Before getting to the summary of my NSBT book on Acts, I would like to express my gratitude to Don Carson. Like countless people across the world I am grateful to God for the ways in which he has used Dr Carson. Dr Carson was one of the main reasons my wife and I travelled from New Zealand to TEDS in Chicago. I was delighted, therefore, when a few years into my studies he called to ask me to be his graduate assistant. In addition to the usual quiz marking and research tasks of a graduate assistant, what stands out most from those two years is the time we spent together in (many!) drives to and from his home and O’Hare airport. Although there is more to say, his most enduring legacy in my own life and ministry has been his explanation and promotion of biblical theology. The pervasiveness of his influence upon me can easily be seen in the number of Carson entries in the bibliography of my recent little introductory guide to biblical theology. So, thank you, Don, and praise the Lord for the gifts, life, ministry, and Christ-centered faithfulness he displayed through you, by his grace.

Turning now to The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus, the brief introduction orients readers to the book’s approach to the book of Acts. While Acts is often mined for answers to contemporary debates, this book seeks to offer a framework for approaching Acts, so that readers can integrate and interpret the themes Luke emphasizes within Luke’s overarching focus. The opening verses of Luke’s Gospel highlight Luke’s emphasis on the accomplishment of God’s purposes in order to provide assurance for believers. When Acts is read in this light, it seems that this assurance is needed because of the suffering and persecution that believers face. Given that the events Luke will describe were “fulfilled” and that the genre of Acts reflects “biblical history” with Luke’s imitation of LXX style and inclusion of Old Testament allusions, it is evident that Luke wants readers to grasp that he is writing a continuation of the story of Israel in his “biblical narrative.” Readers of Luke’s work should look first and foremost to what God is doing and how God is accomplishing his purposes even now through the reign of the risen Lord Jesus. Thus Acts ought to be read in this “biblical-theological” framework that places Acts in the setting of salvation history—that is, the move from the Old Testament to the continuing reign of Christ in his inaugurated kingdom.

1. Living “Between the Times”: The Kingdom of God

The book of Acts is about “the continued outworking of God’s saving purposes specifically in the inaugurated kingdom of God through the reign of the Lord Jesus.”¹Alan J. Thompson, The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke’s Account of God’s Unfolding Plan, NSBT 27 (Nottingham: Apollos, 2011), 29. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus declared that the kingdom had arrived in his ministry. This kingdom must be received and entered through childlike trust in him (e.g., Luke 10:9; 11:20; 17:21; 18:17). Yet, at the end of Luke’s Gospel, after his wrath-bearing death and death-defeating resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven. What does the kingdom look like now? How do people enter the kingdom now? Luke alerts readers to his aim to answer questions such as these with two significant references to the kingdom at the beginning and another two at the end of his book—thus, framing the book (Acts 1:3, 6–8; 28:23, 31).

These references are not incidental and show that Luke’s account of how the gospel spread from Jerusalem to the nations must be understood within the “framework” of the kingdom. The opening verse of Acts provides a hint about what this inaugurated saving rule of God looks like now that Jesus has ascended. Luke will now focus on what Jesus continues to do and teach. This hint is confirmed before we leave chapter 1, as Jesus answers the believers’ prayer to show who he had chosen to replace Judas. In Acts 2, Jesus is responsible for the events of Pentecost—he pours out the Spirit from his ascended position and rule at the Father’s right hand (2:33) and he adds believers every day to the number of those being saved (2:47; cf. 5:32). Although Luke does not make Jesus’s continued involvement explicit in every event, he regularly reminds readers that Jesus is the one who enables the word to spread—Jesus is the one who saves and works through his people so that the gospel goes to the people of Israel and to the Gentiles (cf., e.g., 9:4–6, 15–16; 11:21; 16:14; 18:9–11; 23:11; 26:23).

These framing references to the kingdom help readers understand the suffering and persecution of believers in Acts. This is most clearly seen in the one sentence summary of Paul and Barnabas’s message of encouragement to suffering believers: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (14:22). This verse places the issue of suffering within the framework of the kingdom. In this inaugurated phase of God’s saving rule, the word spreads, and churches are established in the midst of the opposition and suffering that is part of living in this fallen world. The kingdom in fullness is yet to come and yet to be entered.

2. The Hope of Israel: The Resurrection and the Arrival of the Last Days

The framework of the continuing reign of the Lord Jesus in this inaugurated saving rule (kingdom) of God is also the reason why the resurrection of Jesus features so prominently in the book of Acts. Once again, the expectations of the Old Testament in passages such as Ezekiel 37, Isaiah 27, and Daniel 12 point to an eschatological hope of blessing for Israel. This is why Luke 24 focuses so much on Jesus’s resurrection. On the one hand, the Scriptures pointed to this, and the disciples should have seen that. On the other hand, Jesus and his resurrection were required for that resurrection hope to be understood.

This is why the resurrection is the climax and focus of the sermons in Acts (e.g., 2:24–32; 13:30–37). Even Paul’s sermon in Acts 17 is framed by references to the resurrection of Jesus (17:18–19, 31–32). The resurrection, at the culmination of these evangelistic speeches, is emphasized as a real historic event (see the refrain “we are witnesses,” “he was seen,” e.g., 2:32; 10:39, 41; 13:31; cf. 1:22) and the outworking of God’s saving purposes (see the refrain “God raised him from the dead,” e.g., 2:24; 10:40; 13:30). Indeed, since Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is an event tied to and in anticipation of the final resurrection of the dead (cf. 4:2; 23:6; 24:15, 21; and esp. 26:23, “the first to rise from the dead”), Jesus’s resurrection is the embodiment of “the hope of Israel.” This emphasis on Jesus’s resurrection and “the hope of Israel” is the key feature of Paul’s defenses in Acts 22–28 (e.g., 24:14–15; 28:20). This resurrection “hope” for the blessing of the last days means that the risen Lord Jesus offers the blessings of the last days to those who trust in him—that is, the blessings of the Holy Spirit, salvation, repentance, and forgiveness of sins on the basis of his death (cf. 5:30–32). The rest of the chapter locates this emphasis on the resurrection alongside Luke’s teaching on the atoning significance of the death of Jesus in Luke and Acts, and the way the gospel is preached in Acts. In summary, the resurrection of Jesus is emphasized in Acts because it is the evidence of the inauguration of the age to come, it is inextricably tied to our final resurrection, it is the embodiment of the “hope of Israel,” and so the blessings of the age to come are offered to all who come to Jesus in repentance and faith on the basis of his death and resurrection.

3. Israel and the Gentiles: The Kingdom and God’s Promises of Restoration

If Acts describes the current expression of the administration of God’s saving rule through Jesus’s continued reign from the right hand of the Father, what has become of God’s promised blessings to the people of Israel—the people who received those promises in Isaiah and the prophets? This is exactly the issue behind the apostles’ question in 1:6 that sets up the program for the rest of the book of Acts.

Although Jesus’s answer (1:7–8) to the apostles’ question is often seen as a rebuke to a wrong-headed question and therefore a redirection away from an interest in Israel to a different topic, the context (e.g., the link between “kingdom” and “Spirit,” 1:4) as well as the following words of Jesus indicate that he answers rather than rebukes their question. Jesus’s answer (a) includes Israel (i.e., Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria) and (b) alludes to the very Scriptures that promise blessing through the Servant to Israel and the Gentiles (Isa 32:15; 43:12; 44:3–5; 49:5–6; cf. Acts 3:26; 13:47). Thus, although they should not concern themselves with matters of timing (note, e.g., how the gospel spread to Samaria, Acts 8:1–4), the apostles can rest assured that, yes, in answer to their question, God’s saving rule is right on track as promised in the Scriptures. This understanding of Jesus’s promise to Israel in 1:8 is confirmed in Acts 2—the Spirit comes as promised, and “all Israel” is addressed (2:5, 14, 22, 36; note that Paul never ceases reaching out to the people of Israel, cf. 13:46; 14:1; 18:8, 19; 19:8–10; 28:30). The “last days” are here, and Jesus the Messiah has risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father where he reigns and has poured out the Spirit as evidence of his rule.

The spread of the gospel to Samaria in Acts 8 must also be understood within this framework of the outworking of God’s promises. In light of the history of Samaria as the rebellious northern kingdom (1 Kgs 12; 2 Kgs 17; esp. 17:33), it is no surprise that, in the New Testament, Samaritans were viewed as outsiders to the people of Israel (Luke 18:18; cf. Matt 10:5–6; John 4:7–10; 8:48). Nevertheless, the hope of Ezekiel 37 was that Israel would be united again under the coming Davidic king. Acts has pointed to this hope in Jesus’s promise for all Israel (Acts 1:8), in Jesus’s exaltation to the throne of David (2:33–34), and in Peter’s message to “all the house of Israel” (2:36 ESV; cf. Ezek 37:16). This hope comes to fruition in Acts 8 when Samaria as a whole “accepted the word of God” (8:14 NIV; i.e., “the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ,” cf. 8:9–11). The remainder of Acts 8 continues this inclusion of outsiders from Israel’s temple—specifically, a eunuch. Why does Luke repeatedly call this Ethiopian “the eunuch” (8:27, 34, 36, 38, 39)? Since Peter begins from where the eunuch was reading (Isaiah 53), he likely took him just a little further along the scroll to Isaiah 56 (esp. 56:3, 5), to the promise of restoration through the Servant for outsiders like foreigners and eunuchs (cf. Deut 23:1–7).

The quotation from Amos in Acts 15:13–18 also reflects the sequence articulated by Jesus (1:8) and alluded to by Peter (3:26), that God promised to restore the Davidic kingdom first, before bringing blessing to the nations. The restoration of David’s tent is probably a combination of both Davidic rule and the restoration of the eschatological people of God under that rule. Thus, the inclusion of Gentiles is again seen to be the outworking of the prophetic hope and evidence of the saving rule of God being worked out at this stage in salvation history in the reign of the risen Lord Jesus (cf. also Isa 49 in Acts 13:47).

4. The Promise of the Father: The Gift of the Holy Spirit

The framework that Luke provides of the inaugurated saving rule of God, through the risen and reigning Lord Jesus, also helps to understand the role of the Spirit in Acts. The scriptural promise of the Spirit must be kept in mind (e.g., Isa 32:15; 44:3; Ezek 37; Joel 2). This is why the Spirit is referred to as “the promise” (cf. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4; 2:33, 39). As we noted above, the link between the nature of the inaugurated kingdom and the Spirit was made in the opening verses of Acts (1:1–3, 4–5, esp. 6–8; cf. the allusion to Isa 32:15). This is made more explicit, of course, in Peter’s explanation of the events of Pentecost as that which is promised in Joel. The Spirit, therefore, comes in fulfilment of God’s promise for “the last days” (Acts 2:17) and is part of Luke’s evidence for the presence and nature of the inaugurated kingdom.

In this inaugurated kingdom, therefore, the promised Holy Spirit is bestowed by the risen and reigning Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus accomplishes the restoration of Israel (1:6), and he accomplishes this restoration through the Spirit (Luke 24:49). Jesus is the one who sent the Spirit (Acts 2:33), and this is evidence of his reign as Lord and Davidic king. The result of this is that his people are empowered to bear witness (1:8), to “prophesy” (2:17–18). Now that Jesus has lived, died, risen, and reigns, every believer in him is even greater than John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets (Luke 7:26–28; cf. Num 11:29). All believers in Jesus have the “promised” Spirit and can point to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s saving promises.

Luke also emphasizes that there is one people of God under the one Lord Jesus. In Luke’s account of Cornelius’s conversion, numerous direct links to Acts 2 highlight the unity of Jew and Gentile. They have the same gift, the same Holy Spirit, having heard Peter’s message that everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43–47; 11:15–17; 15:8–9). When read in light of Acts 2, the similar wording of 8:14 to 11:1 (“Samaria/Gentiles received the word of God”) points to an emphasis on “corporate” reception of the Spirit (Jews-Samaritans-Gentiles), the outworking of salvation history, and the unity of all those who repent and trust in Christ (the “disciples” in Acts 19 were disciples of John the Baptist who needed to be told about Jesus). Thus, the inaugurated kingdom framework that Luke provides also helps to understand his emphasis on the Spirit.

5. The End of an Era: The Temple System and Its Leaders

The place of the temple and temple leadership should also be understood within this framework of the reign of the risen Lord Jesus. Acts 3 is deliberately linked to Acts 2 which has just emphasized that the last days are here, that Jesus is the promised Davidic king, indeed David’s Lord, who has ascended to reign forever on the throne at the right hand of the Father (2:31–32). Acts 3 continues from the summary at the end of Acts 2 by zeroing in on one of the signs of the apostles in the temple in these “last days” (2:17; 3:24). By repeatedly referring to the temple in the opening verses of Acts 3, Luke signals that he is about to draw attention to the place of the temple. This is then the focus of attention in the literary frame of Acts 3–5 that culminates in 6–7 (a similar focus on the temple and leadership of Israel concludes the book in Acts 21–28). The healing of the lame man in the name of Jesus in Acts 3 overcomes the inadequacy of the temple system that excluded him. Peter’s sermon then points instead to the all sufficiency of Jesus, the one who is the promised Servant, the prophet like Moses, the Davidic king, and the seed of Abraham through whom blessing comes to Israel and the nations.

This initially subtle contrast between the temple and Jesus comes to a climax in Acts 3–7 with Stephen’s speech and dying prayers. Stephen’s speech does not criticize the temple per se. Instead, Stephen highlights the history of Israel as one of rebellion against God’s messengers and idolatry—culminating in their rejection of Jesus and idolizing of the temple. In his final words Stephen’s prayers for the reception of his spirit into God’s presence and the forgiveness of sin for those opposed to him reflect the prayers and character of the Lord Jesus. More than that, they point to Jesus as the ultimate fulfilment of the temple. Stephen’s prayers point to two key functions of the temple—access to God’s presence and the means of forgiveness through the sacrificial system. Thus, Stephen is not against Moses or the temple. He proclaims the one that Moses pointed to, and he proclaims the ultimate fulfilment of the temple system.

6. The End of an Era: The Law Is No Longer the Direct Authority for God’s People

Since the last days are here and Jesus is the one who now reigns as Lord (he poured out the Spirit, guides his people, enables the spread of the good news about him), what authority does the law now have for God’s people—the people who have received forgiveness and the promised Holy Spirit from him? Jesus himself said that “the Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached” (Luke 16:16). As with the place of the temple, this issue also frames the book of Acts, as both Stephen and Paul were charged with being against the law of Moses (Acts 6:11, 13–14; 21:21, 28; cf. 18:13). In both cases, Luke points out that it is not believers such as Stephen and Paul who are against the law, it is the Jewish leadership who oppose them. In proclaiming Jesus, Stephen and Paul proclaim the one Moses wrote about and pointed to (e.g., 23:6; 24:15, 21; 26:6–8, 23; 28:20).

Nevertheless, Jesus himself points to where the direct authority for his people may now be found. Acts 1 emphasizes the specific appointment of the apostles by Jesus, including the replacement for Judas, as the authorized representatives of Jesus who bear witness to his resurrection and teaching. This is the backdrop for the surprising statement in 2:42 (cf. 2:37) that the early church devoted themselves to “the apostles’ teaching” (Moses is the focus for the Jewish opposition elsewhere in Acts, cf. 6:14; 15:21; 21:21, 28). The leadership and teaching of the apostles in contrast to the temple leadership continues through Acts 3–6. This does not mean that the law is rejected. The apostolic distribution of help to believers in need alludes to Deuteronomy 15:4 (cf. Acts 4:43), and the wise apostolic leadership in ensuring care for the widows alludes to the scriptural concern for widows (Deut 24:19; 26:12–15; cf. Luke 20:47).

Although debated, the apostolic “decree” of Acts 15:20 also points to the apostolic leadership of God’s people. Circumcision is rejected as necessary for salvation since both Jew and Gentile are saved by faith in Jesus (15:11). James concludes that only four restrictions should be made to Gentiles who are “turning to God” (15:19). The explanatory letter from the apostles and elders explained that it “seemed good to the Holy Spirit” and to them “not to burden” these believers with “anything beyond” these four requirements (15:29). This combination of just four items may be best understood as that which is associated with Gentile pagan idolatry. Thus, on the one hand, all that is needed is “faith” in the Lord Jesus, and circumcision is not required—Gentiles do not need to become Jewish proselytes. On the other hand, Gentiles cannot remain pagan idolaters either. They must also “repent” when they “turn to God” (15:19; cf. 26:17–20; 1 Thess 1:9). Of course, this too is in keeping with the law. Yet, this is not meant as an isolated selection of four laws of Moses to keep. Rather, this reflects the idolatrous past of the Gentiles. Thus, the role of the law in Acts is also best understood in the context of this new salvation-historical situation brought about by the inaugurated kingdom of God, as Jesus himself said (Luke 16:16). The Lord Jesus and his apostles are now the direct authority for God’s people, and they point to how the law and the prophets may now also continue to be understood in light of Jesus, the one they pointed to.

7. Concluding Summary

In summary, Acts shows that the kingdom of God, inaugurated during Jesus’s earthly ministry in his death and resurrection, continues to be administered through Jesus as he reigns from the right hand of the Father. His ascension does not mean the departure of the kingdom. In this “interim” period before he returns, while there continues to be suffering and persecution, he continues to administer God’s saving rule in fulfilment of the Father’s promises and purposes. He enables the spread of the word through his people. His death-defeating resurrection is the supreme evidence of this inaugurated kingdom, bringing into this age the blessings of the age to come for God’s people—forgiveness of sins and the promised Holy Spirit. In keeping with the promises in the prophets, Israel is restored, Judea and Samaria are united under the reign of the Davidic king, and Gentiles are included—all by faith in Jesus. Likewise, the Spirit is evidence of the arrival of the last days and the reign of the Lord Jesus from the throne of David. All who turn to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith receive the Spirit and are empowered to bear witness and proclaim the good news about him. There is one people of God—Jew and Gentile—for there is one Holy Spirit for all who come to the one Lord Jesus. This means, therefore, that there are implications for the old era. The temple is fulfilled and transcended by the all sufficiency of this crucified, risen, and reigning Savior through whom we have access to God’s presence and forgiveness of sins. The temple leadership must bow to the Lord Jesus, and now he and his authorized apostles are the direct authority for God’s people. Everything, including the law and the prophets, must now be understood in relation to the Lord Jesus and his teaching as expressed in the teaching of his apostles.

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