The book of Acts provides the basic history of the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let’s briefly examine what the apostles had to say about this very controversial subject.
In Acts 1:8 we read, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
This witness for Christ starts in Jerusalem further into Judaea and Samaria, and then finally it spreads from there to Europe and the heart of the Roman Empire. But after the Holy Spirit’s coming on the day of Pentecost, Peter’s part of the sermon to the religious leaders says,
Therefore let the whole house of Israel recognize beyond all doubt and acknowledge assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ (the Messiah)—this Jesus Whom you crucified (Acts: 2:36).
The second time was when Peter and John were going to the Temple one afternoon in the three o’clock prayer service. Peter prayed for crippled beggar and he began to walk. So Peter saw this as an opportunity to address the crowd:
Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses (Acts 3:12-15).
Peter goes on to tell his Jewish brothers that they had acted in ignorance, they were not aware of what they were doing, as did your rulers also. He told them:
God had fulfilled what was foretold by all the prophets about the Messiah, and that they should repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began…. Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.
You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ‘To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities (Acts 3: 17-26).
The Scriptures tells us that while Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees. These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead. They put them in prison until the following day. Then on the next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem.
Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest. They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?” then Peter because he was filled with the Holy Spirit said to them:
Rulers of the people and members of the council (the Sanhedrin), if we are being put on trial here today and examined concerning a good deed done to benefit a feeble (helpless) cripple, by what means this man has been restored to health, Let it be known and understood by all of you, and by the whole house of Israel, that in the name and through the power and authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Whom you crucified, but Whom God raised from the dead, in Him and by means of Him this man is standing here before you well and sound in body……. And there is salvation in and through no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by and in which we must be saved (Acts 4:8-10).
In Acts 5, the apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people to the point Peter’s shadow fell on some who were sick and they were all healed. But the high priest and the Sadducees were filled with jealousy and indignation and arrested the apostles and put them in jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and led them out saying:
Go, take your stand in the temple courts and declare to the people the whole doctrine concerning this Life (the eternal life which Christ revealed) (Acts 5:17-20).
So Peter and the apostles obeyed the angel’s command and began teaching in the Temple. When the leading priests heard that the apostles who were jailed are teaching the people, they again arrested the apostles and brought them before the high council, where the high priest confronted them saying:
We definitely commanded and strictly charged you not to teach in or about this Name; yet here you have flooded Jerusalem with your doctrine and you intend to bring this Man’s blood upon us (Act 5:28).
The rulers realized Peter and the apostles were laying the blood of Jesus upon them and they told them not to preach in that name. But Peter and the apostles replied:
We must obey God rather than men. The God of our forefathers raised up Jesus, Whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree (cross). God exalted Him to His right hand to be Prince and Leader and Savior and Deliverer and Preserver, in order to grant repentance to Israel and to bestow forgiveness and release from sins. And we are witnesses of these things, and the Holy Spirit is also, Whom God has bestowed on those who obey Him (Act 5:28-32).
Another of those Holy Spirit-filled apostles was a Jewish man known as Stephen. He was preaching when he was seized and brought before the religious rulers. Towards the end of Stephen’s defence before the Jewish high council, he presented a review of the Jews’ history to his Jewish brothers by making powerful applications that exposed the evil intents of his listeners.
Listen to his concluding remarks before he was martyred:
You stubborn and stiff-necked people, still heathen and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are always actively resisting the Holy Spirit. As your forefathers were, so you are and so you do! Which of the prophets did your forefathers not persecute? And they slew those who proclaimed beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, Whom you now have betrayed and murdered (Acts 7:51-52).
Following Stephen’s sermon to the Sanhedrin, they stoned him to death for his blasphemous remarks, and Saul who later became the apostle Paul agreed to his execution. He even took care of the coats of the men who threw the stones. In fact, after Stephen was buried; Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church.
He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison. But it seems Stephen’s death had a lasting impression on Saul (Paul) of Tarsus, who would move from being a persecutor of Christians to being one of the greatest preachers of the gospel the church has ever known.
His encounter with Jesus Christ changed his life forever and from then on he preached that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. In his first sermon to the Jews in the Synagogue in Antioch (Acts 13) he also began with an emphasis on God’s covenant with Israel, something he would later reiterate in his letter to the Roman Christians. In that message, Paul also emphasized the resurrection but when his message was scorned, he responded by saying:
Brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and all those others among you who reverence and fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation [the salvation obtained through Jesus Christ. For those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not know or recognize Him or understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, have actually fulfilled these very predictions by condemning and sentencing Him. And although they could find no cause deserving death with which to charge Him, yet they asked Pilate to have Him executed and put out of the way. And when they had finished and fulfilled everything that was written about Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead (Acts 13: 26-30).
Conclusion
From the gospel writers and the book of Acts, we can conclude that there were reports from eyewitnesses in the New Testament and they all agree that some Jewish people didn’t like Jesus, especially the leaders who were jealous and envious of Him. But most of the Jewish people were followers of Jesus.
The other factor to be considered was the Romans, who saw Jesus as a political threat to their government. The Jewish high priest Caiaphas had also been considered a corrupt political puppet of Rome. In fact, after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the death, Caiaphas, the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the council and said,
What are we to do? For this Man performs many miracles. If we let Him alone to go like this, everyone will believe in Him and the Romans will come and suppress and destroy and take away our holy place, temple, city, civil organization and our nation. In this meeting Caiaphas who was the high priest that year declared, You know nothing at all!….Its expedient…that one man should die on behalf of the people instead of the whole nation perishing.
The Lord can use anyone to prophesy even when he doesn’t know the implications of what he’s saying or when he doesn’t even know the Lord. Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus was to die for the nation, and not only for the nation but also to unite into one body the children of God who have been scattered far and wide. So from that day on they took counsel and plotted together how they might put Him to death (see John 11: 47-53 AMP).
So Who Killed Jesus?
There was an actual conspiracy between corrupt leaders on both sides-the Romans and the Jews. The few Jewish leaders involved didn’t represent the majority of their people. That’s why the chief priests and scribes plotted to kill Him by trickery but not during the feast lest there be an uproar among the people (see Matthew 26: 3-5).
Now the question is: Who were these people who would cause an uproar? Of course, these were Jews, like the five thousand Jesus miraculously fed and those who sat at the Sermon on the Mount, and all the multitudes the Bible says followed Him constantly. It was a handful of Romans who tried Jesus and killed him. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution. Since Jewish law only allowed stoning, Jesus would have been stoned, not crucified, if the Jews killed him. Besides, Jesus Himself said:
Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again. (Luke 18:31-33 NKJV)
And I, if and when I am lifted up from the earth on the cross, will draw and attract all men Gentiles as well as Jews to Myself. He said this to signify in what manner He would die (John 12:32-33).
Ultimately, all we like sheep had gone astray. It is our need for a Saviour that caused Jesus to die. However, He gave His life willingly as the Passover Lamb (see John 10:17-18).
Those who are committing the sin of anti-Semitism claiming that the Jews suffer because they called for Christ’s blood after they had rejected Him as their Messiah should understand that, yes some did call for Him to be crucified, but the Scriptures tell us that it was the Lord’s good plan to crush Him and cause Him grief (see Isaiah 53:10-11).
The sinless servant of God offered Himself for our sins. He suffered for our sake, bearing our sins to make us all acceptable to God both Jews and Gentiles. The people who crucified Jesus were guilty, and so are all of us, but Jesus forgave them at the cross—just like he forgives all of us if we repent and turn to Him.
