An Introduction: Understanding Acts through John 16

I want to reiterate. John 14-17 are best left to your full consideration. I am only employing a few verses from each to show you that these words of Jesus provide the context, the backdrop, the lifeblood of Acts. They should not be divorced from each other.

Jesus is Acts. He stands smack dab in the center of the book at the right hand of God.

As Chapter 16 of John’s Gospel begins, Jesus predicts:

I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when the hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

Do we see this opposition occur in Acts? Saul is the most remarkable fulfillment of these verse. Not only did he do these hateful things. See e.g., Acts 8:1-2, and 9:1-2. But he also became subject to them. See e.g., Acts 14.

Next, Jesus returns our attention back to the Holy Spirit:

I tell you the truth: 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. And when he comes he will convict the word concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged . . . When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you that things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare to you.

If you have read Acts, which I hope you have done or are doing so, then these verses concerning the Holy Spirit should resonate with the acts Luke has been faithful to record from Pentecost forward. There simply is not a Book of Acts without the Acts of the Holy Spirit suffused through it—and Acts of the Holy Spirit is perhaps a more appropriate title for Luke’s work. Luke never disregards the Holy Spirit in Acts, never fails to educate us on how He works in the new creation in Christ Jesus. Nor should we if we are to consider what Jesus has told us about him in John 16.

I do hope to treat this subject of the Holy Spirit in Acts more carefully, but for now, this is a brief introduction.