This is the second entry in the Bible Junkies Online
Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. The
first entry covered some of the major critical, technical and background issues
that will concern us as we read through and comment on the Acts. In this, the
second post, we start to consider the text of Acts.
3. Contents:
A) Prolog and
Account of Jesus Ascension (1:1-11):
1 In the first book,
Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until
the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the
Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he
presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them
during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there
for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you
have heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 6 So when they
had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will
restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He replied, "It is not for you to
know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth." 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were
gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They
said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This
Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as
you saw him go into heaven." (NRSV)
The opening verses make the first connection to the Gospel
of Luke, initially with the mention of Theophilus, to whom the Gospel is
dedicated (Luke 1:3). The name means “friend of God” or “lover of God” and some
people believe the name points to a literary character, an “every Christian” ideal
type whom Luke is addressing, though I suspect that this is the actual patron
who underwrote Luke’s literary work. Luke sees Acts as the second book, since
he cites Luke’s Gospel as “the first book.” In that first book (logon in Greek), “I wrote about all that
Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to
heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom
he had chosen” (Acts 1:1-2).
These verses point to the whole purpose of the Gospel of
Luke from the infancy of Jesus until the ascension described in Luke 24: 50-53.
The ascension becomes the hinge between the two books as it will be mentioned
again in a few verses in more detail than in the Gospel. But it is even more
significant than that. Luke Timothy Johnson convincingly writes that “the best
way to make sense of this opening section of Acts, therefore, is to grasp that
not only the first five but the first eleven verses in their entirety function
as a transition to a new stage in the story, a transition wherein the author
does not provide new material but rather reworks and elaborates part of the
story already told. The reader, I think, is meant to imagine the gestures and
words in Acts 1:1-11 as an elaborate variant of those in Luke 24:36-53” (Acts: Sacra Pagina, 28).
This seems correct, for the last half of Acts 1:2 focuses on
Jesus’ ascension taking place only “after giving instructions through the Holy
Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.”
This
places emphasis on Luke 24:44-49, a central description of Jesus’ interactions
with his apostles, but it is also the very period Luke is describing as taking
place in Acts right now. Luke recapitulates Luke 24 when he places the
encounter of Jesus with the apostles “after his suffering” and that “he
presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them
during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). This creates
overlap with Luke, but more significantly a deepening of the encounter of Jesus
with his apostles, his instructions and the promise of the Holy Spirit. It is similar to the technique used by television
dramas when they recap the last episode before diving into the new episode.
Jesus “while staying with them… ordered them not to leave
Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is
what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be
baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’” (Acts 1:4-5). Compare this to Luke 24: 49, when Jesus
speaks to the Apostles, saying “and see, I am sending upon you what my Father
promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from
on high.” There is a building out of Luke 24:49, but the core of the verse, the
promise and the city, remain intact. They are told to wait in Jerusalem for the
Holy Spirit, a key element of Luke from the beginning of the Gospel, and a
driving force in this book for all of the action.
In verse 6, though, we get a sense of what the apostles do
not yet understand and still need to be taught: “So when they had come
together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the
kingdom to Israel?’” It is clear that the kingdom to them indicates a physical
kingdom, but since Jesus has been talking to them about the kingdom (see Acts 1:3)
it is obvious it would be on their minds. Yet, Jesus’ whole ministry has
focused on the kingdom and it seems that even in light of his death and
resurrection their focus is still on a geographic political reality and not a
spiritual reality.
Yet, Jesus does not exactly dissuade them of the possibility
of a coming kingdom when he says, “It is
not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own
authority” (1:7), but he redirects their attention to their mission: “But you
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”
(Acts 1:8). Their task as witnesses (martyres)
under the power of the Holy Spirit seems to be an essential stage in the coming
of the kingdom, whenever that will be and whether it will ever be as they
imagined it.
Acts 1:8 actually sets up the structure of Acts, and repeats
in more detail Luke 24:47-48, as a mission of ever widening concentric
geographic circles. The Gospel will emerge from Jerusalem, go to Judea and
Samaria and then to Rome, if we, as I do, imagine Luke is considering the
capitol of the Empire as the ends of the earth. Acts itself ripples out in this
way and it is another way, I think, of organizing the whole of Acts as you read
it.
Only after completing his instructions for them does Jesus leave
the physical presence of the apostles. “When he had said this, as they were
watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).
This is not a second ascension, but a recapitulation and expansion of the Lucan
ascension in Luke 24: 51. Luke presents Jesus ascent as literal, with Jesus
floating upwards to the heavens, a view which correlates with ancient cosmology
and the understanding of the location of God’s dwelling place. It also allows
for us to see Jesus as physical and real, as Luke has stressed throughout Luke
24, and now enthroned with God (see Luke 22:69).
In the last verses of this section, two figures from Luke
24:4, the two men who greeted the women at the tomb, reappear. “While he was
going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes
stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward
heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in
the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:10-11). The apostles are told,
in a sense, to get on with their work because Jesus will return at some point
just as they saw him leave. It points, of course, to the promise of Jesus’ physical
return, which was inspired by the vision in Daniel 7:13 and more directly by Luke
21:27, and the establishment of the kingdom in the future. But now the apostles
have a job to do.
Next entry, a twelfth apostle is needed.
John W. Martens
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This entry is cross-posted at America Magazine The Good Word
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