to whom also he presented himself living, after he had suffered, with many proofs; being seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things which concern the kingdom of God;
Between the cross and the ascension stand forty days, and Acts opens by summing them up. Three questions sit inside this verse: what did the proofs prove, why forty days, and why the kingdom of God?
Older Bibles use an unfamiliar word here. A Bible dictionary gives its sense:
"Passion" means suffering: Christ showed Himself alive after His suffering. Acts 1:3.
So His suffering was over. One writer makes that the first of three facts the church could not exist without:
In the opening chapter of Acts we are faced with three great facts. First, redemption is accomplished... His sufferings then were over — redemption was accomplished. That was one great fact. Two other facts follow: the Lord Jesus Christ is received up into glory; the Holy Spirit is received on earth. Without all three of these tremendous facts, the church could not exist.
The "many proofs" are not a side detail. They are the fact the rest of Acts keeps returning to:
Christ presented Himself alive after He had suffered. This was the great fact, established "by many proofs" (v. 3). So it is the subject of testimony throughout the Book, and it is the foundation truth of the gospel.
Take the proofs away and the messengers have nothing to say:
Without the resurrection the apostles would have been as weak as water and their message futile; with it came a power and conviction that produced marvellous and precious results.
The disciples did not take the news easily, and that helps rather than hurts their case:
At first the news of the resurrection seemed to the disciples like idle tales. It is a strong point in the proof of our Lord's resurrection that they were slow to believe. They refused to admit that the Lord had risen until they had indisputable, first-hand proof. If they had been ready to believe any tale they heard, their testimony would carry no weight. But these men were slow to believe the astounding news, and indisputable evidence convinced them. Their testimony should not be denied.
The appearances were counted, and so was the span of days:
We have recorded in Scripture that the Lord was seen ten times in resurrection, five times on the first day of the week and five times afterwards. He showed Himself for forty days. Why forty? Because forty was the full time of probation and testing. So the testimony to the truth and reality of the resurrection is absolute — and sadly, many now deny it.
He was still here, yet no longer tied to earth — and that shaped what He talked about:
In bodily presence He had not yet left the earth for heaven. Yet He was no more of the earth than He was of the great world-system that had crucified Him... 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 and other passages list His appearances during those forty days. Not one of them is to the world, or to anyone who belonged to the world. Only His own saw Him... His interests were not here but there, and all His conversations with His disciples during that time concerned the kingdom of God.
One writer reads that teaching as the kingdom in its present shape, not its coming splendour:
What He said about the kingdom of God was not, we may be sure, about its future state of glory and majesty. It was about the kingdom in its present form, bound up with a rejected Messiah, as the following verses show clearly.
His answer replaced one expectation with another:
Once they were gathered together, they asked Him about the time when the kingdom would be restored to Israel. This drew out that weighty word of His. Without setting the kingdom aside, it was meant to turn their hearts to the coming of the Holy Spirit — an unseen spiritual power. He was not setting before their hearts an Israel in revived glory and a Messiah in displayed power. He was setting before them a refused and departing Saviour, bringing in a time of testimony, in which the Holy Spirit and they were to be His witnesses.
- Suffering finished. The old word "passion" means suffering. His sufferings were over and redemption accomplished — the ground everything else stands on.
- Proof given. Many proofs settled the resurrection. It is the foundation truth of the gospel and the running subject of the book.
- Doubt answered. The disciples would not believe without first-hand proof. That makes their later witness harder to dismiss.
- Time taken. Forty days — the full span of testing — and ten recorded appearances, all to His own and none to the world.
- Kingdom explained. He spoke of the kingdom in its present form, under a rejected Messiah. That leads straight on to the Spirit's coming and a time of witness.
and, being assembled with [them], commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, which [said he] ye have heard of me.
Between the resurrection and Pentecost, the Lord tells the apostles to do nothing but wait in one city. Why wait, why in Jerusalem, and what is "the promise of the Father"?
The opening phrase, "while staying with them," appears in older versions as "being assembled with them." A note in the margin offers a different reading again. One writer tests it against what Peter later said about the days after the resurrection:
The day of His final departure was near. The disciples were hearing His last instructions. Being assembled with them — or, as the margin puts it, "eating with them" — the Lord told them not to leave Jerusalem... The margin's reading would fit well with what Peter said to Cornelius and his friends (10:41): that the disciples ate and drank with the Lord after He rose from the dead... What times those must have been! What grace they show!
The Lord adds that they had heard this promise from Him. One writer traces what that memory would have brought back:
They remembered what He said to them in the upper room, after He gave them the Lord's Supper. The Lord had made the astounding statement, "It is better for you that I go away"... He said, "If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come, the other Comforter. The One Who is coming will come to take My place, and He will be to you even more than I have been. He will live with you, not for three years, but will stay with you for ever."
People often mix this gift up with two other works of the Spirit. One commentator separates them, and shows why the timing depended on Christ's leaving:
It matters greatly that we understand this. Many wrongly apply the Spirit's baptism either to miraculous displays or to the new birth... The question here is not the great basic need of sinful people at all times to be born of the Spirit. Still less is it those gifts... It is the immense and lasting privilege of the church: the Holy Spirit sent down in person to stay with the saints and to be in them... This depended on the Son's going away. If He did not go away, that other Advocate, the Spirit of truth, would not come. But once the work of reconciliation was done, Jesus went on high and sent the Spirit down here.
This settles an old puzzle. In John 20 the Lord had already breathed on the disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. Yet here He still tells them to wait.
Was this giving of the Spirit the gift spoken of in John 7:39; 14:17, 26; 15:26; 16:7-13? No. In Acts 1:4, at a later date than the one John writes about here, the Lord told His disciples that they were still to wait for the promise of the Father.
The promise also pointed them away from Israel's earthly hopes:
The sending of the Holy Spirit also led them out of the Jewish field of promises that were only earthly. The Father's promise of the Holy Spirit was a very different thing from the promise that Jehovah, the God of judgment, would restore the kingdom of Israel by His power.
The command fixes them in one place together, and that detail carries weight:
Acts 1:4 reminds us that the early disciples did not receive the Holy Spirit one by one. The Lord commanded them to gather at Jerusalem and wait there for the promise of the Father, the blessed Holy Spirit of God... The Spirit came and formed the believers into one body — Christ the Head in heaven, the believers the body on earth.
Being told to wait was itself a test, and one writer draws out what they did with it:
Fallen nature cannot wait. It is impatient, because it distrusts God. The Israelites could not wait for Moses to come down from the mountain. King Saul could not wait for Samuel to come. The Lord tested the disciples at this very point. He said "Wait," and they gathered in Jerusalem in submission to Him, bound together in the bonds of Divine love, and waited as He had said.
That wait was for one occasion only. God answered their prayers, and the answer stands:
The hundred and twenty people gathered there took their stand on that promise. They prayed and received the answer. If we now ask for the Holy Spirit to be sent, we are centuries behind the time. He is here. How sad it is to neglect His presence!
- Promised — the Father's promise is the Holy Spirit Himself, a Person sent to stay for ever, not a burst of miracles and not the new birth.
- Purchased — the gift waited on Christ's going away. He finished the work of reconciliation, went on high, and sent the Spirit down.
- Postponed — the breathing in John 20 was not this gift, since the Lord still tells them here to keep waiting.
- Placed — the Lord kept them together in Jerusalem, because the Spirit came to form one body, not to visit believers one by one.
- Past — their wait tested their obedience, and prayer carried them through. Ours is over: the Spirit has come and remains.
For John indeed baptised with water, but *ye* shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit after now not many days.
The risen Jesus spends forty days with His disciples. Then He leaves them with a command to wait and a promise to hold on to. That promise sets John's baptism beside something new. It raises three questions: what is this baptism, when did it come, and who is included?
The verse works by contrast. One commentator draws the line between repentance and the power Christianity brings:
Repentance did not, of course, stop under Christ. In a world of sin it will always be the necessary path of a soul born of God. Still, a soul turning to God, with a sense of sin and self-judgment, is one thing. The divine power that sets evil aside is another. That power rests on a redemption accomplished by the grace of God. This is the characteristic blessing of Christianity.
John's baptism belonged to an older order and pointed forward. Another writer sets the two side by side:
John's baptism called for repentance, but it never came out of the Jewish sphere... it was a baptism to repentance for man on the earth, and not Christ's death and resurrection... In fact, John's baptism only taught repentance here below, so that people would receive Christ. Christianity taught the effectiveness of the death and resurrection of a rejected Christ. On that basis they would receive the Holy Spirit, the Comforter come down from heaven.
Two common misreadings are worth clearing away, and one commentator names them both:
Many wrongly apply the Spirit's baptism either to miraculous displays or to the new birth. They do so all the more because He certainly worked in both these ways at Pentecost, and on a large scale. But the reader has only to consider John 14–16 to learn from God's word what is in view here. It is not the great primary need of sinful man at all times, to be born of the Spirit. Still less is it those gifts so freely given to those who confessed the Lord at that time. It is the immense and lasting privilege of the church: the presence of the Holy Spirit, sent down in person to remain with the saints and be in them.
The timing rules out the second misreading:
These disciples were certainly born again before Pentecost. So this baptism was not their new birth.
The Lord gave no date, only a short wait. One writer counts the days:
They saw the Lord during forty days after He rose from the dead. Then ten days passed from His ascension until the day of Pentecost (or fiftieth day) fully came. When it came, the promise was fulfilled.
Those ten days were not empty. No witness could begin until the Spirit came. Yet the disciples could still "take and maintain the safe place of utter dependence upon God" (F. B. Hole).
The Lord's promise names the Spirit, but says nothing about fire. One writer explains why:
His earthly work of the cross was over. All its fruits will come in due time. His heavenly work of baptizing with the Holy Spirit — spoken of so often in the Gospels — was still to come... The baptism "with fire" is left out, because that is still future. The fire of judgment will yet cleanse His kingdom of every stumbling-block and those who practise wickedness. It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit's appearance in tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost.
This baptism was not only a personal gift. It formed one body, and its reach goes far past the group who heard the promise:
This is a distinctive Christian blessing. From 1 Corinthians 12:13 we learn that by it the body of Christ is formed: "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free." All real Christians share in this as regards its effects, though not all were present on either occasion when it took place (Acts 2; 11:15–16). Paul was not even converted at the time. Yet he, along with the Corinthians, came to share in it. So do all real Christians, who receive the Holy Spirit. This is an important truth. All true believers share in forgiveness of sins, and they all necessarily have part in this baptism too. That point matters greatly.
- Contrast — John baptized with water for repentance. Christ baptizes with the Spirit, on the basis of a finished redemption.
- Correction — This baptism is not the new birth and not miracle-working. The disciples were already born again; what they lacked was the Spirit sent down in person.
- Countdown — Forty days of appearances, then ten days of waiting, then Pentecost. The wait was short, and the promise came true to the day.
- Cancelled clause — Fire is left out of this promise. Fire means judgment, and that day is still to come.
- Company — Every real Christian shares in what happened that day. Paul was not yet converted, and he came to share in it too.
They therefore, being come together, asked him saying, Lord, is it at this time that thou restorest the kingdom to Israel?
Forty days after the resurrection, the disciples put one last question to the risen Christ. It was about the future of their nation, and He never gave them the answer they asked for.
These men were not confused newcomers. They had a settled hope, and a source for it.
They were Jews, with minds full of earthly hopes and prospects, founded upon the prophecies of the Old Testament. They firmly believed Jesus to be Israel's Messiah, and they counted on Him to remove all difficulties out of the way and set up His throne in Zion. This was more or less in their minds all through their companionship with Him, even beyond death into resurrection.
They had seen Him defeat death. Then came forty days of waiting.
They were happy men, of this we can have no doubt, and triumphant men, eager to tell the glad news of God's public vindication of His well-beloved Son. I have thought, and I pass it on, that they were also impatient men. This comes out in their question, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" There was not a doubt in their minds that He was the King, and no question about His taking the throne. He had conquered death and surely no other enemy could stand in His way. Yet, why did He not do it? Why the delay?
The Lord does not call their hope a mistake. He takes the date out of their hands and gives them something to do in the meantime.
What our risen Lord corrected was not the expectation of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, but the expectation of it "at this time." Instead He confirms the apostles in it, while letting them know that the times and seasons were not theirs to know: the Father put those in His own power… Another work was about to go forward — not Israel's supremacy yet, but a witness to the dead and risen Jesus in the power of the Spirit, in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth… Their error was not so much in the thing itself as in the time.
If the hope itself were empty, this was the moment to say so.
Suppose the disciples were still holding on to an empty dream. Suppose the kingdom was never to be restored to Israel, and Israel's portion was to be explained away as nothing but the Church's blessing. Then Jesus would surely have avoided an answer that encouraged their false hopes. Instead of hinting that these expectations were unfounded, He replies in a way clearly designed to confirm them.
The Lord withholds the far future and hands them the near one instead.
Their question He did not answer. "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority." This answer was in keeping with His words before the cross: "Concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32). The distant future was not laid open to them. Of the near future, however, He did speak, and told them about the work to which they were called.
Notice how the Lord treats a question that misses the point.
This provides, as our foolish questions often do, the opening for divine instruction and guidance. We need not always hold back these enquiries from the Lord: it is good to let what is in the mind come out, especially if it comes out to Him. His servants must not lose patience either, even with the odd questions of those who understand least. What matters is not so much the question as the answer.
The disciples' hope was real, but it was too small.
Their hopes had not yet taken a heavenly character… Earthly blessing, with the Messiah among them and Israel head of the nations, was about all they looked for. The Holy Spirit had to be given to them before they could take in the truth of the heavenly calling… They were not wrong to look for the kingdom, for it will yet be set up, and when it comes it will be theirs.
There was more He could have told them, and He did not:
He did not yet tell them that a completely new order of things was coming in. He wisely led them one step at a time.
- Right hope. They looked for Messiah's throne set up in Zion, drawn straight from the prophets — and the Lord never calls that hope a delusion.
- Wrong clock. The words He corrects are "at this time"; He moves the date out of their hands and into the Father's.
- Loud silence. Had the kingdom never been meant for Israel, this was the moment to say so; instead His reply leaves the expectation standing.
- Better question. A poor question brought to the Lord becomes the doorway to His teaching — the value lies in the answer, not the asking.
- Bigger horizon. Their sights were set on one nation's throne; the Spirit would come and stretch them to witness to the ends of the earth.