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.
And he said to them, It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority;
The disciples had just asked whether the Lord would now restore the kingdom to Israel. His answer moves the question into the Father's hands, and raises two of its own: what "times and seasons" means, and why God keeps it to Himself.
The Lord does not tell them they hoped for the wrong thing. He tells them they asked at the wrong moment.
The Lord corrects the hasty expectations of the disciples: the kingdom was not to appear at once. Their question was about restoring it to Israel at that time. Now the Lord does not at all contradict such a restoration in its season. The salvation of Israel and the restoration of the kingdom to the chosen people clearly belonged to the ways of God that prophecy speaks of. And He lets them know that the Father placed times and seasons in His own authority.
Read the answer as a denial and it becomes strange. A reply about when only makes sense if there is a when.
His reply was not that they were wrong to expect such an event ever to take place. He said, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority." Who would imagine, from such a reply, that their question was about something that would never take place, at any time or in any season?
The phrase is not a general term for the future. It covers God's public dealings with the earth. That is why the Lord withholds it here, while the Thessalonians already knew it well.
"Times and seasons" as relating to the earth are first mentioned in Genesis 1:14, and the same words appear again in Acts 1:7 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1. This expression clearly refers to God's dispensations and dealings on the earth. In Acts 1, the disciples were not to know the time of God's dealings. Yet the Thessalonians did know the manner of God's predicted dealings, and the order in which they would happen. They knew this perfectly, though they did not know about the coming of the Lord for His saints, shown in the previous chapter. But then, that coming has to do with a heavenly calling, while "times and seasons" relate to the earth.
The verse names the Father, not simply "God." Scripture keeps that distinction everywhere.
Scripture always credits the purposes, counsels and plans of the Godhead, including the fixing of times and seasons, to the Father. Note Acts 1:7: "times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority." It just as consistently credits the action, the carrying out of those purposes in creation, redemption, or judgment, to the Son.
If the Father holds the calendar, any effort to work out the date runs into this sentence.
Any effort to calculate and predict the date of the Lord's coming, from Daniel's prophecies or other Scriptures, will be futile, and worse than that. It tries to find out what the Lord plainly says is not for us to know.
Notice who the Lord refused: the men who would later write much of the New Testament.
The apostles gave us the Word of God by the Holy Spirit's inspiration. Yet the Lord said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority" (Acts 1). If the Father in His wisdom withheld this knowledge from them, where is there any sign in the Word that He would reveal it to us?
A poor question can open the door to real teaching. The Lord shows no impatience with it, and His answer puts earth's timing under one control.
Our foolish questions often do this: they open the way for divine instruction and guidance. We need not always hold back such questions from the Lord. It is good to let what is in the mind come out, above all to Him. His servants must not be impatient either, even at the curious questions of those who understand least. What matters is not so much the question as the answer... The measures and the right moments that had to do with earthly changes were under the sole control of Him to whom everything belonged.
Paul later tells the Thessalonians they already know about times and seasons, which looks like a clash with this verse.
There appears to be a contradiction between verse 7 and what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:1 and 2. But there the point is that they knew well what was going to happen in God's dealing with the earth. Here the point is that we may not know when, since the Father has reserved that for Himself alone. Our business is to give true and diligent witness to Christ.
- Postponed, not cancelled. The Lord corrects their timing, not their hope. His answer leaves the restoration of the kingdom to Israel in place.
- Reserved. "Times and seasons" means God's public dealings with the earth. Their timing rests with the Father alone.
- Withheld. The Lord kept this from the apostles who wrote Scripture. Nothing since suggests He tells anyone else, so date-setting chases what He shut off.
- Redirected. In place of the date He gives a commission: our business is faithful witness to Christ.
- Answered better than asked. A curious question drew out divine instruction. That is how the Lord teaches, and how His servants should bear with questioners.
but ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
The disciples had just asked Jesus about the kingdom, and this was His answer: not a prediction about Israel, but a job for the present. Everything hangs on two things He promises here — power from outside them, and a role that centres on Him.
The disciples wanted to know whether the kingdom was about to be restored to Israel. One writer notes how the Lord's reply shifts the focus:
The Lord had been speaking of the kingdom of God. Their minds, however, still ran on restoring the kingdom to Israel... Their question gave the Lord the chance to show what the plan would be for the age that was opening. We see again what we saw in Luke 24: the centre of the plan is not Israel but Christ. The coming of the Spirit would mean power — not power to make the apostles restorers of Israel, but power to make them "witnesses to Me" — witnesses to Christ to the ends of the earth.
The word translated "power" here is not the same word used a verse earlier, where the Father keeps times and seasons in His own authority:
But they would receive power ("dunamis"). This is not authority, which is what the word "power" means in verse 7, but vital energy, given when the Holy Spirit came upon them. It would make them witnesses to Him. They would begin at Jerusalem, then spread out to Judea and Samaria, then to the far reaches of the earth. What a contrast to a kingdom kept inside Israel!
The same instruction came with a restraint attached: they were to stay in Jerusalem until the promise arrived. One commentator draws out why the Lord held them back:
Do not try to speak for Me until the Spirit of God comes. Only the Spirit of God can do the work of God. He is the only power in this world for God. If we try to serve Him in our own strength, the result will be disaster. I do not suppose Satan cares at all about a man preaching the gospel in his own strength and wisdom.
He does not point them to a cause but to Himself. One writer describes the position Christ held at that moment:
This is not yet the visible kingdom that belongs to the age and world to come. For now it is a matter of testimony in the power of the Holy Spirit, and that testimony depends on His coming and His presence. They were to be witnesses of Christ. They were not yet reigning with Him. They were His witnesses to a Man rejected yet risen, despised by men, above all by the Jews and by Jerusalem, but about to be exalted by God in heaven. All of it comes from grace.
The order of the four places is itself a message. The testimony starts where the crucifixion happened and moves outward:
Look how the Lord defines the circle now. The Cross had been accomplished, with all its wonderful fruit for God and man. That threw down every barrier that had kept the nations apart. Salvation, like a shining river, could now go out to the ends of the earth. It began at the guiltiest spot of all, and it kept widening and flowing on until — thank God — it reached us Gentiles, who sat in the dark.
The word came true, but not in the way you might expect. It took a persecution to push the message out of Jerusalem:
In this chapter we see the work of God extending, and reaching the Samaritans. This was quite in keeping with the Lord's word in Acts 1:8, though the twelve apostles were not the ones God honoured to do it. The rage of the enemy was the immediate cause of this spread of the gospel... The enemy, as often before and since, over-reached himself. It only led to the spread of the truth, for "those who were scattered went about preaching the word."
He said they would be witnesses, not just that they would speak. One writer draws the line between the two:
A witness may preach, but not every preacher is a witness. A witness is someone marked by what he has seen and heard while keeping company with the Lord... Stephen was the outstanding example of this. Not when he exposed the stubborn hearts of the Jews, but when he prayed, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them," while they stoned him in their murderous hatred.
- Redirected. They asked about a kingdom for Israel. He answered with a testimony about Himself — "the centre of the plan is not Israel but Christ."
- Powered. What they receive is not authority over times and seasons. It is vital energy, given when the Spirit comes upon them.
- Restrained. Until that power came they were not to speak for Him, because work done in our own strength ends in disaster.
- Widening. The gospel starts at the guiltiest spot on earth and flows outward: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. Persecution only pushed it further.
- Embodied. He said "you will be my witnesses." A witness is someone marked by keeping company with the Lord — as Stephen was, praying for the men who stoned him.
And having said these things he was taken up, they beholding [him], and a cloud received him out of their sight.
One moment separates the Lord's last words from all that follows in Acts: a cloud hid Him from His disciples. Much of the book turns on where He went and what that cloud was.
Luke says three times in this chapter that Jesus was "taken up." One writer asks who is doing the taking:
Three times in Acts 1 Luke records that Jesus was "taken up" (Acts 1:2, 9, 22). Through Luke, the Holy Spirit draws our attention to the fact that the Lord went up to heaven, and also to the way He went. It was God who took His Son to heaven. In this He made known His delight in all that His Son had been, and had done, for Him while here.
This was no ordinary cloud. One writer ties it to a sign Israel had seen before:
A cloud took Him out of their sight. That cloud was not an ordinary cloud of vapour. It was the glory-cloud — the same cloud of glory that had filled Solomon's temple. Again and again in Israel's past it had appeared as the outward sign that Jehovah was present.
If the cloud is glory, then a welcome is happening here. Another writer says what that welcome begins:
It is the Man Christ Jesus, welcomed by the Glory into which He is taken. No vision of angels would fit as well as this one. No, angels have no place here... The Glory greets Him here, now perfected. And His work as priest is what all the outflow of divine grace that fills this book depends on.
One writer sets this beside the way Elijah left the earth:
The chariot and horses of fire that carried Elijah up were angels (2 Kings 6:17). At the ascension of the Saviour it was not like this at all. He did not need a procession of angels to serve Him or to carry Him into heaven. He went up by His own power, since His resurrection had declared Him Son of God in power. A cloud, the dwelling place of the divine glory, received Him at once and carried Him up from before the eyes of His disciples.
The disciples did not watch a spirit fade. The wording itself argues for a real body:
In that same body He was "carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:51). "A cloud took Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). You could not say that a spirit was carried up, and no cloud is needed to hide a spirit from human sight. He was still a Man.
The disciples were left with a task and a hope. One writer ties both to what they had just seen:
Their mission was to be witnesses to the ascended Christ; but their hope was to be His return just as He went. His going was not something figurative, shadowy, mystical, but actual and literal. His coming will be actual and literal in like manner.
Most departures break the tie between friends. This one did not:
He stood among them on the brow of the Mount of Olives. Then He was parted from them, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. Yet though He had gone from them, they had not lost Him. The Holy Spirit, who came down from Him, joined them to Him. Their hopes now rested in Him — not as the lowly Nazarene walking the rough road to the cross, but as death's Conqueror, exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high.
The same hiding will happen again when His people are taken up:
When the Lord left this earth from the mount of Olives, the cloud concealed Him from the gaze of His disciples (Acts 1:9). In the same way, when the Lord comes "in the air," the clouds will hide the taking up of the saints from the knowledge of this world.
- Taken up — Acts 1 says three times that Jesus was "taken up." God took His Son to heaven, showing His delight in what His Son had been and done.
- Received by glory — the cloud is the glory-cloud that marked God's presence in Israel's past. So the ascension is a welcome. And the work as priest that it begins supplies the grace filling the rest of Acts.
- By His own power — unlike Elijah's fiery chariot, He needed no escort; He ascended as the One declared Son of God in power by resurrection.
- Still a Man — a spirit needs no carrying and no cloud to hide it. The disciples watched a real body go into heaven.
- Coming the same way — His going was literal and seen, so His promised return is literal too. Meanwhile He is hidden, but not lost: the Spirit came down from Him and joins His people to Him.
And as they were gazing into heaven, as he was going, behold, also two men stood by them in white clothing,
The disciples' last sight of Jesus was of Him rising out of view, and their eyes stayed fixed on the sky where He had been. Two men in white then stand beside them. What they say sets the direction of Christian hope from that day on.
Luke calls them men. Commentators identify them as angels, and Scripture elsewhere speaks of angels in the same way.
Angels were created spirits — "He makes His angels spirits," yet they are spoken of as men in Acts 1:10 and elsewhere. We also read of "the man Gabriel," who was an angel (Dan. 9:21).
Their number matters as well. One writer connects it to a rule of evidence in the law.
Jewish law, and here we are in the middle of Jewish circumstances, called for two witnesses to give competent evidence (Deut. 17:6; 19:15). Two angels bore testimony to the resurrection of the Lord (John 20:12), and two men to His ascension (Acts 1:10).
Their looking was steady, not a passing glance. One writer follows that same steadiness through the opening chapters of Acts.
Notice here that they looked STEADFASTLY. In Acts 2:42 they continued STEADFASTLY. In Acts 7:55 Stephen looked up STEADFASTLY into heaven. It is a great thing to be steadfast; we are often unsteady, and so there is no power. But they hear wonderful news as they steadfastly look up.
Why did they come at that moment? One writer looks at what was in the disciples' hearts as they stared upward.
He had just told them of the coming of the Holy Spirit; they would be clothed with power then. But they were not thinking of power as they gazed up into heaven after their beloved Lord — they were thinking of Him. So the angels are present in a moment to answer what He knew was passing in their hearts. In the same way, when the women were seeking the precious body of Jesus in love, though without understanding, the angel of the Lord came down from heaven — his clothing white as snow, his face like lightning — and rolled away the stone... Those who care for Jesus can be sure of comfort from above. It may come as angelic help, unseen but real, or as a word through the Comforter, who is now present.
The timing of their words matters as much as their content.
The disciples stood in silent wonder as the cloud of glory carried the Lord out of their sight. Then the voice of two men in white clothing broke that silence... They had come swiftly from the very gates of the glory the Lord had entered. They brought THE FIRST MESSAGE from Him, as the ascended and glorified Christ, to His servants on earth. So at the very moment He took His place at the right hand of the Majesty on high, the announcement went out on earth that He would return to it.
Why break off a look that seems entirely right? Commentators differ on the emphasis. One weighs the direction of their gaze against the moment they were in.
The angels turn their gaze from heaven, where Christ had gone, toward the earth to which He will come. At first we might wonder at this. Surely it was a right thing to look up to heaven where Christ is? Yes, in due time it will be right, but the moment had not yet come to look up.
Others read the words as comfort, and measure them by what the eleven disciples did next.
Just at that moment the hearts of the little band — the Eleven — might well have sunk. Two men stood by them in white clothing and spoke words of comfort. Those words came at the right time for people still gazing upward... The words of those men were enough. They stopped gazing upward and returned to the city of Jerusalem, without the Lord. Downcast, shall we say? No. With great joy, as Luke recorded in his Gospel (24:52).
- Witnessed. Two messengers in white stand as the pair of witnesses the law required. Two also testified at the empty tomb.
- Steadfast. Their steady look is the posture that receives the news. Where steadiness is missing, power is missing too.
- Comforted. The angels came because the disciples' hearts were full of Him, not of power. Those who care for Jesus can be sure of comfort from above.
- First. Before the Spirit came and before any preaching, the first word from the glory was this: He is coming back.
- Sent. The angels then point them from heaven back to earth, and the eleven walk back to Jerusalem — not in despair, but with great joy.
who also said, Men of Galilee, why do ye stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven.
Two men in white speak the first words of comfort after the Lord goes out of sight. Their message is not about the heaven He entered, but about the earth He will come back to.
The wording of the promise is deliberately heavy, and one writer takes that heaviness as proof that nothing here is figurative.
The way the angels bear witness to the men of Galilee could look like mere repetition. But, as we well know, there is — there can be — no such thing in the book of God. What we see in this testimony is lovely fullness, divine completeness. From it we learn that the very same Jesus who left this earth, and went up into heaven in front of many witnesses, will come in the same way as they had seen Him go into heaven. How did He go? He went up personally, literally, actually. It was the very same person who had just been talking with them as a friend. They had seen Him with their eyes, heard Him with their ears, handled Him with their hands.
Because the manner of the return matches the manner of the departure, the destination is fixed too. He left from the earth; He comes back to it.
He will come as He went (Acts 1:11). "On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east." To this earth He is coming, not to the new earth in the eternal state. According to the Scriptures, He will come back to the same world where He suffered.
The Lord had already promised to come and take His own to the Father's house. Commentators distinguish that promise from the one the angels give here.
After the Lord's supper, the Lord had told the disciples that He was going to the Father. The first comfort He gave them was that He would come again and take them to Himself in the Father's house, where He was going to prepare a place for them… There He speaks of His coming to bring His own into the Father's house. Here the word is of His glorious appearing, when He will make Himself seen from the place where He has gone… Here it is His return in glory, and it will be like His going away.
One writer puts the two in order, giving the earlier one its usual name, the rapture:
He will yet come in the same way to the same place, the Mount of Olives, when He takes His rightful place of glory and majesty. Nothing here says how long the wait would be, and the rapture will of course take place before this.
The angels redirect their eyes downward, and that seems strange until the following chapters are read.
The angels turn their gaze from heaven, where Christ had gone, toward the earth to which He will come. At first we might wonder at this. Surely it was a right thing to look up to heaven where Christ is? Yes, at the right time it will be right, but that moment had not yet come. As we listen to Peter preaching to the nation, we can understand why the disciples' thoughts were to stay a while on earth. Peter says to the guilty nation, "Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus" (Acts 3:19-20). This was the final message in grace to the guilty nation. If they will repent, Jesus will come back to earth.
The same look is later approved, once the Spirit has come:
Note very carefully — to the disciples who were looking up after Jesus, the angels' word is, "Why do you stand looking into heaven? This same Jesus will so come," etc. Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw Jesus there, "the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God," and prays that his spirit may be received by Him.
Three things now shaped the disciples' outlook: the Spirit promised, a work given, a return assured.
They knew, on the word of the Lord, that the Father would soon fulfil His promise in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Instead of the kingdom being restored to Israel, they were to be witnesses of Christ everywhere, to the ends of the earth. And they had this assurance: the Lord Jesus, who had just gone up, would come in the same way as they saw Him going to heaven.
Both the Lord and the angels led with the same promise:
The Lord Himself declared it in His love, and the angels revealed it. Either way, the first thing in the Saviour's heart, and in what God reveals, is that He will come again. The gift of the Spirit during His absence is immense, and the place redemption has given God's people here below is immense for ever. But their hope is, and the height of their joy will be, to see the Saviour as He is, to be always with Him, like Him.
- Same Person — the very same Jesus the disciples saw, heard and touched is the One who comes back.
- Same manner — He went up in person, in a real and literal way, and He returns the same way.
- Same place — He left from the earth, and to this earth, to the Mount of Olives, He comes back.
- Not the same event — commentators separate this glorious appearing from His coming to take His own to the Father's house. That coming happens first.
- Same hope — the angels turned the disciples from gazing to witnessing, with one comfort to hold: He will come again.