Jamieson, Fausset & Brown :: Commentary on Acts 1

The Acts of the Apostles

Commentary by DAVID BROWN

CHAPTER 1

      1, 2. former treatise--Luke's Gospel.
      Theophilus--(See on JF & B for Lu 1:3).
      began to do and teach--a very important statement, dividing the work of Christ into two great branches: the one embracing His work on earth, the other His subsequent work from heaven; the one in His own Person, the other by His Spirit; the one the "beginning," the other the continuance of the same work; the one complete when He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, the other to continue till His second appearing; the one recorded in "The Gospels," the beginnings only of the other related in this book of "The Acts." "Hence the grand history of what Jesus did and taught does not conclude with His departure to the Father; but Luke now begins it in a higher strain; for all the subsequent labors of the apostles are just an exhibition of the ministry of the glorified Redeemer Himself because they were acting under His authority, and He was the principle that operated in them all" [OLSHAUSEN].

      2. after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments, &c.--referring to the charge recorded in Mat 28:18-20 Mar 16:15-18 Luk 24:44-49. It is worthy of notice that nowhere else are such communications of the risen Redeemer said to have been given "through the Holy Ghost." In general, this might have been said of all He uttered and all He did in His official character; for it was for this very end that God "gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him" ( Jhn 3:34 ). But after His resurrection, as if to signify the new relation in which He now stood to the Church, He signalized His first meeting with the assembled disciples by breathing on them (immediately after dispensing to them His peace) and saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" ( Jhn 20:22 ) thus anticipating the donation of the Spirit from His hands (see on JF & B for Joh 20:21, 22); and on the same principle His parting charges are here said to have been given "through the Holy Ghost," as if to mark that He was now all redolent with the Spirit; that what had been husbanded, during His suffering work, for His own necessary uses, had now been set free, was already overflowing from Himself to His disciples, and needed but His ascension and glorification to flow all forth. (See on JF & B for Joh 7:39.)

      3-5. showed himself alive--As the author is about to tell us that "the resurrection of the Lord Jesus" was the great burden of apostolic preaching, so the subject is here filly introduced by an allusion to the primary evidence on which that great fact rests, the repeated and undeniable manifestations of Himself in the body to the assembled disciples, who, instead of being predisposed to believe it, had to be overpowered by the resistless evidence of their own senses, and were slow of yielding even to this ( Mar 16:14 ).
      after his passion--or, suffering. This primary sense of the word "passion" has fallen into disuse; but it is nobly consecrated in the phraseology of the Church to express the Redeemer's final endurances.
      seen of them forty days--This important specification of time occurs here only.
      speaking of--rather "speaking."
      the things pertaining to the kingdom of God--till now only in germ, but soon to take visible form; the earliest and the latest burden of His teaching on earth.

      4. should not depart from Jerusalem--because the Spirit was to glorify the existing economy, by descending on the disciples at its metropolitan seat, and at the next of its great festivals after the ascension of the Church's Head; in order that "out of Zion might go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" ( Isa 2:3; and compare Luk 24:49 ).

      5. ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence--ten days hence, as appears from Lev 23:15, 16; but it was expressed thus indefinitely to exercise their faith.

      6-8. wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?--Doubtless their carnal views of Messiah's kingdom had by this time been modified, though how far it is impossible to say. But, as they plainly looked for some restoration of the kingdom to Israel, so they are neither rebuked nor contradicted on this point.

      7. It is not for you to know the times, &c.--implying not only that this was not the time, but that the question was irrelevant to their present business and future work.

      8. receive power--See Luk 24:49.
      and ye shall be witnesses unto me. . . in Jerusalem. . . in all Judea. . . and unto the uttermost part of the earth--This order of apostolic preaching and success supplies the proper key to the plan of the Acts, which relates first the progress of the Gospel "in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria" (the first through ninth chapters), and then "unto the uttermost part of the earth" (the tenth through twenty-eighth chapters).

      9-11. while they beheld, he was taken up--See on JF & B for Lu 24:50-53. Lest it should be thought He had disappeared when they were looking in some other direction, and so was only concluded to have gone up to heaven, it is here expressly said that "while they were looking He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." So Elijah, "If thou see me when I am taken from thee" ( 2Ki 2:10 ); "And Elisha saw it" ( Act 1:12 ). (See on JF & B for Lu 9:32.)

      10. while they looked steadfastly toward heaven--following Him with their eager eyes, in rapt amazement. Not, however, as a mere fact is this recorded, but as a part of that resistless evidence of their senses on which their whole subsequent testimony was to be borne.
      two men in white apparel--angels in human form, as in Luk 24:4.

      11. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven, &c.--"as if your now glorified Head were gone from you never to return: He is coming again; not another, but 'this same Jesus'; and 'as ye have seen Him go, in the like manner shall He come'--as personally, as visibly, as gloriously; and let the joyful expectation of this coming swallow up the sorrow of that departure."

      Act 1:12-26. RETURN OF THE ELEVEN TO JERUSALEM--PROCEEDINGS IN THE UPPER ROOM TILL PENTECOST.

      12-14. a sabbath day's journey--about two thousand cubits.

      13. went up into an upper room--perhaps the same "large upper room" where with their Lord they had celebrated the last Passover and the first Supper ( Luk 22:12 ).
      where abode--not lodged, but had for their place of rendezvous.
      Peter, &c.--(See on JF & B for Mt 10:2-4).

      14. continued with one accord--knit by a bond stronger than death.
      in prayer and supplication--for the promised baptism, the need of which in their orphan state would be increasingly felt.
      and Mary the mother of Jesus--distinguished from the other "women," but "so as to exclude the idea of her having any pre-eminence over the disciples. We find her with the rest in prayer to her glorified Son" [WEBSTER and WILKINSON]. This is the last mention of her in the New Testament. The fable of the Assumption of the Virgin has no foundation even in tradition [ALFORD].
      with his brethren--(See on JF & B for Joh 7:3).

      15-26. in those days--of expectant prayer, and probably towards the close of them, when the nature of their future work began more clearly to dawn upon them, and the Holy Ghost, already "breathed" on the Eleven ( Jhn 20:22 ), was stirring in Peter, who was to be the leading spirit of the infant community ( Mat 16:19 ).
      the number. . . about an hundred and twenty--Many, therefore, of the "five hundred brethren" who saw their risen Lord "at once" ( 1Cr 15:6 ), must have remained in Galilee.

      18. falling headlong, &c.--This information supplements, but by no means contradicts, what is said in Mat 27:5.

      20. his bishopric--or "charge." The words are a combination of Psa 69:25; in which the apostle discerns a greater than David, and a worse than Ahithophel and his fellow conspirators against David.

      21. all the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us--in the close intimacies of a three years' public life.

      22. Beginning from the baptism of John--by whom our Lord was not only Himself baptized, but first officially announced and introduced to his own disciples.
      unto that same day when he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection--How clearly is the primary office of the apostles here expressed: (1) to testify, from personal observation, to the one great fact of "the resurrection of the Lord Jesus"; (2) to show how this glorified His whole previous life, of which they were constant observers, and established His divine claims.

      23. they appointed--"put up" in nomination; meaning not the Eleven but the whole company, of whom Peter was the spokesman.
      two--The choice would lie between a very few.

      24. prayed and said, Thou, Lord, &c.--"The word 'Lord,' placed absolutely, denotes in the New Testament almost universally THE SON; and the words, 'Show whom Thou hast chosen,' are decisive. The apostles are just Christ's messengers: It is He that sends them, and of Him they bear witness. Here, therefore, we have the first example of a prayer offered to the exalted Redeemer; furnishing indirectly the strongest proof of His divinity" [OLSHAUSEN].
      which knowest the hearts of all men--See Jhn 2:24, 25 21:15-17 Rev 2:23.

      25. that he might go to his own place--A euphemistic or softened expression of the awful future of the traitor, implying not only destined habitation but congenial element.

      26. was numbered--"voted in" by general suffrage.
      with the eleven apostles--completing the broken Twelve.