The promise of Acts 1:8 is addressed to the apostles (see verse 2). When Jesus assures his disciples that they will be his witnesses he means that they will be witnessing to him as the risen Lord. This is made plain at the close of the chapter when Peter leads the process to find a replacement for Judas and to make up the twelve. Peter explains:
Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection (verses 21-22).
Clearly, being a witness of Jesus’ resurrection is here considered to be a role restricted to the apostles. Indeed, in verses 24-25 we overhear the prayer of the roughly 120 believers concerning whether Barsabbas or Matthias should be chosen for this role:
Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.”
In short, the witness of Acts 1:8 is a very particular witness, the divinely authorised eye-witness testimony of 12 men.
Immediately after this we have Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, the first example of how this apostolic witness was exercised. In this sermon Peter places immense stress on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and he also draws out the significance and implications of this:
- The citation from Joel 2 climaxes with the declaration: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21). In what follows Peter stresses Jesus’ identity as Lord and ends with the plea: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation” (verse 40). The very idea of calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus plainly implies he is alive.
- In verses 22-36 Peter emphasises that the very one the Jewish people had sinfully put to death has now been raised:
- “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (verse 24).
- In Psalm 16:8-11 David’s prophetic words involved ”seeing what was ahead”, with David speaking “of the resurrection of the Christ”, that is, the far greater king yet to come, the Messiah (verse 31).
- “God raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (verse 32). Given what has just been said Peter is saying in effect that God has shown Jesus is the Messianic King prophesied by king David.
- Peter now makes explicit what is clearly implicit : “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (verse 33). That is, Jesus himself as Risen Lord has sent the Holy Spirit in this dramatic way. It is the outpouring of the Spirit and the operation of the Spirit that demonstrates Jesus is the Risen Lord and, indeed, constitutes the way in which Jesus exercises his rule as Risen Lord.
- For Peter resurrection and ascension are inseparable. So he continues, citing Psalm 110:1: “For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” (verses 34-35). Jesus is not merely the Risen One, but more particularly the Risen Lord. As Peter concludes: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (verse 36).
This emphasis on witness to Jesus as Risen Lord is perpetuated throughout the book of Acts. Even though the way the gospel is communicated varies according to whom is being addressed, the stress on resurrection remains:
You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this (3:15).
In this same second sermon Peter explains that “the Christ/Messiah…. even Jesus… must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets” (3:20-21).
When Peter and John are interrogated by the Jewish religious leaders, Peter boldly declares:
then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed (4:10).
At yet another interrogation Peter declares:
“We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead - whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, as so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (5:29-32).
This is a momentous statement. The resurrection-ascension of Jesus is the essential foundation upon which any Jewish experience of repentance and forgiveness is contingent. Further, Peter’s comment here amplifies Acts 1:8. The coming of the Spirit upon the apostles is not merely a matter of empowerment for witness. Rather, the Spirit is also a co-witness.
At the end of Chapter 5 we read how the apostles, notwithstanding the threats of the religious leaders, “never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (verse 42). From what we have already seen it is plain that the apostles especially appealed to the fact of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as the evidence that he is indeed the Messiah for the Jewish people.
The martyrdom of Stephen is significant because after enraging his accusers by bluntly telling them they had murdered the Messiah he says, as they are stoning him, “Look! I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (7:56). That is, he sees Jesus as the risen, ascended Lord. Although not an apostle himself, the apostolic witness to Jesus’ resurrection is thus perpetuated by Stephen.
One of those present at Stephen’s martyrdom, Saul, is confronted by the risen, ascended Lord on the road to Damascus (9:1-6, 17). It was Jesus who sent Ananias to Saul to bring him healing and to cause him to be filled with the Spirit (verses 10-19). When Saul goes on to prove to Jews that Jesus is the Messiah (verse 22; cf. v27) he plainly does so as himself a witness to the resurrection, to the reality of Jesus as the Risen Lord. His whole mission is predicated upon the fact that Jesus himself appeared to him and gave him this “task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace”, something for which he will suffer greatly and for which he is prepared to give his life (20:24).
It is Jesus, not as a crucified hero, but as the living Lord who heals Aeneas (9:34).
When the gospel first goes to the Gentiles through Peter, while there are now modifications in the way it is presented one thing remains constant - emphasis on the resurrection:
We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen - by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. As the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name (10:39-43).
These verses are important in underscoring the uniqueness of apostolic witness, the witness of those “whom God had already chosen” and who had eaten and drank with Jesus AFTER he rose from the dead. The commission to preach to the people presupposes the reality that Jesus is the Risen Lord. The role of Jesus as Judge of the living and the dead presupposes his resurrection. Further to believe in Jesus also presupposes he is the living Lord and only on this basis is it possible to experience forgiveness of sins.
When, following the scattering of persecuted Christians, believers from Cyprus and Cyrene proclaim the gospel about the Lord Jesus to the people of Antioch it is the hand of the living Lord Jesus which is with them and causing a great number to believe and turn to himself (11:20-21).
The next recorded sermon is that of Paul in Pisidian Antioch. Yet again he stresses the fact that Jesus is the Risen Lord, making much of Psalm 16, just as Peter did in the sermon he preached at the Day of Pentecost:
When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus (13:29-33).
Here Paul refers to the 12 apostles as Jesus’ witnesses to the Jewish people. But he himself also makes the resurrection central to his explanation of the gospel. For Paul the resurrection of Jesus involves the fulfilment of all that God had promised the Jewish people in the Old Testament.
In the verses that follow Paul stresses the factuality of Jesus’ resurrection; that his body does not lie decaying in a grave somewhere. Yet again the reality that Jesus is the Living Lord is foundational to the the gospel declaration of forgiveness:
Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses (vv38-39).
If Jesus was not raised from the dead then there is no true forgiveness. If Jesus is not the Risen Lord there is no justification.
The extract from the sermon preached by Paul and Barnabas to the Lystrans contains no reference to the resurrection. However, here we are not dealing so much with a model presentation of the gospel but with the response of “the apostles Barnabas and Paul” (14:14) to the way the Lystrans had treated them as gods not men. In this context the only content given to the gospel message as such is expressed in verse 15, that is, the gospel involves the demand “to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.”
When Paul gets to Thessalonica he follows his custom of beginning with the synagogue and “on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,’ he said” (17:2-3).
Athenians think Paul is advocating foreign gods “because [he] was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection” (17:18) - another clear indication that this gospel emphasis is invariable. Indeed, it is the resurrection that constitutes the climax of his address to the Areopagus:
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead (17:30-31).
The reality of Jesus’ resurrection means that no one no longer has any excuse for failing to repent. Because Jesus is the Risen Lord all people need to take seriously the fact that on the Day of Judgment they will be judged by Jesus.
Much is made of the point that it was precisely this stress on the resurrection that made the gospel seem foolish to these sophisticated Gentile ears (v32).
When Paul speaks to the hostile mob in Jerusalem he describes how Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and gave him his mission. For example, he recalls:
Then he said: “The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard…” (22:14-15).
When Paul is brought before the Sanhedrin he declares:
“My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead” (23:6).
The Lord Jesus himself stands near Paul that night and tells him that as he has testified about him in Jerusalem so he will testify about him in Rome (v11).
Before Felix Paul reports how he had stated to the Sanhedrin that he was on trial before them because of “the resurrection of the dead” (v21).
Later Festus explains to King Agrippa:
“…. they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive” (25:19).
Before King Agrippa himself Paul asks:
“Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” (26:8).
He immediately goes on toe explain what happened to him on the Damascus Road and how the risen Lord Jesus appeared to him. Paul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” (v13). Jesus replied:
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you” (26:16).
Yet again Paul goes on to make it clear that the salvation of people (opening of their eyes and turning them from darkness and from Satan’s power) and their reception of forgiveness is grounded in the reality of Jesus being the Risen Lord (vv17-18). By now it is abundantly clear that Paul’s witness is indeed that of an authorised eye-witness apostle (cf. 14:14).
Paul’s address to Agrippa climaxes as follows:
But I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen - that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles (26:22-23).
Here there is the clear implication that the ultimate resurrection of the dead begins with and is contingent upon Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
The very last verse of the book speaks of Paul boldly preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ (28:31). It is very apparent by now that this centres upon Paul’s witness to Jesus as the one who rules as the risen, ascended Lord.
In short, the entire book of Acts is fundamentally concerned with apostolic witness to Jesus as the Risen Lord. In the first instance the witness of the 12 apostles, particularly modeled by Peter, and in the second instance by the witness of the apostle Paul.
www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au
Posted December 24, 2009
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