Jewish Mission and the Onset of Jewish Opposition - Peter and John Before the Council

The Spirit intended that His healing miracle - and Peter's subsequent commentary on it - should attract the attention of the Jewish religious establishment and thereby initiate Israel's formal opposition to Christ's gospel and its heralds. So it was that the temple guard were dispatched to arrest Peter and John and hold them overnight to be interrogated by the Sanhedrin the following day. That inquisition provided Peter with the opportunity for his third sermon, in which he drew upon Psalm 118 to show Israel's scriptural scholars that their unbelief and rejection were in fact a matter of scriptural fulfillment. These who claimed to be devout adherents to the Scripture and its divine Author were actually blasphemers who refused to listen to what Yahweh had declared and promised. And yet, their rejection didn't overthrow the divine will or the Scripture that recorded it; rather, it served to fulfill it.