Acts 1:1-11 deal with the forty days between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His ascension.
These verses emphasize the history of Christianity, the presence of Christ, the great commission, and Christ’s return. Acts is a short name for the Acts of the Apostles; it might more properly be called the continuing words and deeds of Jesus by His Spirit through His apostles
First we find an emphasis on the historical basis of Christianity. Luke tells Theophilus that he is going to continue the history that he began in his gospel. In Luke's earlier book, he said he had very carefully investigated the details of the life of Jesus Christ and had written them down only after this investigation. So Luke wants to continue that procedure and acts; he wants to be very careful and continue to investigate and make sure his facts are correct.
The things he wrote in the first book concerning all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day which He was taken up, as he declares in Acts l:1-2…these things are going to continue in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit. When Luke writes in Acts 1:3 of Jesus’ resurrection, he says that Jesus presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs being seen by them during forty days.
That is a very important sentence because it indicates that Jesus did not merely give His disciples certain ideas that they were then to carry into the world. They knew He had died and then He appeared to them as one who had risen from the dead—much greater impact than just actually seeing the death of Christ.
This and other similar experiences are what Luke had in mind when he wrote of infallible proofs. In essences he was saying, “I am going to chart the spread of Christianity, but I want you to know at the very beginning that this is a religion based on historical facts including the amazing matter of the resurrection.”
There is a second thing to see about theses opening verses; that is the dominate presence of the living Christ.
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.”
It is impossible to separate the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history; the Christ of faith that Christ presented to us in the pages of the New Testament is the Jesus of history, and there is no other. This is what Luke says as he begins both his gospel and Acts.
The Lord Jesus Christ who is and has always been the object of the faith of Christians down through all the Christian centuries is the Jesus who really lived, who was crucified, and who rose from the dead. He is the Messiah who always glorifies God the Father.
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; … . . .
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 emphasis is the expectation of the return of Christ, and this is the passage that tells Christ ascension into heaven during these forty days he had been appearing to the disciples on an unanticipated occasions to teach them spiritual things. If that had continued they might have thought, “Well, that is the way it is going to be forever. Every so often Jesus will just be here to give us the kind of instruction we need and then He will disappear.”
Jesus had to teach them that this phase of His work was ending, and the moment came when Jesus bid them goodbye, ascended visibly into heaven, and disappeared from sight. Verse 11 tells us that suddenly the disciples became aware that there were angels standing by them and the angels said to them, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky?” It was a way of saying, “Why are you just standing there. There is work to do; get on with it.” Then the angels gave a great promise. “This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”
We know that Jesus Christ is returning to judge the world, because we are told about it elsewhere in the New Testament. The disciples also have been told that one day Jesus would return to render judgment. But when the disciples were told that this same Jesus would come back, they would have thought of the Jesus they loved, not the judge. It was this gentle, loving, gracious, and sovereign Holy and majestic Christ who would come back.
They spent ten days with one accord thinking and praying about all that had been done within the time that Jesus Christ had been in front of them. Both what He said and did, along with their responses to those things.
Brethren, as I said, all metaphors break down, but the work of Jesus Christ never does, and the missing piece for the constancy of looking to Christ as the Author and Finisher of our faith is baptism of the Spirit, with the Father and Son dwelling within those Christ has determined to serve His Body! It ensures those gifted members of His Body will serve with eyes focused on Him, constantly and consistently.
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).
