Acts 2:23

Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay: whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

In these verses and the one preceding them, there are four statements, two of which required no proof, the latter being: (1) that God had approved Jesus Christ among them by mighty deeds, and (2) that they had by the hands of lawless men crucified him.

Lawless ... McGarvey thought this refers to the Romans, that is, men without the law; and, although true that the Romans were so used by the leaders of Israel in crucifying Christ, we believe that much more is intended. Vine pointed out the word here is the same as that describing the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:4), where "The thought is not simply that of doing what is unlawful, but of flagrant defiance of the known will of God."[33] The "lawless men," therefore, were not merely the Romans, but the religious leaders of Israel who violated every conceivable kind of law in their ruthless determination to accomplish the death of Jesus. How great was the courage of Peter to charge such men publicly, as he did here, and at a time so soon following their dastardly crime.

The other two of the four statements required proof, these being: (3) that it was included in the purpose and foreknowledge of God that Jesus should so suffer, and (4) that God had raised him from the dead. Peter at once presented formal, dogmatic and conclusive proof of both of these. That it was God's purpose and with his permission that Jesus suffered, he proved from the Old Testament (Acts 2:25-28); and that God had indeed raised Jesus from the dead, he would prove by appealing to the witnesses of it, as well as by pointing out the clear prophecy of it.

It was not possible that he should be holden of it ... The master thesis of the Bible is that God runs a just universe; and if Jesus had remained in the grave, that would have been the end of any such proposition. That is why it was impossible for death to have triumphed over Jesus by retaining his body in the grave.