'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began
both to do and teach, 2. Until the day in which He was taken up, after
that He through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles
whom He had chosen: 3. To whom also He shewed Himself alive after His
passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and
speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: 4. And, being
assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not
depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which,
saith He, ye have heard of Me. 5. For John truly baptized with water;
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. 6.
When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying,
Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? 7.
And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. 8. But ye shall
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall
be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. 9. And when He had
spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud
received Him out of their sight. 10. And while they looked stedfastly
toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel; 11. Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up
into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven. 12.
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which
is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey. 13. And when they were come
in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James,
and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew,
James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of
James. 14. These all continued with one accord in prayer and
supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with
His brethren.'--ACTS i. 1-14.
The Ascension is twice narrated by Luke. The life begun by the
supernatural birth ends with the supernatural Ascension, which sets the
seal of Heaven on Christ's claims and work. Therefore the Gospel ends
with it. But it is also the starting-point of the Christ's heavenly
activity, of which the growth of His Church, as recorded in the Acts,
is the issue. Therefore the Book of the Acts of the Apostles begins
with it.
The keynote of the 'treatise' lies in the first words, which describe
the Gospel as the record of what 'Jesus _began_ to do and teach,' Luke
would have gone on to say that this second book of his contained the
story of what Jesus went on to do and teach after He was 'taken up,' if
he had been strictly accurate, or had carried out his first intention,
as shown by the mould of his introductory sentence; but he is swept on
into the full stream of his narrative, and we have to infer the
contrast between his two volumes from his statement of the contents of
his first.
The book, then, is misnamed Acts of the Apostles, both because the
greater number of the Apostles do nothing in it, and because, in
accordance with the hint of the first verse, Christ Himself is the doer
of all, as comes out distinctly in many places where the critical
events of the Church's progress and extension are attributed to 'the
Lord.' In one aspect, Christ's work on earth was finished on the Cross;
in another, that finished work is but the beginning both of His doing
and teaching. Therefore we are not to regard His teaching while on
earth as the completion of Christian revelation. To set aside the
Epistles on the plea that the Gospels contain Christ's own teaching,
while the Epistles are only Paul's or John's, is to misconceive the
relation between the earthly and the heavenly activity of Jesus.
The statement of the theme of the book is followed by a brief summary
of the events between the Resurrection and Ascension. Luke had spoken
of these in the end of his Gospel, but given no note of time, and run
together the events of the day of the Resurrection and of the following
weeks, so that it might appear, as has been actually contended that he
meant, that the Ascension took place on the very day of Resurrection.
The fact that in this place he gives more detailed statements, and
tells how long elapsed between the Resurrection Sunday and the
Ascension, might have taught hasty critics that an author need not be
ignorant of what he does not mention, and that a detailed account does
not contradict a summary one,--truths which do not seem very recondite,
but have often been forgotten by very learned commentators.
Three points are signalised as occupying the forty days: commandments
were given, Christ's actual living presence was demonstrated (by sight,
touch, hearing, etc.), and instructions concerning the kingdom were
imparted. The old blessed closeness and continuity of companionship had
ceased. Our Lord's appearances were now occasional. He came to the
disciples, they knew not whence; He withdrew from them, they knew not
whither. Apparently a sacred awe restrained them from seeking to detain
Him or to follow Him. Their hearts would be full of strangely mingled
feelings, and they were being taught by gentle degrees to do without
Him. Not only a divine decorum, but a most gracious tenderness,
dictated the alternation of presence and absence during these days.
The instructions then given are again referred to in Luke's Gospel, and
are there represented as principally directed to opening their minds
'that they might understand the Scriptures.' The main thing about the
kingdom which they had then to learn, was that it was founded on the
death of Christ, who had fulfilled all the Old Testament predictions.
Much remained untaught, which after years were to bring to clear
knowledge; but from the illumination shed during these fruitful days
flowed the remarkable vigour and confidence of the Apostolic appeal to
the prophets, in the first conflicts of the Church with the rulers.
Christ is the King of the kingdom, and His Cross is His throne,--these
truths being grasped revolutionised the Apostles' conceptions. They are
as needful for us.
From verse 4 onwards the last interview seems to be narrated. Probably
it began in the city, and ended on the slopes of Olivet. There was a
solemn summoning together of the Eleven, which is twice referred to
(vs. 4, 6). What awe of expectancy would rest on the group as they
gathered round Him, perhaps half suspecting that it was for the last
time! His words would change the suspicion into certainty, for He
proceeded to tell them what they were not to do and to do, when left
alone. The tone of leave-taking is unmistakable.
The prohibition against leaving Jerusalem implies that they would have
done so if left to themselves; and it would have been small wonder if
they had been eager to hurry back to quiet Galilee, their home, and to
shake from their feet the dust of the city where their Lord had been
slain. Truly they would feel like sheep in the midst of wolves when He
had gone, and Pharisees and priests and Roman officers ringed them
round. No wonder if, like a shepherdless flock, they had broken and
scattered! But the theocratic importance of Jerusalem, and the fact
that nowhere else could the Apostles secure such an audience for their
witness, made their 'beginning at Jerusalem' necessary. So they were to
crush their natural longing to get back to Galilee, and to stay in
their dangerous position. We have all to ask, not where we should be
most at ease, but where we shall be most efficient as witnesses for
Christ, and to remember that very often the presence of adversaries
makes the door 'great and effectual.'
These eleven poor men were not left by their Master with a hard task
and no help. He bade them 'wait' for the promised Holy Spirit, the
coming of whom they had heard from Him when in the upper room He spoke
to them of 'the Comforter.' They were too feeble to act alone, and
silence and retirement were all that He enjoined till they had been
plunged into the fiery baptism which should quicken, strengthen, and
transform them.
The order in which promise and command occur here shows how graciously
Jesus considered the Apostles' weakness. Not a word does He say of
their task of witnessing, till He has filled their hearts with the
promise of the Spirit. He shows them the armour of power in which they
are to be clothed, before He points them to the battlefield. Waiting
times are not wasted times. Over-eagerness to rush into work,
especially into conspicuous and perilous work, is sure to end in
defeat. Till we feel the power coming into us, we had better be still.
The promise of this great gift, the nature of which they but dimly
knew, set the Apostles' expectations on tiptoe, and they seem to have
thought that their reception of it was in some way the herald of the
establishment of the Messianic kingdom. So it was, but in a very
different fashion from their dream. They had not learned so much from
the forty days' instructions concerning the kingdom as to be free from
their old Jewish notions, which colour their question, 'Wilt Thou at
this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' They believed that
Jesus could establish His kingdom when He would. They were right, and
also wrong,--right, for He is King; wrong, for its establishment is not
to be effected by a single act of power, but by the slow process of
preaching the gospel.
Our Lord does not deal with their misconceptions which could only be
cured by time and events; but He lays down great principles, which we
need as much as the Eleven did. The 'times and seasons,' the long
stretches of days, and the critical epoch-making moments, are known to
God only; our business is, not to speculate curiously about these, but
to do the plain duty which is incumbent on the Church at all times. The
perpetual office of Christ's people to be His witnesses, their
equipment for that function (namely, the power of the Holy Spirit
coming on them), and the sphere of their work (namely, in ever-widening
circles, Jerusalem, Samaria, and the whole world), are laid down, not
for the first hearers only, but for all ages and for each individual,
in these last words of the Lord as He stood on Olivet, ready to depart.
The calm simplicity of the account of the Ascension is remarkable. So
great an event told in such few, unimpassioned words! Luke's Gospel
gives the further detail that it was in the act of blessing with
uplifted hands that our Lord was parted from the Eleven. Two
expressions are here used to describe the Ascension, one of which ('was
taken up') implies that He was passive, the other of which ('He went')
implies that He was active. Both are true. As in the accounts of the
Resurrection He is sometimes said to have been raised, and sometimes to
have risen, so here. The Father took the Son back to the glory, the Son
left the world and went to the Father. No chariot of fire, no
whirlwind, was needed to lift Him to the throne. Elijah was carried by
such agency into a sphere new to him; Jesus ascended up where He was
before.
No other mode of departure from earth would have corresponded to His
voluntary, supernatural birth. He carried manhood up to the throne of
God. The cloud which received Him while yet He was well within sight of
the gazers was probably that same bright cloud, the symbol of the
Divine Presence, which of old dwelt between the cherubim. His entrance
into it visibly symbolised the permanent participation, then begun, of
His glorified manhood in the divine glory.
Most true to human nature is that continued gaze upwards after He had
passed into the hiding brightness of the glory-cloud. How many of us
know what it is to look long at the spot on the horizon where the last
glint of sunshine struck the sails of the ship that bore dear ones away
from us! It was fitting that angels, who had heralded His birth and
watched His grave, should proclaim His Second Coming to earth.
It was gracious that, in the moment of keenest sense of desolation and
loss, the great hope of reunion should be poured into the hearts of the
Apostles. Nothing can be more distinct and assured than the terms of
that angel message. It gives for the faith and hope of all ages the
assurance that He will come; that He who comes will be the very Jesus
who went; that His coming will be, like His departure, visible,
corporeal, local. He will bring again all His tenderness, all His
brother's heart, all His divine power, and will gather His servants to
Himself.
No wonder that, with such hopes flowing over the top of their sorrow,
like oil on troubled waters, the little group went back to the upper
room, hallowed by memories of the Last Supper, and there waited in
prayer and supplication during the ten days which elapsed till
Pentecost. So should we use the interval between any promise and its
fulfilment. Patient expectation, believing prayer, harmonious
association with our brethren, will prepare us for receiving the gift
of the Spirit, and will help to equip us as witnesses for Jesus.