The Acts of the Apostles A Commentary by John Stott

Acts 1:6-26 - Waiting for Pentecost
2) - They saw Jesus go into heaven

At least three questions form in our minds as we read this story of the 'ascension' of Jesus - literary, historical and theological. First, do not Luke's two accounts of the ascension (Luke 24:50ff.: Acts 1:9ff) contradict each other? Secondly, did the ascension of Jesus literally happen? Thirdly, if it did, has it any permanent significance?

a) Did Luke contradict himself?
It is certainly appropriate, as we have already seen, that Luke should conclude his first volume and introduce his second with the same event, the ascension of Jesus, since it was both the end of his earthly ministry and the prelude to his continuing ministry from heaven through the Spirit. It is antecedently improbable, however, that the same author, telling the same story, should contradict himself. Yet this is what some modern scholars assert. Ernst Haenchen writes for example: 'Two Ascensions - one on Easter Day (Luke 24:51), the other forty days after (Acts 1:9) - are one too many. But in fact there are no substantial discrepancies, and a harmonization of the two accounts is possible, without forcing the evidence.

It is true that in his Gospel, Luke makes no mention of the forty days. But it is gratuitous to suggest that he must therefore have forgotten them, or that he thought that the resurrection and the ascension occurred on the same day. No, in the Gospel he is simply giving a condensed account of the resurrection appearances, without feeling the need to note their different times and without feeling the need to note their different times and circumstances. He is indubitably recording one ascension not two.

It is also true that each account includes details which the other omits, the Acts version being fuller than that in the Gospel. For example, at the end of the Gospel the ascending Christ raised his hands to bless then, and they worshipped him (Luke 24:50ff.). Luke omits these actions at the beginning of his second volume, but adds there the cloud that hid him from their sight, and the appearance and message of 'the two men dressed in white', presumed to be angels. Yet these features of the story supplement, and do not contradict each other.

It is true, thirdly, that the Acts account seems to imply that Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives (1:12), which is correctly said to be 'a Sabbath day's walk from the city', namely (according to the Mishnah) 2,000 cubits or (NIV margin) about three-quarters of a mile (about 1,100 metres), whereas the Gospel account says that Jesus 'led them out to the vicinity of Bethany' (Luke 24:50), the village on the east slope of the mount, which is two or three miles further away from Jerusalem. Conzelmann declares that the latter 'flatly contradicts the geographical reference in Acts 1:12', and Haenchen assumes that Luke 'did not possess any exact notion of the topography of Jerusalem'. But Luke's Gospel statement may well be intentionally vague. He does not say that Jesus ascended from Bethany, but only that he led the apostles in that direction, *heos pros* being quite properly rendered by NIV 'to the vicinity of Bethany'.

Having looked at what is said to be the three main discrepancies (regarding date, details and place), we may now note five points which the two accounts affirm in common. (i) Both say that the ascension of Jesus followed his commission to the apostles to be his witnesses. (ii) Both say that it took place outside the east of Jerusalem, somewhere on the Mount of Olives. (iii) Both say that Jesus 'was taken up into heaven', the passive voice indicating that the ascension like the resurrection was an act of the Father, who first raised him from the dead and then exalted him to heaven. As Chrysostom put it, 'the royal chariot (was) sent for him'. (iv) Both say that the apostles 'returned to Jerusalem' afterwards, the Gospel adding 'with great joy'. (v) And both say that they then waited for the Spirit to come, in accordance with the Lord's plain command and promise. Thus the evident agreements are greater than the apparent disagreements. The latter are sufficiently explained by supposing that Luke used his editorial freedom in selecting different details from an account or accounts he had heard, without wishing to repeat himself word for word.

Next: Acts 1:9-12 - b) Did the ascension really happen?

Many people nowadays, even within the church, deny the historicity of the ascension. Belief in a literal ascension would have been understandable in Luke's day, they say, when people imagined heaven to be 'up there', so that Jesus had to be 'taken up' in order to get there. But that was a pre-scientific age; we have an altogether different cosmology. Must we not therefore 'demythologize' the ascension? Then we can retain the truth that Jesus 'went to the Father', while at the same time stripping it of its 'primitive mythology clothing' which depicts it as a kind of 'lift-off', followed by an ascent into the sky. Besides, Luke is the only Gospel-writer who tells the story of the ascension. The other omit it. In fact the New Testament authors in general hardly distinguish between the resurrection and the ascension; they seem to regard them as the same event. So Harnack could write that 'the account of the Ascension is quite useless to the historian'. Even William Neil, who is usually quite conservative in his conclusions, tells his readers (without argument) that Luke, knowing that 'theological truth can often be best conveyed by imaginative word-pictures', is not to be interpreted literally. 'It would be a grave misunderstanding of Luke's mind and purpose to regard his account of the Ascension of Christ as other than symbolic and poetic.

A number of sound reasons can be given, however, why we should reject this attempt to discredit the ascension as a literal, historical event.

First, miracles do not need precedents to validate them. The classical argument of the eighteenth-century deists was that we can believe strange happenings outside our experience only if we can produce something analogous to them within our experience. This 'principle of analogy', if correct, would be enough in itself to disprove many of the biblical miracles, for we have no experience (for example) of someone walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, rising from the dead or ascending into heaven. An ascension, in particular, would defy the law of gravity, which in our experience operates always and everywhere. The principle of analogy, however, has no relevance to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, since both were *sui generis*. We are not claiming that people frequently (or even occasionally) rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, but that both events have happened once. The fact we can produce no analogies before or since confirms their truth, rather than undermining it. Secondly, the ascension is everywhere assumed in the New Testament. Although Luke is the only evangelist who describes it (Mark 16:19 is not an authentic part of Mark's Gospel, but a later addition to it), it is incorrect to say that it is otherwise unknown. John records the risen Jesus as telling Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to him because he is not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17). Peter in his Pentecost sermon speaks of Jesus having been 'exalted to the right hand of God' as something different from and subsequent to his resurrection (Acts 2:31ff), and he confirms it in his first letter (1 Peter 3:21-22). Paul frequently writes of the exaltation of Jesus to the supreme place of honour and power, and distinguishes it from his resurrection (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:1-28; Eph.1:18-23; Phil.2:9-11; 3:10, 20; Col.3:1; cf 1 Tim.3:16). And in the Epistle of Hebrews the rising and the reigning of Jesus are not confused (e.g. Hebrews 1:3; 4:14ff: 8:1; 9:11ff; 13:20).

Thirdly, Luke tells the story of the ascension with simplicity and sobriety. All the extravagances associated with the Apocryphal Gospels are missing. There is no embroidery such as we find in legends. There is no evidence of poetry or symbolism. Even Haenchen admits this: 'the story is unsentimental, almost uncannily austere'. It reads like history, and as if Luke intended us to accept it as history.

Fourthly, Luke emphasises the presence of eyewitnesses, and repeatedly refers to what they saw with their own eyes: 'he was taken up *before their very eyes*, and a cloud hid him *from their sight*. They were *looking intently* up into the sky as he was going...' The two angels then said to them, 'Why do you stand here *looking* into the sky? This same Jesus... will come back in the same way you have *seen him go* into heaven'. Five times in this extremely brief account it is stressed that the ascension took place visibly. Luke has not piled up these phrases for nothing. He has much to say in his two-volume work about the importance for the verification of the gospel of the apostolic eyewitnesses. And here he plainly includes the ascension of Jesus within the range of historical truths to which the eyewitnesses could (and did) testify. Indeed, when Judas is replaced, Peter will make John's baptism and Jesus' ascension the beginning and end of the public ministry to which the apostles must bear witness (1:22).

Fifthly, no alternative explanation is available of the cessation of the resurrection appearances and the final disappearance of Jesus from the earth. What happened to him, then, and why did his appearances stop? What was the origin of the tradition that they lasted for precisely forty days? In default of any other answer to these questions, we prefer the explanation for which there is evidence, namely that the forty-day period began with the resurrection and terminated with the ascension.

Sixthly, the visible, historical ascension had a readily intelligible purpose. Jesus had no need to take a journey into space, and it is silly of some critics to ridicule his ascension by representing him as the first cosmonaut! No, in the transition from his earthly to his heavenly state, Jesus could have perfectly well have vanished, as on other occasions, and 'gone to the Father' secretly and invisibly. The reason for the public and visible ascension is surely that he wanted them to know that he had gone for good. During the forty days he had kept appearing, disappearing and reappearing. But now this interim period was over. This time his departure was final. So they were not to wait around for his next resurrection appearance. Instead, they were to wait for somebody else, the Holy Spirit (1:4). For he would come only after Jesus was gone, and then they could get on with their mission in the power he would give them.

At all events, the manner of his going (a visible ascension) had its desired effect. The apostles returned to Jerusalem and waited for the Spirit to come.

Acts 1:9-12 - c) What is the permanent value of the ascension story?

We have seen what the visible ascension did for the apostles; what can it do for us? If we were to give a thorough answer to this question, we would need to bring different strands of teaching together from all the New Testament authors, including the completed sacrifice and continuing ntercession of our Great High Priest described in Hebrews, the glorification of the Son of man taught by John, the cosmic lordship emphasized by Paul and the final triumph when his enemies will become his footstool, foretold by Psalm 110:1, and endorsed by those who quote it. But it is not with these truths that Luke is concerned. In order to understand his primary interest as he tells the ascension story, we shall need to pay attention to those *two men dressed in white* (10) who *stood beside them* (the apostles) and spoke to them. Luke calls them 'men' because that is how they appeared, but their shining dress and authoritative tone indicate that they were angels. In his Gospel, Luke has recorded the ministry of angels at several critical moments in his story. They announced and attended the birth of Jesus (Luke 1:26ff; 2:9-10, 13-15). According to some manuscripts an angel appeared in the garden of Gethsemane to strengthen him (Luke 22:43). And 'two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning', later identified as angels, proclaimed his resurrection to the women (Luke 24:4ff, 23). So it was entirely appropriate that angels should now appear to interpret his ascension. They asked the apostles a searching question: *Men of Galilee, who do you stand here looking into the sky?* (11a). The expression 'into the sky' or 'into heaven' (AV, RSV) occurs four times in verses 10 and 11; its repetition, especially in the angels' implied reproof, emphasizes that the apostles were not to be sky-scanners. two reasons are given.

First, Jesus will come again. *This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven* (11b). The implication seems to be that they will not bring him back by gazing up into the sky. He has gone, and they must let him go; he will return in his own good time and in the same way. To this angelic assurance of the Parousia we must attach full weight. But we must also be cautious in our interpretation of *houtos* (this *same* Jesus) and *houtos* (in the *same* way). We should not press these words into meaning that the Parousia will be like a film of the ascension played backwards, or that he will return to exactly the same spot on the Mount of Olives and will be wearing the same clothes. it is only by letting Scripture interpret Scripture that we will discern the similarities and dissimilarities between the ascension and the Parousia. 'This same Jesus' certainly indicates that his coming will be personal, the Eternal Son still possessing his glorified human nature and body. And 'in the same way' indicates that his coming will also be visible and glorious. They had seen him go; they would see him come. Luke recorded Jesus saying so himself: 'they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory' (Luke 21:27). The same cloud which had hidden him from their sight (1:9), which had previously enveloped him and the three intimate apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:34), and which throughout the Old Testament was the symbol of Yahweh's glorious presence, would be the chariot of his coming as it had been of his going.

Yet there will also be important differences between his going and his coming. Although his coming will be personal, it will not be private like his ascension. Only the eleven apostles saw him go, but when he comes 'every eye will see him' (Rev. 1:7). Instead of returning along (as when he went), millions of holy ones - both human and angelic - will form his retinue (Luke 9:26; cf. 1 Thess. 4:24ff; 2 Thess. 1:7). And in place of a localized coming ('There he is!' or 'Here he is!'), it will be 'like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other' (Luke 17:23-34).

Secondly, the agels implied, until Christ comes again, the apostles must get on with their witness, for that was their mandate. There was something fundamentally anomalous about their gazing up into the *sky* when they had been commissioned to go to the ends of the *earth*. It was the earth not the sky which was to be their preoccupation. Their calling was to be witnesses not stargazers. The vision they were to cultivate was not upwards in nostalgia to the heaven which had received Jesus, but outwards in compassion to a lost world which needed him. It is the same for us. Curiosity about heaven and its occupants, speculation about prophecy and its fulfilment, an obsession with 'times and seasons' - these are aberrations which distract us from our God-given mission. Christ will come personally, visibly, gloriously. Of that we have been assured. Other details can wait. Meanwhile, we have work to do in the power of the Spirit.

The remedy for unprofitable spiritual stargazing lies in a Christian theology of history, an understanding of the order of events in the divine programme. First, Jesus returned to heaven (Ascension). Secondly, the Holy Spirit came (Pentecost). Thirdly, the church goes out to witness (Mission). Fourthly, Jesus will come back (Parousia). Whenever we forget one of these events, or put them in the wrong sequence, confusion reigns. We need especially to remember that between the ascension and the Parousia, the disappearance and the reappearance of Jesus, there stretches a period of unknown length which is to be filled with the church's world-wide, Spirit-empowered witness to him. We need to hear the implied message of the angels: 'You have seen him go. You will see him come. But between that going and coming there must be another. The Spirit must come, and you must go - into the world for Christ.'

Looking back, I think we may say that the apostles committed two opposite errors, which both had to be corrected. First, they were hoping for political power (the restoration of the kingdom to Israel). Secondly, they were gazing up into the sky (preoccupied with the heavenly Jesus). Both were false fantasies. The first is the error of the politicist, who dreams of establishing Utopia on earth. The second is the error of the pietist, who dreams only of heavenly bliss. The first vision is too earthy, and the second too heavenly. Is it fanciful to see a parallel here between Luke's Gospel and the Acts? Just as at the beginning of the Gospel Jesus in the Judean desert turned away from false ends and means, so at the beginning of Acts the apostles before Pentecost had to turn away from both a false activism and a false pietism. And in their place, as the remedy for them, there was (and is) witness to Jesus in the power of the Spirit, with all that this implies of earthly responsibility and heavenly enabling.

Acts 1:12-14 (3) The prayer for the Spirit to come

Their walk back to Jerusalem, being only a kilometre permitted on the sabbath, will not have taken them more than a quarter of an hour. Luke then tells us how they occupied the next ten days before Pentecost. In his Gospel he says 'they stayed continually at the temple praising God' (Luke 24:53), and in the Acts that in the room where they were lodging, 'they all joined together constantly in prayer' (14). It was a healthy combination: continuous praise in the temple, and continuous prayer in the home. Luke does not tell us whether the upstairs room was the 'large upper room, all furnished' (Luke 22:12), in which Jesus had spent his last evening with the Twelve, or whether it was the house of Mary the mother of John Mark, in which later many members of the Jerusalem church gathered to pray (Acts 12:12), or some other room. What he does tell us is that their prayer had two characteristics which, Calvin comments, are 'two essentials of true prayer, namely that they persevered, and were of one mind'. I will take them in the opposite order.

a) Their prayer was united
Who were these people who met to pray? Luke says that they were 'a group numbering about a hundred and twenty'(15). Professor Howard Marshall suggests that the reason why the number is mentioned is that 'in Jewish law a minimum of 120 Jewish men were required to establish a community with its own council'; so already the disciples were numerous enough 'to form a new community'. Others have detected symbolism in the number, since the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles make twelve an obvious symbol of the church, and 120 is 12 x 10, as the 144,000 of the Book of Revelation is 12 x 12 x 1000. Yet others suggest that 120 must have been only a percentage of the total believing community, since on one occasion 'more than 500' had seen the risen Lord at one time (1 Cor. 15:6), although, to be sure, this may have been in Galilee. At all events, the 120 included the eleven surviving apostles. Luke lists them (13), as he has done in his Gospel (Luke 6:14-16). And the list is the same, with only minor variations. For example, the inner circle of four, who had been named in the Gospel in pairs of brothers, 'Simon and Andrew, James and John', are now *Peter, John, James and Andrew*, putting first those who were to become the leading apostles, and also separating the natural brothers as if to hint that a new brotherhood in Christ has replaced the old kinship (see verst 16, 'Brother...'). The next two pairs are also rearranged, although no reason is apparent. Instead of 'Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas' (Luke 6:14-15), Luke writes *Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew*. The remaining apostles are the same, except that of course the traitor Judas is omitted.

In addition to the eleven apostles are mentioned *the women* (14), presumably meaning Mary Magdalene, Joanna (whose husband managed Herod's household) and Susanna - the trio Luke has mentioned in the Gospel (Luke 8:2-3) as 'helping to support them (sc. Jesus and the Twelve) out of their own means', together perhaps with 'Mary the mother of James' and the others who found the tomb empty (Luke 24:10, 22) and to whom the risen Lord later revealed himself (cf Matt. 28:8ff). Then, placed separately as occupying a position of particular honour, Luke adds *Mary the mother of Jesus*, whose unique role in the birth of Jesus he has described in the first two chapters of his Gospel, together with *his brothers* (14), who had not believed in him during his earlier ministry (cf.Mark 3:12, 31-34; John 7:5), but who now perhaps because of the private resurrection appearance to one of them, James (1 Cor. 15:7) - are numbered among the believers.

All these (the apostles, the women, the mother and the brothers of Jesus, and the rest who made up the number of 120) *joined together constantly in prayer*. 'Together' translates *homothymadon*, a favourite word of Luke's, which he uses ten times and which occurs only once elsewhere in the New Testament. It could mean simply that the disciples met in the same place, or were doing the same thing, namely praying. But it later describes both united prayer (4:24) and a united decision (15:25), so that the 'togetherness' implied seems to go beyond mere assembly and activity to agreement about what they were praying for. They prayed 'with one mind or purpose or impulse' (BAGD).

b) Their praying was persevering
The verb translated *joined...constantly (Proskartereo)* means to be 'busy' or 'persistent' in all activity. Luke uses it later both of the new converts who 'devoted themselves to' the apostles' teaching (2:42) and of the apostles who determined to give priority to prayer and preaching (6:4). Here he uses it of perseverance in prayer, as Paul does several times (e.g. Romans 12:12 and Col. 4:2).

There can be little doubt that the grounds of this unity and perseverance in prayer were the command and promise of Jesus. He had promised to send them the Spirit soon (1:4,5,8). He had commanded them to wait for him to come and then to begin their witness. We learn, therefore, that God's promises do not render prayer superfluous. On the contrary, it is only his promises which give us the warrant to pray and the confidence that he will hear and answer.

Acts 1:15-26. (4) They replaced Judas with Matthias as an Apostle

Having recorded the Lord's commission to witness, his ascension, and the disciples' persevering in prayers, Luke draws our attention to only one further action before Pentecost (*in those days* is vague enough to date it at any point between Ascension and Pentecost), namely the appointment of another apostle in place of Judas. We have to consider the need for such an appointment (the defection and death of Judas), the warrant for it (the fulfilment of Scripture) and the choice which was made (Matthias).

a) The death of Judas (1:18-19)
Verses 18 and 19 do not appear to be part of Peter's speech, for they interrupt the sequence of his thought. Moreover, as an Aramaic speaker addressing Aramaic speakers, Peter would not have needed to translate the word *Akeldama* (19). But Luke writing for Gentile readers, would need to explain its meaning. So these two verses are best understood as an editorial parenthesis, in which Luke acquaints his readers with the circumstances of Judas' death. This is how RSV, NEB and NIV take it.

Luke is outspoken in calling Judas' betrayal of Jesus an act of *wickedness (adikia*, 18), 'infamy' (JBP) or 'villainy' (NEB), or a 'crime' (JB). Yet some people express their sympathy for him because his role was predicted and therefore (it is thought) foreordained. But this is not so. Calvin himself, for all his emphasis on the sovereignty of God, wrote: 'Judas may not be excused on the ground that what befell him was prophesied, since he fell away not through the compulsion of prophecy but through the wickedness of his own heart'.

In the Gospels only Matthew records what happened to Judas (Matt. 17:3-5), and he and luke appear to be drawing on independent traditions. But their accounts are not as divergent as some argue, and it is certainly not necessary to say with R.P.C. Hanson that 'they cannot be true'. Both say that Judas died a miserable death, that a field was bought with the money paid him (thirty silver coins), and that it was called 'The Field of Blood'. The apparent discrepancies concern how he died, who bought the field and why it was called 'Blood Field'.

First, the manner of Judas' death. Matthew writes that he committed suicide: 'he went away and hanged himself (Matt. 27:5). Luke writes that *he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out* (18b). Attempts to harmonize these statements go back at least to Augustine. It is perfectly possible to suppose that after he hanged himself, his body either fell headlong (the usual meaning of *prenes*), assuming that the rope or tree branch broke, or 'swelled up' (following a different derivation of *Prenes*, which BAGD declares 'linguistically possible', cf. RSV margin, JBP), and in either case ruptured).

Secondly, there is the question who bought the field. Matthew says that Judas, filled with remorse, tried to return the money to the priests and (when they refused to accept it) threw it into the temple and left. he adds that later the priests picked up the money and with it bought the potter's field. Luke, on the other hand, says that *with the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field* (18a). So did the priests purchase the field, or did Judas? It is reasonable to answer that both did, the priests entering into the transaction, but with money which belonged to Judas. For, as Edersheim wrote, 'by a fiction of law the money was still considered to be Judas', and to have been applied by him in the purchase of the well-known 'potter's field'.

Thirdly, why did the field purchased come to be known as 'The Field of Blood'? Matthew's answer is that it had been bought with 'blood money' (Matt. 27:6); Luke gives no explicit reason, but implies that it was because Judas' blood had been spilled there. Evidently different traditions developed (as so often happens) as to how the field got its name, so that different people called it 'Blood Field' for different reasons.

It is fair to conclude that these independent accounts of Judas' death are not incompatible, and to agree with J.S.Alexander 'there is scarcely an American or English jury that would scruple to receive these two accounts as perfectly consistent'.

Next: Acts 1:15-17, 20 - (b) The fulfilment of Scripture