Acts 3: The Ambassadors of the Kingdom

In our first study in Acts (Modern Reformation, January/February 2011) we observed that the title “Acts of the Apostles,” which became attached to this book by the end of the second century, is only partly accurate. From the opening lines of this theological history, Luke sent the signal that Jesus, the exalted Lord, would be the prime mover in the spread of his reign of grace through the growth of his Word. Yet in assigning this title to Luke’s second volume, the early church rightly recognized that the apostles, chosen and specially authorized by Jesus as witnesses to his resurrection, filled a pivotal role. Acts opens with Jesus giving marching orders “through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:2). Even before the day of Pentecost, Jesus filled the vacancy in the Twelve left by Judas’ treachery and demise (1:12-26), so that the number of the King’s directly appointed ambassadors would be restored to full strength when he poured out his Spirit in power from his heavenly throne. In the aftermath of Jesus’ enthronement at God’s right hand, the words and deeds of the risen Lord would indeed be mediated through “the acts of his apostles.”

Yet it was not only the apostles who declared the good news about Jesus. The apostles’ testimony was central; theirs was a special call. Therefore, as the church grew in size, other leaders were ordained to oversee its mercy ministries, so that the apostles could “devote [themselves] to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). Nevertheless, two of those mercy ministers, Stephen and Philip, spoke God’s truth with such Holy Spirit-given power that opponents could not refute their words and others came to faith in Christ (6:8-10; 8:5, 12). Later Luke reports the leadership of elders both in the church at Jerusalem (11:30; 15:2, 6) and in Gentile congregations far from Judea (14:23; 20:17-38). Such elders, a legacy of Israel’s tribal structure, had special authority to lead and to teach the Word (1 Tim. 3:1-7; 5:17; Titus 1:5-9; 1 Pet. 5:1-4). The elders were to teach and apply to the current and future generations the new covenant revelation that the apostles had received directly from the Lord himself. Moreover, even beyond the circle of the elders, Acts shows us that every believer has a general call to be an ambassador of Christ’s kingdom.

Luke’s account of the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-41) introduces both the apostles’ unique role as witnesses and the Spirit’s mission first to enable specially called ministers and then to enable all believers to speak the gospel. Three features stand out in Peter’s sermon, the inspired interpretation of the Pentecost event. First, Peter’s sermon showed that the “mighty works of God” (2:11) were Jesus’ crucifixion in keeping with God’s “definite plan and foreknowledge” (2:23), Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and enthronement on high in fulfillment of God’s prophecy through David (2:24-36), and Jesus’ outpouring of the divine Spirit as promised through the prophet Joel (2:16-21, 33). The message that cut into hearts and brought repentance, faith, and forgiveness was a message about the decisive historical events of the gospel, as Paul would sum it up: “That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared” to witnesses (1 Cor. 15:3-5).

Second, because historical events form the core of the church’s lifesaving message, the apostles’ role as witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection is foundational to the church’s entire mission in every generation. Peter affirmed the uniqueness of the apostles’ mission as witnesses when he declared, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32). Both before and after that climactic claim, the apostles’ role as Jesus’ witnesses—and specifically as witnesses to his resurrection—is stated again and again (1:8, 22; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39, 41; 13:31). It is for this reason that both Paul (Eph. 2:20) and John (Rev. 21:14) speak of the apostles as foundational for the temple and City of God (that is, the church). In their eyewitness testimony to what Jesus said and did as suffering Servant and risen Lord, the long-awaited “mystery of Christ” has been revealed (Eph. 3:4-5). The focus of Christian witness is not the subjective transformation that we have experienced—although none of us will bear witness faithfully unless we have been transformed! The focus of Christian witness is Jesus’ person and work, so its foundation is the apostles’ testimony, now expressed in the pages of Scripture.

Third, through the prophet Joel, God promised to pour his Spirit “on all flesh,” anointing both sons and daughters, young and old, even servants and slaves as a new band of prophets. This motif may surprise us, in view of the concentration we just observed on the apostles’ unique mission to bear witness to Christ’s resurrection with the distinctive authority of ambassadors commissioned by the King (see Eph. 6:20). Yet the distribution of the Holy Spirit’s gifts of speech on the day of Pentecost exhibits an expansion of the enabling presence of the Spirit at that watershed of redemptive history, as Israel’s institutions gave way to the “new wineskins” of the new covenant church. The group gathered to await the Spirit’s descent included not only the apostles but also “the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers”—a company numbering about one hundred and twenty (Acts 1:13-15). When the Spirit swept down from heaven, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak” (2:2-4). Throughout the Old Testament era, the Spirit’s gifts of word and wisdom had been rationed out selectively to Israel’s leaders, especially prophets, kings, and occasionally priests.(1) Yet early on Moses had expressed the longing “that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (Num. 11:29). Centuries later, God promised through the prophet Joel that Moses’ wish would eventually be granted: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit” (Joel 2:28-29). Finally, at Pentecost God kept his promise. A tongue of flame resting on the head of every believer symbolized the reality that the Spirit had filled them all. As that band of one hundred and twenty declared Jesus’ sufferings and glory, people speaking various dialects heard the mighty works of God “in our own tongues” (Acts 2:1-4, 11). Peter therefore announced that God had kept his “last days” promise to make all his people prophets (2:15-21). The apostles’ witness-bearing was foundational, but the church’s witness-bearing mission (established on that foundation) extends beyond the circle of the apostles.

Several factors in Acts reinforce the point that the risen Lord has (to paraphrase the Heidelberg Catechism) “shared” his prophetic anointing with all believers, so that we are all “to confess his name.”(2) First, Jesus’ commission to the apostles, “You shall be my witnesses,” echoes the Lord’s commission to all Israel in the prophecy of Isaiah. In an earlier study we noted that Jesus incorporated into his promise of the Spirit’s coming (1:8) the wording of Isaiah 49:6-7, “to the end of the earth.” In that same promise he included another allusion to Isaiah as well. His promise that when the Spirit descends “you shall be my witnesses” echoed God’s summons to Israel to take the witness stand in his lawsuit against the idols (Isa. 43:10-12; 44:8). Because the Lord had performed great acts of rescue for Israel, they should testify that he alone is God, the only Savior. By invoking this Old Testament allusion, Jesus identified himself as Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel. Those who are truly Jehovah’s witnesses testify about Jesus, just as Yahweh had called ancient Israel to testify, “There is salvation in no one else” (Acts 4:13). Jesus also identified his apostles, the nucleus of his church, as the new Israel who must make his divine glory known to all peoples. Isaiah foresaw a day when the Spirit of God would be poured out on his people like rainfall on parched earth, and the result would be their words of witness and worship: “This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob” (Isa. 44:5). At Pentecost, when the Spirit fell not merely on the apostles but on the whole assembly of expectant believers, a new Israel was constituted as the witnesses who boldly announced that Jesus alone is Savior.

Second, the Spirit who filled all believers at Pentecost is the divine Witness who confirms the apostles’ testimony, and he is the Father’s gift to all who obey the gospel’s call. In Acts 5:32, the apostles had been arrested and threatened by the Jewish Sanhedrin, accused of disregarding the council’s earlier ban against speaking the good news about Jesus. But the apostles calmly reaffirmed the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of forgiveness that God was extending to Israel through him, sealing their testimony with the affirmation, “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (emphasis added). The Spirit whose testimony confirmed the apostles’ words was given not only to the apostles but to all who heeded God’s call to repentance and faith in Jesus the Christ. The unfolding narrative of Acts demonstrates that the Spirit testifies not just to all believers, confirming to our hearts the reliability of the apostolic word (Rom. 8:15-16), but also through all believers—the whole of the new Israel to whom Yahweh (that is, Jesus) says, “You are my witnesses.”

Third, the testifying activity of God’s Spirit through the whole church, and not only its apostolic leaders, became most evident when the church’s witness moved out of Jerusalem into “all Judea and Samaria” (Acts 1:8). Stephen was martyred (martyr in Greek means “witness”(3)) for his testimony about Jesus, to the hearty approval of Saul of Tarsus. Saul, inflamed by blind zeal, launched a persecution that forced believers out of Jerusalem and dispersed them into the surrounding region. Yet the inspired narrator points out that it was not the apostles but other believers who were scattered from the City of David, and thus placed in the vanguard of gospel advance: “They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (8:1, emphasis added). As a result, “those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (8:4).(4) This scattering and preaching of all believers except the apostles suggest that their witness is a post-Pentecost parallel to the mission of preaching and exorcism on which Jesus had sent seventy-two “others” in Luke 10:1-24. In Luke 9:1-6 he had sent the apostles on such a mission, but in Luke 10 he sent a larger band of unnamed disciples to announce the kingdom’s coming in the royal authority of his name (10:17). Luke narrates that eventually “those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch,” at first “speaking the word to no one except Jews.” Then in Antioch some of them began “preaching the Lord Jesus” to Greek-speaking Gentiles as well (11:19-20). The first messengers to carry the word of King Jesus’ victory into Judea and Samaria and then to Antioch in Syria, the third city of Rome’s far-flung empire, were not apostles like Peter, John, or Paul, but unnamed followers of Jesus who faithfully bore witness to the message of Christ’s death and resurrection, as they had heard it proclaimed by the apostolic eyewitnesses.

Apostles followed the trails blazed by ordinary, Spirit-led believers to confirm God’s work of grace in ever-expanding circles. Philip, who had been called to serve tables and feed widows, brought the gospel to Samaria (8:4-11). He was followed by the apostles Peter and John, who confirmed “that Samaria had received the word of God” (8:12-25). At the Spirit’s direction Philip told a Gentile governmental official “the good news about Jesus” (8:35) and continued to spread the word in coastal towns (8:40). Peter likewise ministered along the coast until he too received orders to bring the gospel to a representative of a Gentile government, the Roman centurion Cornelius (9:32-10:48). To the newborn Gentile congregation at Antioch, the church in Jerusalem sent one of its most respected leaders, Barnabas, who with (the now-converted) Saul taught new converts to Christ—first called “Christians” here—for over a year (11:19-26).

The prominence of sermons preached by apostles throughout Acts (chapters 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 14, 17, 20, 22, 26) demonstrates how vital to the expansion and growth of the church was the apostolic ministry of the Word. Yet Acts also shows that God is pleased to post ordinary ordained ministers, who share Christ’s prophetic anointing, at the cutting edge of his kingdom’s advance. Acts reflects a symbiosis of gospel witness, in which the foundational testimony of the apostles and the authoritative instruction of other ordained ministers became the fount from which the witness of all believers sprang to the lips and through the lives of the whole church, “sons and daughters, young men and old men, male servants and female servants.”

Sadly, in the succeeding centuries, polarizing stresses on either the special calling of ordained ministers or the general call to all believers have often shattered this symbiosis. Sometimes the role of the church’s ordained leaders has been so exalted that the Spirit-enabled ministry of mere members has been devalued. In other eras, a cultural suspicion of authority has spilled into the church, minimizing the significance of the special office held by ministers of Word and Sacrament, an office indispensable for the instruction and direction of all the members of the body. The template that emerges from the pages of Acts shows God’s wise design for his church, in which ordained preachers and ordinary believers fulfill their distinctive roles as witnesses to Christ’s victory and as ambassadors of his kingdom.