THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES - Chapter 3 - Verse 9

Verses 9, 10. And all the people, etc. The people who had been accustomed to see him sit in a public place.

And they knew, etc. In this they could not be deceived; they had seen him a long time, and now they saw the same man expressing his praise to God for complete recovery. The particulars in this miracle are the following; and they are as far as possible from any appearance of imposture.

(1.) The man had been afflicted from a child. This was known to all the people. At this time he was forty years of age, Ac 4:22.

(2.) He was not an impostor. If he had pretended lameness, it is wonderful that he had not been detected before, and not have been suffered to occupy a place thus in the temple.

(3.) The apostles had no agency in placing him there. They had not seen him before. There was manifestly no collusion or agreement with him to attempt to impose on the people. The man himself was convinced of the miracle; and did not doubt that the power by which he had been healed was of God.

(5.) The people were convinced of the same thing. They saw the effects; they had known him well; they had had every opportunity to know that he was diseased; and they were now satisfied that he was restored. There was no possibility of deception in the case. It was not merely the friends of Jesus that saw this; not those who had an interest in the miracle, but those who had been his enemies, and who had just before been engaged in putting him to death. Let this miracle be compared, in these particulars, with those pretended miracles which have been affirmed to have been wrought in defence of other systems of religion, and it will be seen at once that here is every appearance of sincerity, honesty, and truth; and in them every mark of deception, fraud, and imposition. (See Paley's Evidences of Christianity, Proposition ii., chap. ii.)