Asher Sisneros

The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the church’s expansion after Christ’s ascension. The apostles ramped up their ministry after Jesus gave them the Holy Ghost, and the church grew exponentially. Stephen was among the first deacons, and the Jewish leaders martyred him for speaking the truth. Saul was an unrelenting church persecutor, but he was converted and renamed Paul after an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. That incident was pivotal as the apostle Paul became an avid missionary to the Gentiles, growing the church further. Jewish hostilities grew as Christianity penetrated the people’s souls. Contrasting viewpoints regarding Jesus’ divinity led to lawsuits, imprisonments, and bloodshed. Unable to reconcile with the apostles, the Sadducees became vocal critics. But why did they seek bloodshed? Was their dissension truly that irreconcilable? 

The answer to that second question is an emphatic yes. At its root, their views were fundamentally opposite. The Sadducees preached that Jesus wasn’t the Son of God. The apostles said the opposite. More importantly, they believed Christ was the only way into heaven, repeating Jesus’ words: “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.” The Sadducees viewed this as a heresy. They retaliated by putting the apostles in custody after they healed a cripple. 

As it says in Acts four, “Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five-thousand. And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes…gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they set them in their midst, they asked, ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?’ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rules of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by the builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’” After deliberation, the Sadducees commanded Peter and John to stop speaking in Jesus’ name and preaching. Peter and John answered, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.” 

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, like the apostles. However, their irreconcilable differences stemmed from Jesus’ divinity. The Sadducees rejected Jesus as God’s Son. This truth was the cornerstone of Christianity. If the apostles disregarded Jesus’ divinity, they disregarded the entire religion. All of their arguments were based on Jesus. Without Jesus, they were Jews, not Christians. So, it was an irreconcilable stance. The Sadducees and the apostles could not compromise with each other. Sure, there could have been peace. The Sadducees didn’t have to exercise violence against Christians. If their message was true and Christianity was a lie, their arguments would have proved that to the people. Instead, they implemented an impediment to free speech. Why? Because they were wrong. When there is liberty and open discourse, the truth always triumphs. Or at the very least, the best argument triumphs. But the Sadducees opted for Communist-like tactics—persecuting their critics—because the people sided with the apostles. It was a page right out of Stalin’s playbook. Unfortunately, for them, the apostles wouldn’t stop preaching. All of them, except for John, were eventually martyred. Sometimes, that is the cost of truth.