Acts 1:1-41The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: 3To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: 4And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. (Acts 1:1‑4).
IN calling attention to the opening verses of this chapter, I desire, beloved friends, to ask what “the former treatise” was, as respects Christ? I need hardly say, it refers to the gospel of Luke; but what was it, as to the scope of its records?
The answer may be imperfect, which I give for myself; but I reply, it contains the account of the way by which Christ won the earth back for God, by His coming into it, in His own proper title as “Son of Man,” the promised “seed of the woman.” He made good this claim too, in righteousness as a man, by His living obedience; when the heavens opened over Him, and the Father’s voice accredited Him, as “the Beloved Son, in whom God was well pleased.” We lose the one great charm of Christianity, if we do not maintain the dignity and glory of Him who was also the sinless One!
When I think of who the Son of Man was, and from whetted He came, and what He has done, the former treatise declares throughout that He had won the earth, and His people; and was then “taken up into heaven.” Has He done it or not? It cannot be a little question, when connected with the Christ of God! The creature Adam had lost everything; but who has regained it? Who would or could go away and say, I have won back a lost world; and now I take it in redemption; and hold it under my title, as second Adam, and in the Headship of the new creation? That is not only a glory, but a double one! It is the glory which He gets in accomplishment by His cross; so that He not merely redeemed the creation which Adam lost (when he fell), but everything promised or covenanted by God afterwards is gained and secured by Him forever in His own resurrection.
If I mention for a moment what He has thus established in Himself, it is to show that not only had He won “a groaning creation” out of the hand of Satan, but God Himself has exalted Him as “the beginning” of the New Creation in the glory; which place God owns and assigns in righteous title to Him who had worked these rights and titles out upon the Cross. You see the Son “taken up” in Acts 1, and seated on the right hand of God, made higher than the heavens, and a “name given to Him which is above every name, not only in this world but also in that which is to come,” as in Ephesians 1.
Another thing has been accomplished by Christ’s death and resurrection―for “the obedient One” came into this world not only to make an opening for Himself, but to find an outlet too. Suppose I give an illustration. When the expedition sailed which Great Britain sent out last year to discover what the Arctic regions were, its object was to find an entrance in the first place, and then a way out. If I look at the Lord in the heavens I know who has found an opening into this earth by the mystery of the Incarnation, and also made a triumphant exit. How was it done? This carries us back to the former treatise for an answer. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” He makes an opening for Himself by which to enter into these dark and desolate regions down here, and to explore the world into which He had come throughout its length and breadth; as also to make Himself acquainted with ad that was in it, and thus bind Himself in truest sympathy with the human family. He was known as “the Man of sorrows” and acquainted with grief. I need not give instances―read the former treatise, which is the narrative “of all that Jesus began to do and teach” in connection with Acts 1. He not only found an entrance, but by His righteousness gained a title to everything―and by His obedience added another character to the ways of God in His government of the world―for as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous (Rom. 5:1919For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)). I must, before I get comfort or satisfaction here, know that “God has got glory” from Christ’s obedience unto death; and the former treatise tells us that this has been acknowledged “at the Mount” by the voice from the excellent glory, He having won everything which had been lost, and infinitely more; for “He received from God the Father honor and glory, &c.”
I have spoken thus of the opening He had found and what he had recovered; but how could he make an outlet? No one could come in by that entrance except Himself, and He came in.
If a man in his misery looked at the One who had thus come out from the Father, and believed on Him for deliverance, then what a guarantee was Christ to such a soul, in the certain knowledge that He puts him into the boom of that love out of which he came! These are His words― “For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God.” I am come into the world―again I leave the world and go unto the Father―these are the pathways He made! He was the most feeling man upon the earth―there was no heart like His; and He thus became acquainted with the depths, necessities, and sorrows which were daily around Him, and then went to the Cross to put away the causes (as well as their consequences) and dry up their sources. All this He did by expiation, and brought in life and peace by his sufferings and death and precious blood, thus laying down a righteous ground for God to come in upon, as “the just God, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly that believeth in Jesus.” God is satisfied and God is glorified, so that I get not only relief (which only finds and leaves me where I was), but something far higher and better with Christ in the Father’s love.
Turn now to the 24 chapter of Luke, 26th verse: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? .... He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” I read it, beloved friends, that we may come to the sepulcher and learn another lesson there. The manger was the opening, and the sepulcher is the outlet. Has He made a way out for you or not by that open door? “The former treatise” began with the opening which He made to come into this earth, and by which the purchase was sealed to Him by right of inheritance. Now, this last chapter shows us the outlet by which he measured everything, and where the undisputed possession would be evidenced and subscribed on the third day. Can he meet toad discharge all the liabilities and encumbrances, and nit away forever these penalties of death and the grave? Does He do so? Yes, He goes into the darkest spot which was upon this earth, with God as a Judge, to endure the wrath, cost Him what it may. In the intensity and agony of that moment (when giving up His life for us) He cried out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Mel” Where was He from eternity? He was is the bosom of the Father! Where is He in time? In the desolate regions of this world, where God was excluded because of sin. The One who was the only begotten of the Father, and “who knew no sin” came in, and was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He was the desolate Man upon the earth, but this was the only path that such an One must tread, who would make an outlet for Himself that God could own! What do we owe to Him? Shall any doubt Him? In the case of the Arctic expedition, what would England say and do when they have found an opening and another way out? What would an Englishman say to his neighbor if there was any one who dared to doubt respecting the truth of it, or the glory of the enterprise?
I pass from the sepulcher, and read from Luke 24 46th verse, to the end of the chapter. I ask you to observe this Scripture, and see Christ come up out of this death, that our hearts may “have the certainty, touching the things which are recorded, and wherein we have been instructed,” and that they may “burn within us,” because it should be heart-work from beginning to end, between a believer, and Christ, and God. What am I to think of Him who took my sins upon Himself, so that He might redeem me to God by His blood? How dare I think of Him, in any other way than God thinks of Him and me too, as the trophy of His grace. He has won the earth, and won the people by His sufferings and death, and then in triumph He goes to His own glory with the Father. He passed through these regions, that He might explore them, and make a way out of this wretched world, into which by His own love He came. Where is He now? Gone! and in what character? He goes up in the character of High Priest, with our names upon His breast, and makes an opening into the heavens for us, as worshippers in the holiest, where God dwells. It was God Himself who rent the veil for the Priest and us. He not only wins the earth, but the heavens; and the Holy Ghost has come down to take of the things that are Christ’s, and spew them to you. God thus gives everything to His Christ. He opens the heavens, then associates us with Himself in the hour of His departure― “while He blessed them, He was parted from them”―so that by redemption, we are one with Him where He now is in life, and righteousness, and glory.
Thus the former treatise being completed, we come to Acts 1 verse 2, “Until the day in which He was taken up.” Here we get the next great wonder to the incarnation―viz., the first man out of death―about to make a new history for Himself, for He ascends up where man never was before, and goes to unexplored regions above. Who but He could find an opening into the heavens, and possess by righteous title and reward, as “The Son of Man,” everything the Father hath to give. From the heavens there can be no outlet, except to return in blessing to this earth; but the heavens welcome us, and make us at come with their “new object.” He has made a righteous opening into the heavens, and it will do your hearts good, and make then “burn” Is you look at Him as He goes up, beloved. I do not want to apply this to ourselves further, but to the “glory of God.” I trust all here know what it is to apply Christ to, themselves, in His finished work below. Having believed in that precious blood, I look at it in its double aspect. The guilt goes with the sins, and the blood purges the conscience, according to the holiness of God. It is not merely purged from guilt, but purged according to “the glory of God,” and where Christ now is, in “the Holiest of all.”
“Till the day He was taken up” is more than resurrection. We may look at the many infallible proofs of that, of which there are plenty. If we turn to John 20 we see Him there come in as “the quickening Spirit,” and breathing upon them, so that He might begin this future upon the earth; but He is not yet ascended to the Father. Afterwards He is “caught up and received out of their sight;” and this is the beginning of our new and heavenly history, as one with and united to that Man who is gone there. The Holy Ghost comes down as the Glorifier of Christ; and the new creation opens with a further revelation of the “hidden things” of God, because there is Christ as Head gone up to “His right hand,” who has associated the Church with Himself by “the baptism of the Holy Ghost” (vs. 5). Although Christ has left us and the earth as to His Person, yet He puts it, so to speak, “in commission” under the Apostles, to whom He had given commandments, because all His interests are in it. He has made a new place for us in heaven, and gone to make ready “the Father’s house;” and in the interval He has sent His servants into the world, putting them under commissions, which are variously given in the end of the Gospels. “Go ye and preach” in Matthew. In Mark He gives the “power to cast out devils,” and He bestows this on the twelve when upon the earth. So unmistakably has He given out these commissions from Himself that the Lord on high was working with them in power, and “confirming the Word with signs following,” upon the earth.
Two wonderful things are opened in the Acts― “the Church,” and the things pertaining to “the kingdom of God.” Christ wins the earth, and when He comes back He connects His interests again with it until He subdues it to Himself. In verse 4 of this chapter they were “to wait for the promise of the Father,” which, saith He, ye have heard of Me. I do not think we are alive to the glory of the Son of Man, as Second Adam, who is up there. He is gone to heaven, but what titles and prerogatives to His dominions has He got? Shall we be indifferent to His glories, and the Father’s delight in glorifying the Son, and selfishly limit Him and His blessed work to our own state, and be content to know that we are accepted? No, God forbid! Do I undervalue acceptance? It is indispensable. But how has God glorified His Son in the heavens, who so glorified God upon the earth? is our inquiry. For this is the new ground of our communion. There is now an occasion for God the Father to display Himself in glorifying Him who has so fully glorified God! Look at Him in the heavens if you would be morally changed into the same image! Follow Christ to the heavens as one with Him in the Spirit. Follow Him to the heavens with your hearts, that you may be really there. The Holy Ghost is the earnest from God of our portion with His Son, and that now as the indwelling Spirit, true to God, and to Christ, and to us, He may set “our affections on things above (and not on things upon the earth), where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”
Think what God has done with that “Son of Man,” as Head of the new creation, and as the bringer in of the blessing and the glory with which the earth is to be filled. I look up at Him there, and find rest and satisfaction whilst below, in the knowledge that He will come to bring forth this present creation out of its groanings. Do we believe that this is His next work when He comes to deliver this creation “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
But it is not merely the beginning of a new creation, nor the relief and deliverance of the old one, which completes the Son’s glory. There was yet something left undisclosed in the mind of God, and which tarried for the ascended Son of Man. Now that He is on “the right hand of the Father,” this secret has been revealed and the Holy Ghost come to disclose it―even “that hidden mystery,” the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, to be made ready for Him. God Himself owns that there was a thought in His heart which was kept secret from the foundation of the world. You get this in Acts, what the Church is to Christ upon the earth. We are the members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and He has to do with each one. Do you believe it? What other operation is going on like this in the world? Let us be true to the Holy Ghost who is come down—this promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me—as set forth by Jesus when on earth in the 14., 15., 16., and 17. chapters of John’s gospel, in which He opened out this wondrous truth. Till He does come the Holy Ghost takes possession of us in the Father’s name and in the Son’s name, and dwells in us individually likewise, in the name of Christ. We are this people, each one of us. Mind this, beloved friends. If we hear wonderful truth and wonderful things, as we surely must and ought, they are intended to be carried out in “the power of the Holy Ghost,” that we may be a wonderful and “peculiar people, zealous of good works” even amongst men.
Let us be like those who have looked into this world with God in a different light. “These times” are only making complete the revolution which was begun and headed by Satan. But now God’s set time is at hand, when He will make good the rights of Christ, and avenge His wrongs. He will bring in a revolution in the heavens above and the earth beneath, by which Satan shall be cast out, and all His enemies made to lick the dust― “For I will overturn, overturn, overturn, saith the Lord, and it shall be no more.” Satan shall be completely and forever set aside, and the wickedness of the wicked brought to a perpetual end. It is He who made an opening into the earth, and an outlet from the earth, and the inlet into the heavens. It is He whose right it is to reign from the river to the ends of the world. “Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings, be instructed ye judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him” (Psa. 2).