It is very blessed and interesting to the heart to observe the position His own are found occupying in Acts 1, in relation to the promise of the Person who was coming, of whom we were speaking in our last.
First, they were in His own company, as the risen One, for forty days; He had fulfilled to them His promise ere He left them, “I will see you again”—their hearts were glad in having Him once more, the sorrow of their loss by His death was now behind them; it was the very same Jesus on whom their eyes rested, only He was with them in risen power, He had left behind for ever the sorrow of His path on earth—the cross, the grave; He was there before their very eyes in very truth as the risen One out from among the dead. Let us try and think what a blessed moment that must have been for Him and them. He, the blessed One, was there in the new estate of man beyond the bearing of sin, beyond death and the grave, risen from the dead, not yet “taken up.” They, His brethren now, were there with Him, fruit of His victory and triumph over every hostile power, owned by Him, as such to themselves, through the lips of the woman, to whom the world was but a tomb without Him; what blessed memories of the past, and realities of their then relationship with His Father now their Father, His God now their God, must have been present to their hearts. Further, they were expectants of a new and heavenly power they were to receive from Him when received up into glory. Let us observe here the beautiful intimacy that is brought before us in the words, “Speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God.”(R. V.) He is here in all His resurrection life and power, first fruits of them that slept, yet His heart, full of divine love, is not removed, is not any the farther away from His own. What an immense blessing to the heart to know the risen Lord near us, that He holds us as friends and loved ones still. But further, observe we are told what was the subject of their conversation; the character of it was as we have seen intimacy, the subject of it, was “concerning the kingdom of God.” We find that this was preached afterwards by His servants, and among them by him who was especially the apostle of the Gentiles; in proof compare Acts 20:2525And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. (Acts 20:25) and chapter 28:31. There are three words here to which I would very particularly direct attention, as illustrating their position at this time in relation to the promise of the Father.
First, “wait.” They are therefore set as expectants of this heavenly endowment. This shows the very opposite to settling down here, out of which He their Master had died and risen again.
Observe the word here translated wait (B,D4:,<,4<) is the same word used in Gen. 49:1818I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord. (Genesis 49:18) in the Septuagint, and the connection there is very beautiful. Jacob’s blessing of the tribes, as in that chapter, refers to responsibility, and when he came to Dan, though owned as a judging tribe, and so Israel in him, yet he marks out that apostasy and power of Satan in Israel, which led the remnant to look beyond the portion of the people, unfaithful in every way, to Him who was the salvation: “We have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah.” This marks expectancy here as the position of His own in Acts 1.
Second, “power” (Greek, ‘L<":4<). This was a new power with which they were to be filled, heavenly power; as we have seen, they were set by the risen Lord as expectants of this, and so they were found here in weakness, yet in dependence, out of the world and all that pertains to it, in an upper room, in prayer and supplication, “with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” What a lovely picture these verses display before us! and does not this upper room here fit well in with that other recorded in Luke 22:1212And he shall show you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. (Luke 22:12), where we see Him, a Stranger in this world, with His own?
Then let us also observe those words “with one accord”; how blessed as the result of risen life in each, not yet united, for the Spirit had not yet been received, still as such expectants of the “heavenly gift.” This expression, “with one accord,” recurs eleven times in the Acts, and nowhere else, except once, in Romans 15:66That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:6). Third, “witnesses” (Greek, :"DJLD,H). Our English word martyr is derived from that translated witness. The qualification for a witness was this heavenly endowment for which they waited; they were to receive power at the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them to this very end. It is of the deepest moment to us to understand that a witness of Christ, was and is, of Christ rejected, yet risen, despised of men, but now exalted of God in heaven. If His testimony ended in martyrdom, as far as man’s wicked hands were concerned, they were to look for a similar end, and as a rule they so terminated their course, so that we may say, in a certain sense, for any witness of a once crucified and martyred Christ, or as Stephen was of a glorified Christ, to die a natural death is unnatural, and so of life as of death, to be a witness of a rejected Christ, one must be unworldly and unearthly.
Further, it is interesting to note the contrast between this and what we have in the Revelation; there the kingdom in manifestation is introduced, and the saints are kings and priests unto God and His Father, but when Acts is opened, they are witnesses, that is, martyrs to an absent rejected Christ and Lord in the power and energy of God the Holy Ghost. May we covet more and more to be in the true sense of the term His witnesses.