Acts 1: He Who Rides The Clouds
In Acts Chapter 1, Luke tells us Jesus was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Surely Luke is giving us more than the skies were cloudy on the day Jesus ascended. What is it that Luke wants us to understand by pointing out that detail of the clouds?
It is important to remember that Luke is still proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this second volume. That good news didn’t end with last chapter of volume 1. He may be giving us a historically sensitive narrative in Acts, and he may not be pounding on any pulpits by doing so. But Luke is giving us an evangel nevertheless. Jesus remains the story; He expresses His Person differently than when He walked the shores of the lake, or the side streets of Capernaum, or the steps of the Temple. Risen from the dead, He is expressing Himself differentlly now, in redeemed humanity through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, whom He has sent as His representative.
Luke blesses us with every human thread in Acts of course, but he has never lost the central figure, Christ Jesus. That is an important distinction we may have lost by calling the book the Acts of the Apostles. The book does record acts, but the acts of Someone acting through the agency of the Holy Spirit, who in turn distributes His gifts to men.
Redeemed humanity is not missing from the book, but Christ remains its center. The book is awash with human activity, but of a different sort because the epoch is different: Christ is risen from the dead. And that is why Luke begins Volume 2 with the clouds.
Every good student of the Old Testament knows that God, and only God, is associated with the clouds. So Luke makes the reference so that we will understand from the outset of the book who Jesus is and what the book is about.
Let’s look at a few Scriptures; then we will examine Daniel Chapter 7 for a bit.
Psalm 97:2 says, “Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.” That should sound familiar. This verse reminds us of the pillar of cloud by day, and the establishment of the law on Sinai. But it also suggests what Luke has described in Acts 1 with the cloud, and then reiterates in Stephen’s fiery oration in Chapter 7 where Jesus is visible before the throne of God.
Psalm 104:3 declares, “He makes the clouds His chariot; He walks upon the wings of the wind.” Isaiah prophesies, “the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt.” And Nahum chimes in too in verse 3 of his first chapter: “And clouds are the dust beneath His feet.” So it is God who rides the clouds, walks on the clouds, and hides Himself in them.
But Luke is not done building a bridge between the identity of God and the identity of Jesus Christ. Where does Luke want us to get to? What connection does he want us to make by pointing out the cloud beyond these verses we have looked at?
In his gospel, Luke references the many times Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man. For example, “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Luke 5:24); or “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5); or “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Luke 9:22); or “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him” (Luke 12:40); or “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27).
Luke is no dummy. Those repeated declarations could only mean one thing: Jesus was identifying himself—unequivocally—as the “One like the son of Man” in Daniel 7. By drawing our attention to the cloud, Luke does not want us to leap into the pages of his second book without first understanding the setting of it.
Let’s turn to Daniel 7, verses 13-14:
I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.
Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.
This is who Jesus is, the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days! But this is also the setting of the book—the throne, dominion, glory, and a kingdom over peoples, nations, and languages have all been given to Jesus.
Daniel explains that this gift of dominion, glory, and a kingdom to the One like the Son of Man manifests itself here in the earth, in the peoples, nations, and languages. That gift from Father to Son informs the book of Acts—the manifestation of His dominion, glory, and, kingdom from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth. It is God moving in this narrative through the person of the Holy Spirit, through the hearts and lives of His people drawn out of the peoples, nations, and languages to serve Him. We should never leave the throne room of God when we read the book; His dominion, glory, and kingdom explains everything we read.
If we think the book is simply Peter went here, and he met so and so, and Paul caused this riot, and spoke to these people, we have missed the point and we misunderstand its import. The book is principally about Jesus, exalted and enthroned. And it answers the question: what does Daniel 7:13-14 look like?
