WWUTT 2541 The Apostles Return (Acts 1:12-13)

After Jesus ascended into heaven from the presence of his disciples, the disciples went back into Jerusalem and they talked about what was coming up next, including choosing a new apostle to replace Judas when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we come back to chapter one. We've read through the introduction, Jesus' final address to his disciples, and then his ascension into heaven. I wanna make one or two more comments about that one, but let's move on in the narrative to where the apostles need to choose a 12th apostle to replace Judas.

Reading here from Acts 1, verses 12 to 26, hear the word of the Lord. 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 the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, that is 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.

These all with one accord were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers, a crowd of about 120 persons was there together and said, men, brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

For he was counted among us and received his share in the ministry. Now, this man acquired a field with the price of his unrighteousness and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out.

And it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem so that in their own language, that field was called Hakodamah, that is field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, let his residents be made desolate and let no one dwell in it and let another man take his office.

Therefore, it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.

And they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice and Matthias. And they prayed and said, you Lord who know the hearts of all men, show us which of these two you have chosen to take the place of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.

And they cast lots for them and the lot fell to Matthias and he was added to the 11 apostles. And so there you go, the choosing of the 12th apostle to replace Judas. Now, I wanna come back here to verse 12 and in reading verse 12, also look back at the ascension where Jesus ascended into heaven.

A couple of notes there, I think I could add to that. I wasn't able to mention last week. And so then from there, considering who was there in the upper room, that's about as far as we're going to get to today.

Then we'll consider Peter's words tomorrow and the choosing of that 12th apostle. So once again, verse 12, then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

Now I mentioned to you that at the ascension, Jesus and the apostles and anybody else who would have been present for the ascension, as I've argued before, it was more than just the 11 apostles. They would have been on the Bethany side of the Mount of Olives.

And then it says here, they returned to Jerusalem, which was a Sabbath day's journey away, which that was only about a mile or two. It wasn't really far. I think Bethany was, it was somewhere between like two to four miles away from what is considered today to be old Jerusalem, that Jerusalem that would have been in the days of Jesus.

And so what does it mean then by a Sabbath day's journey away? Because if you've ever walked a mile or two, you know, that doesn't take very long. I mean, it doesn't take a whole day to go a mile or two, maybe, you know, an hour or so.

But there was a limited amount of distance that a person was allowed to travel on a Sabbath. So this may be in reference to the kind of legalese that the Pharisees would impose on people concerning Sabbath laws.

So a Sabbath day's journey away was probably, it was somewhere between like three to 4 ,000 feet. I don't think it was a full mile. So if you remember in our English measurements, a mile is 5 ,280 feet.

And so a Sabbath day's journey, you are limited to less than a mile. So that's probably why it mentions that. A Sabbath day's journey away, it kind of tells you how far away they were from Jerusalem when they were on the Mount of Olives to see Jesus ascend from them.

They didn't have very far to go. This was where they were staying. As it goes on to say in verse 13, they entered the city and went to the upper room where they were staying. And this is the same upper room, at least this is how we understand it because of the consistency in Luke's narrative from the gospel of Luke into the book of Acts, which Luke is writing.

The only upper room that he's mentioned is that upper room where Jesus and his disciples had been gathered for the Passover meal, where you had the Lord's supper given and those kinds of things. So that's likely the same upper room.

They're staying there. Remember when Jesus was crucified, where were the disciples in the midst of all of that? They weren't at the cross. On Saturday when he's in the tomb, where were the disciples? Well, the scripture tells us they were in hiding and likely where they were hiding was that place that had been reserved for them to partake with Jesus in that last meal.

That's a place where they were also sleeping. I've made the argument before, back when we were in Luke chapter two, with regards to Jesus being born in the upper room. He wasn't born in a motel. That's often the way that we translate in.

What is it?

Luke 2 .7, where it says that Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room in the inn. In Greek, it's the same word that's used here for upper room.

So Jesus wasn't born in a barn, which is, that's how we interpret that since Jesus was laid in a manger. Well, he has to be in a barn. No, there were mangers inside homes too because people would bring their homes inside and they would stay in that lower level.

So Jesus was actually born in a house and he wasn't born in the upper room because it was full for all the family that had to be back in Bethlehem for the census. That's all that Luke is telling us there.

And he's also communicating that there were many, many witnesses to the birth of Jesus, not just Mary and Joseph out in a barn with a bunch of animals around, but that this house was full of people who could testify to the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem, which needed to happen as a fulfillment of scripture for Jesus to be the heir of the throne of David, for the one to fulfill the prophecies that had been made about this King who would be born in Bethlehem.

There had to be testimony to the fact that Jesus was born there. And so that's what Luke's communicating in Luke 2 .7, that the house was full and there were many people who could testify to the fact that Mary had a baby in the lower level of the home where Jesus was placed in a manger.

So the upper room is this place where in first century Jerusalem, that was where people would sleep and dine. That's where they would hang out. This was the living room, so to speak. Whereas a lot of the cooking and any chores and stuff like that would be done on the lower level.

So this place was given to them as a place to stay. The disciples obviously were not from Jerusalem. They had other places that they lived, but for the time being, for everything that's going on here in Jerusalem, this is where they were staying.

They were staying there when Jesus was in the tomb. They've come back to this place even after Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus has told them to go to Jerusalem and stay there until the Holy Spirit comes upon them.

So this is that upper room where they are gathered. They returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. Okay, so I said I was gonna mention a couple of other things about the ascension.

So back to verses nine through 11, remember that as Jesus ascended from them, when he was lifted up while they were looking on is what it said in verse nine, and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Now I've heard atheists make the argument that like if Jesus was ascending back into heaven and heaven is on the outskirts of the universe, then Jesus is still ascending. Like he's still shooting through space because space is so massively big that Jesus still has a long way to go before he reaches heaven's gates.

That's an absurd argument, but I have heard it. I've heard it made before. If Jesus is ascending, where is he going? And I've heard skeptics even make this argument with regards to a flat earth because the earth has to be flat.

There's no vastness of space out there for Jesus to ascend. He's gotta go somewhere. He can't just still be floating through space. So this is an argument. I've even heard this as an argument for a flat earth.

Yeah, believe it or not, they're a kooky bunch. But where does Jesus go as he's ascending into heaven? Note once again that in verse nine, a cloud received him out of their sight. This would have been a cloud of glory.

I believe I made this argument last week, or at least I started on it and didn't finish. But this is God's glory. This is Jesus ascending into the heavenly place, which is where God dwells. And that's not necessarily a geographical location.

Wherever heaven is, it is a spiritual existence. We don't live there in the same way that we live here. Now, we are going to experience heaven in bodies because Jesus has a body and he's ascending into heaven.

It's not that we just become like this ethereal spirit form and join the cloud of God or something like that. But this cloud is a cloud of God's glory that Jesus is received into. It would be kind of like thinking of it as the veil that separates heaven and the natural world in which we live.

So Jesus, once again, steps behind the veil and he's there seated at the right hand of God where he reigns, rules over all things. For as Jesus said before he ascended from the disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

So he sits with all authority over all things on the throne that he has been promised as the successor to David, sitting upon David's throne, the fulfillment of that Davidic promise. So the disciples gaze intently while he is going, behold, two men in white clothing stand beside them and say to them, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking toward heaven?

This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven. And so we are expecting a bodily return of Christ just as he bodily ascended, so he will bodily return.

And we likewise, if we are understanding Jesus' ascension into heaven as being a picture of the way that we will inherit eternity, then we likewise will have bodies such as his. If Jesus returns before we die, our bodies will be transformed to be like his glorious body in the twinkling of an eye.

That's the argument that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. If we die before Jesus returns, our body goes into the ground, but it will be raised on the last day and it will be made new. And it doesn't matter what happened to our bodies prior to Jesus' return.

If it was burned, if your body was burned, if it was cremated, or even if you were destroyed in a fire. I remember when Keith Green died, this would have been over 40 years ago now, 45 years ago when he died.

But he was a friend of my family. My dad was friends with Keith Green. And when he came to Lindale shortly after Keith Green had died, he had already had tickets to go to Lindale because he was going to be meeting with Keith Green's ministry while he was there.

He had some ideas for them on what they were going to do in their overseas ministry. So he went ahead and kept his plane tickets and went down and participated in the memorial services and things like that were going on with Keith Green.

He went to a Bible study at Leonard Ravenhill's home or somebody's house where Leonard Ravenhill was teaching. But my dad got to meet him and hear him teach in person. But with Keith Green's accident, he died in a plane crash.

The fire so thoroughly burned, there was nothing left of Keith Green or the children who were with him to be buried. And so it was just ashes that were gathered and put in a grave, which is still there outside of Lindale.

I've been to his grave side. But with Keith Green, and I've thought about this before, like when I was a kid and I'm trying to understand resurrection from the dead and our lowly bodies being transformed to be like his glorious body.

And my dad's telling me stories about Keith Green. I remember having that thought, well, what's going to happen to Keith Green's body when Jesus returns? It doesn't matter what condition your body was in when you died, when your body is pulverized, when it becomes dust, when it becomes almost as nothing, or as somebody who dies at sea and their body goes into the ocean and maybe it's devoured by wild animals.

And there's not even anything left of the bones after a time because the salt in the sea just wears it away. It doesn't matter what has happened to your body. God has the authority and the power to remake that body, to make it a new body.

If he can bring something out of nothing, he can bring whatever atoms or molecules that made up your body and wherever they are back together and make a new body that is imperishable. As he has done this for Christ, he will do it for us as well.

And so our bodies will be made new. Once again, that statement in Philippians 3, he will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

So as we observe Jesus' bodily ascension into heaven and the angels saying, the same way he was taken up is the way that he's going to come back. So we have this promise of our resurrection from the dead as well.

When you die, you go to be with God. Don't listen to the soul sleep people who say that there isn't, well, the Hebrew roots guys will say there isn't even a distinction between body and soul. You don't have a soul, you are a body.

And so when you die, you go into a grave and you're kind of in this state of sleep, like cryogenic, you're spiritually frozen or something like that. And then when Jesus returns, when everybody is resurrected, that's when you join him in glory.

No, the scripture explicitly says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, as Paul said, or in the book of Ecclesiastes, that when you die, the body goes back to the ground from which it was formed and the soul goes back to the one who gave it.

So there is a distinction between body and soul. If you die before Christ return, your soul will go and be with him in glory. And there you will be with God awaiting the day that Jesus returns and your body will be resurrected to rejoin your soul in glory.

That's the description that Paul even gives there in 1 Thessalonians 4. So there are some things that we can know about our resurrection bodies just from what we read regarding Jesus' resurrection body and his ascension into heaven.

His ascension is even a picture of what we call the rapture. Even somebody who's on the amillennial side of eschatology as I am, so I don't believe in a pre-trib rapture and then a seven-year period of tribulation and then Jesus returns again.

Christ's return, our being taken up to him and him bringing judgment on the reprobate, all of that is the same event. So we being taken up with Jesus in the air, there is gonna be a rapture. And whatever that is, we have that picture of that happening with Jesus' ascension.

So we can kind of know or recognize what it will be like for us as well. When we're caught up and we are taken up into glory to be with the Lord. This picture of the disciples standing there and gawking at Jesus' ascension, it's also somewhat similar to the narrative in 2 Kings 2, where Elijah is taken up from Elisha's presence.

And he's taken up in a whirlwind, not in chariots of fire. The chariots of fire separated Elijah from Elisha, but then Elijah is taken up into heaven by a whirlwind. And so likewise, Elisha is watching him go.

And this narrative is somewhat similar to that one. So we've seen that happen before, even in the Bible, somebody else being caught up and taken up. Though Jesus isn't taken up in a whirlwind, he just is lifted up from their presence, goes up into the air and disappears, vanishes into this cloud of glory.

As he goes back to heaven and resumes his place with the Father, ruling over all creation as he does now. So then from that place, the disciples returned to Jerusalem. They enter the city, they go into the upper room where they are staying.

And Luke tells us of the apostles that this includes. He names them. It's Peter and John and James and Andrew. And those being the four most significant. Because Peter and John and James went up with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.

So they had a closeness to Jesus that was different than the rest of the apostles had. That is why Luke names them first. Andrew gets thrown in there with James because Andrew did have a few privileges as well.

He may not have gone up on the Mount of Transfiguration, but the scripture tells us that it was Peter, John, James and Andrew, those four who had asked Jesus on the Mount of Olives, what will be the sign of his coming and the sign of the end of the age?

So it was just those four apostles. And then you have Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, Matthew of course being the author of the Gospel of Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus or James the less as he is sometimes called, and Simon the zealot.

He was a zealot.

He was probably the most soldier-like of all of the apostles. But distinguishing him from Peter. Peter is mentioned by the name Peter here now. And because during the time of apostolic ministry, that's the way he's gonna be known because Peter would also be a minister to Gentiles.

And this is the Greek name that Peter is given. So therefore since he's known in his apostolic ministry under this name, that's the way that Luke identifies him in giving the names of the 11 apostles.

And then you have finally mentioned Judas, the son of James, and it's necessary for Luke to distinguish Judas as being the son of James so that you're not thinking it's Judas Iscariot. Judas was a common name.

One of Jesus' half-brothers was named Judas who would also be known as Jude and the author of the book of Jude. So here we have, let's see, once again, Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James.

I'm counting these out on my fingers, which is why I was doing that again. So 11 names that are mentioned. Here's the 11 apostles, which is the 12 minus Judas. And then of course, what's coming up next is that they are going to decide who should be filling that place that was vacated by Judas when he betrayed Christ and killed himself, committed suicide.

And his suicide is even described here. And I'm gonna come back to that tomorrow because some have argued this suicide is different than what Matthew records. So which is correct, Matthew or Luke? We'll consider the two accounts as we come back to this text tomorrow.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read. And I pray that even as we consider Jesus' ascension and the promise that is given to us that we will likewise rise from the dead and join you in eternity, that this fills us with hope, a hopeful expectation, bright hope for tomorrow as we sing in the song, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

And we would continue in these days in faithfulness to you, turning from sin, walking in the righteousness of Christ that we have been given. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.