A Forty-Day Study of THE BIBLICAL STORY

Before his ascension, Jesus calls together his disciples—now called “apostles” or “sent ones.” Filled with fear and scattered at the time of the arrest of Jesus, now their doubts are gone. Jesus is the Psalm 2 Messiah, Son of God, and King. And so, they turn to the resurrected Jesus and ask:
“Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
This question is an expected one. Jesus has conquered death. As the true Messiah, he will sit on David’s throne and rule the nations in righteousness. He will bring glory to Jerusalem (Zion). Surely this is about to happen. And his followers are anxious. “Is this it, is now the time?” they ask.
Jesus knows the mission that lies ahead. He does not avoid the question, but simply replies,
“It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts 1:7).
Jesus’ earthly reign as King must await something important to him and to God’s kingdom plans. Jesus has a mission for the Apostles—more pressing than his own earthly rule. He tells them:

“... you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Before Jesus establishes his earthly kingdom, the Apostles have a significant task. They must tell the world about Jesus. Their witness is to extend throughout Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and spread to the very ends of the earth (see Lesson 2 in Volume One). And Jesus will equip them for this mission with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The family of God is going to undergo a great expansion. It will start out small and unnoticed—almost like leaven placed into dough or like a small mustard seed that is planted into the ground. But it will greatly expand. The Church will grow to cover the entire world. For those who have read Volume One, this is the “stone cut without hands” that fills the earth from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Lesson 37 of Volume One). It is the kingdom of God.

And so, Jesus commissions the Apostles for this important work. He tells them they will receive power. This word “power” in the Greek is the same word Matthew, Mark, and Luke use that we translate as “miracles.” These are “mighty acts.”

Jesus is telling the Apostles that they will receive this power and be able to perform mighty acts when the Holy Spirit comes to them.

Luke’s history of the Apostles (the book of Acts) clearly shows this power.
As to Peter,
... people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were healed (Acts 5:15, 16).
Look at the power Paul was given:
God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured, and the evil spirits left them (Acts 19:11, 12).
Peter raised the dead (Acts 9:40). Paul raised the dead (Acts 20:10).

Acts 1:8 connects the power given to the Apostles to a specific purpose: to allow them to be witnesses to who Jesus is. They are to tell the world about Jesus. And their mighty acts show God’s power within them and authenticates the source and truth of their message.

This word “witness” and its derivatives are found numerous times as Luke records the works and words of the Apostles:

God has raised this Jesus to life, to which we are all witnesses (Acts 2:32).

You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead, and we are witnesses of the fact (Acts 3:15).

We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32).

We are witnesses of all that He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem (Acts 10:39).

God raised Him up on the third day and caused Him to be seen—not by all the people, but by the witnesses God had chosen beforehand, by us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead (Acts 10:40, 41).

But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days He appeared to those who had accompanied Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now His witnesses to our people (Acts 13:30, 31).

When the events on the road to Damascus are explained to Paul, he is told:

You will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard (Acts 22:15).

Later, when Paul shares this experience with King Agrippa, he quotes Jesus as telling him:

For I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen from Me and what I will show you (Acts 26:15).

And the Apostles are continuing to be witnesses of Jesus today. Their witness became the written word which has been collected and preserved in what we call the New Testament. The world learns about Jesus through this on-going apostolic witness.

There are secular historians that write about Jesus (we’ll cover some of these shortly), but only the writings found in the Bible are the inspired, inerrant words that teach us about Jesus—the Messiah, Son of God, and King.

Let’s look at who these witnesses are.