The Book of Acts: Chapter 1, Lesson 2

In the last lesson we looked at the instructions Jesus gave His disciples after His resurrection. He wanted them to understand their future work of evangelizing the whole world. Since each Gospel writer gives a different portion of the instructions, we had to combine them to get a full picture of what Jesus said. We found that Matthew gives the program (Matt. 28:18-20). The disciples' task was to go everywhere, teach (literally, "make disciples of") all nations, baptize new believers, and teach them Jesus' commandments. Mark gives the promises (Mark 16:15-18), including Jesus' assurances to the disciples that their message would have an importance worthy of their hard labors. How people responded would determine whether they would live or die. Another promise was that God would verify their message by enabling them to perform supernatural signs. The portion of Jesus' instructions we find in John concerns the power that would enable the disciples to carry out their task. John remembers when Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22). We said that this was not the moment when the Holy Spirit actually came to indwell them.

Delving Deeper

To retain the full significance of Pentecost, we must disallow two erroneous teachings that have surfaced in recent years. 1) The incident recorded in John was when the Holy Spirit came to indwell the disciples. 2) Although the Spirit did not at that time descend to indwell the disciples, they received a special filling of the Spirit.

In reply to the first teaching, we can refer to in Acts 1:4-5. Jesus said that the disciples would not receive the promise of the Father until they had waited for it in Jerusalem. The Father's promise was that the Spirit would descend upon His people. Many Old Testament prophecies, including the one in Joel that Peter quoted on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:16-21), foresee the Spirit's descent. But by "the promise of the Father," Jesus was referring mainly not to what they learned from ancient prophecy, but to what they learned from teaching He had recently given. During the Last Supper, He taught that He would send the Holy Spirit from the Father (John 15:26). His other comments on this occasion lead us to two conclusions.

First, He was talking about the Holy Spirit coming to establish a new relationship with believers. The promise of His coming would be empty of importance if He was merely to continue the functions He always performed. In the past, He had come upon believers occasionally to empower them for specific tasks. But now He was coming as the Comforter. The Greek word for "Comforter" is the source of the English word Paraclete, which means someone who comes alongside to help. To perform His work of convicting men of sin (John 16:9), teaching righteousness (John 16:10), warning of judgment (John 16:11), and revealing all truth (John 16:13), the Spirit would be always present with believers. He would reside in each one permanently. Christians say that He now indwells the believer.

Second, in His promise to send the indwelling Comforter He was talking about an event that would happen after the Ascension, not before, for He said that the Comforter could not come and take Jesus' place until Jesus departed (John 16:7). We conclude that the Spirit came to indwell believers not at the time of the incident in John, but at Pentecost.

In reply to the second teaching, we can present four arguments:

1. The disciples in the Upper Room before Pentecost displayed no special power. Indeed, they were still casting lots to determine God's will.

2. They did not at that time need special power. On the contrary, they needed a special sense of weakness so that they might pray more effectively for the power to come.

3. Jesus' saying immediately before He breathed on them points to the future, to the time when they would be sent out with the gospel. He said, "Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (John 20:21). The context therefore suggests that receiving the Spirit would be a future event also.

4. His subsequent saying was this: "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:23). He was explaining why the disciples needed the Spirit. They needed Him so that men might be justly held accountable for their response when they heard the disciples witness for Christ. Seen in this light, the disciples obviously stand in place of the church, which did not exist on the earth until after the Spirit came at Pentecost. His descent at that time must therefore have been the event Jesus had in mind when He predicted that they (the church as embodied in the first disciples) would receive the Spirit.

We have considered Jesus' last instructions as we find them in three Gospel writers. Lastly, we will consider what Luke says. He gives the places where the gospel should be carried (Acts 1:8). Beginning in Jerusalem, the church should move outward in its work of evangelism until it reaches the uttermost parts of the earth. Luke is obviously defining a corporate rather than an individual responsibility. Only the church as a whole can take the gospel everywhere. Yet if an obligation falls on the whole church, each believer must bear some of the weight. The whole world will not hear the gospel unless each believer proclaims it within his small corner of the world.

Getting Practical

As we go through our day, we should see every person we meet in a store or on the street as a needy soul, and we should use any opportunities for witness that God may provide. God does not expect us to buttonhole everyone in our path. He knows that we need time to conduct our personal business. When therefore do we have an obligation to witness? Under two circumstances: 1) when there is opportunity—that is, whenever we have an appropriate place and sufficient time to speak with someone one-on-one, and 2) when we sense an inner prompting from the Holy Spirit. If we are sensitive and obedient to His promptings, He will increase our opportunities to witness. If we are not, opportunities will shrink and promptings will fade away. The Holy Spirit does not speak to a deaf ear.

Besides being a witness as we go through our daily routines, we should assist our local church in its calling programs and other efforts to reach every person in our Jerusalem.

But local evangelism is not enough. Through our church we should look beyond our Jerusalem to our Judea and Samaria. We should support church planting in neighboring communities and throughout our nation. And we should send missionaries to foreign countries around the globe.

Yet the angels immediately added words of encouragement, for us as well as for the disciples. They said that Jesus would someday come back to this world. Although nearly two thousand years have gone by since the Ascension, we dare not doubt that Jesus will come again.

Pondering a Question

Why Has Jesus Not Yet Returned?

In his last epistle, the apostle Peter anticipated that men would someday grow impatient as they waited for Christ's return. "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. . . . The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:3-4, 9).

Jesus has delayed His return only because the Father wants as many to be saved as possible. Aren't you glad that Jesus did not return before you had a chance to live and believe in Him? Yet make no mistake. He will return.

As the angels said, Jesus will return in the same manner as He ascended two thousand years ago. Just as He went up gradually into the clouds, so He will descend gradually from the clouds. "They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. 24:30). He will first set foot on the Mount of Olives, the last place He stood before leaving. "Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east" (Zech. 14:3-4).

Only eleven of the original twelve disciples were in the upper room. The traitor, Judas, was missing. In a speech before the gathering, Peter retold the tragedy of Judas. Although he enjoyed the wonderful privilege of walking with Jesus day by day and sharing in the work of the Twelve, Judas had betrayed Jesus out of greed for a few pieces of silver. Yet what did he gain from "the reward of iniquity"? Nothing at all. When he realized the enormity of his wickedness, he went to the priests and cast the money at their feet. Then he "went and hanged himself" (Matt. 27:5). The priests, unwilling to put blood money into the treasury, used it to buy a field where they might bury strangers. The field became known as the field of blood. To resolve the different accounts of Judas' death, we must assume that he hanged himself from a cliff overlooking the same field. The rope must have broken, for his body tumbled down upon the rocks and split open, causing his bowels to spill out.

Pondering a Question

Why Were the Consequences of Turning against the Lord So Different for Judas and Peter?

It is interesting to compare Peter and Judas. Judas betrayed Jesus and Peter denied Him. But whereas Judas died by suicide, in disgrace, Peter was restored and given a place of leadership in the church. What was the fundamental difference between these two men?

Judas was not a saved man. Although he walked with Jesus, he never loved Him. His only real love was money (John 12:6). From the beginning he was controlled by Satan (John 6:70). He regretted betraying Christ because he knew Jesus did not deserve to die. But although he had a conscience, enabling him to feel remorse, he had no capacity for life-changing repentance.

Peter, on the other hand, always loved Christ. His denial of Christ was not premeditated treachery, but a moment's reaction to great fear. What he felt afterward was more than regret. It was a heart-rending sorrow, tending to self-hatred. In His last conversation with Peter, the Lord healed this sorrow by giving him a chance to reaffirm his love (John 21:15-19).

How could a man walk with Jesus day by day and not love Him? Judas's hardness of heart should not surprise us. How many men down through history have entered a religious life or profession although they were spiritually hollow? Let us each be sure that our motivation for acting the part of a Christian is a genuine love for Christ.

When Peter stood up to speak, he said that Christ's betrayal was not an accident of history, but a fulfillment of prophecy, and he reminded everyone that prophecy must be fulfilled.

Getting Practical

No doubt Peter's purpose in speaking about Judas was to comfort the disciples as they mourned for him. In their grief they expressed the heart of God. Although Judas had been a great enemy of Christ, God does not rejoice over the death of His enemies. He said, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezek. 33:11). To us He gave the command: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him" (Prov. 24:17-18). Rather than rejoice, we should mourn that he did not fulfill his potential as a creature of God.

From the book of Psalms, Peter showed that Judas' terrible fate was just. David pronounced a terrible sentence on the future betrayer of Christ: "Let his habitation be desolate." In other words, let the man die, and let nothing be left of his family or belongings, so that his dwelling place will be found empty.

Delving Deeper

Peter is quoting from Psalm 69:25. The psalmist is foreseeing God's judgment upon the whole Jewish nation for rejecting their Messiah. Although it did not fully ripen until forty years later, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70, this judgment began with the suicide of Judas. Verse 28 shows that Judas was not saved when he died.

David had also said, "His bishopric let another take." Peter understood this saying to mean that the disciples should choose a replacement for Judas.

Delving Deeper

The saying is taken from Psalm 109:8. Verses 2-4 of the same psalm provide the setting. The psalmist is talking about betrayal by a friend. The passage down to verse 15 is a terrible curse expressing God's wrath on the betrayer of God's Son.

As leader of the Twelve, Peter ruled that the new member must be a man who had followed Jesus from the very beginning of His ministry, when He was baptized by John. The company found two eligible men: Joseph (also called Barsabas) and Matthias. Rather than choose the twelfth by ballot, they submitted the decision to God. They prayed that when they cast lots, the lot would fall on the right man. The result was that Matthias took Judas' place.

Pondering a Question

Did the Disciples Use a Proper Method for Determining God's Will?

The disciples have been criticized for casting lots. But the choice of Matthias occurred in the twilight hours of the Old Testament era. The Old Testament recommends this method for deciding hard questions. "The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD" (Prov. 16:33).

The company in the upper room numbered about 120 adults. How could so few evangelize the world? But in the days ahead the church quickly grew to include thousands more. A few years later there were believers in every corner of the Roman world. The church continued to expand at a tremendous rate for the next several centuries.

Delving Deeper

In one of His Kingdom parables, Jesus predicted that a mustard seed would grow to be the largest plant in the garden. "Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof" (Matt. 13:31-32).

Like the other parables in Matthew 13, this Parable of the Mustard Seed is an overview of the coming Church Age. The mustard seed represents the church in its infancy—the 120 followers of Christ who sat in the upper room waiting for the Spirit to come. They were the planted seed. When the seed sprouted and grew, it became the largest religious body in the world. Today the number of people worldwide who identify themselves as Christian exceeds by far the number of adherents to any other religion.

Getting Practical

Although casting lots was appropriate in the Old Testament era, it is no longer so today. Neither is any other method that basically relies on chance outcomes, such as opening up a Bible and finding a verse at random. Such methods became obsolete when the Holy Spirit descended and the Church Age began. Since then, believers have had both the Spirit and the completed Bible to show them the will of God.