Acts 3:15

Prince of life. Gr. archegos tes zoes, which is better translated “author of life” (cf. Heb. 12:2; in ch. 2:10 archegos is translated “captain”). Christ is the originator of life. “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived” (DA 530). The “Prince of life,” the “captain of . . . salvation” (Heb. 2:10), is accordingly the One from whom life and salvation flow. Christ is clearly set forth as the Author of all life. He Himself repeatedly made the same emphatic claim (see John 3:14, 15; 5:26, 40; 6:48, 51). The Jews had chosen to keep alive a murderer, a taker of life, and to put to death the Author and Giver of life.

God hath raised. That it was the Father who raised Christ from the dead is repeatedly stated in the New Testament (Acts 2:24; Rom. 6:4; 8:11). At the same time Jesus declared that He Himself had power to lay down His life and to take it again (John 10:18). These two declarations regarding the resurrection are not contradictory. Though Christ had life in Himself, yet as the incarnate Son who “took upon him the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), He could “do nothing of himself” (John 5:19). Jesus exercised His divine power only at the command of the Father. Thus although “the Saviour came forth from the grave by the life that was in Himself” (DA 785), He did so at the call of God His Father.

Whereof. That is, “of whom.” Peter attests again the one central fact that the apostles knew of what they were talking. They had known the Lord, they had seen Him die, and they had seen Him risen.