Acts 1

Notes.Division 1. (Acts 1:1-26; Acts 2:1-47; Acts 3:1-26; Acts 4:1-37; Acts 5:1-42; Acts 6:1-15; Acts 7:1-60)The Beginning of the Church: the call of Israel alone. Israel has rejected her Lord and Saviour: the Son of God has come to His own, and His own have not received Him. Tested under law, they had been proved “ungodly and without strength;” the coming of Christ had now more completely tested them, with a more terrible result: the Cross had now manifested as to them that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God. It is true that this was not the condition of Israel only. “As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man;” and we have learned nothing right, if we have not learned to identify ourselves with the privileged nation, and to see in their condemnation the judgment passed upon the whole world. This we shall have put before us fully by the apostle of the Gentiles in that epistle in which he declares a salvation needed alike by all as being without difference guilty before God. But this is not what we have to do with here; here it is as yet Israel alone that is before us; Israel, over whom the heart of God is still yearning, and for whom, therefore, as a nation, there is to be a first offer of grace, if perhaps the demonstration of their guilt and danger in the crucifixion of the Son of God may work upon them to receive it. “Repentance and remission of sins” was indeed to be “preached among all nations,” but “beginning at Jerusalem,” (Luke 24:47), and from thence, if even yet they would repent, the living streams were to flow forth. Accordingly at the Cross itself there is heard the intercession, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;” words which Peter takes up in his address to the multitude upon the healing of the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple: “And now, brethren, I know that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers;” and thereupon he assures them that, if now they repented, the times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord, and He would send Jesus Christ to fulfil to them all that the prophets had foretold of blessing (Acts 3:17-21). With this offer and its results the first division mainly is taken up; the end being reached in the trial and stoning of Stephen, who fulfils his name in receiving the “crown” of martyrdom, and is, according to the Lord’s parable the messenger of the unhappy people sent after Him, to say they will not have this Man to reign over them. Until this time there is no going out whatever to the Gentiles. Although the risen Saviour has declared that the apostles are to be His witnesses “in Samaria, and to the end of the earth,” not even Samaria, though so near at hand, and having, in fact, upon one memorable occasion, heard, not without precious fruit, the gospel from His own lips, gets any further testimony. All seems in suspense while the issue of Israel’s call is yet to be seen. A Gentile centurion has already proclaimed the Crucified to be the Son of God; yet we hear of no Gentile added to the Church; and this, though formed by the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, has not displayed therefore its distinctive characteristics. It is a remnant of Israel merely, and has heard nothing apparently whatever of its own high calling. From this point it is that a notable change begins.

Acts 1:1-11

Subdivision 1. (Acts 1:1-11.)The Foundation. It is striking that, while Luke’s is one of the two only Gospels closing with the ascension of Christ, he yet should begin what is in some sense, as he declares, a continuation of his former work, with another account. The reason of this, however, is not hard to discover. In Matthew He has announced that upon that “Rock” which Peter had just confessed He would build His assembly (Matthew 16:18). And He Himself, as Peter assures us, is the foundation upon which this “spiritual house” is built up (1 Peter 2:4-6). Resurrection it is that has marked out the Son of the Living God (Romans 1:4). His work is there manifestly accomplished and accepted; that upon which all rests for us is finished, and here alone can there be an unchangeably secure foundation laid for any blessing.

But the Church as the “spiritual house” is the House of God; and it is made so by the indwelling of the Spirit within it; while, if we think of it as the Body of Christ, it is by one Spirit that we are all baptized into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). This the Lord presently assures us, was at Pentecost: Pentecost then was the beginning of the Church, and the Spirit given at that time was the fruit of Christ’s departure to the Father (John 16:7); and it is as there set at the right hand of God that He is made Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body (Ephesians 1:20-23). It is plain, then, why the story of the assembly as related here should have for its introduction the ascension of Christ. It was fitting that this should end the Gospel; it is as fitting that it should begin the history of the Acts: in both connections its place is perfect, yet it is neither from the Gospel nor the Acts that we are made to realize this. Scripture as a whole is the product of one Mind alone.

1. It is the writer of the Gospel of the Manhood who gives us here, distinctly as linked with it, the story of that which He has specially associated with Himself as Man. The body is that by which the spirit of man which is in him takes its part in the world and is able to express itself in a scene like this. The Body of Christ is in the same way the “epistle of Christ,” the expression of the absent One who as Head guides and governs it. To be feet and hands and mouth for Christ, as representatives of Him, seems fittingly and naturally to explain our position in this respect, which the opening of the Acts may well confirm. “Acts of the Apostles” is the title given by the MSS., which is confirmed by writers as early as Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, while Luke himself might appear to furnish another. For he calls his Gospel a “first account” of things which “Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which He was taken up.” The “Acts” he leaves us to infer to be a second account, of things Jesus went on to do after His ascension, somewhat as Mark speaks of the disciples going forth and preaching everywhere, “the Lord (in heaven) working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.” Here in Luke it would be, not the Lord working with, but in and through; and this would be completely that which the members on earth of the Christ in heaven would seem to suggest. A company like this the world had never seen before. It implies an intimate fellowship with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and a unity of loving obedience to His will, which, empowered by the Spirit of God, would be indeed an epistle of Christ upon the earth; and such truly was the Church at its commencement. They were a force among men which was recognized alike by enemies and friends. As they became known, indifference ceased regarding them; there remained but sympathy or opposition, friendship or bitter hatred. They experienced the truth of the Saviour’s words, “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.” And, while persecution did not fail to follow, the word of God ran and was glorified; the light shone; the heavens through which Christ had gone were pouring out radiance through that open door. Luke writes once more to his friend Theophilus, who, we notice, has lost his title of honor on the world’s roll, -a sign, perhaps, of advance in honor on a better one; perhaps the world had promoted the “friend of God” after its fashion with such. At any rate, Luke was sure of Theophilus, continued interest in such matters as he cared to write about. In him Jesus had begun both to do and teach, -a beginning which would have a glorious ending and a sure one. He is not able to go on in the truth, for whom the world is not dropping off the more in proportion as he goes on with this; and such an one, we may surely believe, was he to whom Luke the evangelist, -must we not say, Luke’s glorious Master also? -was able to pour out his heart. Of that which Jesus goes on to do and teach, Luke devotes himself, as we have seen, to the activity, rather than the doctrine. It has never been the method of the Spirit to confide what He has to communicate to a single teacher. No one vessel could be found competent to hold all the truth; -a thing to be marked at all times, when the Spirit is communicating. Humility is better served, communion is more realized, God is mote fully exalted, in the use of various instruments, not tied to any, working sovereignly as He will. But Luke has a very distinct line of his own, as, more or less, every inspired writer has. He is the historian of the Spirit’s energy in a world of sin and of Satan’s power manifested; -the historian, therefore, of a mighty conflict, the world side of that which in Ephesians is seen upon its heavenly side. Here it is the struggle to save men from his sway on earth; there it is to lay hold against all his wiles of our inheritance in heaven. It is the commandment of the Lord to which all are subject here; He, as true and typal Man, speaking by the Holy Spirit upon Him to the apostles He had chosen; to whom as witnesses of His resurrection He shows Himself alive after His suffering with many sure proofs. For the resurrection, as the sign of His acceptance, and of ours in Him, is the basis of the whole gospel, and of our heavenly position, as well as of the Church; and thus the resurrection chapter closes the first epistle to the Corinthians, the epistle of Church fellowship and activity, the doctrinal counterpart of the Acts itself. Again and again, therefore, during forty days the risen Lord is seen by them, and as no mere apparition, but freely speaking to them of the Kingdom of God, to the interests of which they were now devoted. This is the general term for that which meets the condition of a world away from God, which has thrown off allegiance to Him, and wandered in the tortuous labyrinths of its false wisdom and the misery of its self-will. For God being no longer in His place, all else is out of its place necessarily when that to which all is in relation has ceased to be. Thus the news of the coming of the Kingdom of God is indeed gospel; and the faith of Jesus, as it prevails, establishes of necessity the Kingdom. The full rest of the soul is only gained when the apprehension of sovereign Love has subjected the will of man to entire acquiescence in its blessed ways.
2. It is not by the knowledge of His resurrection merely that they are qualified to bear testimony for their Lord. The promise of the Father is to be fulfilled, and they are to be baptized with the Holy Spirit within a few days from that time. It is sorrowful enough, after all the pains that the Lord has taken to make known the true nature of the coming of the Spirit, and even in spite of the apostle’s declaration that “by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body,” that Christians should still be ignorant of the character of that which then took place, -should confound Person and influence, the Gift with the gifts! The Lord has fully shown us that it was the Spirit Himself who then would come in place of Him who was now going away: “another Comforter” or Advocate, to be with them, as Christ had been, but in them also, making their bodies by His Presence temples of God. As the Spirit of adoption He taught them to cry, “Abba, Father!” As dwelling in the Church, this became also the House and Temple of God; as united by Him to Christ, His Body. The various gifts are qualifications for various place in this, as its members. It is not so much denied that such things are, as that it was ever otherwise than now, at least from Abraham, with whom by most the Church is thought to have begun. All that has taken place since is, for those who hold such views, merely an increase of light and power; the coming of the Spirit merely a strong term for a larger outpouring than heretofore; and such “a Pentecostal shower” should “precede every sermon.” This treatment of Scripture evacuates it of its proper meaning. Its language becomes loose, indefinite, incapable of precise significance. We escape from this fog easily by giving the same credit to the statements of the word of God that we should to those of any honest man not given to exaggeration, nor liable to confusion of speech. However, this is not yet the place to discuss the doctrine of the Church, for the simple reason that we have not, yet the scripture as to it, and the Church is born, like many another child of destiny, without the knowledge of its God-given dignity. But we should notice that the Lord, after His resurrection, has acknowledged in His disciples brethren of His own, and that the “promise of the Father” of which He here speaks characterizes well the Spirit of adoption which is at hand. The children of God which have been scattered abroad are now to be gathered together, and this involves that they shall be known to themselves and one another. Baptism with the Holy Spirit, whatever else it may mean, is the introduction into this acknowledged family of God, and as the Holy Spirit, the introduction accomplished by it is no formality but a true and enduring change. John’s baptism of water is only mentioned, as he himself mentioned it, to be put in contrast with the gift now to be given by the Son of God. It is a true initiation into a spiritual state, never to be confounded or mixed up with any baptism of water: there the line is clearly drawn by the Lord’s own conduct as to the latter: “Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples” (John 4:2). Those gathered round Him now, as risen from the dead, are still, however, Jews, and with little ability to enter into that which the Lord is putting before them. We hear, at least of no question pointing in this direction. They have another, “Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” The answer to this we can easily see now they were not prepared for; nor did it accord with the offer which was to be made through them to the nation, to be told the final result. “It is not for you,” He says, “to know times and seasons which the Father has placed under His own authority.” Yet, with reference to Israel in the days preceding her entrance into the blessings promised her, such times are not only given, but it was distinctly declared to the prophet of them that, while the vision was shut up and sealed to the time of the end, yet that then the wise shall understand (Daniel 12:9-11). The Lord’s words therefore are an intimation that they stood not in such relation to the coming blessing. And as they were, so are we still. A heavenly people, waiting to be caught up to heaven, “days and months, and times, and years” are not for those who are not of the world, but detached from the stream of the world’s history.

That which to the wise in Israel, in such a crisis as Daniel shows they are to pass through, will be of the greatest importance for them to know, would have been to Christians, through all the intervening centuries of their history, a knowledge which would have put far off from them the One for whom they wait. We still watch because we know not what hour our Lord doth come (Matthew 24:42). But if times and seasons were not for them to understand, there was a glorious testimony to be given, for which the Spirit’s coming would empower them. They were to be His witnesses far and wide, even to the end of the earth; and of this testimony Jerusalem would be the beginning and the centre. How great a glory indeed the Light that arising out of Israel illumines already with its beams every heart that will receive it in! “A Light,” says Simeon, “for revelation of the nations, and the Glory of Thy people Israel.” But not as yet would Israel receive the message sent. 3. Now in open sight of all, He is taken up. The cloud that receives Him out of their sight is surely the “bright cloud” of the Transfiguration. It is the Man Christ Jesus welcomed by the Glory into which He is taken; and no vision of angels would be as fitting as is this. Nay, angels have here no place: we are made to think rather of the apostle’s words, that being perfected, He was “saluted of God a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:10). The Glory salutes Him here, now perfected; and His priestly office is that upon which depends all the outflow of divine grace with which the book is filled. Upon earth the angels have their message of comfort: this Jesus is to return as He went up; the beginning and end of the day of atonement are here brought together. As Priest He departs, and as Priest He will return to bless the people of Israel. As yet it is of Israel that they are specially thinking; and His coming for the Church is not revealed. The disciples are in heart an Israelitish remnant still, and the revelation of the purposes of God proceeds only gradually. But heaven is where He is; and the angels, message comforts the home-sickness of their hearts as they see Him depart. Up, then! to serve Him in His absence. Not in contemplation merely, but in active energy of devoted labor will they be in fellowship with Him, who even upon the throne of heaven is serving still.

Acts 1:12-26

Subdivision 2. (Acts 1:12-26.)Matthias added to the Eleven Apostles. We have now the inroad that Satan has made upon their ranks repaired, and Matthias substituted for Judas in the number of the twelve apostles. Dreadful was the apostasy of one in such a position: and it could not be permitted that men should have the least apparent cause to blaspheme on this account; it must be shown that sin in its extremest manifestation had not yet exceeded the bounds ordained by God for it; -that in its worst uprising He was Master still.

1. They return from the mount of Olives to Jerusalem: Olivet is their spring of power; Jerusalem the sphere of their ministry: they break no sabbath-rest by journeying between the two. Olivet is their Gilgal, for their new conquest of the land; but they are a small company for so great a work, and realize their weakness. Gathering in the upper room where the eleven are staying, they continue with one accord in prayer, waiting for the fulfilment of the promise made. This conscious weakness is a main element of strength. The work being so entirely beyond them, they are delivered from the necessity of calculating their own resources, and are left to the unobstructed view of God as their sole argument and their sufficient resource. Mary the mother of Jesus is seen here for the last time in Scripture. She takes her place simply with the rest, humbled, no doubt, rather than exalted by God’s grace towards her. What a grief it would have been to her to have known the place in which an apostate church would set her in the time to come! She is neither prayed to, nor even leads in prayer, but remains as in the beginning “the handmaid of the Lord,” and with this passes out of the history. In the doctrine of the epistles she has no place, and is never mentioned. Blessed and honored she is, and always will be; by none so dishonored as by those who would force her into a place impossible for a creature, that of a Pagan goddess rather than a Christian saint.
2. We see now the authority of Scripture over these disciples of the Lord Jesus, in which they are true followers of their Master. We have traced His ways in the Gospels, and know how fully the principle that “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live” was acted upon by Him. Scripture that “cannot be broken” had for Him, therefore, all the authority of unalterable truth. “But how, then should Scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” He gives as a convincing reason for not taking Himself out of the hands of those who came to seize Him. On the Cross, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled, He saith, I thirst.” Twice over He speaks of the course and end of Judas as needful “that Scripture might be fulfilled.” Peter, therefore, does but follow his Lord, when now, standing up amongst the brethren, he declares that “it was necessary that the Scripture should be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became guide to those who took Jesus.” How blessed to realize the control of the Word of God in the darkest events, as in those most evidently displaying the signs of His handiwork! How dark they would be, if we had not in this way the assurance of His perfect oversight of every circumstance!

But the Cross is, above all, this assurance, as the speaker here will presently point out to us. What a blaze of prophetic light is concentrated upon it! and how the worst evil the world ever saw is there gloriously overruled to be the greatest good! And what is true of this is true of every evil that has stained man’s history: “He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him; and the remainder of wrath He will restrain.” So, then, with Judas, whose terrible descent is spoken of here, from his reception of the lot of his apostleship to his suicide in the field of blood, which he had purchased with the price of his iniquity. The apparently discordant accounts as to this purchase have been reconciled in a manner well-known and probable enough. Begun by the traitor, we have only to suppose it closed by the leaders of the people; Judas returning to it to hang himself in his despair, as Matthew relates; the judgment of God ensuing, as related here. That the character of the purchase-money should combine with the horror of his death to give its name of Aceldama to the potter’s field, is in no wise difficult to understand. Peter in his quotation connects two psalms (Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:8); the first fulfilled in the judgment at which his own hands had doubly wrought, the second as defining the duty which now pressed upon them. The office which he has shamed and cast aside is not to be left vacant to bear witness of the enemy’s victory. All has been provided for, -all has been specified beforehand in the prescient wisdom of God, which cannot be taken by surprise or overmatched by Satan’s subtlety or power. Nay, the Word is shown by his apparent success only the more fully master in all circumstances. It lies with them now to see filled up their broken ranks, -not by the appointment of a fresh apostle, for which plainly they have no authority, but by choosing out from among themselves those who had the necessary qualifications for one who was to be a witness of that wondrous life which had shone out among men, and then referring to the Lord Himself to determine which of these was according to His mind. 3. Scripture had settled for them what His mind was as to the place being filled; for the determining of the individual there was the lot, used so often in Israel for a matter like this. They had even the scripture for this, that. if “the lot is cast into the lap, the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33). They had no reason to doubt, therefore, that they would have His guidance in acting on such an assurance; the Spirit had not yet come; and this, which some have taken to cast doubt upon the issue, and to dispute Matthias, right to the apostleship, they had no ground for believing to be a cause for delay when Scripture was thus clear. They acted in obedience, not in self-confidence; we never find their act disputed afterwards, and we have surely no right to dispute it now. It would be a totally different thing to imitate their conduct, now that the Spirit of God is come. It is true that we have nothing of Matthias afterwards; but the same could be said of most of the apostles; nor of the fancied substitution of Paul for him at a later time have we any proof whatever. We have no reason for believing Matthias to have been other than his name imports, “the gift of the Lord” to them, according to their faith; and it is a happy thing to see faith acting in them in such simplicity and confidence, the word of God being its justification as always, -in this case before the Spirit has come. When He comes, it will not be to render us less subject to the Word, but on the contrary, to give us the fulness of it, even of the Old Testament; and the new dispensation which is now being introduced, with all its higher blessing, will confirm the old.