Did you notice the dominate presence of the living Christ in those verses? Verses 1-3 are all about Jesus, and He speaks about the kingdom of God in reference to God the Father. In verse 4, Jesus states that they heard of the Father's promise from Him. Verse 5 mentions baptism with the Holy Spirit which is done by Christ. Verse 6 refers to Jesus as the Lord. In verses 7-8, Jesus told them that knowledge of the future falls under the Father’s authority, and they shall be witnesses to Christ in Jerusalem. In verses 9-10, Christ was taken up, and the end of this section is especially important. In verse 11, the angels are talking about Jesus. “This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will return in like manner.”
The disciples who were with Jesus in the days between the resurrection and the ascension, still had old fashion Jewish ideas, and one of these, as we know from the gospel, was that the kingdom of God was going to be established by political earthly power. This is what the Jews believed, and the disciples still had that in the back of their minds—the idea of the Messiah with the soldier like Judas Maccabeus, also known as Judas the hammer. And in their minds, the Messiah was going to be strong enough to drive out any occupying military forces. The Jews were looking for a Messiah who would expel the Romans and set up an earthly kingdom of David; the disciples expected to reign with him in His kingdom.
She was not thinking of a kingdom in some far off future day. She thought that Jesus was going to establish His kingdom on earth right then by political means. Even there after the resurrection the disciples had these confused ideas.
The verb “restore,” in verse 6, shows that they were expecting a political and territorial kingdom, and now Israel that they were expecting a national kingdom, and the adverbial clause “at this time” shows that they were expecting immediate establishment.
Verses 7-8 are especially important for another reason; in them is an outline for Acts. Verse 8 establishes a set of priorities. They would first be given spiritual power help from on high to overcome sins, Satan, and the world. Second, the spiritual power would in turn provide what was needed to witness to the world.
There are four geographical references in verse 8: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
The King James Version does not translate the punctuation correctly. In the more modern versions, such as the New King James version, the ESV, the NIV, the middle terms are combined by the verses punctuation, so that there is a three part progression: Jerusalem, Judah and Samaria, and the ends of the earth. This is because in the Greek text Samaria does not have a definite article before it as shown in the King James Version.
The article occurs before Judea which suggests that Judea and Samaria belong together, and this makes it a three part outline for the book of Acts. Acts chapter 1-7, deals with the preaching of the gospel in Jerusalem, representing the church which is spiritual Israel; the church was founded in Jerusalem.
In Acts chapters 8-12, the gospel expands beyond Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria, representing Judah and Benjamin in the southern tribes and the ten northern tribes of Israel which is physical Israel. So Judah was the area of the southern tribes, and for about two hundred years Samaria was the capital of the northern ten tribes of Israel until their captivity by the Assyrians.
Acts chapters 13-28 records the expansion of the gospel throughout the Roman world. Rome was the proud center of the world’s civilization in the apostolic age, representing the Gentile world to the ends of the western world and beyond.
In this sense, the book of Acts is the prophecy as well as the directive for and to whom and when the gospel is to be preached. Verses 7-8 give a plan for witnessing; each gospel writer version of the great … . . .
The word “power” in verse 8 is misleading because in Greek these are two entirely different words. The New King James and the NIV translate the word as authority. “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority,” which is right. The second word is translated as power, “But you shall receive power...” actually it is only in the second instance that the text speaks of power as we understand the term power.
The Greek word dynamis entered the English language when the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Bernhard Nobel, who lived from 1833-1896, discovered a power stronger than anything the world had known up to that time. He asked a friend of his who is a Greek scholar what the word for explosive power was in the Greek. His friend answered, “dynamis.” Nobel said,
“Well, I will call my discovery by that name.” So he called his explosive power dynamite. That is the same word in Acts 1:8, and it refers not of the power one has by intrinsic or even a delegated authority, but to the explosive, life changing dynamic of the Holy Spirit from God, the Father, through Jesus Christ and His written word.
This is not political power; political power is what the disciple wanted. They asked Jesus if He was going to set up a political machine. They could understand that kind of power, but that was not the power Jesus was talking about. He was talking about power that flows from God.
In Acts 1:7-8, we find the emphasis on two other things. First, the disciples were to be empowered for their tasks by the Holy Spirit. Second, they were to be agents of a worldwide geographical expansion of Christianity, and the two go together.
Their witness was to begin in Jerusalem, and then it was to expand outward like ripples in a pond embracing Judea and Samaria, then overflowing beyond those known communities…to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire and beyond.
The word “power” used in verse 8 is significant; it is the Greek word dynamis. In some versions of this text “power” occurs twice, once in verse 7, where it says:
The word “power” in verse 8 is misleading because in Greek these are two entirely different words. The New King James and the NIV translate the word as authority. “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority,” which is right. The second word is translated as power, “But you shall receive power...” actually it is only in the second instance that the text speaks of power as we understand the term power.
This is not political power; political power is what the disciple wanted. They asked Jesus if He was going to set up a political machine. They could understand that kind of power, but that was not the power Jesus was talking about. He was talking about power that flows from God.
"You shall receive power." This occurred. It is recorded in Acts 2. But I want you to remember that power arrived like the sound of wind—a mighty rushing wind; air. I want you to get the connection between Genesis 2:7, when God breathed air into Adam. He was giving him a spirit. I am convinced of that. And when God gave His Holy Spirit, He duplicated it on a majestic scale, and it again came to mankind—this time God's Holy Spirit—like the sound of wind, air moving. Mankind then is given a power, this time the Holy Spirit.
They did not understand when this would occur. He did not answer when this would occur. But the answer that He did give, the promise of power, does relate to their question, because the receiving of the Holy Spirit, and power, would enable them to function in their responsibility as representatives of the Kingdom until it would be established. It is important to get that. The receiving of the Holy Spirit (and power) would enable them to function in their responsibility as representatives of the Kingdom until it would be established.
Forty days had passed and the resurrected Christ had been right there before them proclaiming the Kingdom of God and all that He fulfilled in the law and the prophets! But they still did not get it. Their hearts may have burned when He was in front of them, but they still were not fully grasping things.
They merely saw Him as the leader of a physical revolution that fell far short of what the Father and Son actually had in mind—the real change God wanted was to turn the whole world upside down (Acts 17:6).
