The Power of the Kingdom

Just weeks before, their hopes had been dashed. Now everything had changed. Back then, two of them had sadly explained to a fellow traveler that their teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, a mighty prophet, had been

repudiated by the leaders of Judaism and crucified by Roman authorities. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21).(1) But now, Jesus’ followers knew that he had been raised from the dead. The fellow traveler identified himself as Jesus; and over the following weeks, to groups large and small, he “presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Everything had changed.

Well, not quite everything. Jesus’ disciples now knew that their hope in Jesus as Israel’s Redeemer had not been misplaced after all. But their mental image of what Israel’s redemption would look like seems to have remained essentially the same. The question in the forefront of their minds was still, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:5). Israel had been subjugated to a succession of Gentile empires—Babylon, Persia, Greece, Syria, and now Rome. Since the Messiah had conquered death itself, surely now he would lead God’s captive people to liberty as a new David, casting off the shackles of the pagan overlords!

But Jesus sidestepped their question, reminding them (as he had days before his death, Mark 13:32) that it was not their place to probe the Creator’s secret timetable for history (Acts 1:7). Then he went on to correct the assumptions implicit in their question. He spoke of “the end of the earth” to expand their horizons from a nearsighted focus on Israel. He promised a power more potent than military arms, conveyed by God’s Holy Spirit, who would come upon them shortly. He signaled that the Spirit’s power would advance the kingdom not through coercive force but through a message that would capture hearts: “You will be my witnesses” (1:8). They had not yet grasped the kind of kingdom that the risen Messiah Jesus would rule, the power by which he would exert his reign, and the global extent of his domain. Even after the watershed, world-shaking events of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, they still needed his instruction in order to grasp what sort of king and kingdom God had promised to his people.

Luke’s record of the risen Lord’s instruction during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension (Luke 24 and Acts 1:1-11) amplifies our understanding of the Great Commission expressed in Matthew 28:18-20. The rest of the book of Acts demonstrates how the character, power, and dimensions of Christ’s kingdom came to expression in the decades after Jesus assumed his heavenly throne, in fulfillment of God’s promise to King David (Acts 2:29-33). As the 2011 issues of Modern Reformation will explore various facets of the Great Commission recorded by Matthew, these reflections on the book of Acts will enrich our understanding from the complementary perspective of the Evangelist Luke. The foundation-laying apostolic era that flowed from the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost defines the contours for the church in its new covenant form. So Luke’s inspired account of the early church’s life and mission sets the priorities and parameters for our response to Jesus’ Great Commission today, as we seek to make disciples of all the people groups on earth.

The kingdom of God is the overarching context in which the book of Acts places the church’s communal life, mission, and growth. In the closing chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we read Jesus’ detailed teaching about how the Old Testament Scriptures had been and would be fulfilled in his death and resurrection, and in the resultant declaration of forgiveness to all nations through his witnesses (Luke 24:25-27, 44-49). As Luke opens his second volume (Acts), he sums up that detailed instruction in a single phrase: “Speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). The book of Acts closes on the same note, with the apostle Paul in chains in Rome but still “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (28:31). Between these “bookends,” Luke reports that Paul devoted three months in Ephesus trying to persuade those in the synagogue “about the kingdom of God” (19:8). Moreover, in each of the twenty instances in Acts in which we read the title “Christ”—the Greek equivalent of Messiah, Anointed One—we should immediately think “king” (Acts 4:26, citing Psalm 2:2). Not surprisingly, the apostles were accused of preaching Jesus as a rival king to Caesar (Acts 17:7). As the narrative of Acts traces the expansion of the church from Jerusalem (the city of King David) to Rome (the capital of the mighty Caesars), we are shown how the risen Messiah Jesus wields his royal authority in redemptive power, expanding his sphere from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and “to the end of the earth.” The church is the realm in which the long-promised kingdom of God under the scepter of Jesus the Anointed finds expression.

The motif that Jesus the King is the active Agent who drives the growth of his kingdom is introduced in the brief prologue of Acts, when Luke refers to his “first book,” our Third Gospel, as conveying “all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up” into heaven (Acts 1:1-2). Implied in the word “began” is the promise that Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts, would continue the story by recording what Jesus continued to do and teach after his ascension to God’s right hand. Strictly speaking, the title assigned to this document by the early church, “the Acts of the Apostles,” is not quite accurate. If Luke himself had assigned a title for his volume two, he might well have chosen, “the Acts of the Living and Ascended Lord Jesus through his Apostles.”

The King continued to appoint and empower leaders to administer his reign over his people. Jesus had chosen his apostles during his earthly ministry (Acts 1:2); so when a replacement for the traitor Judas was needed to restore to twelve the number of the apostles who would now function as the “tribal heads” of the new Israel, the church prayed to Jesus to show whether Joseph or Matthias should assume Judas’ office (Acts 1:17-26). It was King Jesus who poured out the Spirit in power on the day of Pentecost, so that pilgrims from many nations heard God’s mighty works of salvation each in his own dialect and tongue (2:33). The name of Jesus enabled the lame to leap (3:6; 4:10-12). As Paul proclaimed the gospel to Lydia and other women near Philippi, “the Lord opened her heart to what was said by Paul” and she received baptism as one who was now “faithful to the Lord” (16:14-15).(2) In these and other ways, Jesus was making good on his promise not to leave his friends orphans, but rather return to them in the personal presence and power of the Holy Spirit (John 14:18, 23, 26-28). This King walked humbly among us as “Immanuel,” God with us, during his years of servitude and suffering. Upon ascending his throne, he would not be an absentee monarch, ruling from a distance. Though exalted to supreme authority at his Father’s right hand in heaven, Jesus the Anointed would also keep his word to his followers: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”(Matt. 28:20).

These two truths—that the church is defined by its allegiance to Jesus the King, and that our King is present with us by his Spirit—have huge implications for our response to his Great Commission. They mean, among other things, that the Word of the King—the Bible—controls the ways in which Christ’s followers are to “make disciples of all nations.” Our King has not merely charged us with a task to accomplish and then left us to our own devices to figure out how to tackle the assignment, like a demanding tycoon putting aspiring apprentices through their paces. The church’s growth is so integrally bound to the Word of our King that Luke naturally refers to numerical church growth—and he does give attention to numbers!—as “word growth.” In Jerusalem “the word of God continued to increase [or ‘grow’(3)] and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). As believers were scattered by persecution into Judea and Samaria, still “the word of God increased [grew] and multiplied” (12:24), as it did in Ephesus, home to the famous temple of Artemis (19:20). Just as teaching Jesus’ Word (“to observe all that I have commanded you”) is integral to the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19), so Luke’s theology of the growing Word underscores the King’s chosen method for expanding his kingdom. Those who are joyful subjects of this King will align their methods with his, embracing the centrality of his Word, written and preached, to the growth of his kingdom in the world.

The King wields his authority not only through his Word but also through the servants whom he gives to his church. No fewer than three times in Acts (chapters 9, 22, 26), Jesus’ conquest and transformation of Saul of Tarsus from persecutor to propagator of the faith is recounted. That same Saul, writing under his Roman name Paul, taught that Christ, having ascended to his heavenly throne, celebrated his victory by taking captives through grace and giving them as servant-leaders to his church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Eph. 4:7-13). In fact, as we shall see in a future meditation, Acts reveals that Christ’s Spirit enables not only the church’s leaders but all its members to participate in the expansion of his kingdom (Acts 2:1-4, 17-19; 8:1-4). As Paul went on to instruct the believers of Ephesus, Christ, the head of his body (the church), makes the whole body grow as each member fulfills his or her role in serving one another (Eph. 4:15-16). The placement of each member in the body—the assignment of each citizen in the kingdom—is determined by the King’s wise and sovereign will: “God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor. 12:18). Christ the King empowers and employs both leaders and members, each in his or her own calling and Spirit-given abilities, to build his kingdom community.

The King who proclaims the Word and is proclaimed in the Word brings his good news home to human hearts by the power of his Holy Spirit. For this reason, J. A. Bengel suggested that Acts might well be entitled “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.”(4) His suggestion was moving in the right direction by refocusing attention from the church’s human leaders, the apostles, to the divine Actor who was exerting kingdom power through them. Yet when Jesus promised the descent of God’s Spirit in the fullness of “last days” power, he stressed that the Spirit’s mission would be to apply the once-for-all redemption achievement of the Son and to implement the Son’s reign on earth: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26).(5) The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7). (Perhaps we should blend Bengel’s observation with the title suggested earlier in this meditation: “The Acts of the Living and Ascended Lord Jesus through his Apostles in the Power of the Holy Spirit.”)

The power of God’s kingdom is the power of Christ’s Holy Spirit. This is Luke’s point in referring repeatedly to the Spirit’s descent on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:1-41; 10:44-48; 11:15-17; 15:8). Jesus’ kingship is a threat to Caesar’s (and any human government’s) demand for ultimate and absolute trust and loyalty, but not because Jesus’ followers seek to establish his reign by armed insurrection. The civil disturbances that dogged their steps as they moved from city to city were fomented not by the gospel’s heralds but by its enemies (16:19-24; 18:12-17; 19:23-41). Jesus’ kingship threatens earthly powers because his Spirit’s convicting power pierces people so much more deeply than sword or spear, insult or intimidation. The state’s coercive force or the disapproval of public opinion can often (but not always!) keep people from translating their inner desires into outward actions (and for that we can, in most cases, be grateful; Rom. 13:1-7). But the weapons wielded by state and society, as daunting as they appear to be, can only mask but never change the heart’s desires. Only the life-giving power of God’s Spirit turns stone-hard hearts tender (see Ezek. 36:25-37) and draws them in faith to the foot of the King: “Now when they heard [the gospel] they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?'” (Acts 2:37). When rulers (ancient or modern, Gentile or Jewish) recognize their own limited role and seek from subjects only a compliance that fosters justice and peace, the higher claims of King Jesus direct his subjects to render honor and willing obedience. But when rulers demand devotion that rightly belongs only to the King of kings, the Spirit’s liberating power and peace enable Christ’s free subjects to respond, calmly but firmly, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Meanwhile, the Word of the cross (so weak and foolish in the world’s ears), carried forward in the power of the Spirit, breaks down strongholds and takes thoughts and hearts captive to serve Christ the King (2 Cor. 10:4-5).