Our Lord's Unfinished Work

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 8 November 2015

Now, this passage beginning in verse 12 really talks about two kinds of disciples, the false disciple and the true disciple, a study between Judas on the one hand and a man named Matthias. Jesus in Acts 1 is equipping His own for what is going to happen in Acts 2, where the Holy Spirit descends and the church is born and evangelism begins and the work that Jesus began to do is to be continued in them.

But before that can happen there is the preparation for the birth of the church. We saw that He gave them the proper message and He gave them the proper manifestation. He revealed Himself to them in His glorified post-resurrection body in order that they might be confident that He was really alive from the dead. Then Jesus gave them the proper power. He promised them that the Holy Spirit would come and empower them.

He then gave them the proper mystery. He said there are some things you don't need to know and one is the time of His return. And so He left it for every man to live with the knowledge that Jesus could come at any moment. He also gave them the proper mission. They were witnesses to go to the world with the gospel. And then He gave them the proper motive: He would be coming back to see if they had been faithful.

But there is one thing left and that is the proper men. Jesus wanted to be sure that the proper men were involved in carrying out the job. And so in verses 12 to 26, basically, we see Jesus replacing Judas with the proper man to fill in the ranks of the 12 to do the job. It's marvelous to realize that God works His will through men, even in God's operation in providence.

In providence, God’s plans may develop through unexpected concurrences of a million human wills, some of them yielding, some of them rebellious, some of them believing, some of them ignorant and all blended together to accomplish God's will. In the Old Testament when Gideon was to defeat the foe, the Bible gave the slogan of battle as "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." So it wasn't just the sword of the Lord only, because God pours His will through men and operates through men.

Now, we know that the ranks of the disciples have been depleted by Judas Iscariot. So he is to be replaced by the will of Jesus Christ. There are some who say that this was a mistake on Peter's part. However Jesus Christ chose the first 11 and He also chose the one to complete the 12 in order for the birth of the church. And the apostle Paul was an apostle of a different order. He was a very unique apostle and he filled two qualifications out of the three and on the basis of those two, was declared to be an apostle.

Now, this does not minimize the apostle Paul, for the apostle Paul, though in a different season, under different circumstances, was also selected by Jesus Himself. This is described in Acts 10:40-41 where Peter says, "but God raised Him on the third day and made Him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses.” So Peter says Jesus chose or appointed the 12 and Paul also. Christian service is not a matter of human will; it is a matter of divine appointment.

Paul says in Romans 10:15, "And how are they to preach unless they are sent." So who does the sending? God does. In these days there are many people who are running around who have not been sent who make themselves ministers of God even though God has not called them. Unless God has called you by laying it on your heart, by preparing you, by training you and giving you the sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, do not enter the ministry.

The Lord would not allow His church to be founded on an error without ever stating it to be such. We believe that Peter is inspired by the Holy Spirit as he speaks and as he leads those who are in this little meeting in choosing the one to replace Judas. The Lord chooses whom He will for His ministries. The age of the Old Testament, the age of law is coming to an end. The choosing of this one ends it. In Acts 2, there is the beginning of the new age, as the Holy Spirit comes and a new dispensation is born.

Now in the text there are basically three parts. First of all is the submission of the disciples in verses 12 to 15. Now, Jesus had told them that they had to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit arrived. In verse 4 He said, don't go anywhere, stay in Jerusalem, wait for the promise of the Father, which was the baptism of the Spirit in verse 5. And verse 8a says, then you will have the power to do the job.

And it was very important for them to wait because the Holy Spirit could not come until Jesus got back to Heaven. John 16:7 says, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” So there was some time in which they had to wait for the arrival of the Spirit because they couldn't go out to do ministry unless they had the power from the Holy Spirit to do it.

So they showed their obedience. Look at Acts 1:12, “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.” Now, that gives us the location where Jesus ascended into Heaven, the Mount of Olives. Luke also tells us that Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives toward Bethany, which means from the back side of the Mount of Olives according to Luke 24:50. Now, a Sabbath day's journey is a technical term that measures a distance of 2000 cubits.

In the wilderness around the tabernacle all the tribes of Israel were set in particular locations. They all faced the tabernacle. The furthest location away was 2000 cubits so that on the Sabbath you were permitted to go to worship but no further. Sabbath was reserved for worship, no work was allowed. And so, consequently, the term "a Sabbath day's journey" became synonymous with a distance of 2000 cubits.

Verse 13 says, “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.” Notice that there are only 11 disciples here. There is a Judas, the son of James, but he is not Judas Iscariot. And they are not alone, there were others with them.

Verse 14 indicated that, “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.” These women have been around helping to anoint the body of Christ with spices, and they were there at the resurrection. And it also mentions His brothers, referring back to Jesus. Yes, they were His half-brothers because Jesus was virgin born.

We even know their names: James, Joseph, Simon and Jude. And James and Jude figure prominently in the New Testament for James wrote the epistle of James and Jude wrote the epistle of Jude and James was the first head of the Jerusalem church. He heads up the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. So they became believers. It is exciting that they were even here because in John 7:5 it says, "neither did his brethren believe in Him.”

But by this time, there they are gathered in a prayer meeting with the rest of His disciples. Well, how and when did that happen? Well, there's not a lot of revelation on it, but in 1 Corinthians 15:7 it says, “Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” That was the time when James became a believer, seeing his own brother resurrected. And then very likely, he became the catalyst for the rest of them.

Let us discuss for a moment Mary, the mother of Jesus. We have to understand that Mary is never exalted in the Scripture. She was exalted in reference to Jesus that was born from her, but not in herself. In Mark 3:31-35, Jesus was teaching in a house and His brothers and mother came and wanted to talk to Him. He replied by saying, "Who are My mother and My brothers?" And then He pointed to the audience and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers." He said, "For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus minimized the spiritual significance of Mary and His physical brothers. They had to be redeemed just like anybody else. Notice what it says in verse 14. They didn't pray to Mary, they prayed with Mary. Mary was praying to be redeemed. Among all women, she may be the most wonderful kind of wife and mother imaginable, but she is not deity. She is praying to her Son like everybody else. She is never again mentioned in the New Testament. And Paul never mentions Mary in any of his doctrines of redemption.

Verse 14 tells us that “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer." It is a beautiful and sweet kind of fellowship. But the coming of the Holy Spirit did not depend on their prayers. The Spirit, in Acts 1:4, was "the promise of the Father." They were praying because for the first time they were removed from Jesus and the only communication they could have with Him was through prayer. And that is the beginning of a new age for before that no one had ever prayed to Jesus.

Then verse 15-16 says, “In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, 16 “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.” Notice in this part of Israel at that time there were only 120 believers. They were small in quantity, but they were large in power. And in 30 years they were already in Rome and the gospel had spread everywhere.

Peter has been commissioned to lead and he knows there is a problem. They don't understand what had happened to Judas. In Matthew 19:28 Jesus had said to the disciples, “you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” And they recognize there are now only 11 guys. So Peter acts under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and stands up in verse 16. Notice, he is not talking out of his own ability, he has a Biblical context and inspiration.

Peter wants them to know that what Judas did was all prophesied by the Scripture by David in the Old Testament. Did you know that the betrayal of Judas was planned into the plan of salvation? Just like God uses godless men throughout the Old Testament to accomplish His purpose, so He used a godless Judas to bring about the end according to God’s will. God works through men.

Judas had received by divine appointment to be a disciple, but he was never saved. In John 6: 64, Jesus talks to His disciples and says, "But there are some of you that do not believe." And in verse 70 He says, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” The tragedy of Judas is that he could have turned to Jesus Christ. And Jesus warned him gently all along throughout his life but he never repented.

Verse 18-19, "Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood. Evidently, Judas tried to hang himself and as he tried to suspend himself, the rope snapped and he had fallen on the rocks below and his stomach burst.

Verse 20, “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “Let another take his office.’” Peter said it was prophesied by David in Psalms 69:25 that Judas would be wiped out. And then it says, "Let another take his office," and that is in Psalms 109:8. So Peter quotes two Psalms and this means that he would be replaced. So Matthias coming was a fulfillment of prophecy. Peter is saying, trust God. This is the way God planned it from the beginning.

And that leaves Peter to carry out the selection of the next disciple and this is just a simple narrative. Verse 21-22, “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

Here you have two qualifications for an apostle. Number one, he had to be with Jesus from the baptism of John to the ascension. Number two, he had to be a witness of the glorified, resurrected Christ. Paul doesn't fit those qualifications. Paul was indeed an apostle, but he was an apostle of a different order. He fits two other qualifications. Number one, he did see Christ in post-resurrection glory on the road to Damascus. And number three of the three qualifications, Paul was chosen by God.

Verse 23-25, “And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25 to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” So the third qualification is that he has to be chosen by God and Paul was chosen.

And we don't know anything about either one of them because they are never mentioned. It is not always the stars on the horizon that the Lord chooses to do the things He wants done. Sometimes it is the people you don't even know that are really moving and doing the job for God. And here are two guys that nobody knows. We have no idea who they are and they don't appear before or after this.

Then it says in verse 26, “And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” Well, what about Barsabbas called Justus? It doesn't say. Did he demand a recount and went out in a huff and joined another group? No, he didn't do that. I imagine he hung in there and did a great job. But Matthias was chosen. I don't know why. I know God chose him and that is more than enough for me.

So what was the method of choosing? Well, they drew lots. No, it's not gambling. Sometimes God would talk audibly. Sometimes God would talk through the mouth of a prophet. And one other way was through the drawing of lots. This was the last act of the Old Testament era. You will never hear it again the rest of the New Testament because in this age we don't need that kind of direction from God. We get our direction from the Bible and the Holy Spirit who "shall lead us into all truth."

Proverbs 16:33 says, "The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." Oh, the Lord can control even the littlest details, can't He? So for all Christians I hope you have learned the beauty of submission to the will of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in directing all His people even in the smallest details of life. Remember, obey the Spirit promptly! Let us pray.