Acts
12:5 ¶ Peter therefore was kept in
prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
6 And when Herod would have brought him
forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two
chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. 7 And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him,
and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised
him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his
hands. 8 And the angel said unto him,
Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him,
Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. 9
And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which
was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision. 10 When they were past the first and the second
ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to
them of his own accord: and they went out, and passed on through one street;
and forthwith the angel departed from him. 11
And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety,
that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of
Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews. 12 And when he had considered the thing,
he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark; where
many were gathered together praying. 13
And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken,
named Rhoda. 14 And when she knew
Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how
Peter stood before the gate. 15 And they
said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so.
Then said they, It is his angel. 16 But
Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw
him, they were astonished. 17 But he,
beckoning unto them with the hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how
the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, Go shew these things
unto James, and to the brethren. And he departed, and went into another place.
18 Now as soon as it was day, there was
no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of Peter. 19 And when Herod had sought for him, and found him
not, he examined the keepers, and commanded that they should be put to
death. And he went down from Judaea to Caesarea, and there abode.
Notice importantly
first how God acted out of His own will but in concord with the prayers for
Peter offered continuously. This is a lesson for us. As Paul said;
1Thessalonians
5:17 Pray without ceasing.
Peter was imprisoned
about as secure as you can get chained between two of the soldiers. If they
used four soldiers in a shift then the other two would have kept guard. But,
even with this seemingly secure method of binding a prisoner an angel of the
Lord, perhaps an appearance of Christ, came to him, shining a light, hit Peter
in the side, and with Peter’s chains falling off he made his escape following
the angel without disturbing the soldiers he had been chained to. Amazingly,
even a gate opened to him of its own accord.
Peter must have been in
a trance-like state being led by the angel. When he came to himself, got full
control again of his faculties, he acknowledged who had delivered him and why.
He then came to Mary’s house,
the mother of John Mark, probable author of the gospel that bears Mark’s name. Disciples
were gathered there to pray. Peter banged on the gate door but Rhoda,
recognizing Peter’s voice, was so beside HERself that she didn’t open the gate
but ran to the disciples who insisted she was nuts as Peter was secure in
prison or dead.
Verse 15 shows that
these Jewish Christians knew something that most modern Christians don’t know.
They knew what an angel was, an appearance of someone who is someplace else,
probably even dead. It is not that person physically in the flesh they
understood but his spiritual representative. We all have a spiritual
representative operating in creation where we are not, in Heaven if we are
here.
Psalm
104:4 Who maketh his angels spirits; his
ministers a flaming fire:
Daniel
9:21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in
prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the
beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the
evening oblation.
Luke
1:26 And in the sixth month the angel
Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
Matthew
18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one
of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels
do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Hebrews
12:23 To the general assembly and church
of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and
to the spirits of just men made perfect,
Verse 17 can be confusing.
There is a James, the brother of John, who was murdered by Herod.
Matthew
4:21 And going on from thence, he saw
other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship
with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
There was James the son
of Alphaeus.
Matthew
10:3 Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas,
and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose
surname was Thaddaeus;
And Jesus’ brother
James who most commentators say wrote the book of James.
Matthew
13:55 Is not this the carpenter’s son?
is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon,
and Judas?
Galatians
1:19 But other of the apostles saw I
none, save James the Lord’s brother.
As was apparently
customary guards who failed to keep a prisoner under custody, especially a
noteworthy prisoner, allowing them to escape, could be put to death. Note the
Philippian jailer’s terror at Paul’s deliverance when he thought Paul and
company had escaped in Acts 16:25-34 which we will come to. He was ready to
kill himself rather than suffer what would await him and perhaps even his
family suggesting the prison was part of his home like in the ancient Egyptian
Potiphar’s case of Joseph’s story. See Genesis 40:3 and context.
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