He died have been once for all declared justified before God. This being revealed in their hearts, they never again would look to the works of their hands, or the traditions of their forefathers as their hope, but to the Person and Work of the LORD Jesus Christ alone.