The G. Campbell Morgan Archive

Acts 1:6-26
his paragraph serves as a link between the things of the “former treatise” of Luke, and those of his new story. Here we have our last glimpse of the disciples before Pentecost; and our last vision of Jesus-to use Paul’s descriptive phrase, “after the flesh”-present among His disciples in bodily form. Surely the artistic hand of Luke is evident in the placing of this paragraph here.
ere we see the Lord, and the apostles; and yet a larger group, consisting of “the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brethren”; gathered together. As we look at this group we recognize that the picture is intimately related to all that we have seen in the Gospel story. This is the same Jesus, Whose birth was there recorded, Whose ministry was chronicled, Whose crucifixion was described, Whose resurrection was declared, and Who was finally revealed as One ascended to God. He is spoken of as “Jesus,” as the “Lord Jesus.” It is the old word, the old title; the name by which He had been called in the days of His life at Nazareth, the title by which His disciples had addressed Him in the days of His public ministry. The Person is very familiar, coming from the olden days. This is equally true of the men and women round about Him. We seem to know them all.
All this is to emphasize the statement, that this paragraph constitutes a page between the preface and the main story of the book. Moreover we shall never again meet Christ through all the story as we meet Him here. We shall never in this book see Him again in the same visible and material relationship to these men. He will be absent. No more the walk between Jerusalem and Jericho. No more the laying of the hand upon the children brought to Him. No more the actual looking of the human eye into the eye of some decrepit soul needing help. No more the human tone of the voice in answer to which disease flees. We shall never meet Him thus again. Henceforth know we not Christ “after the flesh.”
ut we shall see these men again; and yet, all the way through the book, they will be changed and different; not in the visible externals, but absolutely changed in the hidden facts of the life. A new light will shine through the same eyes. A new tone will come into the same voices. A new atmosphere will be generated by the same presences. Peter will be the same man, and yet absolutely changed. All the old impulsiveness will be present, and all the enthusiasm and the fire and the fervour that made him fit companion of the sons of thunder, Boanerges. But there will be something else. The change will not be that which denies the natural, but the change that baptizes it with the supernatural, until it becomes its fitting and magnificent instrument.
he picture of Jesus and His disciples given to us in this paragraph serves to reveal, first, the results of the things He began to do and to teach; and, secondly, the need for that coming of the Paraclete, which was immediately to follow. As we look at the picture we are first amazed at the wonderful results of the things Jesus began to do and to teach, as manifested in these men; but we are supremely impressed with the truth of what the Lord Himself said to them in the paschal discourses just preceding His Cross: “It is expedient for you that I go away.“
e will divide our present study into two parts; dealing first, with the last glimpse of the disciples before Pentecost; and secondly, with the last vision of Jesus after the flesh.
I. n considering the last glimpse of the disciples before Pentecost, let us carefully notice the two things already indicated; first, the wonderful results of the things He began to do and to teach; and secondly, the necessity revealed for the coming of the Paraclete. We begin, then, with the results of the things Jesus began to do and to teach.
e have first, the story of their gathering about Him, of His final commission, and of His departure. Then we have the story of their going back, after His departure, to Jerusalem; of their being of one accord in one place, steadfastly given to prayer. Finally we have the story of Peter’s address concerning the vacancy in the apostolate created by the death of Judas, and of how they proceeded to fill the vacancy by the election of Matthias.
n the first of these things their wonderful confidence in Him is revealed; their confidence in each other is revealed in the second; and their confidence in the Scriptures of truth is revealed in the , third. All these were the direct result of their having been the disciples of Jesus during the three years of His public ministry. They were the issue of the things He had said to them in many a patient discourse by the way, and in many a long and lonely walk: of the things He had wrought miraculously among the sons of men; of the mystery of the Cross and of the wonder of the Resurrection.
e are impressed supremely with their confidence in Him. They asked Him : “Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?” Let us forget for a moment the mistake they made; forget the narrowness of their outlook; and mark their quiet confidence in Him, as revealed in their assumptions.
hey assumed His Lordship, addressing Him as Lord. They assumed His ability to bring the ancient economy and purpose of God to a final consummation. They were Hebrews. They had grown up in the great hope of the Hebrew people. For long years, perchance through all the early years of their lives, it had been a very faint hope; but as they walked with Him and talked with Him along the way-and especially in those final discourses after resurrection, when, as Luke has told us, He opened to them the Scriptures, and gave them to understand the meaning of their own nationality and economy-they had come to see the larger vision; the kingdom restored to Israel; God’s ancient purpose fulfilled. They believed He was able to do this. But a little while ago they had questioned His ability, when at Caesarea Philippi they said in effect: That be far from Thee, Lord; if Thou dost take Thy way to the Cross, Thou wilt be defeated; and disaster will overtake Thee rather than victory! Two of them on the way to Emmaus had said: “We hoped that it was He Who should redeem Israel.“’ “We hoped”-the past tense; for hope had been extinguished, and their confidence had failed.
ut now all this was changed, and here they stood about Him, having perfect confidence in His ability to fulfil their highest and truest hope the restoration of the kingdom to Israel; to establish the will of God, to consummate the purposes of the Most High.
e are next impressed by their confidence in each other. When they were come together into the one place, Luke tells us, they were of one mind. Notice the grouping of the apostles here. It would be unsafe to build a doctrine upon this, or to over-emphasize its value, but it is interesting to see that the moment we get into the Acts of the Apostles, the grouping of these men is changed.
eter and John. That is new. It always used to be Peter and James and John. Now, “Peter and John and James and Andrew”: that is the first group. There were only three in the olden days, and we speak of them as the men of s ecial privilege, taken to special places of vision. Perhaps, after a, Peter, James, and John needed more especial care because of the weakness of their Boanergic temperament. When Luke groups them in the Acts he brings Andrew in, the man who never seems to have occupied a place of privilege, of whom we know nothing at all, save that he called Peter. Now Luke puts him in with the first three, and thus associates the ordinary and outside man with those more notable.
hen again, Peter and John were never agreed in the Gospel story. They never understood each other. Peter was the practical man, John was the poet. Peter was.always doing, John was always dreaming. When you get to the last chapter of John, John is still troubling Peter, so that he says to the Lord: “Lord, and what shall this man do?” In the new grouping, they have gone into partnership: the doer and the dreamer; the practical man and the poet. Then James and Andrew, the courteous and the curious. Next Philip and Thomas. Philip the reserved man, who believed everything, and was willing to be on the edge of the crowd and bring strangers to Jesus, Thomas, the sceptic, who demanded proof, or he would believe nothing. Then Bartholomew and Matthew; Nathanael, the guileless worshipper; and Matthew the publican, the astute tax-gatherer. Then three, “James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James,” no one knows anything about the first two, and Judas is only known as one who asked a question in the upper room (John 14.22). Is not all this at least suggestive? Does it not seem to say to us that the Cross and the Resurrection brought men into an affinity that cancelled all merely temperamental discords? , “And certain women, and Mary the mother of Jesus.” That is the last glimpse of the highly favoured Virgin Mother. “And His brethren.” They were never with Him in the days of His flesh, but they are gathered now in the one accord. Confidence in each other is the basis of a new fellowship.
nd once again, observe their confidence in the Scriptures. Peter now commenced to interpret the present by the Scriptures of the past. He made quotation from two of the great Psalms .(79 and 109) and distinctly and without any hesitation, said that David wrote these things by the Holy Spirit concerning Judas. If :we read Psalm 79 or log, without the illumination of this interpretation, we should never dream that there was a reference in them to Judas, or that there, was a reference in them to the Messiah. The great Messianic psalms are indeed Messianic psalms; but the writers did not understand the full richness of their Messianic yalues. David was referring to one of his own enemies; but Peter deliberately and quietly quotes the old and familiar passage, ,and says that finally it had reference to Judas and to Jesus. One of the last things that Luke tells us in his Gospel story is of how Jesus walked and talked with the disciples, and opened to them all the Scriptures, beginning from Moses; of how He spoke to this selfsame group just before leaving them, and taught them that it behoved Him to suffer, that all things written in the Scriptures should be fulfilled; naming the three great divisions, Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms. Peter was a Hebrew brought up on the very Scriptures which he was quoting, familiar with their letter, undoubtedly; but now he read them with a new understanding. He had seen a new light in them. Thus we see gathered about Jesus a group of men with perfect confidence in their Lord, with joyful confidence in each other, with an absolute confidence in the value of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. These things all resulted from the things He began to do and to teach.
ut now let us briefly notice the incompleteness manifested, which necessitated the coming of the Paraclete. the first fact observable is that of their ignorance of Christ’s purpose. “Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Christ rebuked, not the conception that the kingdom is to be restored to Israel-for that He never rebuked-but their desire to know when it would take place. “It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within His own authority” A popular interpretation of this is that Christ said to them: There is to be no restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Christ did not say so. What He did say was: It is not for you to know the times or, seasons. You have other work to do. “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses.”
hese men did not understand that. They loved Him, they were loyal to Him, they loved each other, they loved their own Scriptures, they had. come to a new appreciation of them; but they were not ready for their work. because they had not seen what it would be. They had no conception of this new spiritual mission to which they :were called. They did not understand the method by which God was about to work toward the ultimate consummation. They had heard Him, had seen Him, had come to love Him, and believe in Him; but they were absolutely ignorant of the next step in the programme of God; and they never did understand it until Pentecost, and the consequent interpretation by the Spirit of all the things that Jesus had said.
n the next place notice their consequent inability to execute His commission. He had said to them that they were to be witnesses. But here they were in the upper room; of one accord; steadfast in prayer; happy in their mutual comradeships; constant in their loyalty; but quite unable to witness. They could do nothing to bear testimony to Him until after Pentecost.
nd again this is a debated point in interpretation but my own conviction is that we have a revelation of their inefficiency for organization; that the election of Matthias was wrong. Their idea of what was necessary as a witness to the resurrection was wrong. They said that a wituess must have been with them from the baptism of John. They thought a witness must be one who had seen Jesus prior to His ascension. As a matter of fact the most powerful incentive to witness was the seeing of Christ after resurrection, as when He arrested Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus. So their principle of selection was wrong. Their method of selection was also wrong. The method of Casting lots was no longer necessary. Thus we have the wrong appointment of Matthias.
e was a good man, but the wrong man for this position, and he passed out of sight; and when presently we come to the final glory of the city of God, we see twelve foundation stones, and twelve apostles’ names, and I am not prepared to omit Paul from the twelve, believing that he was God’s man for the filling of the gap.
hese men were perfectly sincere, proceeding on the lines of revealed truth, but they were ignorant of God’s next method; unable to bear their witness; unable to organize themselves for the doing of the work; and consequently needing the coming of the Paraclete.
II. n conclusion, let us look at this last vision of Jesus “after the flesh.” His last teaching was a correction, a promise, and a commission. He corrected them. He did not deny their hope that the kingdom should be restored to Israel. He only rebuked their curiosity, and in that last word He taught His disciples and His Church that they have nothing to do with the times and the seasons .of Israel; nothing to do with dates and days and calendars and predictions. What, then, are they to do? First they are to recognize that for the doing of that to which He calls them, they need power: “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Then follows the commission. He gathered the whole earth into His declaration of purpose. Beginning in Jerusalem, passing out through Judaea and Samaria, and at last reaching the uttermost part of the earth, they were to be witnesses.
he last doing of Jesus after the flesh was that of vanishing. The last act was that of disappearing. As they looked upon Him, he was received up, and so He vanished out of their sight. He did not go away; He went out of sight as to bodily presence. We are perfectly correct in using the word Up-He was received up that is, on to the higher level of life; the life that is higher than the merely material, and manifest, and localized, and limited. The man Jesus vanished from sight, but the Christ did not depart. He had said: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age."
he body in which He began to do and to teach passed out of their sight. It did not cease to be, but for their sakes it vanished to make way for the body in which He would continue to do and to teach, which is His Church, “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.“ The days of limited service were over, the days of unlimited service were about to begin. The body of earthly service passed out of sight, and the new body was there, not having come to birth and might, but waiting for the Pentecostal effusion.
he Man of Nazareth is still a man in God’s universe. The terms up or down, far or near, we shall have to cancel when presently we drop this robe of flesh, and pass into the li ht and into the glory; but the Man of Nazareth will for ever be the central point of manifestation, as He was in the world. The Christ of God, the Son of God, the Saviour, Who wrought out into visibility, through His body, the infinite facts of the Divine Being and for human redemption, was still near to His disciples, but they must be trained to faith and not to sight. Therefore He vanished. The last vision is that of the vanishing, but not that of departing, not of going away.
ne other word. We see these men looking, gazing toward heaven. The cloud enwrap ed Him, and He has gone, and yet they were gazing. Then there stood by them two men. We nearly always say angels but the Bible says, “Men.” Perhaps they were Moses and Elijah, the men who appeared on the mount of transfiguration. Two men stood by them. They had lost one Man, the One was gone, but two were there. These two said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? This Jesus shall so come in like manner.” The form that you have loved to look upon will yet be seen of your eyes. For to-day, He is out of sight; but He is not away from you.
e had passed out of sight, but He knew how their hearts would break; He knew how difficult it would be to realize Him when He was gone; and so He sent them a message out of the unseen. Two other men bore that message. What a startling thing it was! One Man had gone, but there were two. So they knew that the One was not lost. In a moment the two were also gone! What had the disciples learned? That they knew nothing about that which was around them, save that at any moment the One might appear again.
e do not understand it, but the fragrance of it is all about us, and whereas we worship the mystic, and the eternal, and the unseen Christ, we still work in comradeship with the Man of Nazareth. “Warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is He; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee.”
WHITTIER