Acts 1:15-26

CRITICAL REMARKS

Acts 1:15. Those days lay between the Ascension and Pentecost. For disciples, μαθητῶν, the R.V. reads brethren, ἀδελφῶν, as in Matthew 25:40; Acts 9:30; Acts 11:29; 1 Corinthians 5:11. Names = persons, as in Revelation 3:4; Revelation 11:13. Unclassical. Together, ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, has always a local signification. (See Acts 3:1; Luke 17:35.)

Acts 1:16. Scripture … which the Holy Ghost spake.—A testimony to the Inspiration of the Old Testament. Compare 2 Peter 1:21. By the mouth of David seems to guarantee that David was the author of some parts of the Psalter—in particular of Psalms 69, and perhaps also of Psalms 41. Who was (or became) guide. Originally a disciple, Judas turned to be a traitor, and acted as a leader to the Roman cohort which apprehended Christ (Matthew 26:47; John 18:3).

Acts 1:17. For, ὅτι, indicates that Judas supplied the conditions that were requisite to enable him to fulfil the Scripture. The figurative expression lot, κλῆρος, used in its literal sense in Acts 1:26, is here employed, as in Acts 8:21, Acts 26:18, to denote anything obtained by lot, and hence generally any portion, share, or office without regard to the mode of its attainment. The term “clergy” is derived from κλῆρος, the order of the ministry being viewed as divinely appointed.

Acts 1:18. Purchased.—Obtained (R.V.), got possession of (Plumptre), or caused to be purchased (Hackett); what was bought with Judas’s money being considered as bought by himself. Qui facit per alium facit per se. Falling headlong.—Having probably first hanged himself, and afterwards, through the breaking of the rope, fallen to the ground, which would cause him to burst asunder in the midst. Matthew’s account (Acts 27:5) suggests this. “The traitor may have struck in his fall upon some pointed rock, which entered the body and caused his bowels to gush out” (Hackett). Papias was acquainted with a version of this story, which reported that Judas died of a loathsome disease.

Acts 1:19. Aceldama, Ἀκελδαμὰ, formed from the Syro-Chaldaic הֲקַל דְּמָא, and signifying “field of blood”—i.e., either purchased by the blood money paid to Judas and returned by him (Matthew), or sprinkled with the traitor’s blood when he fell (Luke). Perhaps both reasons contributed to the fixing of the name subsequently borne by the potter’s field, which became a burial place for strangers. According to tradition Aceldama lay on the south side of Mount Zion.

Acts 1:18 are commonly regarded as no part of Peter’s speech, but an interposition by Luke (Calvin and others); yet οὖν (Acts 1:18) renders this doubtful (Holtzmann).

Acts 1:20. In the Book of Psalms.—The two citations (Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:8), given with slight modifications from the LXX. recite the doom of the enemies of David and his kingdom, and therefore of the enemies of Christ and His kingdom, of which the former were types; consequently also of Judas, “as the first and most notable of these” (Alford).

Acts 1:21. Went in and out among us.—“An exact construction of the Greek would have placed ‘unto us,’ ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς, after ‘went in’ or ‘came in,’ and inserted ‘from us,’ ἀφʼ ἡμῶν, after ‘went out’ ” (Hackett). Compare Acts 9:28; John 10:9.

Acts 1:22. The baptism of John signified not John’s baptism of Christ, but John’s baptism generally as a well-known date.

Acts 1:23. They, i.e., the congregation and the apostles, appointed, or put before God, or before themselves for selection.

Acts 1:24. Thou Lord.—Whether addressed to God or Christ is disputed. For the former opinion (Meyer, Plumptre, Holtzmann) appeal is taken to Acts 15:7, in which God is called Καρδιογνώστης, and Peter represents himself as being chosen by God. For the latter (Olshausen, Alford, Hackett, Spence) it is argued

(1) that in the N.T. generally Christ is usually styled Lord;

(2) that Christ is stated in Acts 1:2 to have selected the other apostles;

(3) that the first Christians were in the habit of praying to Him (Acts 7:59, Acts 9:14); and

(4) that Peter in the Gospel (John 21:17) ascribes to Christ the knowledge of all things, which certainly include the hearts of all men.

Acts 1:25. Fell.—Went aside by transgression. His own place.—His own proper destiny, Gehenna, or the place of punishment, from which he (Judas) was kept back so long as he was in the apostleship.

Acts 1:26. Lots.—These were either tablets or slips of parchment with the names of the candidates written upon them, which were cast into a vase or other vessel, which was then shaken, when the first tablet or slip thrown out indicated the candidate elected.

HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Acts 1:15

Completing the Apostleship; or, the Election of Matthias

I. The vacancy in the apostolic college.—

1. The honoured place of Judas.

(1) Numbered with the apostles (see Luke 6:16). Peter explains not the motives (he could not) which led Christ, who knew the traitor from the beginning (John 6:70), to select him for this signal favour, but dwells upon the fact that in being so selected he received a mark of special confidence. Many besides Judas have obtained high privileges, and been called to important trusts by Christ, who, like him, have misapplied the one and abused the other.

(2) Invested with ministerial office. Generally like his colleagues, but particularly also by being made the treasurer of the company (John 13:29). The management of their finances appears to have been “his portion in this ministry,” or the duty assigned to him in connection with the apostolate. If the Twelve required a treasurer, it cannot be sinful for churches and congregations either to have secular affairs or to depute persons to attend to them.

2. The melancholy fall of Judas.

(1) Tenderly referred to, not with vituperation, but in mildness. He was “guide to them that took Jesus.” Even the worst sins of the worst men should be under rather than over stated.
(2) Sufficiently indicated. What Peter says implies the rest of the pathetic story of the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver. Hence he dilates not on the sad theme, but leaves his hearers’ imaginations to call it up to their own thoughts. A lesson for preachers, never to enlarge more than they can help upon the backsliding, of individual believers.

(3) Divinely foreseen. By the Holy Ghost, who inspired David to pen words and thoughts exactly fitting the traitor’s case, and depicting his ejection from office, “Let his habitation be made desolate, and let no man dwell therein” (Psalms 69:26), and “His office let another take” (Psalms 109:8).

3. The appalling end of Judas. Slain—

(1) In his own field, which he, or the priests (Matthew 27:7), purchased with the blood money received for betraying Christ.

(2) By his own hand, it being most likely that he hanged himself on a tree in his field, and that the rope breaking he fell heavily to the ground, with the consequence stated by Peter.
(3) To his own shame, the name given to the field, “Aceldama,” or “The field of blood,” perpetuating the memory at once of his wickedness and of his woe. (For the apparent discrepancy between Matthew’s account and Luke’s, see “Critical Remarks.”)

II. The proposal to fill the vacancy.—

1. Made by Peter. “And in those days Peter stood up,” etc. Peter’s forwardness on this occasion was completely in harmony

(1) with the place assigned him in the lists of the apostles,
(2) with his ardent and impulsive character,
(3) with his practice in pre-crucifixion days to take the lead among his brethren and be their spokesman,

(4) with the charge given him by Christ, when once he had been converted, to strengthen his brethren (Luke 22:32), and

(5) with the foreshadowings that were beginning to appear of that spiritual pre-eminence to which he was henceforth to attain in the New Testament Church. 2. Defined by Peter.

(1) As to the qualifications demanded of those who should fill the office. They must have companied with the apostles and been eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus from His baptism by John to the day of His taking up. (Compare 1 Corinthians 9:1.)

(2) As to the business to be done by the elected candidate, “To witness,” with his colleagues, “to Christ’s resurrection.” (Compare Acts 4:33.)

(3) As to the urgency for proceeding with the election. “Of these must one become a witness.” Peter has been accused of precipitation in filling up the ranks of the Twelve; but as Peter acted in this under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, such an indictment is inadmissible.

III. The method of carrying out the proposal.—

1. The nomination of candidates. Joseph, called Barsabas, or son of Sabas, surnamed Justus, and Matthias. Both, mentioned only here, probably belonged to the Seventy, and, it may be assumed, possessed the requisite qualifications. Of neither does historical information survive. Eusebius states, on the authority of Papias, that the former drank a cup of poison without being hurt—a legend modelled upon Mark 16:18. The latter, according to one tradition, suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, according to another in Colchis, according to a third in Judæa, by being stoned. Justus was a Roman cognomen, “probably assumed according to prevalent custom” (Alford).

2. The asking of divine direction. The prayer of the congregation, presumably led by Peter, was

(1) directed to the glorified Christ, in the context styled “Lord” (Acts 1:21),

(2) on the ground that He knew the hearts of all men (John 1:50; John 2:25; John 6:64; John 21:17),

(3) requesting Him to show of the two candidates which He had chosen, since Christ’s choice was indispensable to the holding of apostleship (John 6:70; John 13:18; John 15:16).

3. The casting of lots. “These were probably tablets with the names of the persons written on them, and shaken in a vessel or in the lap of a robe (Proverbs 16:33); he whose lot first leaped out being the person designated” (Alford). This method of ascertaining the divine decision, derived from the Old Testament Church, in which “lotcasting “was common (Leviticus 16:8—over the two goats on the great day of atonement; Numbers 34:13; Joshua 14:2; Joshua 18:2—at the dividing of the land; 1 Chronicles 24:5; 1 Chronicles 25:8—in the appointment of temple singers), appears to have never again been followed in the election of office-bearers in the New Testament Church. Instead of lot-casting, vote-giving by show of hands seems to have been substituted (Acts 14:23, which see).

4. The enrolling of the chosen. Matthias the elected was numbered with the eleven apostles. That he was formally “voted” in by the suffrages of the congregation, which thereby, as it were, confirmed the divine selection, may be suggested by the verb (Plumptre), but hardly appears admissible in the circumstances. If the congregation added anything to the decision of lot it was merely an intimation (unanimous doubtless) of its acquiescence in the appointment.

Lessons.—

1. The danger of falling.
2. The heinousness of betraying Christ.
3. The appalling doom of apostates.
4. The grand theme of apostolic preaching.
5. The cessation of the apostolate in the New Testament Church.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Acts 1:15. The first Christian Assembly.

I. The ornament of Jerusalem.—Its members more distinguished in Heaven’s eye than Caiaphas, Annas, or any other Jerusalem dignitary.

II. The glory of Christ.—Having been called into existence by Him.

III. The commencement of God’s kingdom.—The hundred and twenty persons have since grown into an innumerable company.—Oosterzee.

Acts 1:16. Old Testament Scripture—Its fourfold relation:

I. To the Holy Ghost.—Indicated by the words “which the Holy Ghost spake.” Though perhaps the express authority of the Holy Ghost should not be claimed—in this place, at least—for more than the two citations from the Book of Psalms which are given in Acts 1:20; yet it cannot be doubted that both Christ and His apostles regarded the Holy Ghost as the Author of the whole book in such a way and to such an extent as to make Him responsible for its contents. (See Matthew 22:31; Matthew 22:43; Luke 1:70; Acts 28:25; 2 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 1:1; 1 Peter 1:11; 2 Peter 1:21.)

II. To David.—As representing its writers. This pointed to by the clause “spake by the mouth of David.” Although this appears to guarantee that David had a hand in producing the Psalter—an honour which modern critics are extremely anxious to deny him—it does not necessarily signify that David (or the other holy prophets and psalmists) were merely passive instruments in the hand of the Spirit, who mechanically reproduced what the Spirit inbreathed. All the facts go to show that, while the writers of Old Testament Scripture maintained their personalities and individualities in what they spoke or penned, they were nevertheless in a mysterious (and probably incomprehensible) manner superintended and controlled by the Holy Spirit.

III. To Jesus.—A glimpse of this looks out from the words, “It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled.” Besides being the sacred books of His people, the Old Testament Scripture was for Him, Jesus, the Father’s and the Holy Ghost’s vade mecum, which they had prepared for Him to be used as a light unto His feet and a lamp unto His path—a sort of Messianic programme—when He entered on His public career. What Old Testament Scripture was to Jesus the whole Bible should be to His people—a directory for daily life.

IV. To Judas.—Referred to in the words “concerning Judas.” That the traitor’s person, character, and transgression were outlined beforehand in Old Testament Scripture neither compelled him to act as He did nor relieved him of responsibility for his deeds, any more than in ordinary matters the divine foreknowledge destroys the individual’s liberty of will.

Concerning Judas.

I. His early fame.—“Numbered among the apostles.”

II. His guilty fall.—“Guide to them that took Jesus.”

III. His woful fate.—Committed suicide, and went to his own place.

Acts 1:19. Aceldama, the field of blood.

I. Purchased by the price of blood.—Whether Judas or the chief priests were the purchasers is immaterial. The money payment was the thirty pieces of silver delivered to the traitor in reward for his iniquity. The field was “the clay-yard of a potter of the town” (Geikie), and to purchase this the blood money was devoted, because to cast it into the treasury would have been unlawful.

II. Defiled by the stain of blood.—Somewhere in this clay-yard the traitor put an end to his life by hanging. “Nor was even this the end, for the cord by which he had suspended himself gave way, and he fell beneath, ruptured and revolting” (Geikie). Matthew agrees with Luke in reporting the suicide; Luke differs from Matthew in describing the rupture.

III. Kept as a memorial of blood.—The name could not fail to preserve a recollection of both of Judas’s crimes—his infamous treachery towards his Master, and his cowardly execution of himself. “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance, but the name of the wicked shall rot.”

Acts 1:17. The Wages of Sin; or, the Miserable End of Judas.

I. He ought to have been a disciple of Christ, and he betrayed his Lord.

II. He ought to have performed the duties of his bishopric, and he acquired the field of blood.

III. He ought to have proclaimed the Risen One, and he perished as a suicide.

IV. He ought to have received the Holy Ghost, and he went into condemnation.—Florey, in Lange.

Acts 1:23. Justus and Matthias.

I. Justus the equal of Matthias, in being:

1. A disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Esteemed by his fellow-believers.
3. Proposed for the apostleship.
4. Honoured with a place in sacred history.

II. Matthias preferred to Justus.—

1. Elected to the apostleship.
2. Chosen by Christ.
3. Numbered with the Eleven.

Acts 1:24. Prayer addressed to Christ.

I. As a personal divine Being.—“Thou, Lord.”

II. As a possessor of Omniscience.—“Who knowest the hearts of all men.”

III. As the director of His people.—“Show us!”

IV. As the disposer of offices in the Church.—“Show of these two the one whom Thou hast chosen.”

Acts 1:16. The Personal History of Jesus.

I. His baptism by John.

II. His companionship with the apostles.

III. His betrayal by Judas.

IV. His arrestment by the Romans.

V. His death upon the cross.

VI. His resurrection.

VII. His ascension.—In all these points Peter agrees with the Gospel writers.

Acts 1:25. Individual Destiny.

I. Every man’s destiny is prepared for him beforehand.—As Daniel had his lot (Daniel 12:13), so had Judas his own place. The Father’s kingdom is prepared for Christ’s people from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). Paul speaks of vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction, and vessels of mercy prepared unto glory (Romans 9:22).

II. Every man’s destiny will correspond with the character which he possesses.—Like Judas, every man will go to his own place—he who by patient continuance in well doing has sought for glory and honour and incorruption, to eternal life; he that has obeyed not the truth, but obeyed unrighteousness, to tribulation and anguish (Romans 2:7). In every case the environment will correspond with the life.

III. Every man’s destiny will be the outcome of his own doings.—Each individual on earth will ultimately be what he makes himself. He may permit himself to become the victim of his surroundings, but the fault will be his own. He may be helped by divine grace, but even divine grace does not enable him to dispense with personal exertion. The solemnity which this gives to life needs no remark.

Natural Selection in the Spiritual World.—The subject of the text of practical moment to us, is one of moral adjustment, and involves fitness for the sphere occupied. Every realm of creation—mind or matter, animate or inanimate—has its order and label because of its nature, its identity, its surroundings peculiar to itself, with relations and dependencies—essential adjuncts of the nature and surroundings of the realm. That this principle may be seen in its tangible actuality turn to the pages of natural history, where we find represented the families, tribes, and species of the different continents, each with its peculiar nature and the environment contributing most to its vigorous development. Also in logic and psychology, in the sense of a peculiar office or sphere, than “place” there is no more pregnant term nor more requisite factor. It is the third foot of a tripod—a sine quâ non. But interesting as it may be for us to consider the import of “place” in the spheres of natural and intellectual science, still greater is its significance amid the species and graduations of the moral and spiritual world; for here the term is used not only in mechanical arrangement and scientific analysis, but it has also all the additional gravity of the moral and eternal world, with its attraction and repulsion, its reward and retribution.

I. The preservation intact of the families, species, and habitat of the spiritual world requires that the members of each great family, the redeemed and the unredeemed, should be assigned to their fittest place or habitat for eternity.

1. This must be true out of respect for the harmony, purity, and order of heaven. There is no one in the city of God of whom it could be said: “He is a disturber of the peace, a shame and grief to his relatives, and a disgrace to the avenue on which he lives.” Such a character or species cannot be permitted there. The order of the celestial community may not be so disturbed. The rôle of eternal praise and the spotaneity of the currents of felicitous thought are inviolable rights which inhere in the citizenship of heaven.

2. Not only for order’s sake, but from moral considerations must he go to his “own place.” All the opportunity which unfathomed depths of compassion and the sweep of mercy’s unbounded forecast could provide have been extended. By all the inducements which life’s opportune and sanguine day of probation could proffer, he has been overturned. The die is cast. Before God and His government he stands unacquitted—a rebel. Through all life’s paths he has afforded the material for the record of a rebel—the habits and the development of a rebel; the wishes, heart, and character of a rebel—against his own soul’s requirements, the provisions for an eternity of peace and the beneficent laws of God. Probation is past; and now to the place of what grade or species of character does he belong?

II. Let us now consider the means of reaching one’s moral grade, destination, or “place” in the spirit world. We need not falter in the belief that God, whose scrutiny none can evade, is able by His word directly to appoint each to his place. But in the apportionment to the abodes of the righteous and wicked—heaven and hell—the respective habitat of each of the two great families under the genus Spirit, there are certain natural forces or laws of moral adjustment which may well claim our attention.

1. There are characteristic functions of privilege or duty in every position of honour; and this is intuitively true of the home of the saints of God.
2. A second function of the life in heaven is fellowship. Now, if permitted, could the unrepentant soul endure such association?
3. Another function of the heavenly life is unveiled mental vision and untrammeled mental freedom. What kind of freedom here could the impenitent soul enjoy—whose habits of life have drilled him in wrong methods and whose sources of pleasure have blinded, deafened, and paralysed his conscience and spiritual functions in company with the redeemed whose pinions never tire? But another mighty agency in moral adjustment and consequent assignment to “place” to which sinners are subject and which is a positive and not a negative factor in the work of adjustment is natural retribution, one of the forces of which is the reason, which now sees the effect of a wrong ideal, a practical idolatry, selfish and gross, by which the soul which might have been assimilated into the likeness of Christ—the model of heaven—has been gradually metamorphosed into a type of moral degradation. The conscience also presents its unmet claims, and sad regret causes memory, as another factor in natural retribution, to point backward to days of opportunity, and a conscientious reflection iterates:

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these; it might have been.”

4. But still another force, which is decisive in effecting God’s own proclamation of a separation between the redeemed and unredeemed, may be mentioned; it is the law of sustentation. Just because the ponderous iron mass or the stone block should see the balloon sustained in mid-air, ascending to the clouds, shall they say, “Oh, we shall fly too”? Never in their present gross form. Never, until by fiercest heat they become sublimated into gaseous matter. Never as iron and stone will they fly. So the fact that the inhabitants of heaven can remain there sustained and enjoy the fulness of bliss is only by the support and protection of the laws of the kingdom of God; and to the sinner in “outer darkness “there is no protection or support from the laws of the kingdom of God, therefore he cannot remain in heaven—nor enter there. To illustrate: The rigor of the frigid zone is so great that only such animals as are provided to endure its exposures can there sustain life. The sloth and ant-eater are animals which are not provided to endure the exposures of the frigid zone; therefore they cannot there sustain life. Let us now briefly notice—

III. The sense in which the hell of the hereafter is the unrepentant sinner’s “own place.” The adjective “own” signifies a “place” peculiar to himself, But it is his own also as a member of a class or grade. Students belong to a class, and yet each holds his “own place” according to his standing. So you, if you choose the way of death, must take your place according to your proficiency in the customs of that dark abode, along with adulterers, the lustful, the hypocrites, unbelievers, drunkards, liars, and all that is profane and abominable. It is peculiarly his “own place,” then—

1. By course of preparation, which course may be termed the conservation of energy in the spiritual realm—i.e., all the forces of the sensibilities, intellect, and will are differentiated into a unit of essential wickedness. In natural science, heat and electricity are proved to be only different phenomena of a single force; so in this course of preparation for his “own place,” the different faculties and functions, conscience, moral accountability, etc., are by the voluntary course in sin transmuted into the distinctive features of a unity and substance of wickedness.

2. It is peculiarly his “own place,” in that it is a greatly curtailed sphere of activity. The fish of Mammoth Cave are blind—not by accident nor special creation, but being so situated that the organs of vision may not be exercised, the energies or life force which would have utilised these avenues of communication with the outer world were applied elsewhere and that apartment abandoned, and the fish left blind in a dark cave as a consequence of the disuse of its eyes. So the moral and spiritual faculties are atrophied and the privilege of their healthful functions lost through disuse. It is the sinners’ own place, then, because it is the contracted and degraded sphere in which he has enclosed himself.

IV. The eternity of this doom.

1. This doom is eternal, because it is the verdict of moral government. The protection of the good demands it. The finale is pronounced, and to no higher court can you appeal.

2. It is a self-imposed destiny, and never, until “the Ethiopian can change his skin and the leopard his spots” and transmute themselves into a different type or species, will there be any commutation of the sentence.

3. This matter is eternal with the lost, who abide in their own “place” not only because they have cut themselves off from agencies and appliances in the kingdom of grace, but because all the conditions are now complied with for growing worse and worse.—C. R. Hunt.

Acts 1:12. The Waiting Time.—What were its characteristics? It was:

I. A time of transition.—“It stood midway between Christ’s work on earth now completed and the yet unopened work of the Spirit from heaven. In the history of redemption the first or preparatory chapter closed on the day of the Incarnation.” The second, “though ending tragically, in a sense unknown to human history, brought life and immortality to light through the darkness and death of the cross.” The third and last chapter, the dispensation of the Spirit, was about to open.

II. A time of felt need.—As yet the eleven had no clear conception of the tale they were to tell, while they could not but feel that they had neither the position, culture, nor influence to move the world, and not one ground to hope for success save in their assurance of the truth of their story and the help they might receive from above in the telling of it.

III. A time of expectancy.—How often would they recall, and find it indispensable to recall, such words as these, “Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you”; “Ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”

IV. A time of prayer.—“These all continued with one accord steadfastly in prayer.” And who can have any doubt what would be the burden of their prayers?

V. A time of fraternal conference.—It seems only reasonable to assume that the intervals (between the prayers) would be filled up by free interchange of recollections and reflections on the astonishing events and thrilling scenes in the earthly life of their now glorified Lord and the encouragements thence arising.

VI. A time of action.—“On one of these days Peter—now fully restored, and, as originally designed, taking the lead—rose and explained to the assembly why the vacancy amongst the Twelve which the fall of Judas had created required to be filled up; and having pointed out the qualifications required, he left it to themselves to select one of their number whom they might lay before their enthroned Lord for His approval.” This resulted in the choice of Matthias.—David Brown, D.D.