Acts 12: James versus Peter
This is really a “Part 2” to my other post on James’ death in Acts 12. His death needs further consideration I think.
In Acts 12, James dies, but Peter lives. James is not delivered, but Peter is delivered in a remarkable fashion. James’ vocation as an apostle comes to a swift and unceremonious end after 15 years, but Peter’s contribution to the Body of Christ continues to grow despite the shift in Luke’s narrative as is evidenced by the mature power of Peter’s two letters near the end of his life.
And it is critical to point out that James’ death—his not being delivered—follows, albeit some years later, a prior, miraculous deliverance from jail in Acts 5. An angel did not come to James in Acts 12, only to Peter this time. (makes you wonder if James was wondering whether God would deliver him yet once more,)
James’ death in the face of Peter’s life raises an important question. It’s close to Jesus’ question to Peter in John 21: “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” but I will state it a little differently: “Who are we to question what a beautiful life looks like?”
We don’t know real human beauty from His point of view, and we have a very limited appreciation of what He is building, newly creating in the Church, the Body of Christ.
What criteria do we have in Acts 12 to make a right judgment about life and death? Was James’ life too short? That would be true in a “this-life-centric” point of view, but what about from God’s eternal view? Was James’ life incomplete or too short?
How we answer that question says something about our concept of God and His nature (or His being-right-ness). Who decides whether James life was full or not, whether it was too short or quite long enough? Who judges whether God was fairer or more just to Peter than to James?
This episode of James’ death and Peter’s deliverance (or God’s allowing James’ death, but not allowing Peter’s death) invites us to grapple with these difficult questions.
To be honest, I find it difficult to understand what God’s eternal view looks like; I don’t understand why bad things happen to good people. But two things come to mind to find peace with that known reality.
First, we can see Jesus—and if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. He said so. They both paid a tremendous price to bring us near. That full and complete sacrifice provides us some basis to work through these difficult questions. He died for all, bore for all, and offered all His salvation. We cannot therefore be seeing mixed motives or partiality between James and Peter. God, being God, isn’t variable like the wind. We must be seeing something else at play like: “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
But we also have this prophetic imagery from which we can be assured of James’ end and, by extension, our end, whether our life is too short or our life is full and productive:
He will comfort all who mourn, provide for those who grieve in Zion—give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise in place of a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
Isaiah 61:3 (as modified).
Note these promises of beauty, joy, and praise are not dependent upon how long one lives. But they do countenance the things with which we are all too familiar—a life reduced to ashes, mourning, heaviness, and despair.
What does that mean for James? Beauty for ashes? Yes, per this promise of God in Isaiah 61. We can all recognize that James and Peter are both likely oaks of righteousness, if anyone is, even though they lived very different lengths of days. They both glorified God, each in their own way, albeit in the way He set out for each of them in Acts 12.
