An Introduction: Understanding Acts through John 14

Thus far, in the previous posts introducing Acts, we have looked at through several lenses to understand what we are seeing in the first 30-40 years of the Church. The first three lenses have led to this next one. This lens is altogether lovely because we are given a fuller view of the loving relationship between a Son and His Father. That love has spilled over, been poured out in fact, on all humanity, through the Holy Spirit. That, and only that, is love; and that, and only that, is the fertile soil for our redemption. We cannot earn it, we do not deserve it, much less understand it—but we have been brought near into their loving relationship through the Son’s death, burial, and resurrection. There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. No other name.

That exclusivity of both the definition of love and the way of salvation offends most people. If you are offended by God becoming flesh and dwelling among us, and taking the full punishment of our sins upon Himself, so that we could be with Him and become the objects of His love, forever and ever, then you are mad, and blind. He who has the Son has life. 1 John 5:12. The opposite is true.

This reality of course hearkens back to another lens, Psalm 2: “Kiss the Son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” This is our one and only opportunity to kiss the Son, and to take refuge in Him; but let’s move on.

In Psalm 2, the Father said to the Son, Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations as an inheritance. He did ask; we see that in John Chapters 14-17. The answer to the prayer unfolds in Acts (and reaches its fulfillment in Revelation).

These three chapters in John are glorious and I could never hope to do them justice. I won’t try. I encourage you to meditate upon them for yourselves, and let God confirm to you whether what I am saying here is true. I will feebly attempt to highlight a few verses so that we can appreciate yet another lens through which to understand the Book of Acts.

In Chapter 14, let’s begin here:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

. . . .

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I will come to you” If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.

If you do not understand that the relationship between Father and Son is life, you cannot and will not understand the Book of Acts. The Father loves the Son, and vice versa; it is their love redeeming mankind in Christ Jesus and manifesting and extending their glory in all the earth in all these episodes in Acts. The healings, for example, in various places and by the hands of various people, which we see in Acts, accomplish two things: show that the Son is with the Father (as Luke portrays in the first chapter and in Stephen’s speech), and glorify the Father in the Son. What Jesus is saying is heaven is coming to earth—His glory not hidden away in the Most Holy Place, but poured out on all flesh through the Holy Spirit. This is that which the prophet Joel declared. Listen: the glory of the Lord is being revealed in Acts, and Jesus tells us this much in John 14. And therefore the Book of Acts provides the evidence that what Jesus said immediately before his crucifixion is true.

If you love me, Jesus said, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth . . . the Holy Spirit whom my Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. To fully understand Acts, you must see the activity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Their counsel governs all that we read. The Book of Acts has very little to do with Peter and Paul, and everything to do with the Godhead moving through the earth in glory and love—turning over the soil with the plowshare of the Cross, sewing the good seed of Christ Jesus, and pouring out the rain of the Holy Spirit that God would have a harvest, and the Son an inheritance.