'the Prince of Life' plainly asserts Jesus to be the Lord and Source
of it.

Notice, too, the pathetic 'denied': was Peter thinking of the
shameful hour in his own experience? It is a glimpse into the depth
of his penitence, and the tenderness with others' sins which it had
given him, that he twice uses the word here, as if he had said 'You
have done no more than I did myself. It is not for me to heap
reproaches on you. We have been alike in sin--and I can preach
forgiveness to you sinners, because I have received it for myself.'

Notice, too, the manifold antitheses of the words. Barabbas is set
against Christ; the Holy One and the Just against a robber, the
Prince of Life against a murderer. 'You killed'--'the Prince of
Life.' 'You killed'--'God raised.'

There are here three paradoxes, three strange and contradictory
things: the paradoxes of man's perverted and fatal choice, of man's
hate bringing death to the Lord of life, and of God's love and power
causing life to come by death.

I. The paradox of man's fatal choice.

There occurs often in history a kind of irony in which the whole
tendency of a time or of a conflict is summed up in a single act, and
certainly the fact which is referred to here is one of these. Let us
put it as it would have seemed to an onlooker then, leaving out for
the moment any loftier meaning which may attach to it.

Peter's words here, thus boldly addressed to the people, are a strong