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Scripture Reading: Acts 1:1-26
We have seen that 1:1-2 is the introduction to the book of Acts. Then in 1:3-26 we have the preparation both on the Lord’s side and on the side of His disciples. In this message we shall continue to consider Christ’s preparation of the disciples in His resurrection.
Acts 1:3 says, “To whom also He presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs, through a period of forty days, appearing to them and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God.” Here we see that for a period of forty days the Lord spoke to the disciples concerning the kingdom of God. What did the Lord say about the kingdom during that time? Luke does not tell us. Instead of giving us a full record of what the Lord taught the disciples concerning the kingdom, Luke simply says that He spoke to them about the kingdom of God for forty days.
Although we are not told in Acts what the Lord spoke concerning the kingdom, we may infer what He said by considering other portions of the Word. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus taught the disciples a lot concerning the kingdom. I doubt that during the forty days after His resurrection, He gave the disciples something new concerning the kingdom. Rather, I believe that the Lord repeated what He taught them in the Gospels. When the Lord spoke regarding the kingdom in the Gospels, the disciples were not able to understand what the Lord as their “professor” was teaching them. Therefore, I believe that the Lord Jesus repeated His teaching in the forty days between His resurrection and His ascension.
If we want to know, at least by way of inference, what the Lord taught the disciples concerning the kingdom in those forty days, we need to read again all He said about the kingdom in the Gospels. It is likely that the teaching during those forty days was the same as that recorded in the Gospels.
When the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples about the kingdom before His death and resurrection, He was not yet in them, for He was still in the flesh. Because the Lord was not in the disciples at that time, they did not have the spiritual insight to understand the kingdom of God.
Knowing the kingdom of God requires spiritual perception, spiritual insight. Without spiritual insight, it is impossible for us to know the kingdom of God. Those who are lacking in spiritual perception may think that to enter into the kingdom of God is to go to heaven. In general, this is the natural concept of fallen mankind concerning God’s kingdom.
In the Gospels the disciples did not have the insight to understand the kingdom of God. But in John 20 they received the wonderful Person of the resurrected Christ into them as the life-giving Spirit. As a result, in Acts 1 they were very different. On the one hand, they were the same people; on the other hand, they were different because Christ, the life-giving Spirit, was now within them as their life and person. Because they had the life-giving Spirit within them, they were able to understand the Lord’s speaking concerning the kingdom of God.
At this point we need to ask an important question: What is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is not a material kingdom visible to human sight; the kingdom of God is a kingdom of the divine life. The kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life into His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The fact that the kingdom is mentioned in 1:3 indicates that it will be the main subject of the apostles’ preaching in their coming commission after Pentecost (8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31).
The kingdom of God is the ruling, the reigning, of God with all its blessing and enjoyment. It is the goal of the gospel of God and of Jesus Christ. To enter into this kingdom people need to repent of their sins and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15) so that their sins may be forgiven and that they may be regenerated by God to have the divine life, which matches the divine nature of this kingdom (John 3:3, 5).
All the believers in Christ can share the kingdom in the church age for their enjoyment of God in His righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). It will become the kingdom of Christ and of God for the overcoming believers to inherit and enjoy in the coming kingdom age (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5), so that they may reign with Christ one thousand years (Rev. 20:4, 6). Then, as the eternal kingdom, it will be an eternal blessing of God’s eternal life for all of God’s redeemed to enjoy in the new heaven and new earth for eternity (Rev. 21:1-4; 22:1-5, 14, 17).
The kingdom of God is the reality of the church brought forth by the resurrection life of Christ through the gospel (1 Cor. 4:15). Regeneration is its entrance (John 3:5), and the growth of the divine life within the believers is its development (2 Pet. 1:3-11).
The kingdom of God is the Savior Himself (Luke 17:21) as the seed of life sown into His believers, God’s chosen people (Mark 4:3, 26), and developing into a realm which God may rule as His kingdom in His divine life. We have seen that the entrance into the kingdom is regeneration and that the development of the kingdom is the believer’s growth in the divine life. The kingdom of God is the church life today, in which the faithful believers live (Rom. 14:17), and it will develop into the coming kingdom as an inheritance reward (Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5) to the overcoming saints in the millennium. Eventually, it will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal kingdom of God and the eternal realm of the eternal blessing of God’s eternal life for all God’s redeemed to enjoy in the new heaven and new earth for eternity.
We have pointed out that the kingdom of God is a kingdom of the divine life. We may use the human kingdom as an illustration. Just as mankind is a kingdom of the human life, so the kingdom of God is a kingdom of the divine life. If we were not human beings, we could not understand the kingdom of human life. Dogs, for example, cannot understand the human kingdom, because they do not have a human life. But if a dog could receive the human life, it would then be able to understand the human kingdom. In a similar way, we know the kingdom of God by the divine life because God’s kingdom is a kingdom of the divine life.
As those who have received the divine life, we not only know what the kingdom of God is; we become parts of this kingdom. If a dog could be born of the human life and thereby become a human being, this human being would automatically become a part of the human kingdom. Do you not have the divine life? Yes, you have the divine life, and because you have this life you are part of the kingdom of God. Although we can understand these matters, it is impossible to explain them to unregenerated people.
The kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life to His believers. This spreading is the propagation of Christ as life to His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. In His preparation of the disciples, the Lord Jesus must have helped them to have the proper realization concerning the kingdom of God. The disciples must have begun to see that they were part of the propagation, the spreading, of Christ, and thereby were part of the kingdom of God.
In Acts 1:4-8 the Lord Jesus charged the disciples to wait for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Verse 4 says, “And meeting together with them, He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father which, He said, You heard from Me.” The promise here and in Luke 24:49 is different from the promise in John 14:17. The promise in Acts 1:4 and Luke 24:49 is the promise of Joel 2:28-29, fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4, 16-18), for the outpouring as the power from on high for the believers’ ministry economically. This is different from the Spirit of life, who was breathed into the disciples (John 20:22) by the resurrected Savior on the day of resurrection for His indwelling so that He might be life to them essentially. The promise of the Lord in John 14:17 was fulfilled on the day of His resurrection, when the Spirit was breathed into the disciples as the breath of life. However, the promise of the Father in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4 was fulfilled forty days later, on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit as the mighty wind blew upon the disciples.
It is important that we differentiate the promise given by the Lord in John 14:17 from that given by the Father in Joel 2:28 and 29. Many Bible readers mix these two promises together. The promise given by God the Father in Joel 2 and then mentioned by the Lord Jesus in Luke 24 and Acts 1 has nothing to do with the promise given by the Lord in John 14. In Acts 1:4 the Lord Jesus seems to be saying, “I have told you about the promise of My Father. Now you must wait in Jerusalem for the fulfillment of this promise.”
In Acts 1:5 the Lord went on to say, “For John indeed baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This was to be accomplished in two sections. First, the Jewish believers were baptized in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (2:4). Second, the Gentile believers were baptized in the house of Cornelius (10:44-47; 11:15-17). In these two sections all genuine believers in Christ have been baptized in the Holy Spirit into one Body once for all universally (1 Cor. 12:13).
Verse 6 says, “So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, Lord, are You at this time restoring the kingdom to Israel?” The kingdom of Israel, for which the apostles and other devout Jews were looking, was a material kingdom. This kingdom differs from God’s kingdom of life, which Christ is building up through the preaching of His gospel.
In asking the question recorded in verse 6, the disciples apparently were forgetting the divine life that was within them. Their concept was related to the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. This traditional concept was in the minds of all Jews. Peter, John, James, and the other disciples had the concept that the kingdom of Israel would be restored. Day by day they were hoping for the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. However, in 1:3 we are told that the Lord spoke to them not about the kingdom of Israel but about the kingdom of God.
Although the Lord spoke to His disciples concerning the kingdom of God over a period of forty days, they may have been concerned more for the kingdom of Israel than for the kingdom of God. Their hearts may have been occupied with the kingdom of Israel. The Lord also spoke to them about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Both the kingdom of God and the baptism in the Holy Spirit are matters relating to the New Testament economy. However, as indicated by their question in verse 6, the disciples even then may not have had a proper understanding of these things.
In response to the question raised by the disciples, the Lord Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in His own authority” (v. 7). Here the Lord seems to be saying, “Leave the restoration of the kingdom of Israel to God’s sovereignty. Forget about the kingdom of Israel, and receive My word concerning the kingdom of God and the baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
In 1:8 the Lord went on to say, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the remotest part of the earth.” To receive power is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit (v. 5) for the fulfillment of the promise of the Father (v. 4).
To have the Holy Spirit upon us is different from having the Holy Spirit in us (John 14:17). The Holy Spirit was breathed into the disciples on the day of the Lord’s resurrection to be the Spirit of life to them essentially. The same Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost to be the Spirit of power economically. As for the Spirit of life, we need to breathe Him in as the breath. As for the Spirit of power, we need to put Him on as the uniform, typified by the mantle of Elijah (2 Kings 2:9, 13-15). The former as the water of life requires our drinking (John 7:37-39); the latter as the water for baptism requires our being immersed. These are the two aspects of the one Spirit for our experience (1 Cor. 12:13). The indwelling of the Spirit of life is essential for our life and living; the outpouring of the Spirit of power is economical for our ministry and work.
Literally, the Greek word for “witnesses” in Acts 1:8 means “martyrs.” Witnesses are those who bear a living testimony of the resurrected and ascended Christ in life. They differ from preachers who merely preach doctrines in letters.
In His incarnation Christ carried out His ministry on the earth, as recorded in the Gospels, by Himself to sow Himself as the seed of the kingdom of God only in the Jewish land. In His ascension He carries out His ministry in the heavens, as recorded in Acts, through these witnesses, these martyrs, in His resurrection life and with His ascension power and authority to spread Himself as the development of the kingdom of God from Jerusalem, as a start, unto the remotest part of the earth, as the consummation of His ministry in the New Testament. All the apostles and disciples in Acts were His martyrs, His witnesses, of this kind.
In verse 8 the Lord was indicating to His disciples that they should care for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them and then be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the remotest part of the earth. The disciples, however, were occupied with the traditional concept concerning Israel, Moses, and keeping the law. Here, in a brief way, the Lord was telling them that they needed a great transfer, a dispensational transfer. He seemed to be telling them, “You disciples need to be transferred dispensationally. You need to be transferred economically from the Old Testament to the New Testament, from the kingdom of Israel to the kingdom of God, which is the church. Forget Israel and take care of the church. You also need a transfer from the law to Christ, that is, to Me. Instead of Moses and the law, you have Me. You should no longer be keepers of the law; now you should be living witnesses of Me, living witnesses of the resurrected Christ. I am the One speaking to you, not Moses. Is the law with you in such a living way as I am? I am here as the living One, the resurrected One. You were with Me for three and a half years. Then you saw My death and My burial. You even saw My empty tomb, and then you saw Me in resurrection. Right now I am here with you in resurrection. Forget about Moses and the law. Do not be keepers of the law — be My living witnesses.”
The disciples may have had difficulty understanding their need of a dispensational transfer. Many Christians have a problem with this today. When they read this portion of the Word, they do not see the matter of the economical transfer. Many of us also need such a transfer. Although you may have been saved for years, have you ever considered how to be a living witness of Christ? I doubt that many believers have thought about this. Instead, many try to keep the commandments in the New Testament. They desire to be commandment keepers as the lawkeepers, but they may not have the concept that they should be witnesses of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, they need a dispensational transfer.
Although we are New Testament people, we still may have an Old Testament concept. We need to be transferred out of the Old Testament concept into the New Testament economy. This means that we need a transfer out of the law and into Christ. We need a transfer from being law-keepers to being Jesus-witnesses. I hope that the Spirit of revelation will show you that you need such a transfer. The Lord’s word indicating the need of a dispensational transfer was also part of His preparation of His disciples.
