The Ascension

(Acts I. 1-11)

The Forty Days

THE first verses of chapter i. are written in the form of a preface and give the summary of the intercourse which took place between Christ and His disciples during the last forty days. As Elijah had passed from school to school of the sons of the prophets to prepare them for his coming departure, so Christ spent the last 40 days in instructing and preparing the Apostles for the task which was about to be committed to them. Christ knew the need for such preparation, for he understood the weakness and the heaviness of their nature. He had literally borne their griefs and carried their sorrows. He knew also the gravity of the work about to be committed to them. The task which lay before them was the regeneration of the world. Who and what were they to undertake it

The Preparation of the Disciples—I. The Royal

Commands

Christ prepared the disciples in three ways. In the first place He gave commandments as to the nature and order of the spiritual kingdom which they were about to found on earth. He their King would be absent from that kingdom, but they were to witness for Him and to carry out His commands.

When Christ was upon the earth the disciples had been slow of heart to receive and understand His teaching. Would they be able to receive the commands which He was now giving them? The conditions were changed. The disciples who had formerly been slow of heart to understand His teaching had been given power through the gift of the Holy Ghost. After His Resurrection Christ had breathed upon them and had said: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." They had been made partakers, in a measure, of His Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of Knowledge and of the fear of God. He spake unto them through the Holy Ghost, and through the power of that Holy Ghost they could apprehend the nature of His commands, and could execute His bidding.

Furthermore, He gave them commandment as to their immediate work. They were not to depart from Jerusalem, but were to "wait for the promise of the Father." The natural impulse of the disciples would have been to leave the place which had rejected and crucified their Master, and which was ready to persecute them also. Why should they not witness to Christ's Resurrection in cities which had not as yet heard and which might be ready to receive their testimony? But it was in Jerusalem that they were to proclaim the fact of the Resurrection—the place where the witness of that fact could be corroborated by over 500 brethren who had seen Jesus at once. If the fact of the Resurrection were accepted in Jerusalem, where there was abundant power of proof or disproof, it would be accepted by every other kingdom and nation also. Moreover, they were to wait in Jerusalem and to expect the promise of the Father. They might in their zeal have thought that the King's message required haste and been eager to go forth and to bear witness immediately, whilst all men were still speaking of the Crucified and Risen Jesus. But Christ taught them then, and through them teaches us, that all witness is in vain unless it is accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, and that the first requisite is to wait for the inspiration and power of that Spirit. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."

II. The Proof of the Resurrection

The second preparation was the distinct proof of His Resurrection. Paul spoke truly when he said: "Touching the resurrection of the dead, I am called in question;" for that was to him, as it has been to all disciples, the turning-point of their faith. With the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, it has been truly said, stands or falls the Divinity of Christ; and with the Divinity of Christ stands or falls the Christian faith and hope. The disciples must wait until they knew even more certainly that Christ was risen, for to this they must witness before their enemies, who would assail them to the utmost of their power, and therefore Christ, in order to strengthen their faith, appeared to them at intervals for forty days. He showed them His hands and His feet, that He was body and not Spirit only. "A Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have." In the second place He showed them that His body partook in larger measure of the spiritual than of the fleshy nature; for He came and went at will, He was circumscribed neither by the laws of time nor of space. This power was used in order to prepare the disciples for His ultimate withdrawal, the suddenness of His appearance and disappearance giving them a consciousness of His spiritual nearness at all times, and preparing them to walk by faith and not by sight. Lastly, the Resurrection as it became more vivid to their spiritual even than to their bodily vision—as, for instance, when "He opened their understanding so that they might understand the Scriptures"—gave them an absolute certainty of His bodily, mental, and spiritual identity—a certainty which could never pass away.

III. The Promise of the Holy Ghost

In the third place He prepared them for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They had been baptized with the baptism of repentance; that is to say, they had been cleansed from past sin by an act the outward and visible sign of which was water; but now they were to receive the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of which a foretaste had already been given them, a baptism far exceeding that of John.

The Response of the Disciples

At first sight the attitude of the disciples is disappointing. They were gathered together with Christ for the last time, and it may be that their hearts were heavy with a dim consciousness that God would take away their Master from their head this day. What last request had they to make to Him? What last protestation of faith and of love? They asked that which lay upon their hearts, the great question which they had often asked before, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" As we hear them speak their words seem so sad, so far away from what they might have been. They had followed Jesus from the first with this hope and expectation, and this thought had been foremost with them, although He had striven to raise their thoughts from the temporal Messiahship to the spiritual kingdom. But does this question really show that they were no further, in anticipation and in understanding, than they had been at first? Was this heritage of longing which they had received from generations of their forefathers, who had waited for the coming of the Messiah and for the establishment of an earthly kingdom of surpassing glory and majesty, still their predominating and only thought ? It may have been so, but as we think the matter over we find that there may have been a deeper meaning to their question. Why need their King be parted from them ? Would he not, even at this eleventh hour, return and reign among them? Could he not again restore the kingdom to Israel? Could he not again turn the hearts of all men to Him, their true and only King? Their question was, after all, practically the same as that which John the Baptist had asked in his prison, as that which we and all who love the Lord Jesus Christ from age to age have asked, and are still asking, either with our lips or dumbly within our hearts—why need the long time of suspense, of doubt, of difficulty, of pain and weariness, of sin and distress still continue? Why need the work of Christ be carried on by such feeble agency and in the midst of so many difficulties? Why will not, why cannot, our Master return and restore again the kingdom to Himself?

The Reply Which Jesus Makes

Jesus answers them and at the same time answers us also. He takes the whole responsibility of the matter into His own hands. He quiets at once the restlessness and the longing. The question of the sin and of the weariness of the world concerns them only in so far as they can feel for it and relieve it. The Father Who has created all, Whose love yearns over all, has the times and the power and the seasons in His own hand. He will bring them forth in His own time, and with them His own peace. Meanwhile He calls upon His followers, whether they are Apostles or whether they are disciples of succeeding generations, in the first place to wait for the promise of the Holy Ghost; and, in the second place, to witness first in their own homes and then unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

Jesus promises there will be times and seasons of special refreshment; that is to say, of outpouring of His Holy Spirit. They will come from God at the time known only to Him and in the manner He has chosen. They will be veiled from human eyes. The disciples are to go forward on their way—a clear commission in their hands and an absolute knowledge of the truth which they are witnessing, a truth about to be assailed by the whole force of infidelity. They are to be at rest even as they press forward; for the future, with all its perplexities and apparent impossibilities, is in their Master's hand.

The Great Cloud of Witnesses

Thus Jesus bade them go forth "to the uttermost parts of the earth." These are His last words. As He stood on the Mount Olivet and looked once more at the world which He was about to leave, we wonder whether the future once again unrolled itself before His eyes; whether He saw passing before Him, as it were in a long, continuous train, His witnesses, His servants, who from age to age and from generation to generation would go forth to minister in His name, until they passed even to the uttermost ends of the earth. Did all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them thus a second time pass before his eyes, but did He see them lighted up with the coming glory, His kingdom instead of the kingdom of Satan? As He gazed did the shadows flee away before his eyes—was death swallowed up in victory?

Truth and Light: The Characteristics of the Kingdom of

Christ

The inflowing light which is gradually covering the earth is the second great witness of the Resurrection, just as the Divine character, as shown in the life of Christ, is the first and greatest witness of it. If the disciples had spread a lie, if the Resurrection itself had been a lie, then the outcome of untruth must have been untruth. The witness of a lie must have overspread every country into which it came with a cloud of darkness and with a desolation of separation from God. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Whereas we know that wherever Christ's heralds have proclaimed that He is God and that He is risen from the dead, a river of the water of life has flowed forth and carried with it the healing of the nations.

The Ascension

His command given, a command which is in itself both a promise and a prophecy, Christ was parted from His disciples. He was lifted up before their eyes, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. The revelation of His glory was seen but for a moment and then passed away in mystery and in cloud, and Christ became an unseen but still surrounding presence.

The disciples stood gazing wistfully towards heaven in the vain hope that as He had at other times departed and come again so He would once more appear before their eyes. Their agonized gaze must have been akin to that with which we watch the angel of death take away from us the desire of our eyes. The great question was whether when they knew that He had gone they would, like the sons of the Prophets, go hither and thither to seek Him in the hope that in some mountain or valley He might even yet appear, or sink into hopelessness, feeling paralyzed at the thought that they were left alone to witness in a city and in a world which had rejected Him.

Whilst they were gazing two messengers stood beside them—two angels sent from heaven to witness to them just as they were about to be sent to witness to the world. These angels had no new message which they could give; they did but reiterate the command and the promise of a sure return. They warned the disciples against letting their attitude be one of wonder or of longing, or of attempting to pierce into mysteries mercifully veiled from them. They bade them turn away their eyes and concentrate their thought and energy upon the allotted work. Their Master would one day return and would take account of His servants. He would come as mysteriously and as suddenly as He had gone, and the assurance of this return would be their stay and hope, the secret of their endurance.