Acts 5:30

My Notes

What Does Acts 5:30 Mean?

Acts 5:30 is Peter before the Sanhedrin, delivering the gospel as a one-sentence indictment: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree."

The Greek ho theos tōn paterōn hēmōn ēgeiren Iēsoun — "the God of our fathers raised up Jesus" — begins with shared identity. Our fathers. Our God. Peter isn't introducing a foreign deity. He's claiming the God the Sanhedrin already worships — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and saying: this God raised Jesus. The resurrection isn't a new religion. It's the fulfillment of the old one.

"Whom ye slew and hanged on a tree" — hon hymeis diecheirisasthe kremasantes epi xylou. Diecheirisasthe means to lay hands on violently, to execute. Kremasantes epi xylou — hung on a tree — is deliberately chosen language from Deuteronomy 21:23: "he that is hanged is accursed of God." Peter uses the very law the Sanhedrin enforces to describe what they did: you hung Him on a tree. Under your own law, that makes Him accursed. And God raised Him anyway. The curse you intended became the salvation God accomplished.

Peter is standing before the same court that condemned Jesus, using their own Scriptures, and telling them: you cursed the One God raised. Your verdict and God's verdict are opposite. You said accursed. God said resurrected.

Reflection Questions

• 1.Peter uses the Sanhedrin's own Scripture against them. Have you seen God reverse a verdict that religious authority pronounced?
• 2.The tree of curse became the altar of salvation. How does that reversal reshape how you view your own 'cursed' situations?
• 3.Peter claims 'the God of our fathers' — shared ground with his accusers. How do you confront people with truth while maintaining common identity?
• 4.The Sanhedrin said accursed. God said raised. Whose verdict over your life are you living by — human religious authority or God's resurrection power?

Devotional

Peter stands before the men who killed Jesus and says: your God raised the man you killed. Same God. Different verdict.

The audacity is almost reckless. The Sanhedrin — the highest religious authority in Israel, the court that condemned Jesus to death — is being told by a fisherman that their ruling was reversed by God Himself. You executed Him. God resurrected Him. You hung Him on a tree — and under your own law, that makes Him cursed. But God took the curse and turned it into salvation.

"The God of our fathers" — Peter claims common ground before delivering the confrontation. He's not introducing a new deity. He's saying: the God you worship on the Sabbath, the God you invoke in your prayers, the God you claim to serve on this very council — that God raised the man you killed. You can't escape this by saying "that's not our God." It is. And His action contradicts yours.

"Hanged on a tree" — Peter chose that phrase deliberately. Deuteronomy 21:23: cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. The Sanhedrin knew this verse by heart. They used it to justify the crucifixion — if He hangs on a tree, He's cursed by God, which proves He's not the Messiah. Peter takes that argument and flips it: yes, you cursed Him. And God raised Him. Which means either your law is wrong or your application of it is. And since the law is God's, the error is yours.

The cross — the instrument of curse — became the instrument of salvation. The tree that was supposed to prove Jesus was rejected by God became the altar on which God accomplished the rescue of the world. Peter, standing in the court that made it happen, announces the reversal: you said accursed. God said raised. And God's verdict is the one that holds.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture