Acts 1:6

Act_1:6-8

Wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

Before the Ascension

I. The question of the apostles.

1. The great awe produced by the first appearances of the risen Christ has worn off during the forty days. He and His are engaged in familiar converse as in days of old.

2. The apostles are not backward to ask a question; and it reveals their old notions of Messianic dominion still indulged. They still think of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel.

3. But their expectations are now high and eager.

(1) They feel the power of Gods kingdom in their hearts.

(2) They have been told of the promise of the Father (Act_1:4), of a baptism of the Holy Ghost.

(3) They expect now, at this time, a glorious manifestation of the kingdom.

(a) How prone we are to mistake Gods times and Gods ways, which are not as ours (Isa_55:8-9).

(b) How anxious we are to hurry on Gods dispensations; not considering the Divine slowness (1Pe_3:9), which waits for our salvation, though we are so impatient for manifestations of great results in the work of His kingdom. Apply this to missionary efforts.

(c) How careful we ought to be, not, as it were, to suggest or dictate to Him the how or the when, since He doeth all things well.

II. The answer of our Lord was--

1. A concealment (Act_1:7). It is not for the apostles to pry into the secret things of God. These are put in His own power, and even Jesus, as Son of Man, may not possess them (Mar_13:32). Learn--

(1) Ascension-tide and the Second Advent are closely connected in many points. The moment Jesus had gone, the minds of the apostles were to be fixed on His return (Act_1:11). He was then to them what He has been to Christians in all ages, ὁ ἔρχομενος.

(2) We stand at the threshold of the Second Advent, as they did at that of the Ascension. Our curiosity in religious things often centres on it. And of it Jesus answers just as He did to the apostles (Mat_24:36).

(3) The fact is certain, the time is concealed from us.

2. A revelation (Act_1:8), in which Jesus gives--

(1) A reminder of His departure, because the Holy Ghost was not to come until He had gone.

(2) A promise of spiritual strength. A certain power was to be given them.

(3) A prediction of the spread of the gospel, by a set progress in a definite order, beginning at Jerusalem, ending only at the compass of the globe.

Learn:

1. There are certain things put in mans power, just as there are some kept in Gods.

2. These are, chiefly, to know the mind and will of God by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, which He has promised, and which He gives.

3. In receiving the Holy Ghost, we receive power, not only to know, but to do Gods will (see Deu_29:29). Spiritual knowledge and strength are that we may work, not speculate.

4. We are to be witnesses of the ascended Jesus--

(1) By our own heavenly lives (Col_3:1-2);

(2) by our realisation of His mediatorial work (Heb_7:23);

(3) by our co-operation in all efforts for the making ready of His way to return and take to Him His great power and reign. (T. H. Barnett.)

The disciples question

I. Authorised as a question of--

1. Strong faith which expects the kingdom.

2. Tender love which wishes the salvation of the world.

3. Holy grief which feels for the miseries of the times.

II. Unauthorised as a question of--

1. Carnal impatience which wishes to see the Kingdom of God coming with external show.

2. Spiritual curiosity which will pry into what the Father has reserved for Himself.

3. Pious indolence which, with folded hands, looks at the clouds instead of working for the Kingdom of God in the calling entrusted to it. (J. P. Lunge, D. D.)

Christs last words to His disciples

Frequent were the interviews which Christ had with them previous to His death; ten times He was with them after His resurrection; but here is the final interview. The best things on earth must come to a close. The Divine drama is now over. These are words of--

I. Correction. The old prejudice came up--the making of Jerusalem imperial mistress of the world. This had been the brilliant dream of their race for ages.

1. The question indicated the working of several wrong elements.

(1) Materialism. It was asked in spite of the spirituality of their Masters teaching. The empire of truth and love which Christ came to establish, compared with which all earthly kingdoms were passing shadows, had not yet penetrated them with its transcendent glory.

(2) Prejudice. Such temporal dominion they had been taught in their childhood to anticipate. The idea was reached not by conviction but tradition; and without examination it had been allowed to grow with their growth. Christs teaching which bore directly against it had failed to shatter it.

(3) Ambition. Probably they expected to be leading ministers.

(4) Curiosity. They were prying into that which lay out of their province, and should have directed their inquisitiveness not to kingdoms, but to duties.

2. Christ corrects this morally mistaken state of mind. He does not say that there shall be no restoration; He leaves that with the enlightening Spirit about to descend. His words served--

(1) To check the spirit of idle curiosity concerning the future. Let the future alone; that is to reveal itself in history, and is not to be ascertained by human inquiry. Your duty is with the present, out of which the future grows. Would that modern prophet-mongers would listen to this.

(2) As a ground for unbounded trust, The Father hath put in His own authority. All futurities are in a Fathers hands, and are hidden out of love. Were the veil to be withdrawn, our social arrangements would be shattered, our free agency destroyed, our powers of action paralysed.

II. Encouragement. But ye shall receive power.

1. Miraculous.

2. Moral--the power that made them brave, faithful, magnanimous, self-sacrificing, successful--the greater of the two. This encouragement was opportune coming as it did after His caustic rebuke. The power promised transcends the political power of kingdoms. It is a power to change the heart of kings, to regulate the springs of empire, to mould the governments of the world. The old theocratic kingdom of Israel was but a faint type of Christs.

III. Direction. Ye shall be witnesses.

1. The nature of their ministry--witnesses. Hence their preaching at first was little more than a honest and fervent declaration of facts (Act_2:22-36; Act_3:12-26; Act_4:8-12; Act_5:29-42). These men left all the theorising for weaker but more pretentious men of later ages.

2. Its universality and its philanthropy embraces the world.

3. Its method. Beginning, etc. This they followed (chaps. 2., 8.; Rom_10:18; Col_1:6-23). In this method we see--

(1) Unexampled mercy. Offering the gospel to His greatest enemies.

(2) Consummate policy.

IV. Benediction (see Luk_24:50). (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Christs last instruction to His apostles

I. The question of the disciples disclosed--

1. Their ignorance.

2. Their belief that there was a kingdom of God. They could not forget the Theocracy, nor lose the conviction that it would be restored. Why, then, not now, and by the King?

3. Their benevolence and patriotism.

4. Their inquisitiveness and impatience.

II. The answer of the Master suggests--

1. That He can bear the inevitable ignorance of the good.

2. That His followers should cheek vain curiosity.

3. That there are times and seasons, eras and epochs, in the development of the affairs of the kingdom of God. The meaning of this is plain now, to a degree impossible then. Pentecost, the death of Stephen, the conversion of Saul, were times. The apostolic age, with its wonderful diffusion of the gospel, was a season. This age with its revivals, scientific spirit, and scepticism is also a season. Other times and seasons have yet to follow. How wonderful the wisdom which could plan them, and the authority which can put and hold them under full control.

4. That the pre-vision of these times and seasons is withheld from man. The wonders of Pentecost had to be waited for and felt and seen before their nature could be known. So with other epochs. (W. Hudson.)

It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.--

Times and seasons

I. The faith of the first disciples, in a brighter future for the world. That faith was founded on the predictions of the Old Testament and of our Lord. Patriotism and philanthropy inspired them to hope for great things for their countrymen; but piety lifted them into the faith that a new kingdom would be set up and Jesus be all in all. The Christian Church has never lost faith in the dawn of a better day for the world, and has laboured and prayed for it. We show ourselves unworthy of the apostles--in whose steps we profess to tread--if we do not attempt great things for God, and expect great things from God. Christ has promised a golden age, and though earth and heaven pass away, His words shall not pass away; The kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our God, etc.

II. The error of the first disciples, in allowing their faith in a brighter future to lead them into presumptuous curiosity. The disciples sought to be endowed with the faculty of pre-vision, but such an endowment was denied them. The old prophets were inspired to make known coming events, but the day and hour were hidden; and the apostles, no more than the prophets, could know when the events predicted concerning Israel and the world would occur. The error of the apostles has been repeated down to the present day. But age after age would-be prophets have had to revise their dates, and shift their scenes, and own, with shame that they had ventured out of their depth. The second coming of Christ and the end of the world, they are events about which even the angels in heaven do not know; the Father has them in His own hands, and they are safe there, and sure to be brought about in His own good time and way.

III. The duty of the first disciples in relation to their faith in a brighter future for the world as shown by the reply of their Master to the questioning of their presumptuous curiosity. Their duty was to be witnesses, to speak of what they had seen and heard, and not of what was hidden from them. It must have been a great joy to them to know that the future was in the hands of the Father, who is too wise to err and too good to be unkind. And it ought to calm and cheer us that the times and seasons are not in the hands of a demon or an angel; and not in the clumsy and capricious hands of men, but in the hands of Him who can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and cause all things to work together for good. (F. W. Brown.)

Times and seasons not to be known by the best of men

I. What is implied in the text. That there are times and seasons which God hath appropriated to Himself, both to order and to dispose them.

1. The times and seasons of the world in general. As God first made it, so He governs it. He set a time for the beginning and for the ending of it. And He orders all its affairs (Act_17:24; Act_17:26; Act_17:31).

2. The times and seasons of States in particular. These are also appointed by God. He gives them being and continuance (Job_12:23; Deu_32:8; Dan_2:20-21; Dan_4:17; Dan_4:25; Dan_4:32). And when He has once written vanity upon them they come to nothing.

3. The times and seasons of individuals (Psa_31:15; Psa_39:4; Job_14:5). All mens times are put in Gods own power, in regard of their space and quality, whether prosperous or afflicted. All this is to show us what great cause we have to wait upon God upon all occasions. He who is the Lord of our times should have the command of our services.

II. What is expressed. That it is not for you to know these times and seasons.

1. It is not your business. For the right understanding of this we must be mindful of the context. It is not said, it is not for you to know any times or seasons but those which the Father hath put in His own power. Consider--

(1) How far it is proper for us to know the times and seasons.

(a) Take it in a natural sense. It is proper for us to know the times and seasons of day and night, seedtime and harvest, winter and summer, and the like. These, it is true, God hath put in His own power, but they are not such as He hath kept to Himself, and accordingly we may take notice of them, for the improving of the opportunities of them.

(b) Take it in a civil sense--the times for buying and selling, war and peace (Ecc_3:8).

(c) Take it in a spiritual sense--the seasons of grace, the opportunities of salvation, the times of improvement (Luk_19:43; Jer_8:7; so Ecc_9:12; 1Ch_12:39.). To speak distinctly on this point, it concerns all men to know the sins and the miscarriages of the times (2Pe_3:17). The judgments and calamities of the times (Pro_28:5; Isa_26:11). The duties and engagement of the times (Rom_12:11).

(2) The sense in which it is impertinent. The change of affairs in States, the end and consummation of the world, etc.: such times and seasons as these it is not for you to know (Deu_30:20).

2. It is not profitable for you. It might please, as a matter of speculation, and so there are divers that busy themselves about it, but it cannot profit to edification. Nay, it is rather prejudicial and inconvenient: partly as it perplexes, and partly as it takes men off from their duty.

3. It is not within your reach. The Father hath put them in His own power, and so out of ours (Mar_13:32). It is not for you, that is, for you--

(1) As men, by the strength and power of reason (Ecc_7:27).

(2) As Christians, by supernatural illumination. There are many things which are not known by the light of nature, which yet are known by the light of the Spirit; but this is not known by either (1Jn_2:20; 1Jn_2:27). Refers to things necessary to salvation, whereof this is none.

(3) As apostles, by Divine inspiration, or extraordinary revelation. As Christians have knowledge of more things than ordinary men, so apostles had knowledge of more things than ordinary Christians; and yet for all that they had not the knowledge of this. Consider this point--

(a) As it meets with mens vain curiosity and affectation. There are many who trouble both their own and other mens heads with such questions. But this answer of our Saviour puts them off from such scrutinies; for if it be not for you to know, then it is not for you to inquire. There are many things which are necessary--the deceitfulness of our hearts, the depths of Satan, the will of the Lord. Therefore seek to know these.

(b) As with mens curiosity in inquiring, so with their presumption in resolving. It is not for you to know it, therefore it is not for you to determine it. There are a great many persons who not only make a search into this mystery, but also positively fix it.

Conclusion: It is not for you to know, but--

1. It is for you to believe; not to know the time, but to believe the thing; to believe that this day will come, though we know not when it will come (2Pe_3:3-4).

2. It is for you to expect; not to know when it will be, but to wait for it; to be always upon our watch and in readiness against the coming of our Master (Job_14:14; 2Pe_3:11-14).

3. It is for you to pray; not to know when it will be, but to pray that it may be; and to desire that it may be as soon as may be (Rev_22:17; Son_8:14).

4. It is not for you to know the times and seasons which God hath put in His own power, but it is for you to know the times and seasons which God hath put in yours. The times and seasons of affliction and correction, to be troubled for them; and the times and seasons of mercy and deliverance, to be thankful for them. (T. Horton, D. D.)

Times misinterpreted

If not for them, then for whom? Yet every age has had those who profess to be in the secret. They were in the Thessalonian Church, and Paul had to warn the disciples there to be on their guard against them. When Gallus renewed the persecution carried on by Decius Cyprian thought the judgment close at hand, and Milner remarks on this, God hath made the present so much the exclusive object of our duty that He will scarce suffer His wisest and best servants to gain reputation for skill and foresight by any conjectures concerning the times and seasons which He hath reserved, etc. More than a generation ago an Edinburgh reviewer was not speaking without cause when he said of men who could see in the Apocalypse the current condition of Europe, and who told a British statesman to adopt that book for a political manual, that they were carrying on madness upon too sublime a scale for our interference. We were brought up in the humble creed of looking at the prophecies chiefly in connection not with the future, but with the past; where a cautious divinity, looking backward, might shadow out marks of anticipation and promise, and lead our faith by marks of Divine foreknowledge, to an apparent accomplishment of the Divine will. But to use them as this years almanack; to put the millennium backwards and forwards, according as the facts of the last twelvemonth have falsified the predictions of the last edition; to jeopardise the State rather than tolerate a policy which might spoil a favourite criticism on some ambiguous text is to turn the apocalyptic eagle into the cuckoo of the spring. Horace Smith had his fling at Dr. C., who one month writes a book to expound the Apocalypse, and next month Another to refute his own argument. The thoughtful and erudite author of Small Books on Great Subjects professes an ever-increasing disinclination to the study of prophecy, further than in its great features, remarking that man is not formed for the knowledge of futurity, and that it is seldom that he knows how to make use of it, being too apt to put himself in the place of God, and instead of looking on the affairs of the world as a course of things directed to the final amelioration of the human race, to denounce this or that men, sure or man as impious, this or that event as a judgment on evildoers. Wycliffe and Luther both expected the judgment in their century, Napier at the close of the nineteenth, and Sir David Lindsay at the close of the twentieth. These ventures serve to bring to nought the wisdom of the wise, and to show what false steps may be confidently taken in a darkness that is not felt; for if felt it would crave warier walking. (J. Jacox, B. A.)

The benefits to character of ignorance of the future

I. Mans ignorance of the future. One department of knowledge God has in part spread before us, and is leading us continually further into His deeper counsels. The laws of nature, when we have once gathered them from the examination of the past become our almost certain guides for the future. But even here all things are not naked and open. The phenomena of the atmosphere cannot be predicted with unerring accuracy, and the earth still contains many secrets which may never be reached. There is, however, another department, where knowledge cannot be reduced to simple laws, and where the future is hidden. This is the department in which the agencies of God and man meet, where the plan of the great Ruler and the plans of countless finite beings run across one another. So many agents and interactions create a confusion and complication which none but infinite skill can disentangle, the results of which only God can foresee. In illustration of this, note--

1. That we find in our own experience, that the times and seasons of human life God has put in His own power. All of us can testily that an unexpected future has been unrolling itself. We make new acquaintances, and they affect our condition and prospects. Our plans are ever interrupted by events wholly unforeseen. Disease, misfortune, prosperity, and joy are as much hid from us as if the lot determined them.

2. The strange mistakes of the most practised men, as they stand on the threshold of great events. There are vast revolutions which alter the course of the world, and must have had deep foundations in the past; yet the statesmen and philosophers of the time are slumbering without anxiety on the sides of the volcano. Nay, if some one, confident in the sway of general law, assured that the Divine government will have its way, ventures to predict in vague terms a coming disaster, the men of his time laugh at him. But the storm has come, and has left desolations which the predicter himself did not anticipate. Thus how little did the Senatorial party augur, when they required Caesar to resign his command, that they were urging on measures which would destroy the power of the aristocracy, change Rome into an empire, and bring on a revolution in society, law, and government! How little did Caiaphas or Pilate dream of the power that would go forth from that submissive man who lay under their hand! How little did Leo X. and the leading Italians imagine that Martin Luther would make an era, and start a movement that would never stop! Who thought a little before the French revolution, unless some dreamer regarded as wild, that all the thrones of Europe would be shaken, or that a man of Corsica would hold half the continent under his foot? It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

3. The prophets and apostles were kept to a great degree in ignorance of the future, §o that the times and seasons were not brought within their view. Some persons imagine that a prophet acquired a telescopic sight which penetrated all the details of the future. But Paul says, We prophesy in part, i.e., imperfectly.

II. The moral uses which this arrangement is intended to serve.

1. In the province of individual effort uncertainty as to the future, united with probability of success, taxes the energies of man and develops his character in a desirable way.

(1) The man who is certain of future good feels no impulse to secure it by his own exertions. The man who is uncertain has every motive to prevent ill-success, and will avail himself of all helps and guard against those faults which can obstruct his way. Thus are we hardened, made wary and careful; and the virtues of prudence, forethought, diligence, vigilance, courage, etc., are cherished in our souls.

(2) But how does this law act in respect to our spiritual and eternal interests? It is plain that entire inability to estimate the course of our future life would cut off motive, and entire certainty might plunge us into despair if the foreseen end were evil, and into carelessness if it were good. But now we have the highest motives to exertion--a probability of success, if our efforts are commensurate to the greatness of the issue, and a certainty of failure if we let earthly things take the control of our lives.

(3) As for the interests of the kingdom of God--as long as the law is that nothing is brought to pass but by the co-operation of God and man, that nothing but ultimate success and no immediate, sudden triumph is held out; it is plain that all this is most favourable to strenuous exertion.

2. It is well that we cannot foresee the mass of difficulties which may discourage us, and that all our trials do not press on us at once. Suppose that ignorance were exchanged for certainty; is it not evident that the mass of them would seem too great for human strength to move? Ignorance, the,,, is a great blessing, and without it we should not have courage to undertake anything good and great. We now encounter our toils and anxieties one by one; we conquer them in detail, and sweet hope lives through all the efforts.

(1) If a successful inventor could have taken one clear, full look of his long, dreary conflict with difficulties, would he not have fled from such a career? and thus is not the world indebted for much of its progress, for many improvements in science and art, to mans ignorance of the future?

(2) Before a victorious war, if we had foreseen its length, its costliness in money and life; if the soldiers could have foreseen their hardships, wounds, defeats, is it not more titan probable that the majority would have shrunk from the contest, although certain of ultimate success? Of how many public and private efforts the same thing can be said.

(3) So also, when a man has devoted himself to the work of preaching Christs gospel, it is best for him to live in ignorance of the future. The apostles saw trials, etc., before them, but it was a mercy that they did not see the slow rate at which Christian truth has moved, the days of Mohammed, of papal darkness, of a divided, distracted Church.

(4) Who of us is not painfully conscious of fruitless struggles against sins, of a slow and fitful progress, of frequent declensions, etc. Now if all this had been foreseen, who could have collected courage enough to endure so much for the attainment of so little?

3. Mans ignorance of the future aids the spirit of piety.

(1) It helps us to realise that God has a plan for us and for the world.

(2) It suggests to us our dependence and awakens our faith.

Conclusion:

1. According to analogy, prophecy will never shed more than a dim, uncertain light upon the future before its fulfilment. Christ gave no satisfaction here, and when Peter asked what should befall John, he received but an ambiguous answer--If I will that he tarry, etc. And so Paul went to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that should befall him there, etc. And the history of interpretation shows that thus far the Church has made little progress in applying prophecies to particular events.

2. He who gains character out of the uncertainties of life is a great gainer. He has learned in the dark not only those qualities of character which make him a good actor in these earthly scenes and which generally insure success; but he has learned also how to depend on God, to trust in His providence, and to secure His co-operation. He is thus fitted for eternal life, for its employment, for its revelations. (T. D. Woolsey, D. D.)

Limitation of human knowledge

Dr. Ludlow, my professor in the Theological Seminary, taught me a lesson I have never forgotten. While putting a variety of questions to him that were perplexing, he turned upon me somewhat in sternness, but more in love, and said, Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things that you dont. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

Gods plans are in His own keeping

You cannot set the world right, or the times, but you can do something for the truth; and all you can do will certainly tell if the work you do is for the Master, who gives you your share, and so the burden of responsibility is lifted off. This assurance makes peace, satisfaction, and repose possible even in the partial work done upon earth. Go to the man who is carving a stone for a building; ask him where is that stone going, to what part of the temple, and how is he going to get it into place, and what does he do? He points you to the builders plans. This is only one stone of many. So, when men shall ask where and how is your little achievement going into Gods plan, point them to your Master, who keeps the plans, and then go on doing your little service as faithfully as if the whole temple were yours to build. (Phillips Brooks.)

God has His own plans

At this time, all ever the trees, and throughout the grass, is deposited the condensed moisture o! the air; and silent dewdrops are on every flower and every leaf. If you go and look at them in the darkness of to-night, there is no form or comeliness in them; but by and by God will have wheeled the sun in its circuit so that it shall look over the horizon; and the moment its light strikes these hidden drops, small and scattered, every one shall glow as if it were a diamond, and all nature shall be lighted up with myriad fires, each reflecting something of the Divine glory. God has His own plans. He never told us in full what they are. We know this, however: that we are fragmentary in our lives; that it takes many to make the one idea of God; that the work of past generations is hinged upon this, and that the work of this generation is hinged upon that of generations to come; and that God sits in sublimity of counsel, putting part with part, so that when we see the connected whole, the things that now seem most insignificant will shine out in wonderful beauty and magnificence. (H. W. Beecher.)

Human knowledge limited

There are things in every life which we cannot understand now--troubles, disappointments, sickness, poverty, death--but the time will come when all will be plain. I suppose no one at the beginning knows the full meaning of his life, or for what some of his experiences are training him. Robert Raikes had no vision of the millions studying in Sunday schools every Sunday; he only saw his present work and duty. John Bunyan, shut up in prison for the best twelve years of his life, while longing to preach the gospel, and thousands were eager to hear him, had no conception that Pilgrims Progress would enable him to preach to millions instead of thousands, and for centuries instead of years. So we, in our feeble beginnings, our narrow circumstances, our trials and disappointments, may know that if we are faithful we shall understand hereafter the meaning of all, and rejoice in the way God has led us. (F. N. Peloubet.)

Gods decisions unknown

I remember once sailing over the crystal waters of Lake Superior. We had come out of the muddy waters of Lake Huron during the night, and early in the morning I came on deck, and looking over the prow, started back in instinctive terror, for, looking down into the clear waters of that lake, it seemed to me as though our keel was just going to strike on the sharp-pointed rocks below; but I was looking through fifty or sixty feet of clear water at the great rock bed of the lake over which we were sailing. Now we endeavour in vain to fathom Gods judgments. As by a great deep they are hidden from us. But by and by, through the mystery we shall see and shall understand. (Lyman Abbott, D. D.)

Ensnared by inquisitiveness

How actively inquisitive are some people: and into what strange predicaments does this their strong propensity land them! They remind us of the crested anolis (Xiphosurus velifer), a species of the lizard tribe. It is a timid yet restlessly inquisitive animal; for although it hides itself with instinctive caution on hearing the approach of a footstep, it is of so curious a nature that it must needs poke its head out of its hiding-place, and so betray itself in spite of its timidity. So absorbed, indeed, is the anolis in gratifying its curiosity, that it will allow itself to be captured in a noose, and often falls a victim to the rude and inartificial snares made by children. (Scientific Illustrations.)

The sufficiency of human knowledge

Here on earth we are as soldiers fighting in a foreign land, which understand not the plan of the campaign, and have no need to understand it, seeing well what is at our hand to be done. Let us do it like soldiers, with submission, with courage, with a heroic joy: Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Behind us, behind each one of us, lie six thousand years of human effort, human conquest: before us is the boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered continents and Eldorados, which even we have to conquer, to create; and from the bosom of Eternity shine for us celestial guiding stars. (T. Carlyle.)

Mysteries in nature

Do not understand me at all as saying that there is no mystery about the planets motions. There is just the one single mystery--gravitation; and it is a very profound one. How it is that an atom of matter can attract another atom, no matter how great the distance, no matter what intervening substance there may be--how it will act upon it, or, at least, behave as if it acted upon it, I do not know, I cannot tell. Whether they are pushed together by means of an intervening ether, or what is the action, I cannot understand. It stands with me along with the fact that when I will that my arm shall rise, it rises. It is inscrutable. All the explanations that have been given of it seem to me merely to darken counsel with words and no understanding. They do not remove the difficulty at all. If I were to say what I really believe, it would be that the motions of the spheres of the material universe stand in some such relation to Him in Whom all things exist--the ever-present and omnipotent God--as the motions of my body do to my will; I do not know how, and never expect to know. (Prof. C. A. Young.)

Prophecy: purpose of

I am profoundly affected by the grandeur of prophecy. God unveils the frescoed wall of the future, not so much that we may count the figures, and measure the robes, and analyse the pigments; but that, gazing upon it, our imaginations may be enkindled, and hope be inspired, to bear us through the dismal barrenness of the present. Prophecy was not addressed to the reason, nor to the statistical faculty, but to the imagination; and I should as soon think of measuring love by the scales of commerce, or of admiring flowers by the rule of feet and inches, or of applying arithmetic to taste and enthusiasm, as calculations and figures to these grand evanishing signals which God waves in the future only to tell the world which way it is to march. (H. W. Beecher.)

Prophecy: fantastic interpretation of

All along the Oker Thal, in the Hartz, there are huge rocks towering up among the fir-clad hills, to which the peasants have appended names according as they fancy them to bear resemblance to chairs, horses, cobblers, or cocked hats. The likeness in most cases is such as only fancy can make out when she is in her most vigorous mood; nevertheless this rock must needs be called a man, and that a church, and there has no doubt been many a quarrel between rival observers who have discovered each a different image in the one pile of rock; yet the stones are not churches, chairs, or cobblers, and the whole business is childish and nonsensical. Interpreters of prophecy during the last few centuries have been most of them in the same position; one of them sees in the sublimities of the Revelation the form of Louis Napoleon, where two or three hundred years ago half Christendom saw the Pope, and the other half Martin Luther. The other day one of the seers saw Sebastopol in the prophecies, and now another detects the Suez Canal, and we feel pretty sure that the Council at Rome will soon be spied out in Daniel or Ezekiel. The fact is, when fancy is their guide men wander in a maze. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Speculations versus duty

While a minister was riding in a railway carriage he was saluted by a member of an exceedingly litigious and speculative sect. Pray, sir, said the sectary, what is your opinion of the seven trumpets? I am not sure, said the preacher, that I understand your question; but I hope you will comprehend mine. What think you of the fact that your seven children are growing up without God and without hope? You have a Bible-reading in your house for your neighbours, but no family prayer for your children. The nail was fastened in a sure place; enough candour of mind remained in the professor to enable him to profit by the timely rebuke. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 1:6-8. When they, therefore, were come together — That is, after he had led them out of the town to the mount of Olives, and was come to that part of the mountain which was above Bethany, (see Luk 24:50,) being full of expectation, that he had brought them thither with a view to some remarkable transaction; they asked him, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? — Wilt thou now break the Roman yoke from off our necks, and immediately erect the kingdom of the Messiah? Their minds were still full of a temporal kingdom to be erected by Christ, in which the Jews should have dominion over all nations; and “they seem to have expected, that when the Spirit was in so extraordinary a manner poured out, and the world, according to Christ’s prediction, (Joh 16:8,) convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, the whole nation of the Jews would own him for their Messiah, and not only shake off its subjection to the Romans, but itself rise to very extensive, and, perhaps, universal dominion. The word αποκαθιστανεις, [here rendered wilt thou restore,] intimates the shattered and weakened state in which Israel now was. And I cannot but think,” says Dr. Doddridge, “our Lord’s answer may intimate, it should at length be restored, though not immediately, or with all the circumstances they imagined.” And he — Waving a direct answer to this curious question, and leaving it to the Spirit of truth and wisdom, which was shortly to be given, to rectify the mistaken notions on which they proceeded in it; said, It is not for you, &c. — It will not be of any use to you, in your work; to know the times or the seasons — Of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Besides, this is one of the things which the Father hath thought fit to conceal from mortals, in the abyss of his own omniscience. This only is of importance for you to know, that you shall receive power — Fortitude, strength, and ability; after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you — In his various gifts and graces; and by these aids ye shall be witnesses unto me — Both by word and deed, by preaching and suffering, and by various miracles, which you shall be enabled to perform; both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, &c. — 1st, You must begin at Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit shall be poured out upon you in his extraordinary gifts, in the presence of multitudes of its inhabitants, and of strangers assembled there to celebrate the feast of pentecost; where you shall be enabled to do many miracles, and where many will receive your testimony, and they that do not will be left without excuse. 2d, Your light shall from thence shine through all Judea; where before you laboured in vain. 3d, Thence you shall proceed to Samaria, though at your first mission you were forbidden to preach in any of the cities of the Samaritans. 4th, Your usefulness shall not be confined to these countries, but shall be extended to the utmost part of the earth, and you shall be blessings to the whole world.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. The gift of power, Act_1:6-8.

6. Come together—Not a second assembling different from Act_1:4, but a furnishing of the apostles’ part at the same assembling.

Therefore—In consequence of his assurance that a stupendous blessing was in wait for them, they are stimulated to inquire unitedly whether the restoration of national sovereignty to Israel is included in it.

The kingdom—The independence and nationality which the Romans had taken from Israel. Unenlightened as yet by the Pentecostal illumination, the apostles speak more in the spirit of Jewish patriots than of heavenly-minded Christians. They have full faith that Jesus is the Messiah; they doubt not that he has power and purpose to render Israel not only independent of Rome, but make her head of the theocracy or new kingdom of God and master of the world, and their inquiry is whether he will do it at this time.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL REMARKS

Act_1:6. When they were come together.—(The Sinaitic codex omits together.) This was not the meeting referred to in Act_1:4, but the last interview recorded in Luk_24:36-53, which began in Jerusalem and ended near Bethany. Wilt, rather dost Thou? εἰ introducing a direct question, “which is contrary to classical usage, though not uncommon in the N.T. and the LXX.” (Hackett). The kingdom to Israel shows that as yet the expectations of the apostles had not passed beyond the bounds of their own nation.

Act_1:7. Put, set, fixed, or appointed in His own power—i.e., in the sovereign exercise of it. Compare Mat_24:36, and 1Th_5:1.

Act_1:8. After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.—Literally, the Holy Ghost having come upon you. This should be the source of their power. “Before the Ascension the disciples were led through the Spirit as a transcendent power standing over them; first with the Pentecostal event does He become an immanent principle” (Holtzmann). Witnesses unto Me should be My witnesses, the reading μου being preferable to μοι. Compare Luk_24:48. In Jerusalem, etc., gives a hint about the plan of the book.

Act_1:9. When He had spoken, rather saying these things, and while they beheld, or they behold, He was taken, or was raised up into the air, but not yet into heaven, ἐπήρθη being different from ἀνελήφθη (Act_1:2) and ὑπέλαβεν, received up from under.

Act_1:10. The two men who stood or were standing by them in white apparel or garments were angels, as in Mar_16:5; Luk_24:4; Joh_20:12.

Act_1:11. In like manner signified that Christ’s return would be in the air and visible. Compare Mar_14:62; Luk_21:27; Rev_1:7.

HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_1:6-11

The Ascension; or, the Exaltation of the Church’s Head

I. The attendant circumstances.—

1. The place. Olivet. This agrees with the statement of Luke (Luk_24:50), that the scene of the “taking up” was near Bethany, and contradicts not the account of Mark (Act_16:14-19), which seems to, but really does not, indicate as the point of departure the upper room in Jerusalem, in which Christ had appeared to His disciples as they sat at meat. The words “so that” (Mar_16:19) refer not necessarily to the immediately preceding conversation, but to the “speaking” in general of the Lord with His disciples during the forty days. (Compare Weiss, The Life of Christ, iii. 408, E. T.)

2. The time. The last of the forty days, the day of the Bethany manifestation, which, however, was not the interview enjoyed by the ten (Joh_20:19; compare Luk_24:36-49), but that granted to all the apostles (1Co_15:7), which most likely happened in Jerusalem on the evening of the fortieth day. In this case the journey to Bethany would be performed during night, and the ascension accomplished in the early morning, at the dawning of the day.

3. The spectators. The eleven. That others besides them should have witnessed the departure was not necessary, since to them alone, as His ambassadors, was about to be committed the task of witnessing both concerning and for Him. But that others along with them were in the upper room when Christ came to lead them forth is the natural deduction—others from whom they were withdrawn, who were left behind (compare Gen_22:5; 2Ki_2:6), and to whom they returned (see Act_1:13) when the sublime spectacle was over.

II. The supernatural phenomenon.—

1. The antecedent conversation.

(1) The curious question, “Lord! dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Surprising that the apostles, after three years’ training in the school of Christ, after the tragic event of the crucifixion, after the transcendent experience of the resurrection, and after listening to the risen Christ’s exposition of the things concerning the kingdom, should have still clung to the idea of a temporal monarchy. Yet neither unnatural nor difficult to understand when one remembers how full the air then was of materialistic and carnal conceptions of the coming Messianic kingdoms, how the apostles from their youthful days had drunk in these ideas and practically lived upon them, and how invincible, even in good men, early prejudice is.

(2) The discouraging reply. Leaving their mistaken notions to be corrected by the Holy Ghost (Joh_16:13), the risen Christ assured them their wisdom lay in not endeavouring beforehand to know times and seasons in connection with the kingdom—a hint to students of prophecy; that times and seasons were solely within the ken of the Father who had appointed these in the sovereign exercise of His own authority (Deu_29:29); and that their special task would be that of witnessing for Christ, beginning at Jerusalem (Luk_24:47), but progressing “to the uttermost parts of the earth”—light upon the mission of the gospel.

(3) The comforting assurance. Great and arduous as the work of witness-bearing would unquestionably prove, they would not be left for its execution to their own unaided strength, but, by the Holy Ghost about to come upon them, would be endowed with power sufficient to meet every emergency that might arise in their sacred calling—a word of consolation to Christians in every sphere, but especially to preachers and missionaries

2. The immediate exaltation.

(1) He was taken up, raised into the air, immediately after He had ceased speaking, and while the apostles were looking at Him in wondering adoration. Luke (Luk_24:50-51) describes Him at the moment as lifting up His hands and blessing them, and as in the act of stepping back and being parted from them.

(2) A cloud received Him out of their sight, folding round Him like a fleecy garment. “He maketh the clouds His chariot” (Psa_104:3). Imagination may picture the upward path of the ascending king. Scripture leaves that unpainted, and confines itself to state the unadorned fact that He was taken up,” that “He passed through the heavens” (Heb_4:10; 1Pe_3:22), that He “took His seat at the right hand of God” (Col_3:1; Heb_11:12).

3. The subsequent vision. Two men in white apparel stood beside the apostles as they looked steadfastly into heaven. Not Moses and Elias (Ewald), who had talked with Christ on the Transfiguration Mount, else Luke would have named them as he does in the Gospel, but two angels, probably the two who had figured at the resurrection (Luk_24:4; Joh_20:12).

(1) Reproving the heaven-gazers, thereby reminding them their duty henceforth would be not so much contemplation as action, these celestial monitors

(2) comforted them with the assurance that Christ would in like manner return as they had seen Him depart, thereby confirming Christ’s promise that He would come again (Mat_16:27; Luk_9:26; Joh_14:3), and

(3) directed them to look for His future appearing (Php_3:20; 1Th_1:10; Heb_9:28).

III. The doctrinal interpretation.—

1. What the Ascension signified to Christ.—

(1) The termination of His earthly humiliation and the commencement of His heavenly glory.

(2) The conclusion of His redeeming work and its formal acceptance as well as reward by His Father.

(3) The cessation of His direct visible activity on the earth, and the inauguration of His indirect and invisible working from heaven and through the Spirit.

2. What the Ascension signified to the apostles.

(1) The certainty of Christ’s resurrection. If Christ visibly withdrew from the earth He must have really risen from the dead.

(2) The confirmation of their faith in Christ’s Messiahship and Divinity. This followed as a consequence from their faith in His resurrection.

(3) The verification of Christ’s authority as a Teacher, Christ having before the Crucifixion announced that the Son of man should ascend up to where He had been before (Joh_6:62). When the apostles beheld this prediction fulfilled, they must have reasoned that in like manner all His other promises would be Yea and Amen! And in particular that His word about the Holy Ghost would not fail.

(4) The necessity of henceforth knowing Christ no more after the flesh. This probably was the import of His word to Mary—“Touch Me not! for I am not yet ascended” (Joh_20:17).

(5) The certainty that they would ultimately follow whither He had gone. This had been promised at the supper table (Joh_14:3). When, therefore, they saw Christ exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high, they would no longer fear, if they ever feared, that He might not be able to implement His loving word concerning and gracious purpose toward them.

3. What the Ascension signified in the world.

(1) The trustworthy character of Christ’s redeeming work. His exaltation supplied proof that He was able to save unto the uttermost all that came unto God through Him (Heb_7:25).

(2) Christ’s supremacy over all things and persons on earth. This was an unavoidable deduction from Christ’s investiture with all power in heaven and on earth (Mat_28:18; Joh_13:3). If Christ had “gone into heaven, angels, authorities, and powers being made subject unto Him” (1Pe_3:22), one might rest assured that all things on earth had likewise been placed beneath His feet (Eph_1:22), so that henceforth He should be Lord of both the living and the dead (Rom_14:9).

(3) The certainty that Christ would eventually conquer His foes. “He must reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet” (1Co_15:25; compare Heb_10:12-13).

Learn.—

1. The title Christ has to be worshipped (Php_2:10-11).

2. The duty of seeking those things which are above (Col_3:1).

3. The propriety of looking for Christ’s return (Tit_2:13).

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Act_1:6. A Questionable Question.—“Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom?”

I. Authorised.—When dictated by:

1. Shows faith, which expects the kingdom.

2. Tender love, which wishes the salvation of the world.

3. Holy grief, which feels for the miseries of the times.

II. Unauthorised.—When prompted by:

1. Carnal impatience, which wishes to see the kingdom of God coming with external show.

2. Spiritual curiosity, which will pry into what the Father hath reserved for Himself.

3. Pious indolence, which with folded hands looks at the clouds instead of working for the kingdom of God in the calling entrusted to it.—Gerok.

Act_1:7. Not for Man to know Times and Seasons.

I. A reasonable restriction.—Considering:

1. That the Father hath arranged these in the exercise of His own sovereign authority;

2. That in other realms besides that of religion man’s capacity to forecast the future is limited; and

3. That a knowledge of the times and seasons might act injuriously on man.

II. A beneficial arrangement.—As tending:

1. To inspire humility, teaching man that some subjects are beyond his ken.

2. To repress curiosity, which is always prone to overstep the bounds of what is legitimate.

3. To cultivate submission, directing man to leave secret affairs in the hands of the Father.

4. To discipline faith, training it to believe that He doeth all things well.

Act_1:8. Christ’s Witnesses.—Christians in their several spheres and capacities should be testifiers:

I. Of the facts of Christ’s history.—Of His incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, to those who are ignorant of these.

II. Of the doctrines of His Gospel.—Of His vicarious sacrifice for sin, His free offer of forgiveness, and His gift of the Holy Spirit to believers, to such as are in need of these.

III. Of the character and destiny of His Church.—Of its spiritual nature, holy calling, and ultimate victory over the world, to those who are outside its pale.

The Christian’s vocation.

I. Its glory.—Witnesses of the Exalted King, His witnesses.

II. Its lowliness.—Only His witnesses, nothing more.

III. Its sufferings.—Witnesses of the Lord in a hostile world.

IV. Its promise.—Strength from above.—Gerok.

Power for Service.

I. In what it consists.—The indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Whence the power is

1. Supernatural in its character;

2. Natural in its operations, employing man’s ordinary faculties; and

3. Adequate in its measure, meeting all the necessities of those who serve.

II. From whom it comes.—From the Father as its source, and from Christ as its dispenser. Hence to be sought from these alone by:

1. Obedient waiting (Act_1:4);

2. Earnest praying (Act_1:14, Act_2:1); and

3. Humble self-emptying.

III. To whom it is given.—

1. To those who are chosen, as the Apostles were by Christ.

2. To those who surrender themselves unreservedly for Christ’s service.

3. To those who believingly wait for the heavenly gift.

IV. For what it is granted.—To enable its recipients to witness for Christ. This the Holy Ghost does by witnessing for Christ in them. Without the Spirit’s help no words of apostle, prophet, evangelist, or preacher could efficiently testify for Christ—i.e., testify in such a way as to savingly reach the hearts and consciences of hearers.

Pentecostal Power.—Let us look at this pentecostal power and see some of its characteristics and conditions. What is it?

1. First, it is the power of religious earnestness. Half-hearted religion is no religion at all. God wants the whole heart or none. Earnestness is working at religion, not playing at it. Earnestness makes religion one’s chief business. It goes at it as men dig for gold in the mountains, determined to have it if it is there. That was the way with these first disciples. They knew the power existed and was meant for them. So they were going to have it. They would meet God’s conditions.

2. Pentecostal power is the power of union. In union there is strength. In division or separation there is weakness. Again and again are we told that those one hundred and twenty disciples were all in that upper room—not one hundred and nineteen, but one hundred and twenty. All there, and all with one accord. The heat generated fused all hearts into one. Did you ever see the hard, cold pieces of iron melt and flow together in the furnace? Then the moulder can make what he pleases out of the molten mass. The lack of union destroys the power of the human body or of the Christian Church. Think how a few church members who never unite in prayer and work with the rest shear the Church of strength.

3. Pentecostal power is the power to witness for Christ. Christianity is a religion that advances by means of testimony; and only so. Where no one speaks for it, it dies. Imagine Peter spending a week or a month without mentioning the name of Jesus. Imagine groups of the disciples meeting and talking about the weather, the crops, politics, or finances, and not saying a solitary word about their ascended Lord. True, holy living is good testimony for Christ. Without it talk is mere hypocrisy. But true, also, that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, but when the heart is as full of Jesus as were the hearts of the first disciples, the tongue reveals the fact. How many Christians are tongue-tied!

4. Again, Pentecostal power is the power of the Word of God. Have you noticed at Pentecost what a reasoner, what an expositor, what an orator Peter became? Have you observed how his eloquence burned its way into the hearts of his auditors? What gave him that power to move men? Read over his address, and you will find nothing there you can explain by the ordinary rules of rhetoric or canons of secular eloquence. It is the plainest kind of a speech. Did you ever know an earnest student of God’s Word that did not grow in piety? Did you ever know a Church that fed on God’s Word that did not have something like Pentecostal power? Did you ever know that power to come where the Divine Word was not honoured?

5. Pentecostal power was the power of prayer.

6. There are many other characteristics of this Pentecostal power. It is the power of a complete consecration, the power of an indomitable courage, the power of spiritual concentration, the power to win souls to Jesus Christ. But they are all summed up in this, it is the power of the Holy Ghost—the power of human hearts when taken possession of by the Divine Spirit. Will there be any mistaking this power? Will there be any doubt what has happened to us when we are filled with the Holy Ghost? Did any one ever try to make you believe that a kerosene lamp or a gas-jet or even an electric light was the spring or summer sun? Could electric lights enough be manufactured to make the earth put forth her buds, and flowers, and fruits? Oh, how easily the sun awakens the sleeping forces of nature, and clothes the earth with verdure! What transformations when the sun goes to work! And what transformations when the Holy Ghost descends! Are the resources of the Holy Spirit limited? Is He not infinite? Are not all things possible with God? We have waited six thousand years for steam and electricity; but these forces existed even in Eden, and might have been used if we had only known how. We have waited two thousand years since Christ for the promised conversion of the world. The power to bring it about exists. It is possessed by the Holy Ghost. It is Pentecostal power. Shall we have it? Have it now? Or wait another two thousand years, while the world rolls on in iniquity and generation after generation passes on into hell?—F. P. Berry.

Act_1:9. The Ascension of Christ and its Lessons.

I. The doctrine of the Ascension of our Lord holds a foremost place in apostolic teaching.—“The doctrine of the Resurrection, apart from the doctrine of the Ascension, would have been a mutilated fragment, for the natural question would arise, not for one, but for every age: If Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the dead, where is He?”

II. The Ascension of our Lord meant His withdrawal from this earthly scene.—“The Book of the Acts does not describe our Saviour as ascending through infinite space. It simply describes Him as removed from off this earthly ball, and then a cloud shutting Him out from view, Christ passed into the inner and unseen universe wherein He now dwells.”

III. The Ascension of our Lord was a fitting and natural termination of Christ’s ministry.—“The departure of the eternal King was like His first approach, a part of a scheme which forms one united and harmonious whole. The Incarnation and Ascension were necessarily related the one to the other.”

IV. The Ascension of our Lord was a necessary completion and finish to His earthly work.—“For some reasons secret from us, but hidden in the awful depths of that Being who is the beginning and the end, the source and condition of all created existence, the return of Christ to the bosom of the Father was absolutely necessary before the outpouring of the Divine Spirit of Life and Love could take place.

V. The Ascension of our Lord rendered Christ an ideal object of worship for the whole human race.—The Ascension of Jesus Christ was absolutely necessary to equip the Church for its universal mission, by withdrawing the bodily presence of Christ into that unseen region which bears no special relation to any terrestrial locality, but is the common destiny, the true fatherland of all the sons of God.

VI. The Ascension of our Lord glorified humanity as humanity, and ennobled man simply as man.—“The Ascension thus transformed life by adding a new dignity to life and to life’s duties. From the beginning Christianity declared to all the dignity and glory of human nature in itself. Much of modern speculation tends to debase and belittle the human body.… The doctrine of evolution, to say the least, has not an elevating influence upon the masses.… The doctrine of the Ascension teaches men a higher and nobler view.”—G. T. Stokes, D.D.

The Ascension of Christ.—What it meant.

I. A continuation of the redemptive work of Christ.—Without it the kingdom of God would have been but a divine dream. So long as the apostles were under Christ’s visible guidance they could not dissociate His kingdom from the empire of physical conquest which had so long been the vision of Jewish passions and prejudices. “Not until they could no longer speak to Christ face to face did a purer faith draw them within the sweep of God’s redemptive purpose, and open their eyes to the invisible kingdom of truth and justice, of love and moral beauty.”

II. A revelation of the unity of life.—“Instead of being a parting it was a drawing near of the Lord in a higher and mightier fellowship with man, in a more fruitful and comprehensive relationship.” “He was taken from the sight of His disciples that He might come into touch with all the springs of human thought and action.”

III. An enlargement of Christ’s personal influence.—“Death does not change but intensifies human relationships. Death is the gate through which the soul of the disciple ascends with Christ to larger life and more blessed influences.” “Moses and Paul are greater forces in human society now than they ever dreamed of being while in the flesh. The influence of Calvin increases not only in power but in purity with each succeeding generation.” So with Christ, whose ascension was “an uplifting and glorifying of all human life.”—George D. Herron, D.D.

The Ascension of Jesus.

I. The conclusion of the appearances of the Risen One in the past.

II. The counterpart of His future return.

III. The point of entrance for His present sovereignty.—Bornemann.

Taken up; or, Views of the Ascension. Christ ascended into heaven.

I. As a servant, to receive His reward. Having finished His Father’s work He ascended to receive His stipulated recompense (Heb_12:2).

II. As a Son into His Father’s bosom. Out of this having come, into this He delighted to return (Joh_17:5).

III. As a High Priest, to intercede for His people. Having offered Himself once for all as a sacrifice, He passed into the heavens, there to appear in the presence of God for them for whom He shed His blood (Heb_9:24).

IV. As a King, to sit upon His throne. As appointed mediator He is Lord of all (Act_10:36).

The Ascension of Christ a Necessity.

I. Because the polluted earth was not suited as an abode for the glorified Body of the Redeemer.—Heaven was its appropriate sphere of existence. Before it could tabernacle again in this world, the new heavens and the new earth must be introduced.

II. Because an essential part of His priestly office was to be exercised in Heaven.”—“What the high priest did in the earthly temple it was necessary for the High Priest of our profession to do in the temple made without hands in the heavens.”

III. Because it was necessary that redemption should not only be acquired but applied.—“Men if left to themselves would have remained in their sins, and Christ would have died in vain.” To avert this the Holy Ghost required to be given, and heaven was the place whence the Holy Spirit could be outpoured.

IV. Because Heaven itself required to be prepared for His people.—Hence Christ said, “I go to prepare a place for you,” etc. (Joh_14:2-3).—Charles Hodge, D.D.

The Visible Ascension.

I. The most befitting, and naturally to be expected attestation of Christ’s heavenly origin (Joh_3:13; Joh_6:62; Joh_16:28).

II. The final and most evident—for the first witnesses indispensable—exhibition of the truth that the kingdom of Jesus should be established by the Spirit from heaven.

III. The most assuring guarantee of Christ’s heavenly power.

IV. The strongest pledge of His future visible return.—Stier.

Clouds that conceal Christ.

I. Clouds of vapour conceal His glorious form from the eyes of sense.

II. Clouds of ignorance conceal His image from the eyes of the understanding.

III. Clouds of unbelief conceal His grace from the eyes of the heart.

IV. Clouds of sin conceal His presence from the eyes even of faith.

Act_1:11. Why stand we gazing into heaven? Because we see—

I. Jesus crowned with glory and honour (Heb_2:9).

II. Humanity glorified in Him (Heb_4:15).

III. Redemption fully completed by Him (Php_2:9).

IV. The whole creation in future recovered by Him (Rev_11:15).—Oosterzee.

The Second Coming of Christ.

I. Personal.—The same Lord Jesus.

II. Visible.—In like manner as ye beheld Him going.

III. Glorious.—On the clouds of heaven.

IV. Certain.—He shall come.

Act_1:9-11. Was Christ’s Ascension a visible phenomenon?

I. Against this the following considerations are commonly urged:

1. Scientific. The idea of a “local” heaven beyond the atmospheric firmament and out in the depths of space has been rendered inconceivable by modern astronomy. But without admitting that heaven cannot possibly be a place, all that the Ascension as narrated in Scripture involves is merely a visible withdrawal beyond the limits of this sensible sphere.

2. Theological. “The proper Christian faith conception of the present exaltation of Jesus Christ is not dependent on that external ascension which is reported in the Acts, the last not being for the Christian faith essential, and fundamental, while the first is (Bornemann). A statement such as this, however, is incorrect, since without a visible bodily ascension, not only would the doctrine of Christ’s bodily resurrection be insecure, but the doctrine of Christ’s mediatorship would be imperilled (see Heb_4:14-16).

3. Critical.

(1) The account of Luke (Act_24:20), which seems to place the Ascension at or near Bethany, fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem, whereas Acts represents it as having occurred only five or six furlongs from the city. See this difficulty met in Critical Remarks and Homiletical Analysis. Of course, if the reading which omits “and was carried up into heaven” be adopted, the difficulty vanishes.

(2) The representation in Mark (Act_16:19-20), which places (or appears to place) the Ascension immediately after the interview with the eleven as they sat at meat. But not to insist upon the incongruity of representing Christ as vanishing through heavens from a dining-room and at night, there is no more necessity for supposing that Christ immediately went from the chamber and ascended than there is for thinking that the apostles rose from their seats at the banquet and went forth to preach.

(3) The silence of Matthew

(28), which at least suggests that he did not know of any such occurrence as Luke and Mark report. But Matthew may have simply regarded the Ascension as lying beyond the scope of his Gospel history, or may have regarded it as directly implied in the Saviour’s promise, “Lo! I am with you always,” etc., “since it could not have been unknown to any Christian at that time, that Christ was no longer with His people ‘in the flesh,’ but had ascended to heaven” (Ebrard, Gospel History, § 102).

II. For this the undermentioned arguments should be weighed.

1. Scientific. There can be nothing scientifically impossible in the idea of Christ ascending into heaven, since Christ’s body had already undergone a transformation of which science can take no cognisance.

2. Theological. If Christ actually rose from the grave in a bodily form, a visible departure from earth would seem to be necessary to avert the suspicion that He may again have died.

3. Critical. The concurrent testimony of the Gospel and Epistle writers is too strong to be set aside. Compare Mar_16:19; Luk_24:50-51; Eph_4:8; Eph_4:10; 1Ti_3:16; Heb_4:14; Heb_6:20; Heb_7:26; Heb_9:12; 1Pe_1:22; 1Pe_3:22. (See Whitelaw’s How is the Divinity of Jesus depicted? Part iii., Chap. I.)

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 2

THE CONVERSATIONS OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.

{Act_1:6-9}

THE conversations and intercourse between our Lord and His apostles during the forty days which elapsed from the resurrection to the ascension must have been of intensest interest, yet, like so much that we should esteem interesting concerning the heroes of Scripture and their lives, these things are wrapped round with thickest darkness. We get a glimpse of the risen Christ here and there. We are told He was conversing with His disciples touching the things concerning the kingdom of God. And then we are practically referred to the Acts of the Apostles if we wish to know what topics His resurrection discourses dealt with. And when we do, so refer to the Acts we find that His disciples moved along the line of Christian development with steps sure, unfaltering, and decided, because they doubtless felt themselves nerved by the well-remembered directions, the conscious guidance of the Eternal Son of God, vouchsafed in the commandments given by Him in the power of the Holy Ghost.

Let us reflect for a little on the characteristics of Christs risen appearances to His disciples. I note then in the first place that they were intermittent, and not continuous, - here and there, to Mary Magdalene at one time; to the disciples journeying to Emmaus, to the assembled twelve, to five hundred brethren at once, at other times. Such were the manifestations of our Lord; and some may feel inclined to cavil at them, and ask, Why did. He not dwell continuously and perpetually with His disciples as before His resurrection? And yet, reading our narrative in the light of other scriptures, we might expect the resurrection appearances of Christ to have been of this description. In one place in the Gospel narrative we read that our Lord replied thus to a section of His adversaries: "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven." Now we often read of angelic appearances in Holy Scripture, in the Old and New Testament alike. We read too of appearances of Old Testament saints, as of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration. And they are all like those of our Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection. They are sudden, independent of time or space or material barriers, and yet are visible and tangible though glorified. Such in Genesis was Abrahams vision of angels at the tent door, when they did eat and drink with him.

Such was Lots vision of angels who came and lodged with him in wicked Sodom. Such was Peters vision when an angel released him, guided him through the intricate mazes of Jerusalems streets; and such were Christs appearances when, as on this occasion, His disciples, now accustomed to His risen and glorified form, tested Him as of old with the question, "Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

I. Now let us here notice the naturalness of this query concerning the restoration of the kingdom. The Apostles evidently shared the national aspirations of the Jews at that time. A large number of books have come to light of late years, which show what a keen expectation of the Messiahs kingdom and His triumph over the Romans existed at the time, and prior to the time, of our Saviour. The book of Enoch, discovered one hundred years ago in Abyssinia, and translated into English in the beginning of the present century, was written a century at least before the Incarnation. The book of Jubilees was written in Palestine about the time of our Lords birth; the Psalter of Solomon dates from the same period. All these works give us clearest glimpses into the inner mind, the religious tone, of the Jewish nation at that time. The pious unsophisticated people of Galilee were daily expecting the establishment of the Messianic kingdom; but the kingdom they expected was no spiritual institution, it was simply an earthly scene of material glory, where the Jews would once again be exalted above all surrounding nations, and the hated invader expelled from the fair plains of Israel. We can scarcely realise or understand the force and naturalness of this question, "Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" as put by these Galilean peasants till one takes up Archbishop Laurences translation of the book of Enoch, and sees how this eager expectation dominated every other feeling in the Jewish mind of that period, and was burned into the very secrets of their existence by the tyranny of Roman rule. Thus, let us take the forty-seventh chapter of the book of Enoch, which may very possibly have been in the thoughts of the Apostles as they presented this query to their Lord. In that chapter we read the following words, attributed unto Enoch: "There I beheld the Ancient of Days, whose head was like white wool; and with Him another, whose countenance resembled that of man. His countenance was full of grace, like that of one of the holy angels. Then I inquired of one of the angels who went with me, and who showed me every secret thing concerning this Son of Man, who He was, whence He was, and why He accompanied the Ancient of Days. He answered and said to me, This is the Son of Man, to whom righteousness belongs, with whom righteousness has dwelt, and who will reveal all the treasures of that which is concealed. For the Lord of Spirits has chosen Him, and His portion has surpassed all before the Lord of Spirits in everlasting uprightness. This Son of Man whom thou beholdest shall raise up kings and the mighty from their couches, and the powerful from their thrones; shall loosen the bridles of the powerful, and break in pieces the teeth of sinners. He shall hurl kings from their thrones and their dominions, because they will not exalt and praise Him, nor humble themselves before Him, by whom their kingdoms were granted to them. The countenance likewise of the mighty shall He cast down, filling them with confusion. Darkness shall be their habitation, and worms shall be their bed; nor from that their bed shall they hope to be again raised, because they exalted not the Name of the Lord of Spirits." This is one specimen of the Messianic expectations, which were just then worked up to fever pitch among the Galileans especially, and were ever leading them to burst out into bloody rebellion against the power of the Romans. We might multiply, such quotations fourfold did our space permit. This one extract must suffice to show the tone and quality of the religious literature upon which the souls of the Apostles had fed and been sustained, when they proposed this query, "Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" They were thinking simply of such a kingdom as the book of Enoch foretold.

This very point seems to us one of the special and most striking evidences for the inspiration and supernatural direction of the writers of the New Testament. Their natural, purely human, and national conception of the kingdom of God was one thing; their final, their divinely taught and inspired conception of that kingdom is quite another thing. I cannot see how, upon any ground of mere human experience or human development, the Apostles could have risen from the gross, material conceptions of the book of Enoch, wherein the kingdom of the Messiah would have simply been a purified, reformed, and exalted copy of the Roman Empire of that day, to the spiritual and truly catholic idea of a kingdom not of this world, which ruled over spirits rather than over bodies. Some persons maintain that Christianity in its doctrines, organisation, and discipline was but the outcome of natural forces working in the world at that epoch. But take this doctrine alone, "My kingdom is not of this world," announced by Christ before Pilate, and impressed upon the Apostles by revelation after revelation, and experience after experience, which they only very gradually assimilated and understood. Where did it come from? How was it the outcome of natural forces? The whole tendency of Jewish thought was in the opposite direction. Nationalism of the most narrow, particular, and limited kind was the predominant idea, specially among those Galilean provincials who furnished the vast majority of the earliest disciples of Jesus Christ. Our minds have been so steeped in the principles of Christian liberalism, we have been so thoroughly taught the rejection of race-prejudice, that we can scarcely realise the narrow and limited ideas which must have ruled the minds of the first Christians, and therefore we miss the full force of this argument for the Divine character of the Christian religion. A Roman Catholic peasant from Connaught, an Ulster Orangeman, a Celtic Presbyterian Highlander, none of these will take a wide, tolerant, generous view of religion. They view the question through their own narrow provincial spectacles. And yet any one of them would have been broad, liberal, and comprehensive when contrasted with the tone and thought of the Galilean provincials of our Lords day. They lived lonely, solitary lives, away from the din, the pressure, and the business of daily life; they knew nothing of what the great outside world was thinking and doing; they fed their spirits on the glories of the past, and had no room in their gloomy fanaticism for aught that was liberal and truly spiritual. How could men like them have developed the idea of the Catholic Church, boundless as the earth itself, limited by no hereditary or fleshly bonds, and trammelled by no circumstances of race, climate, or kindred? The magnificence of the idea, the grandeur of the conception, is the truest and most sufficient evidence of the divinity of its origin. "In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female," the rapt expression of an inspired and illuminated Apostle, when compared with this query, "Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" the darkened utterance of carnal and uninspired minds groping after truth, furnishes to the thinking soul the clearest evidence of the presence of a supernatural power, of a Divine enlightenment, vouchsafed to the Apostles upon the Day of Pentecost. If this higher knowledge, this nobler conception, this spiritualised ideal, came not from God, whence did it come?

I do not think we can press this point of the catholicity and universality of the Christian idea and the Christian society too far. We cannot possibly make too much of it. There were undoubtedly Christian elements, or elements whence Christian ideas were developed, prevalent in the current Judaism of the day. Many a clause of the Lords Prayer and of the Sermon on the Mount can be paralleled almost word for word from the Jewish teachers and writings of the times immediately preceding our Lord. There was nothing in Christ of that petty vanity of little minds which craves after complete originality, and which will be nothing if not completely new. He was indeed the wise and the good householder, who brought forth out of His treasures things old as well as things new: Many a teacher and thinker, like Philo, whose ideas had been broadened by the Divine training of banishment and enforced exile in Alexandria or in Asia Minor, had risen to nobler and wider views than were current in Palestine. But it was not among these, or such as these, that the catholic ideas of the gospel took their rise. Christianity took its rise among men whose ideas, whose national aspirations, whose religious hopes, were of the narrowest and most limited kind; and yet, amid such surroundings and planted in such a soil, Christianity assumed at once a world-wide mission, rejected at once and peremptorily all mere Judaic exclusiveness, and claimed for itself the widest scope and development. The universality of the Gospel message, the comprehensive, all-embracing character of the Gospel teaching, as set forth in our Lords parting words, is, we conclude, an ample evidence of its Divine and superhuman origin.

II. In this passage again there lies hidden the wisest practical teaching for the Church of all ages. We have warnings against the folly which seeks to unravel the future and penetrate that veil of darkness by which our God in mercy shrouds the unknown. We have taught us the benefits which attend the uncertainties of our Lords return and of the end of this present dispensation. "It is not for you to know times or seasons." Let us endeavour to work out this point, together with the manifold illustrations of it which the history of the Church affords.

(a) The wisdom of the Divine answer will best be seen if we take the matter thus, and suppose our Lord to have responded, to the apostolic appeal fixing some definite date for the winding-up of mans probation state, and for that manifestation of the sons of God which will take place at His appearing and His kingdom. Our Lord, in fixing upon some such definite date, must have chosen one that, was either near at hand or else one that was removed far off into the distant future. In either of these cases He must have defeated the great object of the Divine society which He was founding. That object was simply this, to teach men how to lead the life of God amid the children of men. The Christian religion has indeed sometimes been taunted with being an unpractical religion, turning mens eyes and attention from the pressing business and interests of daily life to a far-away spiritual state with which man has nothing to do, at least for the present. But is this the case? Has Christianity proved itself unpractical? If so, what has placed Christendom at the head of civilisation? The tendencies of great principles are best shown in the actions of vast masses. Individuals may be better or worse than their creeds, but if we wish to see the average result of doctrines we must take their adherents in the mass and inquire as to their effect on them. Here, then, is-where we may triumph. The religions of Greece and of Rome are identical in principle, and even in their deities, with the paganism of India, as the investigations of comparative historians have abundantly shown. Compare Christendom and India from the simply practical point of view, and which can show the better record? The paganism of India, Persia, and Western Asia was the parent of the paganism of Greece and Rome. The child has passed away and given place to a noble and spiritual religion, while the parent still remains. And now what is the result? Can the boldest deny that while barbarism, decay, and death reign over the realms of Asiatic paganism, though starting with every advantage upon its side, concerning the religion of the Cross, which is taunted with being an unpractical religion, and concerning that religion alone, can it be said in the language of the rapt Jewish seer, "Wheresoever the waters of that river have come, behold there is life," and that the fair plains, and crowded cities, and the massive material development and civilisation of Europe and of America alike proclaim the truth, that Christianity has the promise of the life which now is as well as of that which is to come?

(b) Our Lords answer to His Apostles was couched in words suited to develop this practical aspect of His religion. It refused to minister to mere human curiosity, and left men uncertain as to the time of His return, that they might be fruitful workers in the great field of life. And now behold what ill results would have followed had He acted otherwise! The Master in fact says, It is not well for you to know the times or seasons, because such knowledge would strike at the root of practical Christianity. Uncertainty as to the time of the end is the most healthful state for the followers of Christ. Christ holds out the prospect of His own return for a twofold purpose: first, to comfort His people under the daily troubles of life -"Rejoice in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice. Let your forbearance be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand"; "Whatever our hope or joy or crown of glorying, are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming"; "If we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him" - these and dozens of other passages, which will recur in a moment toevery student of St. Pauls writings, prove the power to comfort and sustain exercised by the doctrine of Christs second coming. But there was another and still more powerful influence exercised by this doctrine. It stirred men up to perpetual watchfulness and untiring care. "Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour"; "Therefore be ye also ready, for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh"; "The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light,"-these and many a similar exhortation of the Master and of his chosen Apostles alike, indicate to us that another great object of this doctrine was to keep Christians perpetually alive with an intense anxiety and a sleepless watchfulness directed towards the person and appearing of Christ. The construction of the gospel narrative shows this.

(c) There are in the New Testament, taken as a whole, two contrasted lines of prophecy concerning the Second Coming of Christ. If in one place the Lord Jesus speaks as if the date of His coming were fixed for His own generation and age, "Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away till all these things shall be fulfilled," in the very same context He indicates that it is only after a long time that the Lord of the servants will return, to take account of their dealings with the property entrusted to them. If St. Paul in one place seems to indicate to the Thessalonians the speedy appearing of Christ and the end of the dispensation, in another epistle he corrects such a misapprehension of his meaning. If the Revelation of St. John in one place represents the awful Figure who moves amid the Churches, watching their works and spying out their secret sins, as saying, "Behold, I come quickly," the same book pictures a long panorama of events, extending over vast spaces of time, destined yet to elapse before the revelation of the city of God and the final triumph of the saints. The doctrine of Christs second appearing is like many another doctrine in the New Testament. Like the doctrine of Gods election, which is undoubtedly there, and yet side by side with election appears as really and truly the doctrine of mans free will; like the doctrine of Gods eternal and almighty love, side by side with which appears the existence of a personal devil, and of an abounding iniquity and sorrow which seems to contradict this doctrine; like the doctrine of the Godhead itself, where the Unity of the Divine Nature is most clearly taught, yet side by side therewith appears the manifold personality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as existing in that Nature; - so too is it in the case of the doctrine of Christs Second Coming. We have a twofold antinomy. In one line of prophecy we have depicted the nearness and suddenness of Christs appearing; in another line we behold that tremendous event thrown into the dim and distant future. And what is the result upon the human mind of such opposite views? It is a healthy, useful, practical result. We are taught the certainty of the event, and the uncertainty of the time of that event; so that hope is stirred, comfort ministered, and watchfulness evoked. We can see this more clearly by imagining the opposite. Suppose Christ had responded to the spirit of the apostolic query, "Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" and fixed the precise date of His coming? He would in that case have altogether defeated the great end of His own work and labour. Suppose He had fixed it a thousand years from the time of His Ascension. Then indeed the doctrine of Christs Second Coming would have lost all personal and practical power over the lives of the generation of Christians then living, or who should live during the hundreds of years which were to elapse till the date appointed. The day of their death, the uncertainty of life, these would be the inspiring motives to activity and devotion felt by the early Christians; while, as a matter of fact, St. Paul never appeals to either of them, but ever appeals to the coming of Christ and His appearing to judgment as the motives to Christian zeal and diligence. But a more serious danger in any such prediction lurks behind. What would have been the result of any such precise prophecy upon the minds of the Christians who lived close to the time of its fulfilment? It would have at once defeated the great end of the Christian religion, as we have already defined it. The near approach of the great final catastrophe would have completely paralysed all exertion, and turned the members of Christs Church into idle, useless, unpractical religionists. We all know how the near approach of any great event, how the presence of any great excitement, hinders lifes daily work. A great joy or a great sorrow, either of them is utterly inconsistent with tranquil thought, with steady labour, with persistent and profitable exertions. The expectation-of some tremendous change, whether it be for happiness or misery, creates such a flutter in the spirit that steady application is simply out of the question. So would it have been in our supposed case. As the time fixed for the appearance of our Lord drew nigh, all work, business, labour, the manifold engagements of life, the rearing of families, the culture of the ground, the development of trade and commerce, would be considered a grand impertinence, and mans powers and mans life would be prostrated in view of the approaching catastrophe.

(d) Again and again has history verified and amply justified the wisdom of the Masters reply, "It is not for you to know times or seasons." It was justified in apostolic experience. The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is a commentary on our Lords teaching in this passage. The Christians of Thessalonica imbibed the notion from St. Pauls words that Christs appearance to judgment was at hand. Perhaps St. Pauls words in his first Epistle led them into the mistake. The Apostle was not infallible on all questions..He was richly inspired, but he knew nothing of the future save what was expressly revealed, and beyond such express revelations he could only surmise and guess like other men. The Thessalonians, however, were led by him to expect the immediate appearance of Christ, and the result was just what I have depicted. The transcendent event, which they thought impending, paralysed exertion, destroyed honest and useful labour, scandalised the gospel cause, and compelled St. Paul to use the sternest, sharpest words of censure and rebuke. The language of St. Paul completely justifies our line of argument. He tells us that the spirits of the Thessalonians had been upset, the natural result of a great expectation had been experienced as we might humanly have predicted. The beginning of the second chapter of his Second Epistle proves this: "Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is present." See here how he dwells on mental perturbation as the result of high-strung expectation; and that is bad, for mental peace, not mental disturbance, is the portion of Christs people. Then again he indicates another result of which we have spoken as natural under such circumstances. Idleness and its long train of vices had followed hard upon the mental strain which found place for a time at Thessalonica, and so in the third chapter of the Epistle he writes, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly"; and then he defines the disorderliness of which he complains, "For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busy-bodies." Or, to put the matter in a concise shape, and interpret St. Paul into modern language, the expectation of the near approach of the judgment and the personal appearing of Christ had upset the spirits of the Thessalonians; it had so fluttered them they could not attend to ordinary business. Human nature then asserted itself. Idleness resulted from the mental disturbance. Idleness begot gossip, disorder, and scandals. The idlers indeed professed that they ceased from labour in order to give their whole attention to devotion. But St. Paul knew that there was no incompatibility between work and prayer, while he was convinced there was the closest union between idleness and sin. Idleness put on an appearance of great spirituality, but St. Paul effectually met the difficulty. He knew that an idler, no matter how spiritual he pretended to be, must eat, and so he strikes at the root of such mock religion by laying down, "If any will not work, neither let him eat,"- a good healthy practical rule, which soon restored the moral and spiritual tone of the Macedonian Church to its normal condition.

(e) The experiences of Thessalonica have been often repeated down through the ages till we come to our own day. I remember a curious instance that I once read of exactly the same spirit, and exactly the same method of cure, as St. Paul used, in the case of an Egyptian monastery in the fifth century. The monks were then divided into two classes. There were monks who laboured diligently and usefully in communities, and there were others who lived idle lives as solitaries, pretending to a spirituality too great to permit them to engage in secular pursuits. A solitary one day entered a monastery presided over by a wise abbot. He found the monks all diligently employed, and, addressing them from his superior standpoint, said, "Labour not for the meat that perisheth." "That is very good, brother," said the abbot. "Take our brother away to his cell," he said to one of his attendants, who left him there to meditate. Nature, after a time, began to assert its sway, and the solitary became hungry. He heard the signal for the midday meal, and wondered that no man came to summon him. Time passed, and the evening meal was announced, and yet no invitation came. At last the solitary left his cell and proceeded in search of food, when the wise abbot impressed on him the Pauline rule that it was quite possible to unite work and worship, labouring for the bread that perisheth while feeding on the bread that is eternal.

The tenth century again verified the wisdom of the Divine denial to reveal the future, or fix a date for Christs second coming. The year 1000 was regarded in the century immediately preceding it as the limit of the worlds existence and the date of Christs appearing. The belief in this view spread all over Europe, and the result was just the same as at Thessalonica. Men abandoned all work, they left their families to starve, and thought the one great object worth living for was devotion and preparation for their impending change. And the result was widespread misery, famine, disease, and death, while, instead of working any beneficial change upon society at large, the terror through which men had passed brought about, when the dreaded time had gone by, a reaction towards carelessness and vice, all the greater from the self-denial which they had practised for a time. And as it was in the earlier ages so has it been in later times. The people of London were, in the middle of the last century, deluded into a belief that on a certain day the Lord would appear to judgment, with the result that the business of London was suspended for the time. The lives of John Wesley and his fellow-evangelists tell us how diligently they seized the opportunity of preaching repentance and preparation for the coming of Christ, though they shared not the belief in the prediction which gained them their audience. While again in the present century there was a widespread opinion about the year 1830 that the coming of Christ was at hand. It was the time when the Irvingite and Darbyite bodies sprang into existence, in which systems the near approach of the Second Coming forms an important element. Men then thought that it was a mere matter of day or weeks, and in consequence they acted just like the Thessalonians. In their ardour their minds were upset, their business and families neglected, and, as far as in them lay, the work of life and of civilisation was utterly destroyed. While when again we come to later times experience has taught that no men have been more profitless and unpractical Christians than the numbers, by no means inconsiderable, who have spent their lives in vain attempts to fix new for this year, and again for that day, the exact time when the Son of Man should appear. The wisest Christians have acted otherwise. It is told of a foreign bishop, eminent for his sanctity and for the wise guidance which he could give in the spiritual life, that he was once engaged in playing a game of bowls. One of the bystanders was of a critical disposition, and was scandalised at the frivolity of the bishops occupation, so much beneath the dignity, as it was thought, of his character. "If Christ was to appear the next moment, what would you do?" he asked the bishop. "I would make the next stroke the best possible one," was the wise mans reply. And the reply involved the true principle which the Lord Himself by His refusal to gratify the Apostles curiosity desired to impress on His people. The uncertainty of the time of Christs coming, combined with the certainty of the event itself, should stir us up to intensity of purpose, to earnestness of life, to a hallowed enthusiasm to do thoroughly every lawful deed, to think thoroughly every lawful thought, conscious that in so doing we are fulfilling, the will and work of the great Judge Himself. Blessed indeed shall be those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find so doing.

III. Christ, after He had reproved the spirit of vain curiosity which strikes at the root of all practical effort, then indicates the source of their strength and the sphere of its activity. "Ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you." They were wanting then, as yet, in power, and the Holy Ghost was to supply the want. Intellect, talent, eloquence, wit, all these things are Gods gifts, but they are not the source of spiritual power. A man may possess them one and all, and yet be lacking in that spiritual power which came upon the Apostles through the descent of the Spirit. And the sphere of their appointed activity is designated for them. Just as in the earliest days Of Christs public ministry He spake words indicative of the universal spirit of the gospel, and prophesied of a time when men from the east and west should come and sit down in the kingdom of God, while the children of the kingdom should be cast out, so, too, one of His few recorded resurrection sayings now indicates the same: "Ye shall be My witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Jerusalem, Judaea, - the Apostles were to begin their great practical life of witnessing at home, but they were not to stay there. Samaria was next to have its opportunity, and so we shall find it to have been the case; and then, working from home as centre, the uttermost parts of the earth, a distant Spain from Paul, and a distant India from Thomas, and a barbarous Scythia from Andrew, and a frigid, ocean-girt Britain from a Joseph of Arimathaea, were to learn tidings of the new life in Christ.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

1:6-11 Jesus’ ascent into heaven (see also Luke 24:50-53) took place on the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:12; Luke 24:50). It was Jesus’ last physical appearance—he was taken into heaven, where he will remain “until the time for the final restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Act 1:6. Συνελθόντες, having come together) They thought that they would more easily obtain a reply when asking jointly.—τούτῳ) at this interval (period), viz. that which was coming after not many days.—τὴν βασιλείαν, the kingdom) the seat of which is Jerusalem, Act 1:4, but the full extent of it most comprehensive, Act 1:8, and the nature and inward character of it more divine than the construction which the interrogators were at the time putting on the words of the Lord; Act 1:3 at the end. Luk 22:16, “I will not anymore eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”—τῷ Ἰσραὴλ, to Israel) The dative bears the emphasis. The apostles, taking the fact for granted, were asking concerning the time: and in a like manner the reply, which follows immediately after, is framed.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act_1:6. Not qui convenerant (Vulgate, Luther, and others), as if what follows still belonged to the scene introduced in Act_1:4; but, as is evident from συναλιζ., Act_1:4, comp. with Act_1:12, a new scene, at which the ascension occurred (Act_1:9). The word of promise spoken by our Lord as they were eating (Act_1:4-5), occasioned (μὲν οὖν) the apostles to come together, and in common to approach Him with the question, etc. Hence: They, therefore, after they were come together, asked Him. Where this joint asking occurred, is evident from Act_1:12.[98] To the ΜΈΝ corresponds the ΔΈ in Act_1:7.

ἘΝ Τῷ ΧΡΌΝῼ Κ.Τ.Λ.] The disciples, acquainted with the O. T. promise, that in the age of the Messiah the fulness of the Holy Spirit would be poured out (Joe_3:1-2; Act_2:16 ff.), saw in Act_1:5 an indirect intimation of the now impending erection of the Messianic kingdom; comp. also Schneckenburger, p. 169. In order, therefore, to obtain quite certain information concerning this, their nearest and highest concern, they ask: Lord, if Thou at this time restorest the (fallen) kingdom to the people Israel? The view of Lightfoot, that the words were spoken in indignation (itane nunc regum restitues Judaeis illis, qui te cruci affixerunt?), simply introduces arbitrarily the point alleged.

εἰ] unites the question to the train of thought of the questioner, and thus imparts to it the indirect character. See on Mat_12:10, and on Luk_13:23.

ἘΝ Τῷ ΧΡ. ΤΟΎΤῼ] i.e. at this present time, which they think they might assume from Act_1:4 f.

ἀποκαθιστ.] See on Mat_17:11. By their Τῷ ἸΣΡΑΉΛ they betray that they have not yet ceased to be entangled in Jewish Messianic hopes, according to which the Messiah was destined for the people of Israel as such; comp. Luk_24:21. An artificial explanation, on the other hand, is given in Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 647.

The circumstance that, by the declaration of Jesus, Act_1:4 f., their sensuous expectation was excited and drew forth such a rash question, is very easily explained just after the resurrection, and need occasion no surprise before the reception of the Spirit itself; therefore we have not, with Baumgarten, to impute to the disciples the reflection that the communication of the Spirit would be the necessary internal ground for all the shaping of the future, according to which idea their question, deviating from the tenor of the promise, would be precisely a sign of their understanding.

[98] Concerning the time of the question, this expression ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ gives so far information that it must have occurred very soon after that meal mentioned in ver. 4, so that no discussions intervened which would have diverted them from this definite inquiry as to the time. Therefore it was probably on the same day. The τούτῳ is thus explained, which sounds as a fresh echo of that οὐ μετὰ πολλ. ταύτ. ἡμ.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 1:6 . οἱ μὲν οὖν : the combination μὲν οὖν is very frequent in Acts in all parts, occurring no less than twenty-seven times; cf. Luk 3:18 . Like the simple μέν it is sometimes used without δέ in the apodosis. Here, if δέ is omitted in Act 1:7 after εἶπεν , there is still a contrast between the question of the Apostles and the answer of Jesus. See especially Rendall, Acts of the Apostles , Appendix on μὲν οὖν , p. 160 ff.; cf. Weiss in loco. συνελθόντες : the question has often been raised as to whether this word and μὲν οὖν refer back to Act 1:4 , or whether a later meeting of the disciples is here introduced. For the former Hilgenfeld contends (as against Weiss) and sees no reference to any fresh meeting: the disciples referred to in the αὐτοῖς of Act 1:4 and the ὑμεῖς of Act 1:5 had already come together. According to Holtzmann there is a reference in the words to a common meal of the Lord with His disciples already mentioned in Act 1:4 , and after this final meal the question of Act 1:6 is asked on the way to Bethany (Luk 24:50 ). The words οἱ μὲν οὖν συνελθ . are referred by Felten to the final meeting which formed the conclusion of the constant intercourse of Act 1:3 , a meeting thus specially emphasised, although in reality only one out of many, and the question which follows in Act 1:6 was asked, as Felten also supposes (see too Rendall on Act 1:7-8 ), on the way to Bethany. But there is no need to suppose that this was the case (as Jüngst so far correctly objects against Holtzmann), and whilst we may take συνελθ . as referring to the final meeting before the Ascension, we may place that meeting not in Jerusalem but on the Mount of Olives. Blass sees in the word συνελθ . an assembly of all the Apostles, cf. Act 1:13 and 1Co 15:7 , and adds: “Aliunde supplendus locus ubi hoc factum, Act 1:12 , Luk 24:50 ”. ἐπηρώτων : imperfect, denoting that the act of questioning is always imperfect until an answer is given (Blass, cf. Act 3:3 ), and here perhaps indicating that the same question was put by one inquirer after another (see on the force of the tense, as noted here and elsewhere by Blass, Hermathena , xxi., pp. 228, 229). εἰ : this use of εἰ in direct questions is frequent in Luke, Blass, Grammatik des N. G. , p. 254; cf. Act 7:1 , Act 19:2 (in Vulgate si ); it is adopted in the LXX, and a parallel may also be found in the interrogative ה in Hebrew (so Blass and Viteau). ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ : such a promise as that made in Act 1:5 , the fulfilment of which, according to Joe 2:28 , would mark the salvation of Messianic times, might lead the disciples to ask about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel which the same prophet had foretold, to be realised by the annihilation of the enemies of God and victory and happiness for the good. As in the days of old the yoke of Pharaoh had been broken and Israel redeemed from captivity, so would the Messiah accomplish the final redemption, cf. Luk 24:21 , and set up again, after the destruction of the world-powers, the kingdom in Jerusalem; Weber, Jüdische Theologie , pp. 360, 361 (1897). No doubt the thoughts of the disciples still moved within the narrow circle of Jewish national hopes: “totidem in hac interrogatione sunt errores quot verba,” writes Calvin. But still we must remember that with these thoughts of the redemption of Israel there mingled higher thoughts of the need of repentance and righteousness for the Messianic kingdom ( Psalms of Solomon , 17, 18; ed. Ryle and James, p. lviii.), and that the disciples may well have shared, even if imperfectly, in the hopes of a Zacharias or a Simeon. Dr. Edersheim notes “with what wonderful sobriety” the disciples put this question to our Lord ( ubi supra , i., p. 79); at the same time the question before us is plainly too primitive in character to have been invented by a later generation (McGiffert, Apostolic Age , p. 41). ἀποκαθιστάνεις : ἀποκαθιστάνω , a form of ἀποκαθίστημι which is found in classical Greek and is used of the restoration of dominion as here in 1Ma 15:3 ; see also below on Act 3:21 and Malachi LXX Act 4:5 . On the form of the verb see W.H [101] , ii., 162, and on its force see further Dalman, u. s. , p. 109. “Dost thou at this time restore …?” R.V.; the present tense marking their expectation that the kingdom, as they conceived it, would immediately appear an expectation enhanced by the promise of the previous verse, in which they saw the foretaste of the Messianic kingdom.

[101] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To the old and ancient state.

We must fight before we triumph: and we ought not curiously to search after those things, which God hath not revealed.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

In Jerusalem Christ, by his angel, had appointed his disciples to meet him in Galilee; there he appointed them to meet him in Jerusalem again, such a day. Thus he would try their obedience, and it was found ready and cheerful; they came together, as he appointed them, to be the witnesses of his ascension, of which we have here an account. Observe,

I. The question they asked him at this interview. They came together to him, as those that had consulted one another about it, and concurred in the question nemine contradicente - unanimously; they came in a body, and put it to him as the sense of the house, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Two ways this may be taken: -

1. "Surely thou wilt not at all restore it to the present rulers of Israel, the chief priests and the elders, that put thee to death, and, to compass that design, tamely gave up the kingdom to Caesar, and owned themselves his subjects. What! Shall those that hate and persecute thee and us be trusted with power? This be far from thee." Or rather,

2. "Surely thou wilt now restore it to the Jewish nation, as far as it will submit to thee as their king." Now two things were amiss in this question: -

(1.) Their expectation of the thing itself. They thought Christ would restore the kingdom to Israel, that is, that he would make the nation of the Jews as great and considerable among the nations as it was in the days of David and Solomon, of Asa and Jehoshaphat; that, as Shiloh, he would restore the sceptre to Judah, and the lawgiver; whereas Christ came to set up his own kingdom, and that a kingdom of heaven, not to restore the kingdom to Israel, an earthly kingdom. See here, [1.] How apt even good men are to place the happiness of the church too much in external pomp and power; as if Israel could not be glorious unless the kingdom were restored to it, nor Christ's disciples honoured unless they were peers of the realm; whereas we are told to expect the cross in this world, and to wait for the kingdom in the other world. [2.] How apt we are to retain what we have imbibed, and how hard it is to get over the prejudices of education. The disciples, having sucked in this notion with their milk that the Messiah was to be a temporal prince, were long before they could be brought to have any idea of his kingdom as spiritual. [3.] How naturally we are biassed in favour of our own people. They thought God would have no kingdom in the world unless it were restored to Israel; whereas the kingdoms of this world were to become his, in whom he would be glorified, whether Israel should sink or swim. [4.] How apt we are to misunderstand scripture - to understand that literally which is spoken figuratively, and to expound scripture by our schemes, whereas we ought to form our schemes by the scriptures. But, when the Spirit shall be poured out from on high, our mistakes will be rectified, as the apostles' soon after were.

(2.) Their enquiry concerning the time of it: "Lord, wilt thou do it at this time? Now that thou hast called us together is it for this purpose, that proper measures may be concerted for the restoring of the kingdom to Israel? Surely there cannot be a more favourable juncture than this." Now herein they missed their mark, [1.] That they were inquisitive into that which their Master had never directed nor encouraged them to enquire into. [2.] That they were impatient for the setting up of that kingdom in which they promised themselves so great a share, and would anticipate the divine counsels. Christ had told them that they should sit on thrones (Luk 22:30), and now nothing will serve them but they must be in the throne immediately, and cannot stay the time; whereas he that believeth doth not make haste, but is satisfied that God's time is the best time.

II. The check which Christ gave to this question, like that which he had a little before given to Peter's enquiry concerning John, What is that to thee? Act 1:7, It is not for you to know the times and seasons. He does not contradict their expectation that the kingdom would be restored to Israel, because that mistake would soon be rectified by the pouring out of the Spirit, after which they never had any more thoughts of the temporal kingdom; and also because there is a sense of the expectation which is true, the setting up of the gospel kingdom in the world; and their mistake of the promise shall not make it of no effect; but he checks their enquiry after the time.

1. The knowledge of this is not allowed to them: It is not for you to know, and therefore it is not for you to ask. (1.) Christ is now parting from them, and parts in love; and yet he gives them this rebuke, which is intended for a caution to his church in all ages, to take heed of splitting upon the rock which was fatal to our first parents - an inordinate desire of forbidden knowledge, and intruding into things which we have not seen because God has not shown them. Nescire velle quae magister maximus docere non vult, erudita inscitia est - It is folly to covet to be wise above what is written, and wisdom to be content to be no wiser. (2.) Christ had given his disciples a great deal of knowledge above others (to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God), and had promised them his Spirit, to teach them more; now, lest they should be puffed up with the abundance of the revelations, he here lets them understand that there were some things which it was not for them to know. We shall see how little reason we have to be proud of our knowledge when we consider how many things we are ignorant of. (3.) Christ had given his disciples instructions sufficient for the discharge of their duty, both before his death and since his resurrection, and in this knowledge he will have them to be satisfied; for it is enough for a Christian, in whom vain curiosity is a corrupt humour, to be mortified, and not gratified. (4.) Christ had himself told his disciples the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and had promised that the Spirit should show them things to come concerning it, Joh 16:13. He had likewise given them signs of the times, which it was their duty to observe, and a sin to overlook, Mat 24:33; Mat 16:3. But they must not expect nor desire to know either all the particulars of future events or the exact times of them. It is good for us to be kept in the dark, and left at uncertainty concerning the times and moments (as Dr. Hammond reads it) of future events concerning the church, as well as concerning ourselves, - concerning all the periods of time and the final period of it, as well as concerning the period of our own time.

Prudens futuri temporis exitum

Caliginosa nocte premit Deus -

But Jove, in goodness ever wise,

Hath hid, in clouds of thickest night,

All that in future prospect lies

Beyond the ken of mortal sight.

- Hor.

As to the times and seasons of the year, we know, in general, there will be summer and winter counterchanged, but we know not particularly which day will be fair or which foul, either in summer or in winter; so, as to our affairs in this world, when it is a summer-time of prosperity, that we may not be secure, we are told there will come a wintertime of trouble; and in that winter, that we may not despond and despair, we are assured that summer will return; but what this or that particular day will bring forth we cannot tell, but must accommodate ourselves to it, whatever it is, and make the best of it.

2. The knowledge of it is reserved to God as his prerogative; it is what the Father hath put in his own power; it is hid with him. None besides can reveal the times and seasons to come. Known unto God are all his works, but not to us, Act 15:18. It is in his power, and in his only, to declare the end from the beginning; and by this he proves himself to be God, Isa 46:10. "And though he did think fit sometimes to let the Old Testament prophets know the times and the seasons (as of the Israelites' bondage in Egypt four hundred years, and in Babylon seventy years), yet he has not fit to let you know the times and seasons, no not just how long it shall be before Jerusalem be destroyed, though you be so well assured of the thing itself. He hath not said that he will not give you to know something more than you do of the times and seasons;" he did so afterwards to his servant John; "but he has put it in his own power to do it or not, as he thinks fit;" and what is in that New Testament prophecy discovered concerning the times and the seasons is so dark, and hard to be understood, that, when we come to apply it, it concerns us to remember this work, that it is not for us to be positive in determining the times and the seasons. Buxtorf mentions a saying of the rabbin concerning the coming of the Messiah: Rumpatur spiritus eorum qui supputant tempora - Perish the men who calculate the time.

III. He appoints them their work, and with authority assures them of an ability to go on with it, and of success in it. "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons - this would do you no good; but know this (Act 1:8) that you shall receive a spiritual power, by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon you, and shall not receive it in vain, for you shall be witnesses unto me and my glory; and your testimony shall not be in vain, for it shall be received here in Jerusalem, in the country about, and all the world over," Act 1:8. If Christ make us serviceable to his honour in our own day and generation, let this be enough for us, and let not us perplex ourselves about times and seasons to come. Christ here tells them,

1. That their work should be honourable and glorious: You shall be witnesses unto me. (1.) They shall proclaim him king, and publish those truths to the world by which his kingdom should be set up, and he would rule. They must openly and solemnly preach his gospel to the world. (2.) They shall prove this, shall confirm their testimony, not as witnesses do, with an oath, but with the divine seal of miracles and supernatural gifts: You shall be martyrs to me, or my martyrs, as some copies read it; for they attested the truth of the gospel with their sufferings, even unto death.

2. That their power for this work should be sufficient. They had not strength of their own for it, nor wisdom nor courage enough; they were naturally of the weak and foolish things of the world; they durst not appear as witnesses for Christ upon his trial, neither as yet were they able. "But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you" (so it may be read), "shall be animated and actuated by a better spirit than your own; you shall have power to preach the gospel, and to prove it out of the scriptures of the Old Testament" (which, when they were filled with the Holy Ghost, they did to admiration, Act 18:28), "and to confirm it both by miracles and by sufferings." Note, Christ's witnesses shall receive power for that work to which he calls them; those whom he employs in his service he will qualify for it, and will bear them out in it.

3. That their influence should be great and very extensive: "You shall be witnesses for Christ, and shall carry his cause," (1.) "In Jerusalem; there you must begin, and many there will receive your testimony; and those that do not will be left inexcusable." (2.) "Your light shall thence shine throughout all Judea, where before you have laboured in vain." (3.) "Thence you shall proceed to Samaria, though at your first mission you were forbidden to preach in any of the cities of the Samaritans." (4.) "Your usefulness shall reach to the uttermost part of the earth, and you shall be blessings to the whole world."

IV. Having left these instructions with them, he leaves them (Act 1:9): When he had spoken these things, and had said all that he had to say, he blessed them (so we were told, Luk 24:50); and while they beheld him, and had their eye fixed upon him, receiving his blessing, he was gradually taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. We have here Christ's ascending on high; not fetched away, as Elijah was, with a chariot of fire and horses of fire, but rising to heaven, as he rose from the grave, purely by his own power, his body being now, as the bodies of the saints will be at the resurrection, a spiritual body, and raised in power and incorruption. Observe, 1. He began his ascension in the sight of his disciples, even while they beheld. They did not see him come up out of the grave, because they might see him after he had risen, which would be satisfaction enough; but they saw him go up towards heaven, and had actually their eye upon him with so much care and earnestness of mind that they could not be deceived. It is probable that he did not fly swiftly up, but moved upwards gently, for the further satisfaction of his disciples. 2. He vanished out of their sight, in a cloud, either a thick cloud, for God said that he would dwell in the thick darkness; or a bright cloud, to signify the splendour of his glorious body. It was a bright cloud that overshadowed him in his transfiguration, and most probably this was so, Mat 17:5. This cloud received him, it is probable, when he had gone about as far from the earth as the clouds generally are; yet it was not such a spreading cloud as we commonly see, but such as just served to enclose him. Now he made the clouds his chariot, Psa 104:3. God had often come down in a cloud; now he went up in one. Dr. Hammond thinks that the clouds receiving him here were the angels receiving him; for the appearance of angels is ordinarily described by a cloud, comparing Exo 25:22 with Lev 16:2. By the clouds there is a sort of communication kept up between the upper and lower world; in them the vapours are sent up from the earth, and the dews sent down from heaven. Fitly therefore does he ascend in a cloud who is the Mediator between God and man, by whom God's mercies come down upon us and our prayers come up to him. This was the last that was seen of him. The eyes of a great many witnesses followed him into the cloud; and, if we would know what became of him then, we may find (Dan 7:13), That one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him in the clouds as he came near before him.

V. The disciples, when he had gone out of their sight, yet still continued looking up stedfastly to heaven (Act 1:10), and this longer than it was fit they should; and why so? 1. Perhaps they hoped that Christ would presently come back to them again, to restore the kingdom to Israel, and were loth to believe they should now part with him for good and all; so much did they still dote upon his bodily presence, though he had told them that it was expedient for them that he should go away. or, they looked after him, as doubting whether he might not be dropped, as the sons of the prophets thought concerning Elijah (Kg2 2:16), and so they might have him again. 2. Perhaps they expected to see some change in the visible heavens now upon Christ's ascension, that either the sun should be ashamed or the moon confounded (Isa 24:23), as being out-shone by his lustre; or, rather, that they should show some sign of joy and triumph; or perhaps they promised themselves a sight of the glory of the invisible heavens, upon their opening to receive him. Christ had told them that hereafter they should see heaven opened (Joh 1:51), and why should not they expect it now?

VI. Two angels appeared to them, and delivered them a seasonable message from God. There was a world of angels ready to receive our Redeemer, now that he made his public entry into the Jerusalem above: we may suppose these two loth to be absent then; yet, to show how much Christ had at heart the concerns of his church on earth, he sent back to his disciples two of those that came to meet him, who appear as two men in white apparel, bright and glittering; for they know, according to the duty of their place, that they are really serving Christ when they are ministering to his servants on earth. Now we are told what the angels said to them, 1. To check their curiosity: You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? He calls them men of Galilee, to put them in mind of the rock out of which they were hewn. Christ had put a great honour upon them, in making them his ambassadors; but they must remember that they are men, earthen vessels, and men of Galilee, illiterate men, looked upon with disdain. Now, say they, "Why stand you here, like Galileans, rude and unpolished men, gazing up into heaven? What would you see? You have seen all that you were called together to see, and why do you look any further? Why stand you gazing, as men frightened and perplexed, as men astonished and at their wits' end?" Christ's disciples should never stand at a gaze, because they have a sure rule to go by, and a sure foundation to build upon. 2. To confirm their faith concerning Christ's second coming. Their Master had often told them of this, and the angels are sent at this time seasonably to put them in mind of it: "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, and whom you are looking thus long after, wishing you had him with you again, is not gone for ever; for there is a day appointed in which he will come in like manner thence, as you have seen him go thither, and you must not expect him back till that appointed day." (1.) "This same Jesus shall come again in his own person, clothed with a glorious body; this same Jesus, who came once to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, will appear a second time without sin (Heb 9:26, Heb 9:28), who came once in disgrace to be judged, will come again in glory to judge. The same Jesus who has given you your charge will come again to call you to an account how you have performed your trust; he, and not another," Job 19:27. (2.) "He shall come in like manner. He is gone away in a cloud, and attended with angels; and, behold, he comes in the clouds, and with him an innumerable company of angels! He is gone up with a shout and with the sound of a trumpet (Psa 47:5), and he will descend from heaven with a shout and with the trump of God, Th1 4:16. You have now lost the sight of him in the clouds and in the air; and whither he is gone you cannot follow him now, but shall then, when you shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." When we stand gazing and trifling, the consideration of our Master's second coming should quicken and awaken us; and, when we stand gazing and trembling, the consideration of it should comfort and encourage us.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 6. When they therefore were come together] It is very likely that this is to be understood of their assembling on one of the mountains of Galilee, and there meeting our Lord.

At this time restore again the kingdom] That the disciples, in common with the Jews, expected the Messiah's kingdom to be at least in part secular, I have often had occasion to note. In this opinion they continued less or more till the day of pentecost; when the mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit taught them the spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ. The kingdom had now for a considerable time been taken away from Israel; the Romans, not the Israelites, had the government. The object of the disciples' question seems to have been this: to gain information, from their all-knowing Master, whether the time was now fully come, in which the Romans should be thrust out, and Israel made, as formerly, an independent kingdom. But though the verb αποκαθιστανειν signifies to reinstate, to renew, to restore to a former state or master, of which numerous examples occur in the best Greek writers, yet it has also another meaning, as Schoettgen has here remarked, viz. of ending, abolishing, blotting out: so Hesychius says, αποκαταστασις is the same as τελειωσις, finishing, making an end of a thing. And Hippocrates, Aph. vi. 49, uses it to signify the termination of a disease. On this interpretation the disciples may be supposed to ask, having recollected our Lord's prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the whole Jewish commonwealth, Lord, Wilt thou at this time destroy the Jewish commonwealth, which opposes thy truth, that thy kingdom may be set up over all the land? This interpretation agrees well with all the parts of our Lord's answer, and with all circumstances of the disciples, of time, and of place; but, still, the first is most probable.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. He showeth that the apostles were gathered together when as this question was moved, that we may know that it came not of the foolishness of one or two that it was moved, but it was moved by the common consent of them all; but marvelous is their rudeness, that when as they had been diligently instructed by the space of three whole years, they betray no less ignorance than if they had heard never a word. There are as many errors in this question as words. They ask him as concerning a kingdom; but they dream of an earthly kingdom, which should flow with riches, with dainties, with external peace, and with such like good things; and while they assign the present time to the restoring of the same. they desire to triumph before the battle; for before such time as they begin to work they will have their wages. They are also greatly deceived herein, in that they restrain Christ’s kingdom unto the carnal Israel, which was to be spread abroad, even unto the uttermost parts of the world. Furthermore, there is this fault in all their whole question, namely, that they desire to know those things which are not meet for them to know. No doubt they were not ignorant what the prophets did prophesy concerning the restoring of David’s kingdom, they had oftentimes heard their Master preach concerning this matter. Lastly, It was a saying common in every man’s mouth, that, in the most miserable captivity of the people, they should all be comforted, with the expectation of the kingdom that should be. Now, they hoped for the restoring hereof at the coming of the Messias, and hereupon was it that so soon as the apostles saw their Master Christ risen from the dead, they straightway began to think thereupon; but, in the meantime, they declared thereby how bad scholars they were under so good a Master. Therefore doth Christ briefly comprehend in this short answer all the errors whereinto they fell in this their question, as I shall straightway declare. To restore, in this place, doth signify to set up again that which was fallen, and through many ruins grown out of fashion; for out of the dry stock of Isai [Jesse] should spring a Branch, and the tabernacle of David, which was laid waste, should be erected and set on foot again.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(6) Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom?—More literally, art Thou restoring . . . Before the Passion the disciples had thought that “the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (Luk_19:11). Then had come the seeming failure of those hopes (Luk_24:21). Now they were revived by the Resurrection, but were still predominantly national. Even the Twelve were thinking, not of a kingdom of God, embracing all mankind, but of a sovereignty restored to Israel.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. wilt thou … restore] Literally, dost thou restore (or art thou restoring), but the English future gives the sense.

the kingdom to Israel] The question was asked when all the Apostles were gathered together, so that the enquiry was not dictated by the mistaken notion of some single member. It shews, as do many other remarks and questions (cp. Luk_24:21, &c.), how far the Apostles were even yet from comprehending the spirituality and universality of the work to which Christ was sending them. A temporal kingdom confined to Israel is what they still contemplate. The change from the spirit which dictated the question in this verse, to that in which St Peter (Act_2:38-39) preached repentance and forgiveness to all whom the Lord should call, is one of the greatest evidences of the miracle of Pentecost. Such changes can only come from above.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When they therefore were come together,.... That is, Christ, and his eleven apostles; for not the hundred and twenty disciples hereafter mentioned, nor the five hundred brethren Christ appeared to at once, are here intended, but the apostles, as appears from Act 1:2.

they asked of him, saying, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? The kingdom had been for some time taken away from the Jews, Judea was reduced to a Roman province, and was now actually under the power of a Roman governor. And the nation in general was in great expectation, that upon the Messiah's coming they should be delivered from the yoke of the Romans, and that the son of David would be king over them. The disciples of Christ had imbibed the same notions, and were in the same expectation of a temporal kingdom to be set up by their master, as is evident from Mat 20:21 and though his sufferings and death had greatly damped their spirits, and almost destroyed their hopes, see Luk 24:21 yet his resurrection from the dead, and his discoursing with them about the kingdom of God, and ordering them to wait at Jerusalem, the metropolis of that nation, for some thing extraordinary, revived their hopes, and emboldened them to put this question to him: and this general expectation of the Jews is expressed by them in the same language as here,

"the days of the Messiah will be the time when , "the kingdom shall return", or "be restored to Israel"; and they shall return to the land of Israel, and that king shall be exceeding great, and the house of his kingdom shall be in Zion, and his name shall be magnified, and his fame shall fill the Gentiles more than King Solomon; all nations shall be at peace with him, and all lands shall serve him, because of his great righteousness, and the wonderful things which shall be done by him; and whoever rises up against him God will destroy, and he shall deliver him into his hands; and all the passages of Scripture testify of his and our prosperity with him; and there shall be no difference in anything from what it is now, only "the kingdom shall return to Israel" (i).

(i) Maimon. in Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

Ver. 6. Restore again] They dreamt of a distribation of honours and offices here on earth as in the days of David and Solomon.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When they therefore were come together - At the Mount of Olives. See Act 1:9, Act 1:12.

Wilt thou at this time ... - The apostles had entertained the common opinions of the Jews about the temporal dominion of the Messiah. They expected that he would reign as a prince and conqueror, and would free them from the bondage of the Romans. Many instances where this expectation is referred to occur in the gospels, notwithstanding all the efforts which the Lord Jesus made to explain to them the true nature of his kingdom. This expectation was checked, and almost destroyed by his death Luk 24:21, and it is clear that his death was the only means which could effectually change their opinions on this subject. Even his own instructions would not do it; and nothing but his being taken from them could direct their minds effectually to the true nature of his kingdom. Yet, though his death checked their expectations, and appeared to thwart their plans, his return to life excited them again. They beheld him with them; they were assured that it was the same Saviour; they saw now that his enemies had no power over him; they could not doubt that a being who could rise from the dead could easily accomplish all his plans. And as they did not doubt now that he would restore the kingdom to Israel, they asked whether he would do it at that time? They did not ask whether he would do it at all, or whether they had correct views of his kingdom; but, taking that for granted, they asked him whether that was the time in which he would do it. The emphasis of the inquiry lies in the expression, “at this time,” and hence, the answer of the Saviour refers solely to the point of their inquiry, and not to the correctness or incorrectness of their opinions. From these expectations of the apostles we may learn:

That there is nothing so difficult to be removed from the mind as prejudice in favor of erroneous opinions.

(2)That such prejudice will survive the plainest proofs to the contrary.

(3)That it will often manifest itself even after all proper means have been taken to subdue it. Erroneous opinions thus maintain a secret ascendency in a man’s mind, and are revived by the slightest circumstances, even long after it was supposed that they were overcome, and in the face of the plainest proofs of reason or of Scripture.

Restore - Bring back; put into its former situation. Judea was formerly governed by its own kings and laws; now, it was subject to the Romans. This bondage was grievous, and the nation sighed for deliverance. The inquiry of the apostles evidently was, whether he would now free them from the bondage of the Romans, and restore them to their former state of freedom and prosperity, as in the times of David and Solomon. See Isa 1:26. The word “restore” also may include more than a reducing it to its former state. It may mean, wilt thou now bestow the kingdom and dominion to Israel, according to the prediction in Dan 7:27?

The kingdom - The dominion; the empire; the reign. The expectation was that the Messiah the king of Israel would reign over people, and that thus the nation of the Jews would extend their empire over all the earth.

To Israel - To the Jews, and particularly to the Jewish followers of the Messiah. Lightfoot thinks that this question was asked in indignation against the Jews. “Wilt thou confer dominion on a nation which has just put thee to death?” But the answer of the Saviour shows that this was not the design of the question.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? Some of them, as St. John Chrysostom observes, had still their thoughts upon a temporal kingdom of the Messias. Christ, to divert them from such imaginations, tells them, their business is to be witnesses of his doctrine and miracles, particularly of his resurrection, even to the utmost bounds of the earth, to all the nations of the world. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

When they therefore were come together; either the one hundred and twenty, mentioned Act 1:15, or the five hundred, mentioned 1Co 15:6.

That they might more readily obtain an answer, they join in the question,

Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Which was taken away by the Romans, and by Herod, and they expected should be restored to them by the Messiah; understanding the prophecy, Dan 7:27, to this purpose.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

They therefore, when for when they therefore, A.V.; him for of him, A.V.; dost thou for wilt thou, A.V.; restore for restore again, A.V. Dost thou at this time, etc.? It appears from Luk_19:11 and Luk_24:21, as well as from other passages, that the apostles expected the kingdom of Christ to come immediately. It was most natural, therefore, that, after the temporary extinction of this hope by the Crucifixion, it should revive with new force when they saw the Lord alive after his passion. They had doubtless too been thinking over the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit "not many days hence." Restore. (Comp. restitution, Act_3:21; and see Mat_17:11)

Vers. 6-8. Last words.

I WISTFULNESS ABOUT THE FUTURE. A curiosity mingled of fear and hope stirs in the disciples minds. The present oppresses; we seek escape into dreams of a happy past or future. There is a clement of truth and of illusion in these cravings.

II ILLUSORY THOUGHTS OF THE FUTURE. The cherished dream of Israel for five centuries had been the restoration of the temporal power of David"s throne. It was a fixed idea, and here reappears. So have we all our fixed ideas, and cannot conceive a happy future out of their sphere. But God"s unfolding realities prove better than our sensuous dreams.

III DIVINE EVASION OF HUMAN QUESTIONINGS ABOUT THE FUTURE.

1. No fixed knowledge of the future, its changes, and those epochs, can be ours. With all our science we cannot touch the beginnings, therefore not the issues, of things. History is a Divine poem, and God does not permit us to guess at the denouement or catastrophe of events. The unexpected happens, and Providence is full of surprises. Enough for us to read the unrolling page from day to day, and subdue our wishes to the actual, rather than measure the actual by our wishes.

2. Strength for the future is enough, and this may be ours. Power, inner power, spiritual power, in other words, a full and vigorous life consciousness, is what we need. This is promised. But not if we are seeking sensual and selfish ends. Power is imparted for God"s ends. Only on condition that we are given up to God"s will can we work for God"s ends, or enjoy the power thereto. The laws of the kingdom are as strict as any we learn from nature. The narrowing of Divine thoughts to our own petty notions of advantage means desertion and weakness; the inclusion of our purposes within the infinite purpose means strength. All true life-acting may be regarded as witness. Each man stands for some principle, expresses some leading thought in his action. What do we represent? What tale does our life tell from day to day? What negative or what positive is it that our individual life makes clear in the scheme of things? The pessimism of unbelief or the optimism of profound faith in the laws of God"s world? To witness for the eternal Truth and Love gives joy and zest to existence; to have no report or message to bring to others of aught felt or tasted of the good of life is vacancy and sadness. The Christian witness is above all of the life of which mere words are a poor transcript. If in some way or other our life clearly affirms the goodness of God by reflecting him, this is witness for him. And the ways of witness are manifold as the glory of the stars, the colors and forms of the flowers. There are special testimonies to special facts or truths which have their place and season and no other; but in all places and times the whole life-witness silently tells. The "living epistle "is intelligible in every tongue and to all orders of minds. J.

Vers. 6-11The Ascension. Heaven and earth visibly united.

Chief points

I THE CONTRAST between the earthly, as represented in the disciples, with their Jewish prejudice and thought of "times and seasons," and the heavenly, in the Lord Jesus himself.

II THE PROSPECT. Separation for a season. Cloud concealing the glory. Promise of return.

III THE FELLOWSHIP of the disciples with the Master. The mingling together of heaven and earth. The witnesses appointed, that to the uttermost part of the earth the glory of the risen dawn might be seen, and so a new heaven be revealed over a new earth. (Cf. the promise made to Nathanael (Joh_1:51) and Jacob"s dream.) R.

Vers. 6-8. Craving for forbidden knowledge its alterative, enlarged, practical trust.

asked of him saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time the earth?" The question of the apostles of which St. Luke here tells us we do not find either in his Gospel or in that of any of the other evangelists, one among many indications of the probability that during "the forty days" much may have transpired between Christ and his apostles not left on record. It may nevertheless be noted, in passing, that the incident happens to be in interesting analogy with such another as that of which we read in Joh_21:20-23. And except for the fact that it is not put down to the account of Peter, we might probably be pardoned for surmising that it was he again who was the prime mover in it. We have here

I THE SIGNS OF EVEN APOSTOLIC CRAVING AFTER FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE.

1. Whoever may have promoted the question, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel most eagerly, we can feel no difficulty in admitting its very natural character. Nor is it at all necessary to affix too mean a construction to the motive of the apostles. Let it be granted only that their mind was not thoroughly delivered from the idea of a "kingdom of Israel" on earth, and we need not straightway therefore conclude that their chief thought or wish was to a "kingdom of Israel" of earth, rather than "of heaven" or "of God.

2. And as the question was not an unnatural one in itself, so also it was one that bears the traces of that deeper impression which had been most legitimately made on the apostles by the marvels of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Whatever might be in store or might not be in store for them in this matter of the long-cherished hope of a kingdom, their conviction was stronger and stronger grown that Jesus was One who could do this thing, who could be the Founder of such a kingdom, and establish it on no doubtful, hazardous, merely adventurous sort of footing, but worthily, strongly, and for ever. If other miracles were for a sign of his authority, and for a grand moral witness of him, this yet more than all else whatsoever: his own death issuing in resurrection! The space of one moment may have awakened again and ripened the impulse to dwell with a fascinated interest on this subject the moment that in which "these sayings sank down into their ears," namely, that "they should not depart from Jerusalem," that they "should wait for the promise of the Father," and that they should "be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

(1) Nevertheless the issue, if nothing else, convicts the question of being the wrong one. How often the thins that are abundantly natural, and to which the warmest impulses seem made to lead us on, are for all that the forbidden forbidden, perhaps, by Divine word of mouth even, otherwise by deeper sense in our own self and life! Christ apprizes his interrogators that on the merits of the case, not on any mere ceremony, the subject was one too high for them cannot attain to it." It is for us to remember at the present time that nothing that we know is plainer than the some things we do not know, in matters of religious thought and speculation, that these "some" things which we do not know are often of the intensest speculative interest, are at the same time things not in the position of the not clearly "revealed," but of the clearly not "revealed," and that the more than likely reason for this is, that they are too high for human reason at present, and are kept for "yet the little while" of earth," in the Father"s power. " Let it, however, be granted that there may be other things left unrevealed, which rightly and designedly keep awake the intense speculative thought of the whole Church. They challenge not the presumptuousness, but the reverent diligence, of the Church"s intellectual life.

(2) At a moment of confessed intense practical significance, the question of the disciples was the suggestion of a departure to an inopportune subject. In instances of far inferior magnitude how certain it is that we should remark upon the untimeliness of the interruption that broke in upon some supreme crisis of one kind with matter possibly quite foreign to it!

(3) Any way, the question looked too much in the direction of the old oft-reproved thing of hankering for the form, the show, the handling of dignity and superiority and authority, not of the intrinsic but of the un real kind.

(4) The condescending familiarity of the Savior should not have hidden for so much as a moment from the apostles reverence, or from their quickened apprehensions as to the nature of their Master, the interval that was between him and themselves. There can be no doubt that they had learned this, that the seed of conviction and godly impression had not fallen on trodden, impracticable soil, and that their opportunity of intelligent appreciation of Christ had been increased a thousandfold. Therefore the time all the time was what courted the attitude of adoring waiting and most heedful listening, rather than of suggesting the course in which such a Master"s instructions, such a Lord"s vouchsafings, should go. The language of a prophet better suited it: "The Lord is in his holy temple: let all keep silence before him!

II THE DISTINCT DENIAL ON THE PART OF CHRIST OF THE KNOWLEDGE CRAVED, Christ at once replies in language that we in modern times, at all events, would feel to be very emphatic: "It is not for you to know times and seasons, which the Father hath placed in his own power." Notice:

1. The freedom of this direct denial from asperity. If positive, it is not arbitrary; if severe in its strictness, it is not harsh; if decisive, it is not uncourteous or ungracious.

2. The loftiness, on the contrary, of the reason implicitly contained in the denial. The knowledge begged is not withheld as so much punishment or rebuke. It is withheld in this light, that it is not a thing of man, but of the Father possibly Christ might still mean of the Father alone. (Mar_13:32) But we cannot affirm this with any strong conviction, as he now speaks subsequently to his resurrection. Now, not the most sensitive disciple-temperament could have need to feel wounded at not sharing knowledge affirmed to belong either exclusively or all but exclusively to the supreme Father.

III THE SUBSTITUTE IMMEDIATELY PROMISED. How often this is the method of Divine wisdom and kindness! How often the analogy of providence illustrates it, in the individual life. So rooted is it in the spirit of Christ"s encouraging and bracing doctrine, "Ask, and ye shall have," that even when we ask amiss we very often do have something, and have something that we might have missed of had we not asked at all. So much does heavenly care appraise a hungering nature, an open mind, a craving heart, if it be anything at all within the compass of a right outlook that our desires go forth. And while the new gift is not what we asked, how sure it is to prove itself very superior in kind, and in its being the correctly adapted gift!

1. The substitute now proffered to the anticipation of the interrogators consists in an early and immense accession of power.

(1) It is real power.

(2) It is power guaranteeing at one and the same time holiness to self and usefulness to others.

2. The substitute both illustrated and was the outcome of very noteworthy principles.

(1) The principle of diverting mere speculative thought, or sentimental thought, or brooding, disheartened thought, by the bracing activity of work work arduous and beneficent. Wonderful is the effectiveness of thiscorrective. It is an alterative safe, healthful, sure of compassing the desired end. Nor a whir less so in the light of one of the axioms of Jesus, "He that doeth, shall know.

(2) The principle that the servants of Christ are witnesses, not prophets. They are "hereunto called," to witness to the world"s ends, and world without end. They are to be quite absolved, if, being faithful witnesses, they refrain from trying the wings of prophecy. In all directions, those of philosophy and of science, as well as of Christianity, human duty, human strength, human advance, lie rather in meditating and digesting the material of memory than in attempting the horoscope; in interpreting the past for the edification and helpful guidance of the present, than in forecasting and hazarding prediction. These last tendencies nourish dogmatism, for they bring forth what may not be able to be disproved, though it cannot be proved. And they nourish "lofty imaginations," and "high thoughts," and luxurious idleness, that consume the very time, when every heart should be humility and every hand should be industry. Thanks to Jesus, still Master, Teacher, Friend fresh thanks to him from his modern disciples, who, when earth and air vibrate again with the shock and the clash of discordant theological polemics, still keeps his own band faithful to the memory of his own commission, that they should be "witnesses unto" him throughout all the world! B.

Vers. 6, 7. Carnal conceptions of Christ"s kingdom.

With these our Lord had to do battle all through his ministry. These so filled the minds of his disciples that they were unable to receive aright much of his spiritual teachings. Many of our Lord"s sayings can be explained as being designed to correct this mistake, remove this prejudice, and adequately assure his disciples and us of the spiritual nature of the kingdom he came to set up. Though not in precisely the same way, yet quite as truly, the visibility and outward circumstance of Christ"s Church may, in our day, occupy our thought rather than its spiritual character and work, and therefore our Lord"s cautions to his apostles may be applicable to us. The dream of an "outward and visible" kingdom has not yet altogether faded, and given place to the sober reality of the existing "inward and spiritual" one. Christ is a King, but he is King of truth-seekers; he is "Lord of lambs the lowly, King of saints the holy." Show what the carnal conceptions were that the apostles cherished: the breaking off of the Roman yoke; the restoration of Israelite independence; the resumption of the Davidic kingdom under the Messiah. Show

I WHENCE THESE CONCEPTIONS SPRANG. Distinguish between the tone of prophecy and Messianic allusion before and after the "Captivity." Tendency of national circumstances to set prominently the promise of a Deliverer and King, and to set aside the figure of Messiah as a crushed Sufferer. Then show the influence exerted by the Messianic conception of Daniel, and yet that the Jews did not take it in its entirety.

Further point out how the Maccabean princes became Messianic models, and the idea cherished was that Messiah would prove to be a national Hero and Savior, accomplishing the work permanently which Judas Maccabeus had only achieved temporarily. The merely national idea of Messiah cannot be based on a full treatment of the Messianic representations of Holy Scripture.

II HOW WERE THESE CONCEPTIONS NOURISHED? Partly by the national condition in our Lord"s time. Patriotic feeling was crushed down by the strong Roman rule; but patriotism, though it may be crushed down, cannot be crushed out, and indeed only becomes more dangerous to oppressors by being silenced. Partly by the hopeless condition of religion, which called for a great reformer; and, in the later monarchy, the reformers had been kings. Partly by the personal ambitions of the disciples, as illustrated by the request of the sons of Zebedee for the first places in the new court. To be faithful to the truth has often required resistance to surrounding sentiments and circumstances. Such resistance is only made by high-minded men.

III HOW THESE CONCEPTIONS WERE OPPOSED BY CHRIST. Take:

1. The general tone of his teaching, as illustrated in the sermon on the mount.

2. The prominence in which he set his sufferings, especially after the Transfiguration.

3. The rebuke of those who would use carnal weapons for his defence, as to Peter outside the Garden of Gethsemane.

4. The distinct explanation of the nature of his kingship, as stated to Pilate. In spite of all his efforts with his disciples, we find the carnal notions of Messiah lingering in them; (see Luk_19:11 Luk_24:21) and they seem to have been revived by that very resurrection which should have finally removed them. This is indicated in the text. Our Lord"s last effort to destroy them is full of wisdom and gentleness. He says in effect, "Don"t think about it; bend your whole mind and heart to two things

(1) your great life-work, and

(2) the Divine presence that will be with you for its fulfillment" (ver. 8). The true corrective for intellectual error is still that which our Lord commands, viz. Christian work. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Dost thou at this time - At the time thou now speakest of? not many days hence? restore the kingdom to Israel? - They still seemed to dream of an outward, temporal kingdom, in which the Jews should have dominion over all nations. It seems they came in a body, having before concerted the design, to ask when this kingdom would come.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

again the kingdom to Israel

Forty days the risen Lord had been instructing the apostles "of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God," doubtless, according to His custom Luk 24:27; Luk 24:32; Luk 24:44; Luk 24:45 teaching them out of the Scriptures. One point was left untouched, viz., the time when He would restore the kingdom to Israel; hence the apostles’ question. The answer was according to His repeated teaching; the time was God’s secret.; Mat 24:36; Mat 24:42; Mat 24:44; Mat 25:13; 1Th 5:1.

restore (See Scofield "Mat 3:2").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The final promise of the Holy Spirit:

v. 6. When they, therefore, were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

v. 7. And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power.

v. 8. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

When Jesus referred to the nearness of the great revelation of the Spirit’s gifts, the disciples, whose hopes of some form of temporal kingdom under the leadership of Christ had been revealed since His resurrection, thought that He was referring to this blissful consummation of their hopes. Those that had come together therefore, most likely in Jerusalem, put the question to the Lord: At this time wilt Thou restore the kingdom unto Israel? Their minds had returned entirely to the earthly, carnal understanding. They understood the prophecies of old as well as the promises of the Lord of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, to be accomplished by the utter annihilation of the enemies of God and the complete victory for the Jews. Their foolish thoughts were not effectually dispelled until the Spirit of Pentecost was shed forth upon them. Although the question of the disciples had been put in all sincerity and sobriety, it argued for a remarkable lack of proper understanding after all the patient teaching of Jesus. His answer, therefore, in a way is a reproof. For He refers them to the real Messianic kingdom, to the future Kingdom of Glory, which will see the full revelation of Christ’s majesty before the eyes of all men, very comforting to those that are to partake of this bliss with their Redeemer. Jesus here guards the royal prerogative, the exclusive rights of the Father. It is not the business of the disciples to know the times and the seasons, critical and otherwise, which are controlled by the exclusive authority and power of the Father. That most critical time and hour above all, which will decide the fate of mankind, is not theirs to inquire for. Note: Whatever pertains to the revelation of God’s majesty should not be a subject of anxious thought for the Christians: both the government of the world and the Church and the revelation of the future glory are in His hands, to be revealed at His time. Jesus rather reminds the apostles that they will receive, will be given power, strength, which they should exert and put forth in the great duties of their calling. This power would be imparted to them when the Holy Ghost would come down upon them. The power to be effective witnesses for Christ is evidently meant. Filled with this strength from above, the disciples should bear witness, should tell what they had seen and heard of Christ, whose message they were to proclaim and who was to be the content of their message. In Jerusalem their work was to begin, but not to be confined to that city. In ever-widening circles their influence should extend, by virtue of the power given them through the Holy Ghost, throughout Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the world. There is neither limit nor boundary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Note: The believers to this day have the same call and the same promise, but must observe also the same command, to be witnesses of Christ, of His salvation, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, The disciples’ question and our Saviour’s answer:

1. The question proposed by the disciples, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

That is, Wilt thou repair the ruinous condition of the Jewish state, and restore it to that great dignity and splendour which we have always expected should be done by the Messias?

Where observe, That notwithstanding Christ had so often rebuked the Jews in general, and his disciples in particular, for their conceit of a temporal kingdom, (who were so full of ambitious expectations to receive great honours and preferments here on earth) yet it evidently appears, that this notion still ran in their minds, and that their Master being now risen from the dead, this was the time both for his and their dignity and advancement.

Learn hence, That it is no wonder that unbleievers stumbled at the poverty and meanness of Christ’s outward condition when he was here on earth, seeing it was so hard for the disciples themselves to be convinced, and believe that his kingdom was not of this world. I know not any thing wherein the bishop of Rome may so properly call himself apostolical, as in his following this error of the apostles. Were they always dreaming of a temporal kingdom? So is he always doting upon it, and his eyes dazzled with the splendour and glory of it. The disciples, not only all the time whilst Christ was with them, but even now, when upon the point of departing from them, when he was just ascending, yea, in part ascended, having one foot upon the earth, and the other in the cloud which took hom up to heaven, yet still they asked him, Wilt thou restore the kingdom? that is, settle upon us thy followers secular power, and temporal dominion here on earth?

But Mark , 2. Our Lord’s answer, verse 7, It is not for you to know the times or the season, which the Father hath put only in his own power. Our Saviour’s answer doth not in the least imply that any such kingdom should ever be granted as they dreamt of; but he checks their curiosity in inquiring into times and seasons, and nature of God’s secrets, which it no ways concerned them to pry into: It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.

Here note, 1. Something implied, namely, That there are certain times and seasons, the knowledge of which only belongs to God, which yet man’s curiosity has an itching desire to know both what shall be hereafter, and when that hereafter shall be. We are very careless in seeking out the season of that which we ourselves should do; but over careful and curious in seeking out the season of what God will do.

Note, Here is something expressed, namely, that God has times and seasons for executing his own purposes, which it is neither proper, nor profitable, nor possible for us to know. Not proper, because none of our business. Not profitable, because no part of our interest. Not possible, because out of our reach. It is not possible for us to know, either what God is about to do, or when he will do it. It is not possible for us to know it as men, by a natural sagacity; nor as Christians by a supernatural illumination; no, nor as ministers and apostles, without divine inspiration and extra-ordinary revelation, which we have no warrant to expect, and should have no curiosity to desire.

Learn hence, That it much better becomes us with an awful silence to adore, than with a bold curiosity to pry into God’s hidden and unrevealed secrets. Yet though it be not for us to know God’s times and seasons, it is our duty to expect them, and be prepared for them. We know not when our Lord will come to us by death and judgment, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning. But it is our duty to believe and expect it, to wait and prepare for it, and be always ready to receive him.

Finally, Though it is not for us to know the times and seasons which God hath put in his own power, yet it is for us to know the times and seasons which God has put in our power; namely, the present time to improve it, and the time past to bewail our misimprovement of it. To improve the time of affliction, for consideration and humiliation; and the time of prosperity, mercy, and deliverance, for gratulation and thankfulness; and to improve both in farther measures, and increase of holiness and sanctification both of heart and life.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

KINGDOM OF ISRAEL

6. When Jacob was converted amid the wonderful vision of the ladder, he called the place Bethel, which means “the family of God,” commemorating the fact of his spiritual birth, as then and there he was born into the family of God. After twenty years of terrible conflict with inbred sin, especially assuming the form of that fatal iniquity of covetousness, which has slain its millions, not even sparing the apostles, but consigning poor Judas to the doom of the lost, Jacob, like all others, could only conquer in a second work of grace. Peniel means “the face of God.” He must meet God face to face and receive the wonderful fiery baptism on the bank of the Jabbok. There victory came never to depart, and his name was changed from Jacob, which means “rascal,” to Israel, which means one that “prevails with God.” In the grand restitution, when Satan is to be taken out of the world and Paradisian glory restored, the government of the world is to be given to the “princes of God,” who shall rule all nations as the subordinates of their glorious King.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6-8. We are informed by Matthew that Jesus prefaced the commission by announcing, "All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me." It was, probably, this announcement that led to the inquiry which Luke next repeats. Being informed that all authority is now given to him, the disciples expected to see him begin to exercise it in the way they had long anticipated. (6) " Now when they were come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? (7) But he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has appointed in his own authority. (8) But you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth. "

The question, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" indicates two interesting facts: First, that the apostles still misconceived the nature of Christ's kingdom; second, that the kingdom was not yet established. Both these facts deserve some attention at our hands, especially the latter.

Their misconceptions consisted in the expectation that Christ would re-establish the earthly kingdom of Israel, and restore it to its ancient glory, under its own personal reign. In his reply, the Savior does not undertake to correct this misconception, but leaves it as a part of that work of enlightenment yet to be effected by the Holy Spirit.

The time at which the kingdom of Christ was inaugurated is the point of transition from the preparatory dispensation, many elements of which were but temporary, into the present everlasting dispensation, which is to know no change, either of principles or of ordinances, in the course of time. It is necessary to determine this point in order to know what laws and ordinances of the Bible belong to the present dispensation. All things enjoined subsequent to this period are binding upon us as citizens of the kingdom of Christ; but nothing enjoined as duty or granted as a privilege, under former dispensations, is applicable to us, unless it is specifically extended to us. It requires no less divine authority to extend into the kingdom of Christ the institutions of the Jewish kingdom than it did to establish them at first. This proposition is self-evident. To fix, therefore, most definitely this period is a matter of transcendent importance, and must here have all the space that it requires. It is a question of fact, to be determined by positive Scripture statements.

The expression "kingdom of heaven" is used only by Matthew. In the connections where he uses this expression, the other three historians uniformly say "kingdom of God." This fact shows that the two expressions are equivalent. Explaining the former by the latter, we conclude that the "kingdom of heaven" is not heaven, but simply a kingdom of God, without regard to locality. This kingdom is also called by Christ his own, as the Son of man; for he says, "There are some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. " The Apostle Paul also speaks of the "kingdom of God's dear Son," and says "He must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet."

Of the kingdom of God, then, Jesus is the king; hence the time at which he became a king is the time at which "the kingdom of Christ and of God" began. Furthermore, as it was Jesus, the Son of man, who was made the king, it is evident that the kingdom could not have commenced till after he became the Son of man. This consideration at once refutes the theory which dates the beginning of the kingdom in the days of Abraham.

But it is not only Jesus the Son of man, but Jesus who died, that was made king. "We see Jesus," says Paul, "who was made a little lower than the angels, on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." It was after his death, and not during his natural life, that he was made a king. It is necessary, therefore, to reject the other theory, which locates the beginning of the kingdom in the days of John the Immerser.

Finally, it was after his resurrection and his ascension to heaven that he was made a king. For Paul says, "Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore, God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." It is here we are to locate that glorious scene described by David and by Paul, in which God said to him, "Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool." He "sat down on the right hand of the throne of God," and the Father said, "Let all the angels of God worship him." At this word, among the gathering and circling hosts of heaven, every knee was bowed and every tongue confessed that Jesus is "Lord of lord and King of kings." It was then that the kingdom of God was inaugurated in heaven; and it was in immediate anticipation of it, with all things in readiness and waiting, that Jesus said to his disciples, as he was about to ascend on high, "All authority, in heaven and on earth is given to me."

Having now fixed the time at which the kingdom was inaugurated in heaven, we are prepared to inquire when it began to be administered on earth. It began, of course, with the first administrative act on earth, and this was the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost. On that occasion, Peter says, "This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we are witnesses. Therefore, being to the right hand of God exalted, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed forth this which you now see and hear. " "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. " This event is here assumed as the proof of his exaltation, and the history shows it to be the first act of the newly-crowned King which took effect on earth. These facts are consistent with no other conclusion than that the kingdom of Christ was inaugurated on earth on the first Pentecost after his ascension.

We might assume that the above argument is conclusive, and here dismiss the subject, but for some passages of Scripture which are supposed to favor a different conclusion. It was said by Jesus, "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presses into it." Again: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for your neither go in yourselves, nor will you suffer those who are entering, to go in." And again: "If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then is the kingdom of God come to you." It is argued, from these and kindred passages, that the law and the prophets ceased, as authority, with the beginning of John's ministry; that the kingdom of heaven then began, and men were pressing into it, while Scribes and Pharisees were striving to keep them from entering it; and that Jesus recognizes it as an existing institution, in the remark, "Then is the kingdom of God come to you. "

But there are other passages in the gospels which appear to conflict with these, and are inconsistent with this conclusion. The constant preaching of John, of Jesus, and of the Seventy, was, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand ;" eggike, " is near. " Jesus exclaims, "Among them who are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Immerser; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom is greater than he." Again: "There are some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God." And, finally, the question we are now considering, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" It is evident, from these passages, first, that John was not in the kingdom, for otherwise the least in the kingdom could not be greater than he; second, that the generation then living were yet to see the kingdom of God; third, that the disciples themselves were still looking for it in the future. If it be urged, in reference to the first of these conclusions, that the kingdom, of which John was not a citizen, is the kingdom in its future glory, the assumption is refuted by the very next verse in the context: "From the days of John the Immerser till now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." Whatever may be the true interpretation of these rather obscure words, they certainly can refer to the kingdom of glory.

Now, no hypothesis upon this subject can be accepted which does not provide for a complete reconciliation of these apparently conflicting passages of Scripture. The hypothesis that the kingdom was inaugurated by John can not do so; for, in that case, it is inconceivable that John himself was not a member of it, and equally so that he should constantly preach, "The kingdom of heaven is near. " Again: if it was inaugurated during the personal ministry of Jesus, it is unaccountable that he should state, as a startling fact, that some of those present with him should live to see it, or that the disciples themselves should be ignorant of its existence. This hypothesis, therefore, is incapable of reconciling the various statements on the subject, and must, for this reason, be dismissed.

On the other hand, if we admit, according to the irresistible force of the facts first adduced in this inquiry, that the kingdom was inaugurated in heaven when Jesus was coronated, and that it began to be formally administered on earth on the next succeeding Pentecost, there is no difficulty in fully reconciling all the passages quoted above. It was necessary to the existence of the kingdom on earth not only that the king should be upon his throne, but that he should have earthly subjects. In order, however, that men should acknowledge themselves his subjects the moment that he became their king, it was necessary that they should be previously prepared for allegiance. This preparation could be made in no other way than by inducing men, in advance, to adopt the principles involved in the government, and to acknowledge the right of the proposed ruler to become their king. This was the work of John and of Jesus. When men began, under the influence of their teaching, to undergo this preparation they were, with all propriety of speech, said to be pressing into the kingdom of God. Those who opposed them were striving to keep them from entering the kingdom; and to both parties it could be said, "The kingdom of God is come to you." It had come to them in the influence of its principles. "From the days of John the Immerser the kingdom of heaven was preached," not as an existing institution, but in its elementary principles, and by asserting the pretensions of the prospective king. Thus, we find that the various statements in the gospels upon this subject, when harmonized in the only way of which they are capable, lead us back to our former conclusion, with increased confidence in its correctness.

We may pursue the same inquiry in an indirect method, by determining when the previous kingdom of God among the Jews terminated. As they both, with their conflicting peculiarities, could not be in formal existence among the same people at the same time, the new one could not begin till the old one terminated. That the law and prophets were until John, Jesus declares; but he does not declare that they continued no longer. On the contrary, he was himself "a minister of the circumcision," and kept the law till his death. The law and the prophets were, until John, the only revelation from God. Since then the gospel of the coming kingdom was preached in addition to it, and was designed to fulfill the law and the prophets by preparing the people for a "better covenant." Even the sacrifices of the altar, however, continued, with the sanction of Jesus, up to the very moment that he expired on the cross. Then "the vail of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom," indicating the end of that dispensation. All the sacrifices being then fulfilled in him, and a new and living way being consecrated for us, not under the vail, as the high priest had gone, but through the vail-that is to say, his flesh -he put an end to the priesthood of Aaron, and took out of the way the handwriting of ordinances, nailing it to his cross. At the death of Christ, therefore, the old kingdom came to its legal end, and on the next Pentecost the new kingdom began.

Regarding this, now, as a settled conclusion, we proceed to consider, briefly, the Savior's answer to the question which has detained us so long. He said to them, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which God has appointed in his own authority." By the expression "in his own authority," I suppose Jesus intended to indicate that the times and seasons of God's purposes are reserved more specially under his own sovereign control, and kept back more carefully from the knowledge of men, than the purposes themselves. It is characteristic of prophesy that it deals much more in facts and the succession of events than in definite dates and periods. The apostles were to be agents in inaugurating the kingdom, but, as proper preparation for their work did not depend upon a foreknowledge of the time, it was not important to reveal it to them.

But it was all-important that they should receive the necessary power: hence Jesus adds, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you." The power here promised is not authority, for this he had given them in the commission; but it is that miraculous power to know all the truth, and work miracles in proof of their mission, which he had promised them before his death. He says to them, virtually, It is not for you to know the time at which I will establish my kingdom, but you shall receive power to inaugurate it on earth when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. This is an additional proof that the kingdom was inaugurated on the day of Pentecost.

While promising them the requisite power, Jesus takes occasion to mark out their successive fields of labor: first "in Jerusalem," next, "in all Judea," then "in Samaria," and finally, "to the uttermost part of the earth." It is not to be imagined that this arrangement of their labors was dictated by partiality for the Jews, or was merely designed to fulfill prophesy. It was rather foretold through the prophets, because there were good reasons why it should be so. One reason, suggested by the commentators generally, for beginning in Jerusalem, was the propriety of first vindicating the claims of Jesus in the same city in which he was condemned. But the controlling reason was doubtless this: the most devout portion of the Jewish people, that portion who had been most influenced by the preparatory preaching of John and of Jesus, were always collected at the great annual festivals, and hence the most successful beginning could there be made. Next to these, the inhabitants of the rural districts of Judea were best prepared, by the same influences, for the gospel; then the Samaritans, who had seen some of the miracles of Jesus; and, last of all, the Gentiles. Thus the rule of success was made their guide from place to place, and it became the custom of the apostles, even in heathen lands, to preach the gospel "first to the Jew" and "then to the Gentile." The result fully justified the rule; for the most signal triumph of the gospel was in Judea, and the most successful approach to the Gentiles of every region was through the Jewish synagogue.

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. Wilt thou at this time, etc.? They still held to their old ideas of a worldly restoration of the kingdom of Israel. Their only question was, “Wilt thou restore it now?” After the Holy Spirit was given, this delusion was dismissed, and they understood that Christ's kingdom is not of this world.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

Here the word "they" refers to the apostles.

is this the time you will restore the kingdom to Israel

"will you now make Israel a great kingdom again"

the times or the seasons

Possible meanings are 1) the words "times" and "seasons" refer to different kinds of time. AT: "the general period of time or the specific date" or 2) the two words are basically synonymous. AT: "the exact time" (See: Doublet)

you will receive power ... and you will be my witnesses

The apostles will receive power that will enable them to be witnesses for Jesus. AT: "God will empower you ... to be my witnesses"

to the ends of the earth

Possible meanings are 1) "all over the world" or 2) "to the places on earth that are farthest away" (See: Idiom)

translationWords

lord

restore

kingdom

Israel

time

authority

power

testimony

Judea

Samaria

earth

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

6. ἠρώτων with אABC. The shorter form was most likely the earlier. The same may be said too of βλέποντες in Act 1:11.

6. εἰ. This conjunction, at first used after some verb on which it was dependent, at last came to be employed in questions of an independent form. We may suppose that originally some such expression as ‘Tell us’ was understood before the ‘if,’ but in translating this sentence the Vulgate merely gives ‘Domine, si restitues’ … and the Latin si in Jerome’s time had become a particle of direct interrogation. For other examples of εἰ thus used cf. Act 19:2; Act 21:37; Act 22:25.

βασιλείαν. Though they were being taught the nature of the kingdom of God, yet their minds were even still far from open, and ran on the thought of a temporal kingdom over Israel to be established by Jesus. The change from the spirit which dictated the question in this verse, to that in which St Peter (Act 2:38-39) preached repentance and forgiveness to all whom the Lord should call, is one of the greatest evidences of the miracle of Pentecost. Such changes are only wrought from above.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6.] This συνελθόντες does not belong to another assembling, different from the former; but takes up again the συναλιζόμενος of ver. 4. Olsh. has mistaken the sense of the μὲν οὖν, which refers, not to another incident, but to other actors; they, as distinguished from Him who had been speaking.

Κύριε, εἰ …] The stress of this question is in the words, prefixed for emphasis, ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ. That the Kingdom was, in some sense, and at some time, to be restored to Israel, was plain; nor does the Lord deny this implication (see on ver. 8). Their fault was, a too curious enquiry on a point reserved among the arcana of God. Lightfoot’s idea, that the disciples wondered at the Kingdom being about to be restored to the ungrateful Jews, at this time, now that they had crucified Him, &c., would make our Lord’s answer irrelevant.

See Mic 4:8, LXX.

Meyer would refer ἐν τῷ χρ. τού. to the interval designated by οὐ μετὰ πολλ. ταύ. ἡμ., ‘during this time.’ But this does not seem natural: I should rather understand it, at this present period,—now. The pres. ἀποκαθιστάνεις, is that so often used in speaking with reference to matters of prophecy, importing fixed determination: as in ὁ ἐρχόμενος (ref. Mt.) and the like. So that we must not render, “Art thou restoring?” but “wilt” or “dost thou restore?” As to the word itself, καθιστάνω (= στημι) is to establish or set up, and ἀπό gives the sense of completeness, or the cognate one of entire restitution. See Wordsw.’s note.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Asked [επηρωτων] . The imperfect, denoting the repetition and urging of the question.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.