The Spirit and the Kingdom.
Acts 1:8-11
The theme of the paragraph beginning with verse four and extending down
to verse 8 has to do with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit which marks the distinction between the age of
As we look at Acts 1:4 we see Jesus continuing to instruct the disciples
about the kingdom. This has been His major theme during the intervening period
between His resurrection and His ascension. The focus isn’t on the kingdom and
what is going to happen when the kingdom arrives but on the reality of the
postponement of the kingdom because the King has been rejected and what the
major elements of the intervening age will be. That especially relates to the
coming of the Holy Spirit. The disciples were to wait in
1 Corinthians
Quoting these passages is to show the Old Testament expectation of the
coming of the Spirit because that is the framework of the disciples when Jesus
says, “You will be baptized by the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” And
their response is: Does that mean the kingdom is coming in now? So passages
such as Isaiah 32:15 NASB “Until the Spirit is poured out upon us
from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fertile field, And the fertile field
is considered as a forest” Are Old Testament prophecies looking forward to the
time when the Spirit would come and the messianic kingdom would appear. This
idea of pouring out the Spirit is seen in proverbs
Jesus predicted something similar to this in John
Acts 1:6 NASB “So when they had come together, they were
asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to
Acts 1:7 NASB “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know
times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.’” The word
“times” is chronos [xronoj],
and
this emphasizes times from the perspective of events in succession, reaching a
certain conclusion, as seen in its use in Galatians 4:4 NASB “But
when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son…” This word is often
used to refer to events in fulfilment of prophetic predictions when things come
one after the other to reach a conclusion, a fulfilment. The second word that
is used is “seasons” or “epochs” (depending on the translation) and it looks at
time from the perspective of broad expanses of time, or what we might refer to
as “ages.” There is a clear distinction here between times and ages. So God has
clearly divided human history into distinct periods of time, and those distinct
periods of time lead to an ultimate conclusion, so that history is directional.
History has a focus, a purpose, and God is moving history to this ultimate and
final conclusion. It is only in Biblical, Judeo-Christian thinking that history
is viewed as something that is linear and directional. What about Marxism? That
is why Marxism is called a Judeo-Christian heresy, because their heretical
views come in and they borrow directionality and a linear view of history from
Christianity and pervert it. So there are a number of post-Christian
philosophies that have developed over the past 2000 years that borrow this idea
of directionality, and pagan views do not produce a directional view of
history. That is why only within a Judeo-Christian heritage that history is
important. History is not important if it always repeats itself and it is not
going anywhere. So we learn that history is going somewhere and that history as
God has designed it has different periods of time assigned to it.
Another word that is used in this is the word aionos [a)iwnoj] which also refers to an age.
When we look at what we call dispensations we first of all break things down
into larger blocks of time. These are ages. The word “dispensation” comes from
the Greek word oikonomos [o)ikonomoj] from which we get
our word “economy.” An oikonomos
is a house law—oikos = house; nomos = law. So the word came to refer
to an administration, e.g. how parents administer a household when there are
infants in the household is one way, but when there are adolescents in the
household the house will be managed or administered in a different way. There
are similarities that run through those different periods of time, they all
reflect the character and the values of the parents, but because the
inhabitants are at different stages of maturity there are modifications to the
rules as they move through the process and progress of time.
A dispensation occurs when there is new revelation given from God. An
age acts with a change is revelation but it is different from that of a
dispensation. There are different changes within the administration of a
dispensation. For example, when God created Adam and Eve there was only one
race and there in the garden was an age of absolute perfection, perfect
environment, and an age of innocence. That term should be understood in the
same way that justification and confession and baptism of the Holy Spirit are
understood, not as a term indicating some sort of naivety but a judicial term;
they were judicially innocent. There is a difference between being judicially
innocent and not guilty. It was an age of judicial innocence because they had
not sinned. When they did sin God showed up in the garden of Eden and said,
Okay, this is how things are going to change. He addresses the serpent, the
woman and the man and things changed; there was a new administration now as a
result of sin. But there were still only Gentiles. Then there is another shift
that tales place after the flood, another modification of the covenant, the
Noahic covenant, but there was still only one race. So there are three
dispensations, each one characterized by a change in revelation and
administration but it is the age of the Gentiles. After the failure at the
tower of Babel God says He is going to call out one person—Abraham—and instead
of working with the whole human race He is just going to work through Abraham
and his descendants, and the whole of the human race will be blessed through
Abraham. That began the age of
Jesus just tells the disciples they have their timing off: “It is not
for you to know the times and the seasons.” Is that an absolute statement? No,
it is not. Jesus tells them prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit at
Pentecost, “It is not for you to know these things right now.” Remember, this
is in 33 AD. Some twenty years later in the early fifties when Paul is writing to
the church at Thessalonica and they have various question related to the coming
of Christ he says in 1 Thessalonians 5:1 NASB “Now as to the times [chronos], and the epochs [kairos] brethren, you have no need of
anything to be written to you.” Why? Because they have already been instructed
by Paul regarding these prophetic things pertaining to the times and the
seasons. He uses the same words that Jesus used in Acts 1:6, 7. So twenty years
after Pentecost that revelation will have come, and will be given to the
apostle Paul regarding the various dispensation truths and mystery doctrines
that are revealed within the Pauline epistles.
But what Jesus does say is, Acts 1:8 NASB “but you will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you…” Notice the contrast here. It is not for you to know
times and seasons, get your minds off the kingdom coming right now and
everything changing. Instead, there is going to be this intervening age, “… and
you shall be My witnesses both in
Observations:
The “you” in this passage is a second person plural. He is specifically talking
about the eleven. This is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of
interpretation of some of the statements that Jesus makes to the disciples:
when is He saying this is only for you eleven, or it is for you eleven as
representatives of the rest of the church and it is going to be true of them as
well?
Jesus
here is just addressing the eleven and that is clear because He is giving them
the marching order to go from
Acts 1:9 NASB “And after He had said these things, He was
lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their
sight.
Acts
Other passages to remind us of the ascension and how this is viewed
spatially by the writers of Scripture: Hebrews 4:14 connects the ascension to
His present priesthood. He has to be glorified at the right hand of the Father
before His priestly ministry on our behalf begins. NASB “Therefore,
since we have a great high priest who has passed through [dierchomai/ dierxomai] the heavens
[second heaven]....” So there is a spatial movement that takes place as Jesus
goes through the universe to something beyond which is the throne of God. This
then becomes the basis for our great promise: “For we do not have a high priest
who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all
things as {we are, yet} without sin.” We have a human being now sitting at the
right hand of the Father waiting for the kingdom to be given to Him.
Ephesians 1:20-22 also relates to the ascension. NASB “which
He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at
His right hand in the heavenly {places,}