Acts 1:1-14, Daniel 7
In speaking of the Acts of the Apostles, St. John Chrysostom lamented that in his day, it was not a very well known book, and then went on to say: “it will profit us no less than the Gospels themselves, so replete is it with Christian wisdom and sound doctrine, especially in what is said concerning the Holy Spirit. Let us then not pass by it hastily but examine it closely.” (Homilies on Acts of the Apostles 1).
Over the next month or so, we will be encouraged by the lectionary to read the Acts in some detail, and so, taking its lead and the encouragement of our father in Christ, I will also plunge into this fascinating book, looking especially at how it uses the Old Testament to illumine its accounts, speeches, and teachings. This is profitable, since the book is dedicated to the inquirer Theophilus, whose name means “friend of God”—both in the sense of one who loves God, and one whom God loves. As the ancient English commentator, the Venerable Bede puts it, “anyone who is a lover of God may believe that this work was written for him” (Commentary on the Acts 1.1). We will linger over every section, then, taking as much time as necessary to notice and explore the Old Testament citations and allusions in these. In this episode, we concentrate on Acts 1:1-14, and especially on the Ascension.
Here are the verses:
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away; and when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
After the evangelist’s preface, we are given this passage of three scenes—first, the apostles are taught by their Master in Jerusalem about the coming Holy Spirit, next they behold His ascension on the Mount of Olives, and finally, they return back to Jerusalem to pray with “the women and Mary,” in anticipation of Jesus’ promise. All three scenes are informed by the Old Testament in deep ways.
We should realize that Jesus’ post-resurrection instruction about the “promise of the Father” and the “kingdom” or rule of God was not brand new to the apostles. They have already heard about this during His earthly ministry. Now, however, in the forty days between His resurrection and ascension, they are in a better position to understand. Both St. John Chrysostom and the venerable Bede explain why the forty days is so very important. Bede says, “Now this number [forty] designates this temporal earthly life . . . For after we have been buried in death with Christ through baptism, as though having passed over the path through the Red Sea, it is necessary for us, in this wilderness, to have the Lord’s guidance. May he lead us to the heavenly kingdom . . .. In the presence of the Holy Spirit, may he bless us as by a true jubilee rest” (Commentary on Acts of the Apostles 1.3). Bede, then, likens the waiting period of the apostles to God’s supervision of the Hebrews in the wilderness, and the promise of the Spirit to come with the entry into the Promised land. Nor does he see this only as the experience of the apostles, but makes a connection with our own lives, as we await the final rule of God, when the Master comes again.
Chrysostom, too, makes a connection with a story of waiting in the OT. In his case, he speaks of the extra 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost, and recalls the apprenticeship of the prophet Elisha by Elijah, and how the younger prophet stayed close to the older until he saw him go bodily into heaven— “Do you not see what Elijah says to his disciple? ‘If you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you,’ that is, you will have what you ask for. Christ also said everywhere to those who came to him, ‘Do you believe?’ For unless we are made fit for the gift, we do not feel its benefit very much . . . [I]n this instance God first prepared the soul so that it was anxiously awaiting and then poured forth his grace. For this reason he did not immediately send the Spirit, but on the fiftieth day” (Homilies On Acts of the Apostles 1).
The first chapter of Acts, then, is marked by the importance of patience, of waiting for God’s time, of seeing how God acts in order to bring about His kingdom, or rule. The apostles and women waited to see the resurrection; they waited while being instructed by Jesus for the time of the Ascension, when they saw their Lord in glory; they are told by the angels that they must wait for His return; and they wait again, in prayer, for the coming of the gift of the Spirit. That gift, of course, was prophesied by several of the major prophets—especially by Ezekiel, Amos, and Jeremiah, who spoke of a time when all the faithful would learn of the Lord, when hearts would be softened, and when the Spirit would be given to all God’s people. God is active in our time, and our space, and also within us, preparing us for what He has in store.
The kingdom, in one sense, came along with the Incarnation of Christ, for He was Emmanuel, God-with-us. But His fuller rule became evident at His Crucifixion and Resurrection, when He trampled down death by death and ruled over Hades. And this rule becomes even more apparent at His Ascension, when He travels, with the clouds, to the heavenly realm, showing where His divine home is. St. John Chrysostom comments in this way:
Why [does it say] ‘a cloud took him’? This is another indication that he ascended to heaven. Not fire, as in the case of Elijah, nor a fiery chariot, but ‘a cloud took him.’ This was a symbol of heaven, according to the words of the prophet, ‘who makes the clouds his chariot,’ meaning the Father himself. Because of this [the evangelist] says, ‘on a cloud, implying, ‘in the symbol of the divine power,’ for no other power could dwell upon a cloud, [as] . . . another prophet says: ‘The Lord is riding upon a swift cloud.’ (Homilies on Acts of the Apostles 2)
And the same church father makes a similar connection in his Homily on Matthew 16.28, where he asks, “Wherefore out of the cloud? Thus doth God ever appear. “For a cloud and darkness are round about Him;” and, “He sitteth on a light cloud;” and again, “Who maketh clouds His chariot;” and, “A cloud received Him out of their sight;” “As the Son of Man coming in the clouds.”
It is in this sermon that Chrysostom makes an explicit the connection between the Son of Man in Daniel 7, who travels to the Ancient of Days in the clouds, and Jesus, who ascends to the Father in the cloud, and whom the angels say will return to us in the same way. Daniel’s vision is significant, for it links together the cloud, the travelling, and the rule of Christ:
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Dan 7. 13-14)
In Daniel’s vision, one like a Son of Man receives power, authority, and rule from the Ancient of Days. In Acts, the Son of Man is exalted to the Father, and his kingdom is ratified. Any doubt the apostles might have had regarding his identity is completely removed— before their eyes, He comes into His kingship! Even more than this, the result of His triumph will be authority for His followers, as well, who in ten days will receive the power from on high, then enabled to witness beyond that city, to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. For their Master must return to the Father before the gift can be given. Daniel glimpsed this extension of rule to the people of God, when the angel interpreted his vision of the ascending Son of Man, and told the prophet, “But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, for ever and ever.” The Son of Man ascends, in solidarity with God’s people, and they, too, become kings and priests forever!
Of course, it is true that the Ascension is primarily a ratification of Jesus as Lord of all! “Crown Him with Many Crowns, the Lamb Upon His Throne!” But notice that He took His human body with Him, and so raised us up with Him into the heavenly realms. One ancient commentator puts it this way:
And when he had thus shown them that there is truly a resurrection of the flesh, he also wished to show them that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as he had said that our dwelling place is in heaven), so “he was taken up into heaven while they beheld,” just as he was in the flesh. (Fragments of the Lost Work of Justin on the Resurrection 9.)
Similarly, our better known father in Christ, St. John Chrysostom, exults in the meaning of the Ascension for all of us—
… [Remember that] we who appeared to be unworthy of the earth, were this day [through his Ascension] brought up to the heavens. For we, who from the beginning were not even worthy of what was below, have come up to the kingdom on high; we have gone beyond the heavens; we have grasped hold of the royal throne.…Even that very [human] nature, on account of which the Cherubim had to guard Paradise, this day is seated above the Cherubim! But how has this great wonder happened? How did we who were stricken— who appeared unworthy of the earth and were banished below from the earliest ages— how did we come up to such a height?… Christ, by putting himself in the middle, exchanged and reconciled each nature to the other. And how did he put himself in the middle? He himself took on the punishment that was due to us from the Father and endured both the punishment from there and the reproaches from here…. Haven’t you seen how he dissolved the enmity, how he did not depart before doing all, both suffering and completing the whole business, until he brought up the one who was both hostile and at war—brought that one up to God himself, and he made him a friend? … And of these good things, this very day is the foundation. Receiving, as it were, the first fruits of our nature, he bore it up in this way to the Master.… Therefore he offered up the first-fruits of our nature to the Father, and the Father was so amazed with the offering, both because of the worthiness of the One who offered and because of the blamelessness of the offering, that he received the gift with his hands that belonged, as it were, to the same household as the Son. And he placed the Offering close to himself, saying, ‘Sit at my right hand!’” (S in Ascensionem D.N.J.C., Migne 50.444-446, my translation)
How amazing is this! Along with Christ, we have the promise of being seated “in the heavenlies” and sharing in His glory. No doubt the apostles and the women did not understand this when they watched their Lord ascend. But I am sure that this is one of the things that the Theotokos treasured in her heart, and taught the others to treasure. And Pentecost, with its gifts, would come, as would all the events of the Acts, in which the new people of God are brought together, unified, and multiplied. Obedient to Christ, the apostles and the women, with the Theotokos, waited in Jerusalem for God to act yet again. They allowed Him to prepare them for that great morning of rushing wind, tongues of fire, and many conversions, and for the witness that they were to give beyond Jerusalem, to the ends of the earth. Who is so great a God as our God? That God of the Old Testament wonders continues to surprise, revive, and re-create—and He has not finished with us yet!
Edith M. Humphrey 