This piece was copied from The Cripplegate
by Lyndon Unger
A while ago, I reading Acts 4 when I noticed something I hadn’t seen before and I thought I would share with the fantastic Cripplegate readers. Acts 4:14-21 is a great little text that gives a wonderful example of the noetic effects of sin; how sin affects the mind and the rational process. The unbelieving mind is anything but neutral regarding facts and their relationship to God, and Acts 4:14-21 displays that in rather stark language.
Acts 4 follows Acts 3, where Peter and John heal a lame man who’s more than 40 years old (Acts 4:22). He’s lame, asks for money, they command him to rise up and walk, and he does (Acts 3:1-9) in full view of many people in the Temple and thousands had heard about it almost immediately (Acts 4:4). Everyone knows the guy because he’s been lying on his mat for a long time(Acts 3:10) and then Peter preaches the good news of the resurrection of Christ in the temple (Acts 3:11-26). Then, in Acts 4 Peter and John are called before the Sanhedrin the next day and the Sanhedrin read them the riot act (Acts 4:4-13) Then, comes this passage:
"The unbelieving mind is anything but neutral regarding facts and their relationship to God"
14 But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. 15 But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, 16 saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 17 But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” 18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 21 And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.Now that’s an amazing apologetics text with some amazing implications to apologetics and evangelism.
- The facts were irrefutable.
- The guy who was healed was standing in plain sight; everyone know he was the guy who had been paralyzed, lying outside the temple for decades.
- The Sanhedrin recognized that it was a sign, meaning a divine sign (an act of God).
- The Sanhedrin themselves admitted that they could not deny it, as much as they desperately wanted to.
- They knew that it was “evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem”, meaning that the whole city knew the guy and would eventually hear about it.
- Their main concern was that more people would hear about the clear and obvious sign (and thus become followers of the way).
- The facts of the healing weren’t in question. The facts were plain and irrefutable.
So did the Sanhedrin recognize the facts that were glaring them in the face and submit to theobvious and irrefutably proven conclusion that Peter and John were speaking on behalf of the God that they claimed to worship?
Did the Sanhedrin follow the facts to their admittedly logical conclusion and believe the message of Peter and John?
Not for a second.
- Instead, they attempted to suppress the distribution of the story. All they could do was hope to stop the spread of the story regarding these irrefutable facts.
- Also, they attempted to suppress the apostolic interpretation of the facts. They didn’t tell them to shut up completely, just to shut up about Jesus.
- When that didn’t work out well, the Sanhedrin threatened them. The Sanhedrin knewthat Peter and John were speaking on behalf of God and they hated it. The people likewise knew that Peter and John were speaking on behalf of God and the Sanhedrinhated it.
"the carnal mind is powerless to see the facts of reality rightly in relation to God; not rightly in relation to other facts"
Unregenerate people can see the facts of reality (including the facts of science, history, etc.) and the facts are never the problem. The interpretation of the facts in relation to God is the problem; the unregenerate person’s hatred of the God to whom the facts point is the problem. To say it another way, the carnal mind is powerless to see the facts of reality rightly in relation to God; not rightly in relation to other facts (i.e. that’s why they can balance their checkbook, do successful research, etc.).
The carnal mind will not understand the facts of reality rightly in relation to God’s interpretation of all facts (namely, scripture) because they cannot, and in facing the facts and then responding in warfare against the logical conclusion of those facts, they display theirrationality of sin.
That doesn’t mean that unbelievers are stupid, but rather rationally powerless to see and interpret facts in their relation to God.
In other words, the reason that basically every unbeliever isn’t a biblical creationist is because they cannot be; the whole notion of a creator God necessitates a whole tsunami of moralimplications and unbelievers are slaves to sin (John 8:34) and dead in their sin (Eph. 2:1,2:5). They’re powerless to emancipate themselves from their bondage to sin and death.
The Noetic Effects of Sin by Al Mohler
