POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST
POWER
Verse 8 places the disciples’ question in proper perspective. The “restoration of the kingdom” involves a worldwide mission. Jesus promised the disciples two things: power and witness. The future tense here has an imperatival sense: “you will [must] receive power”; “you will be my witnesses.” Luke stressed this commission from the risen Lord at the close of his Gospel (24:47–49). All the same elements are there—the witness, the call to the nations, the power of the Spirit. The power they were to receive was divine power; the word is dynamis, the same word used of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels. It is the Spirit’s power (2:1–21). The endowment with the Spirit is the prelude to, the equipping for, mission. The role of the apostles is that of “witness” (martys). In Acts the apostles’ main role is depicted as witnessing to the earthly ministry of Jesus, above all to his resurrection (cf. 1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39, 41). As eyewitnesses only they were in the position to be guarantors of the resurrection. But with its root meaning of testimony, “witness” comes to have an almost legal sense of bearing one’s testimony to Christ. In this way it is applied to Stephen (22:20) and to Paul (22:15; 23:11; 26:16). The background to this concept is probably the servant psalms of Isaiah, where God called on his servant to be a witness (Isa 43:10; 44:8). L. Keck notes the close connection between the Spirit’s power and the witness to Jesus, observing that what was true of those first apostolic witnesses is still true of witnesses today: “The less Jesus is the core of witness, the less power we have.”32
The geographical scope of Acts 1:8 provides a rough outline of the entire book: Jerusalem (1–7), Judea and Samaria (8–12), the ends of the earth (13–28). As such it can well be considered the “theme” verse of Acts. It is not by accident that Jerusalem came first. In Luke’s Gospel, Jerusalem was central, from the temple scenes of the infancy narrative to the long central journey to Jerusalem (9:51–19:28), to Jesus’ passion in the city that killed its prophets (13:34). The story of Jesus led to Jerusalem; the story of the church led from Jerusalem. Judea and Samaria are probably to be taken together; Judea was understood in the sense of the Davidic kingdom, which would include the coastal territories and Galilee as well. Samaria would be included within Judea in this broader sense, but it is mentioned separately because of its non-Jewish constituency. The “ends of the earth” are often taken as referring to Rome, since the story of Acts ends in that city.34 The phrase is often found in the prophets, however, as an expression for distant lands; and such is the meaning in Isa 49:6, which may well lie behind Acts 1:8. In fact, the final verse in Acts (28:31), with Paul preaching “without hindrance” in Rome, suggests that the story has not reached its final destination—the witness continues.