Jesus had lived, suffered, died, and had been raised from the dead. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles would set forth how Jesus ascended to the Father, was made both Lord and Christ over His Kingdom, and the proclamation of all these things to Israel and the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world.

In Acts, testimony regarding the life of Jesus was not the primary focus and was essentially taken for granted, especially at the beginning. When Peter spoke before the Israelites on Pentecost, he expected his audience to already be well aware of how Jesus was manifestly commended by God through the signs and wonders He had done over the previous few years (Acts 2:22). Before Cornelius and his associates, Peter characterized Jesus as anointed with the Holy Spirit, going about doing good, and healing those oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38-39). While Paul was not recorded as testifying much regarding Jesus’ life in Acts, he did refer to a saying of Jesus unattested in the Gospel narratives in Acts 20:35 (“it is more blessed to give than to receive”).

Testimony about Jesus’ death also did not feature very prominently in Acts. No one attempted to suppress the information; Peter and Paul both forthrightly spoke of how Jesus had been “hung upon a tree” and crucified (cf. Acts 2:23, 36, 4:10, 5:30, 10:39, 13:29). Peter indicted the Israelites (especially the members of the Sanhedrin) for handing Jesus over, condemning Jesus to death, and having Him crucified (Acts 2:23, 36, 3:13-16, 4:10, 5:29-30). Peter would also stress how Jesus’ death was no accident, but was part of the predetermined plan according to the foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23); Paul emphasized the injustice of the trial and its result in Acts 13:28 in order to stress Jesus’ righteousness despite being condemned as a criminal. Paul did speak of God having purchased the church with the blood of His Son in Acts 20:28, yet as part of his charge and exhortation to the elders of the church in Ephesus. While we might fairly assume Philip the Evangelist would have spoken of Jesus’ death as featuring His vicarious suffering and for the forgiveness of sins based on Isaiah 53:7-8 to the Kushite eunuch, Luke did not explicitly record any such witness in Acts 8:31-35.

Jesus’ ascension was both narrated and somewhat explained in Acts. Luke bore witness to Jesus’ visitation of the disciples many times in the forty days between His resurrection and ascension, and described how Jesus was taken up before His disciples in Acts 1:1-11. Before the Israelites in the Temple, Peter spoke of Jesus’ ascension to heaven as the fulfillment of the Scriptures (Acts 3:19-24; cf. Deuteronomy 18:15, Psalm 110:1, 4, Daniel 7:13-14).

The moment of Jesus’ ascension featured the first promise of His return in Acts: as Jesus ascended to heaven, so one day He would return in the same way (Acts 1:11). Peter would bear witness to a similar association in Acts 3:19-21: Jesus ascended to heaven and would remain there until the promised restoration would take place when He returned. Before the Athenians Paul warned about the judgment to come, a moment assured by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and Paul exhorted Felix the governor in a similar way (Acts 17:30-31, 24:25). The Apostles certainly did not shrink away from proclaiming the imminent judgment and return of Jesus in Acts, but it was certainly not their predominant theme.

Instead, it is the establishment and proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection and lordship which defined the Book of Acts and the witness and work of the Apostles described therein. Pentecost in either 30 or 33 was described as the day on which Jesus baptized His disciples in the Holy Spirit before the assembly of Israel (Acts 2:1-9). Peter explained to the Israelites what they were seeing: they handed Jesus over to be crucified by the Gentiles, but God raised Him from the dead; they presented their eyewitness testimony which was confirmed by the prophetic testimony of David in the Psalms; God had made Jesus both Lord and Christ; the Spirit was poured out as Jesus promised and Joel had prophesied in Joel 2:28-32 (Acts 2:1-36). After the crowd bore witness to their belief by asking what they needed to do, Peter charged them to repent and for each to be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins so they might receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:37-39). Over three thousand would do so and be added to the church on that day (Acts 2:40-41).

And so it would continue throughout Acts. After healing a man born lame, Peter preached Jesus as the Source of his healing, crucified but whom God raised from the dead, the fulfillment of all which God had promised Israel, and therefore they should change their hearts and minds (Acts 3:1-26). Peter twice castigated the Sanhedrin for unjustly executing Jesus, solemnly testifying to how God raised Him from the dead, made Him Lord and Christ, and who gave the Holy Spirit to those who obeyed Him (Acts 4:8-12, 5:29-32). Philip preached the good news about the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus the Christ in Samaria and to the Kushite eunuch, and they were baptized (Acts 8:12, 26-39).

Eventually Paul would establish a similar pattern in his ministry: he would enter a place and try to find a synagogue or gathering of Jewish people to testify about Jesus as the Risen Lord and Christ, the fulfillment of the hope of Israel; he would continue to bear witness among the Jewish people until they excluded him; he would then proclaim similarly before the people of the nations, called Gentiles, in those places; he would continue to proclaim Jesus in the community and encourage the Christians in the church there until compelled to leave by some catalyst; and he would go somewhere else and do likewise. So it began at Antioch of Pisidia in Acts 13:52; so it would continue in Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and eventually Rome (Acts 14:1-28, 16:6-19:41, 28:17-31). Paul would find himself imprisoned, but used the opportunity to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection, his own experience with Jesus the Risen Lord, and Jesus as the Lord of all, fulfillment of the hope of Israel, and his confidence in resurrection before Jewish people in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin, Roman governors, and King Herod Agrippa II (cf. Acts 21:37-26:32).

All aspects, therefore, of the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return can be found in the Acts of the Apostles. And yet the strong emphasis and priority was placed on Jesus’ resurrection and lordship in the narratives presented by Luke.

We must remember how the Acts of the Apostles is best understood as (some of the) Acts of (a couple of the) Apostles: Luke had no intention of comprehensively setting forth everything done and proclaimed by any of the Apostles, let alone all of them. We mentioned how Philip almost certainly spoke of the reasons behind Jesus’ death, and certainly about responding in faith by means of baptism, when preaching Jesus to the eunuch (Acts 8:34-38). Paul’s speech to the elders in Ephesus presupposed a lot of understanding about things Jesus taught in life and the redemptive nature of His death (Acts 20:17-35). We therefore have every reason to believe the Apostles spoke at far greater length regarding all aspects of Jesus’ life, death, ascension, resurrection, lordship, and imminent return among Christians, and perhaps even in their preaching before Jewish and Gentile communities, than what has been explicitly preserved in Acts.

Therefore, Luke’s decision to emphasize how the Apostles bore witness to Jesus’ resurrection and lordship was a deliberate decision. But why?

We often look to Acts, as we have done here, to see how the Apostles bore witness to Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return, and for good reason. But we must also remember how what Jesus’ resurrection and lordship meant for the Apostles, Israel, and the world at large was being revealed and played out in real time in the middle of the first century.

We already saw how this took place on Pentecost, 30 or 33: the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles, and they were empowered to bear witness to Israel what they had seen and heard and to make known what Israel was supposed to do about it (Acts 2:1-40). Saul of Tarsus had been a vicious persecutor of the faith, but he saw the Risen Lord while on the road to Damascus at some point between 30/33 and at least a couple of years before 42 as described in Acts 9:1-18.

But perhaps no event would prove as transformative, or, at the time, as controversial, as Peter’s proclamation of the Gospel before Cornelius the Roman centurion in Acts 10:1-48. An angel visited Cornelius and told him to send for Peter in Joppa (Acts 10:1-8); Peter meanwhile was praying and received a vision from the Lord Jesus of unclean animals on a sheet and was told to not call unclean what God had cleansed (Acts 10:9-16); when Cornelius’ men soon arrived, the Holy Spirit assured Peter he should go with them (Acts 10:17-22). When Peter and some fellow Jewish Christians arrived at the house of Cornelius and heard his testimony regarding the angelic visitation, Peter recognized from the witness of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the angels how God desired for the Gospel to be preached to Cornelius and his associates; he thus preached the Gospel; the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his associates as He had on the Apostles on Pentecost; Peter then had Cornelius and his associates baptized (Acts 10:23-48).

Today most Christians come from among the nations and are not Jewish by birth, and we often take our inclusion into the work of God in Christ for granted. Yet before a Canaanite woman, Jesus declared He was sent only to seek and save the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24); as the fulfillment of all God promised to Israel, it was natural to expect the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return to be spread among the Israelites and for the Israelites alone (e.g. Acts 3:1-26).

And so we should not be surprised when Peter was strongly criticized for associating with Gentiles when he returned to Jerusalem, but was able to demonstrate by means of all which had taken place how God had granted the Gentiles to receive the repentance leading to life (Acts 11:1-18).

But what about circumcision and observing the customs of the Law of Moses? Some Jewish Christians would insist upon Gentile Christians observing all these customs (cf. Acts 15:1-2). The Apostles and elders of the church in Jerusalem met about this question, and on the basis of the testimony of Peter in terms of what happened with Cornelius, Barnabas’ and Paul’s testimony of how God had worked in their ministry to the Gentiles in modern-day Turkey, and James the Lord’s brother’s application of the witness of Amos 9:11-12 LXX to the situation, they determined God was not compelling Gentile Christians to observe the customs of the Law of Moses in order to be saved. Paul would later be compelled to work out the theology and implications of God’s welcoming of Gentiles in Christ as Gentiles in much of his correspondence which has been preserved in the New Testament (e.g. Romans, Galatians).

In this way, all of the aspects and implications of the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, and imminent return were not fully worked out as Acts began; God was still revealing His purposes in Christ throughout the narrative presented in Acts. But we should not be terribly surprised at this if we recognize the implications of the way Luke framed the beginning of Acts:

I wrote the former account, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after he had given orders by the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen (Acts 1:1-2).

Luke thus characterized what we call the Gospel of Luke as “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1, emphasis mine). By inference, the Acts of the Apostles would therefore represent the continuation of what Jesus did and taught.

We often consider the Acts of the Apostles primarily in terms of the preaching and witness of the Apostles, primarily of Peter and Paul. But the Apostles were not acting merely on their own impulse and initiative; the Lord Jesus was actively and directly encouraging, exhorting, and guiding them throughout. Jesus directly spoke with Peter in Acts 10:9-16, Ananias in Acts 9:10-16, and Saul or Paul in Acts 9:4-6, 23:11. Paul discerned how the Spirit of Jesus hindered him from continuing to spread the Gospel in modern-day Turkey, and, along with a vision of a Macedonian asking for help, understood God as calling him to preach in Greece in Acts 16:6-10.

Therefore, the emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection and lordship in Acts can be appropriately understood. Luke recorded how Jesus was still teaching and working as Lord and Christ in heaven through the Apostles and the work surrounding the Apostles. The proclamation of the Gospel would certainly still include Jesus’ life, death, ascension, and imminent return, but Luke was inspired to set forth how God worked in Christ through the Spirit and by means of the Apostles to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection and lordship and what it meant first for Israel and then for all people.

In Acts of the Apostles, Luke set forth how the promise of Jesus found its fulfillment: the Apostles bore witness to Jesus in Jerusalem, throughout all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, to the heart of the empire in Rome (Acts 1:8). Luke ended his witness without ending the story in Acts 28:31, which proves appropriate. The good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return never ends. Yes, Jesus of Nazareth came to live, suffer, die, and be raised from the dead only once; only a select few were witness to His life, death, and resurrection (cf. Acts 10:41). Only those few were granted the authority to thus establish the ground of the faith delivered once for all (cf. Matthew 18:18, Jude 1:3). Yet Jesus remains Lord to this day; to this day we must work out what it means to faithfully serve Jesus and to proclaim what God accomplished in His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and lordship, and exhort people to godliness and faithfulness in light of His imminent return. May we continue to live according to the Gospel and make the Gospel known by means of our words and deeds, and share in the life of God in Christ through the Spirit!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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