---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible -  Acts 1"
description: "CHAPTER 1   :-. INTRODUCTION—LAST
DAYS OF OUR
LORD UPON EARTH—HIS
ASCENSION. 1, 2. former treatise—Luke"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/acts/1"
---

CHAPTER 1

. INTRODUCTION—LAST
DAYS OF OUR
LORD UPON EARTH—HIS
ASCENSION.

**1, 2. former treatise**—Luke's
Gospel.
**Theophilus**—(See on ).
**began to do and teach**—a
very important statement, dividing the work of Christ into two great
branches: the one embracing His work *on earth,* the other His
subsequent work *from heaven;* the one in His own Person, the
other by His Spirit; the one the "beginning," the other the
continuance of the same work; the one complete when He sat down at
the right hand of the Majesty on high, the other to continue till His
second appearing; the one recorded in "The Gospels," the
*beginnings* only of the other related in this book of "The
Acts." "Hence the grand history of what Jesus did and
taught does not conclude with His departure to the Father; but Luke
now begins it in a higher strain; for all the subsequent labors of
the apostles are just an exhibition of *the ministry of the
glorified Redeemer Himself* because they were acting under His
authority, and He was the principle that operated in them all"
[OLSHAUSEN].

**2. after that he, through the Holy
Ghost, had given commandments,** c.—referring to the charge
recorded in [Matthew 28:18-20](../../../kjv/matthew/28/18-20)
[Mark 16:15-18](../../../kjv/mark/16/15-18); [Luke 24:44-49](../../../kjv/luke/24/44-49).
It is worthy of notice that nowhere else are such communications of
the risen Redeemer said to have been given "through the Holy
Ghost." In general, this might have been said of all He uttered
and all He did in His official character; for it was for this very
end that God "gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him" ([Luke 24:44-42](../../../kjv/luke/24/44-42)). But after His resurrection, as if to signify the new
relation in which He now stood to the Church, He signalized His first
meeting with the assembled disciples by *breathing* on them
(immediately after dispensing to them His *peace*) and saying,
"*Receive ye the Holy Ghost*" ([Luke 24:44-42](../../../kjv/luke/24/44-42)) thus anticipating the donation of the Spirit from His
hands (see on [Luke 24:44-42](../../../kjv/luke/24/44-42)); and on
the same principle His parting charges are here said to have been
given "through the Holy Ghost," as if to mark that He was
now all redolent with the Spirit; that what had been husbanded,
during His suffering work, for His own necessary uses, had now been
set free, was already overflowing from Himself to His disciples, and
needed but His ascension and glorification to flow all forth. (See on
[Luke 24:44-42](../../../kjv/luke/24/44-42).)

**3-5. showed himself alive**—As
the author is about to tell us that "*the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus*" was the great burden of apostolic preaching, so
the subject is here filly introduced by an allusion to the primary
evidence on which that great fact rests, the repeated and undeniable
manifestations of Himself in the body to the assembled disciples,
who, instead of being predisposed to believe it, had to be
overpowered by the resistless evidence of their own senses, and were
slow of yielding even to this ().
**after his passion**—or,
suffering. This primary sense of the word "passion" has
fallen into disuse; but it is nobly consecrated in the phraseology of
the Church to express the Redeemer's final endurances.
**seen of them forty days**—This
important specification of time occurs here only.
**speaking of**—rather
"speaking."
**the things pertaining to the
kingdom of God**—till now only in germ, but soon to take visible
form; the earliest and the latest burden of His teaching on earth.

**4. should not depart from
Jerusalem**—because the Spirit was to glorify the existing
economy, by descending on the disciples at its metropolitan seat, and
at the next of its great festivals after the ascension of the
Church's Head; in order that "out of Zion might go forth the
law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (; and compare [Luke 24:49](../../../kjv/luke/24/49)).

**5. ye shall be baptized with the
Holy Ghost not many days hence**—*ten* days hence, as
appears from [Leviticus 23:15](../../../kjv/leviticus/23/15); [Leviticus 23:16](../../../kjv/leviticus/23/16);
but it was expressed thus indefinitely to exercise their faith.

**6-8. wilt thou at this time restore
the kingdom to Israel?**—Doubtless their carnal views of
Messiah's kingdom had by this time been modified, though how far it
is impossible to say. But, as they plainly looked for *some*
restoration of the kingdom to Israel, so they are neither rebuked nor
contradicted on this point.

**7. It is not for you to know the
times,** &c.—implying not only that this was *not* the
time, but that the question was irrelevant to their present business
and future work.

**8. receive power**—See .
**and ye shall be witnesses
unto me . . . in Jerusalem . . . in all Judea . . . and unto the
uttermost part of the earth**—*This order of apostolic
preaching and success supplies the proper key to the plan of the
Acts,* which relates first the progress of the Gospel "in
Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria" (the first through ninth
chapters), and then "unto the uttermost part of the earth"
(the tenth through twenty-eighth chapters).

**9-11. while they beheld, he was
taken up**—See on .
Lest it should be thought He had disappeared when they were looking
in some other direction, and so was only *concluded* to have
gone up to heaven, it is here expressly said that "*while they
were looking* He was taken up, and a cloud received Him *out of
their sight.*" So Elijah, "If thou *see me* when I
am taken from thee" (); "And Elisha *saw* it" (). (See on .)

**10. while they looked steadfastly
toward heaven**—following Him with their eager eyes, in rapt
amazement. Not, however, as a mere fact is this recorded, but as a
part of that resistless evidence of their senses on which their whole
subsequent testimony was to be borne.
**two men in white
apparel**—angels in human form, as in .

**11. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye
gazing up into heaven,** c.—"as if your now glorified Head
were gone from you never to return: He is coming again not another,
but 'this same Jesus'; and 'as ye have seen Him go, in the like
manner shall He come'—as *personally,* as *visibly,* as
*gloriously;* and let the joyful expectation of this coming
swallow up the sorrow of that departure."
. RETURN OF THE
ELEVEN TO
JERUSALEM—PROCEEDINGS
IN THE UPPER ROOM
TILL PENTECOST.

**12-14. a sabbath day's journey**—about
two thousand cubits.

**13. went up into an upper
room**—perhaps the same "large upper room" where with
their Lord they had celebrated the last Passover and the first Supper
([Luke 22:12](../../../kjv/luke/22/12)).
**where abode**—not lodged,
but had for their place of rendezvous.
**Peter,** &c.—(See on
[Luke 22:12](../../../kjv/luke/22/12)).

**14. continued with one accord**—knit
by a bond stronger than death.
**in prayer and
supplication**—for the promised baptism, the need of which in
their orphan state would be increasingly felt.
**and Mary the mother of
Jesus**—distinguished from the other "women," but "so
as to exclude the idea of her having any pre-eminence over the
disciples. We find her with the rest in prayer to her glorified Son"
[WEBSTER and WILKINSON].
*This is the last mention of her in the New Testament.* The
fable of the *Assumption of the Virgin* has no foundation even
in tradition [ALFORD].
**with his brethren**—(See
on ).

**15-26. in those days**—of
expectant prayer, and probably towards the close of them, when the
nature of their future work began more clearly to dawn upon them, and
the Holy Ghost, already "breathed" on the Eleven (), was stirring in Peter, who was to be the leading spirit
of the infant community ().
**the number . . . about an
hundred and twenty**—Many, therefore, of the "five hundred
brethren" who saw their risen Lord "at once" (), must have remained in Galilee.

**18. falling headlong,** &c.—This
information supplements, but by no means contradicts, what is said in
[Matthew 27:5](../../../kjv/matthew/27/5).

**15-26. in those days**—of
expectant prayer, and probably towards the close of them, when the
nature of their future work began more clearly to dawn upon them, and
the Holy Ghost, already "breathed" on the Eleven (), was stirring in Peter, who was to be the leading spirit
of the infant community ().
**the number . . . about an
hundred and twenty**—Many, therefore, of the "five hundred
brethren" who saw their risen Lord "at once" (), must have remained in Galilee.

**20. his bishopric**—or "charge."
The words are a combination of [Psalms 69:25](../../../kjv/psalms/69/25);
[Psalms 109:8](../../../kjv/psalms/109/8); in which the apostle
discerns a greater than David, and a worse than Ahithophel and his
fellow conspirators against David.

**21. all the time the Lord Jesus went
in and out among us**—in the close intimacies of a three years'
public life.

**22. Beginning from the baptism of
John**—by whom our Lord was not only Himself baptized, but first
officially announced and introduced to his own disciples.
**unto that same day when he
was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of
his resurrection**—How clearly is the primary office of the
apostles here expressed: (1) to testify, from personal observation,
to the one great fact of "the resurrection of the Lord Jesus";
(2) to show how this glorified His whole previous life, of which they
were constant observers, and established His divine claims.

**23. they appointed**—"put
up" in nomination; meaning not the Eleven but the whole company,
of whom Peter was the spokesman.
**two**—The choice would
lie between a very few.

**24. prayed and said, Thou, Lord,**
c.—"The word 'Lord,' placed absolutely, denotes in the New
Testament almost universally THE SON and the words, 'Show whom Thou
hast chosen,' are decisive. The apostles are just Christ's
messengers: It is He that sends them, and of Him they bear witness.
Here, therefore, we have the first example of a prayer offered to the
exalted Redeemer; furnishing indirectly the strongest proof of His
divinity" [OLSHAUSEN].
**which knowest the hearts of
all men**—See [John 2:24](../../../kjv/john/2/24);
[John 2:25](../../../kjv/john/2/25); [John 21:15-17](../../../kjv/john/21/15-17);
[Revelation 2:23](../../../kjv/revelation/2/23).

**25. that he might go to his own
place**—A euphemistic or softened expression of the awful future
of the traitor, implying not only destined habitation but congenial
element.

**26. was numbered**—"voted
in" by general suffrage.
**with the eleven
apostles**—completing the broken Twelve.

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