Acts 1:1-5--The Promise of the Holy Spirit

Acts 1:1-5
English Standard Version

The Promise of the Holy Spirit
1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

​4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

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Many of you may have longer titles for this book, but they will all include the word "Acts" somewhere in the title.  Some may have a title like "Acts of the Apostles" and others may have a title like "The Acts of the Holy Spirit"  Neither of the longer forms of the title is wrong, but we need to be careful not to remember that the main character in the book of Acts is the Jesus who is continuing to do His work through the Holy Spirit and the Church.  Why do I say this?  Look at verses 1-2 where Luke says that in his first book, "I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen."  Do you see that Luke indicates that even though his gospel takes us from before Jesus' birth to His Ascension, it is only covers what Jesus "began to do and teach" because the book of Acts intends to pick back up and continue that story where Jesus is continuing to do things and teach things, even though He is in heaven seated at the right had of the Father.  We'll see at the end of the book of Acts that it is left open because although it may have been the end of the story for the apostles, it is not the end of the story of the works and teachings of Jesus, as He is still very much at work today.

Luke sets of this part of the story by reminding us that after His Resurrection that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples (not just the apostles), showing them many evidences and proofs that He was alive and had risen from the dead, and we get the timing here that He remained on earth for 40 days (we assume after the Resurrection).  If we are correct that Passover was on Friday when Jesus died and that He rose on Sunday that would be the third day, and the Ascension was 40 days after that, we would be at day 43 after Passover and there would be exactly 7 days after this day to get to day 50, which is Pentecost (the Feast of Weeks that occurs the day after seven weeks have passed after the Feast of Passover).  Some of you may know why I am mentioning this now, but Luke wants us to know how close this Feast is.  It is literally a week away, and it is another one of the special pilgrimage feasts where all of Israel is required to come to Jerusalem to celebrate.  Jesus is going to leave shortly before Pentecost and tell the apostles and the disciples that were with them to go into Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.

We like to imagine that they just locked themselves in the Upper Room and had a giant prayer meeting for that week, but that's not what the end of the Gospel of Luke tells us.  It tells us that even though they understood that Jesus paid it all on the cross and that no more sacrifices needed to be made for atonement and they may have been told about the curtain being torn in two from top to bottom, they still went to the Temple every day to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise.  So then, it should not surprise us that the Temple will have a prominent role in the beginning of the book of Acts.

Now Luke gives us some words of Jesus that we did not see in any of the gospels, "John [the Baptist] baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."  We just counted the days left as we know already that the Holy Spirit baptizes them at Pentecost which is only about a week away from where we are at Ascension Day.  In preparation for what you probably know is coming, I encourage you to go back in the Old Testament and read a bit about The Feast of Weeks (The Feast of Pentecost) that is commanded there and is so important that it is one of only a few holy days (where we get the word holiday from) where all Israel was to gather together around the Tabernacle or Temple to celebrate.

We will talk much about baptism in this book, so I'm going to take just a moment to say that there is disagreement in Christianity about what the word "baptism" means and especially what the phrase "baptism of the Holy Spirit" means.  However, I don't think there was any question in that time and place when this letter was written what the word translated in our English Bibles as "baptism" meant--it was a word related to dying cloth that meant to dip or immerse in dye so that the fabric lost its previous color and took on the color of the dye.  So in that context, the apostles are going to be immersed with or by the Holy Spirit and the fabric of their lives is going to be forever changed in the way that a garment that is dyed cannot go back to the way that it was before.   We'll understand Jesus' words a little better when we get to Acts 2.  I'll take the liberty to stop and explain my position on water baptism as we get there in the book of Acts, but we know that while this "baptism of the Holy Spirit" is being compared to the water baptism that John the Baptist did, Jesus is saying it will be a better baptism.  Let's see how good they are about the commandment to "wait," because I know that one is especially hard for me.