The Ascended Christ, the Promised Spirit, and the Sent Church, Acts 1:1-14

When I was growing up, my father was the type of guy who could fix anything. If something broke, he would head to the garage, open the toolbox, and begin looking for the right tool. There was only one problem. Although he owned an impressive collection of tools, he almost never had the one he needed and so he would be off to the hardware store.

The church often behaves the same way. We are constantly searching for the newest method, the newest strategy, or the newest program that will finally produce growth. We look for the right "tool." Yet when we come to the book of Acts, Luke tells us that the church has already been given exactly what it needs. The indispensable gift is not a program or a personality. It is the Holy Spirit.

That should not surprise us. Acts contains fifty-seven references to the Holy Spirit in only twenty-eight chapters. Nor is Luke introducing a new subject. In John's Upper Room Discourse, Jesus repeatedly promised that although He was leaving His disciples, He would send another Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would continue Christ's own ministry through them.

Acts, then, is the story of Jesus' continuing work after His ascension. It is the account of His post-glory ministry through His Spirit-empowered church. Luke introduces his second volume by reminding Theophilus—whose name means "loved by God"—that his Gospel recorded all that Jesus "began to do and teach." That little word began is significant. Luke is not suggesting that Jesus' ministry ended with His ascension. Rather, the Gospel records the beginning of His earthly ministry, while Acts records its continuation from heaven.

This explains Jesus' remarkable promise in John 14:12 that His disciples would perform "greater works" than He did. He was not comparing their ministry to His as though they would surpass Him. Rather, because He was returning to the Father and sending the Spirit, His work would be extended throughout the world through His people.

I. The Son: Going to the Father   

Luke repeatedly emphasizes Jesus' ascension. In an oral culture, repetition serves to underline importance. Three times in this brief passage Luke tells us that Jesus "was taken up." He also repeatedly refers to His going "into heaven." Why such emphasis? Because the ascension is absolutely essential to the Christian faith.

One question naturally arises: Was the ascension physical? The answer is unmistakably yes. Luke has gone out of his way to demonstrate that Jesus' resurrection body was real. Think about how Jesus presented Himself alive by many convincing proofs. He appeared over a period of forty days. He spoke with His disciples. Verse four may even indicate that He ate with them. Finally, as He departed, the disciples literally stood gazing upward as He disappeared from their sight. This was no mystical vision. It was a bodily ascension.

So where did Christ's body go? The simplest answer is: Jesus is now in heaven. But what do we mean by heaven? Scripture distinguishes between the Creator and creation. Christ's glorified human body remains genuinely human and therefore genuinely created. It has not been absorbed into the divine nature. His humanity remains true humanity forever.

Genesis 1:1 tells us that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Later in the chapter God creates the visible expanse—the sky above us. This suggests that "the heavens" of Genesis 1:1 refer to something more than merely the atmosphere or outer space. Nehemiah 9:6 speaks of "heaven, the heaven of heavens." Moses similarly refers to "the heaven of heavens" in Deuteronomy 10. This Hebrew expression is a superlative, describing the highest heaven.

According to Lane Tipton, Paul appears to have the same reality in mind when he speaks of being caught up into the "third heaven" in 2 Corinthians 12. He also calls it Paradise, reminding us of Jesus' promise to the repentant thief: "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Scripture therefore speaks of heaven as the highest created realm—an immaterial realm where God manifests His glorious presence and where Christ now reigns in His glorified humanity.

Why does this matter? It comforts us because we know where believers go when they die. But even more importantly, it assures us that Christ will return. The angels tell the disciples that "this Jesus"—the same Jesus with the same glorified body—will come again in the very manner in which He departed. The second coming is not wishful thinking. It is guaranteed by the ascension.

II. The Spirit: From the Father & Son

The ascension often receives far less attention than it deserves. Yet it is an indispensable part of the gospel. Sometimes we use the word gospel rather loosely. Strictly speaking, it is the announcement of what Christ has accomplished or the historia salutis. The application of redemption (ordo salutis)—while inseparable from the gospel—is distinct from the accomplishment of redemption.

The accomplishment of redemption or the historia salutis includes both Christ’s humiliation and His exaltation. His humiliation extends from His incarnation through His suffering, death, and burial. His exaltation includes His resurrection, ascension, session at the Father's right hand, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and culminates in His return.

Peter makes explicit in Acts 2 that the outpouring of the Spirit is part of this historia salutis. Because Jesus has been exalted to God's right hand, He has received the promised Spirit from the Father and has poured Him out upon the church. Pentecost or the outpouring of the Spirit is not a repeatable event in the life of the church anymore than is the resurrection of Christ. Let me put it this way. The outpouring of the Spirit is part of the historia salutis and not part of the application of redemption.

Moreover, Luke has prepared us for this throughout his writings. At Jesus' baptism He is filled with the Spirit. He ministers in the power of the Spirit. Before His ascension He gives commands through the Spirit. Now that same Spirit will be poured out upon the apostles. Why? To continue Christ's ministry.

This is the fulfillment of Jesus' promise in John 14. The "greater works" are not more spectacular miracles than Jesus performed. Rather, they are the worldwide expansion of Christ's kingdom through the preaching of the gospel after His death, resurrection, and ascension.

Jesus tells the apostles exactly what the Spirit will empower them to do: "You shall be my witnesses." Their mission begins in Jerusalem, extends to Judea, reaches Samaria, and ultimately goes to the ends of the earth. As we read Acts, Luke carefully demonstrates that this plan unfolds exactly as Jesus promised. The gospel begins in Jerusalem. Persecution scatters believers throughout Judea and Samaria. Paul is commissioned as the apostle to the Gentiles. By the close of Acts the gospel has reached Rome, the center of the Gentile world. The mission succeeds because the exalted Christ accomplishes it through His Spirit.

Acts is therefore not a cliffhanger. Pentecost is described in full. The outcome is never in doubt. Christ's kingdom advances exactly according to His sovereign purpose. It extends from Jerusalem to Rome.

III. The Apostles are Sent Out

Even after forty days of instruction, however, the disciples still misunderstand. "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" They are asking a question about timing. Jesus redirects them because the deeper problem is not their chronology but their theology. Already in Luke 1 the angel had announced that Jesus would inherit David's throne and reign forever. That kingdom had already arrived in Christ Himself. Moreover, it had come in the power of the Holy Spirit. Those who belong to Christ already belong to His kingdom.

But the disciples were still expecting a political restoration, while Jesus is preparing them for a worldwide spiritual expansion. But the Spirit will empower them not to speculate about dates but to proclaim the King. After Jesus ascended, the disciples continued staring into heaven until two angels gently rebuke them. "Why do you stand looking into heaven?" John Stott observes that the disciples display two opposite errors.

First, they desire a kingdom shaped according to their own expectations rather than God's plan. And second, they lapse into a kind of unhealthy pietism. They are captivated by the heavenly vision but forget the earthly mission. But the angels remind them that they have work to do. The apostles were not called merely to admire Christ's ascension. They were called to bear witness to the ascended Christ.

Luke concludes this section beautifully. The apostles and the disciples return to Jerusalem exactly as Jesus commanded. They wait. They pray. They are together with one accord. Those two means—the Word of Christ and united prayer—become the instruments through which the Spirit prepares His church for mission. Very few things cultivate genuine unity like believers gathering before the Lord in His word and prayer.

As the curtain closes on Acts 1, the church appears small and weak. There are only a handful of believers gathered in an upper room. Yet everything necessary for the conquest of the nations is already in place. The King has ascended. The Spirit is about to be poured out. The church is ready to be sent.