THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Acts of Apostles
Message One—The Intrinsic Significance of the Book of Acts
Scripture Reading: Acts 1:8-11, 14, 22; 2:24, 32-33; 4:33; 10:39-40; 26:16
I. We need to see the intrinsic significance of the book of Acts; the Acts of the Apostles is a book without an ending; this book is still being continued, because Acts is a record of the work of God, who is always advancing and never stops—28:30-31: (2008 WT, msg. 1)
A. In the book of Acts the disciples are the continuation of the Lord Jesus—1:14: (2008 WT, msg. 1)
1. The Lord brought the disciples with Him into His death and resurrection; this means that they passed through the same processes through which the Lord Jesus passed—Rom. 6:6; Eph. 2:5-6. (2008 WT, msg. 1)
2. By passing through the Lord’s death and resurrection, His disciples became His continuation; this continuation is unveiled in the book of Acts—1:14. (2008 WT, msg. 1)
3. By replacing the disciples with Himself, the Lord Jesus made them His reproduction; therefore, they became His increase, development, enlargement, and continuation—the church as His extension in time and His spread in space—John 12:24; 14:19; Gal. 2:20; Acts 8:1; 9:31. (2008 WT, msg. 1)
B. The book of Acts is a record of a group of people who are resurrected and ascended with Christ, having Christ within them as their life and Christ upon them as their power and authority; they live by the Triune God within them as their life, and they act by the Triune God upon them as their strength, power, and authority—John 20:22; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8: (2008 WT, msg. 1)
1. Two important things transpired after the Lord’s death—resurrection and ascension—Acts 2:24: (General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A-Part 1, ch. 8)
a. objectively speaking, His resurrection is a proof, a testimony, that He is the indestructible life, and subjectively speaking, it is the imparting of Himself into us to make us the members of His Body—1 Pet. 1:3. (General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A-Part 1, ch. 8)
b. On the one hand, His ascension was His enthronement. On the other hand, because we were identified with Him in His ascension, we also were brought into the heavens with Him; therefore, the enthronement of Christ is our position—Eph. 1:22; 2:6. (General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A-Part 1, ch. 8)
2. It is in the Spirit that the wonderful, objective facts accomplished by the resurrection and ascension of Christ are applied to us and experienced by us—Acts 2:1-4; John 20:19, 22: (General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A-Part 1, ch. 8)
a. On the one hand, the Holy Spirit comes into us as life, while on the other hand, the Spirit comes upon us as power, as authority. (General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A-Part 1, ch. 8)
b. On the day of resurrection Christ came back to His disciples to breathe Himself into them as the Spirit of life; following this, Christ ascended to the heavens, and on the day of Pentecost He came down, not to enter into the disciples but to blow upon them as a rushing violent wind—Acts 2:1-4; John 20:19, 22. (General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A-Part 1, ch. 8)
II. Acts is a record of a group of people who act and work in the Body, through the Body, and for the Body—v. 14; 13:1-4a: (2008 WT, msg. 1)
A. Acts reveals the move and activity of the Body, not of individual actions unrelated to the Body—8:1-17. (2008 WT, msg. 1)
B. Acts contains a beautiful picture of the one accord in the activities and work of the believers who moved in the Body, through the Body, and for the Body—2:44-47; 4:24, 32; 13:1-4a; 16:1-5. (2008 WT, msg. 1)
C. The book of Acts shows us the divine stream, the unique flow; there is only one stream, one current, of the flow—Gen. 2:8-12; Rev. 22:1-2; Acts 2:33: (2008 WT, msg. 1)
1. The divine stream, which has been flowing throughout the generations, is uniquely one; since there is only one divine stream and since the flow is uniquely one, we need to keep ourselves in this one flow—1 John 1:3; Rev. 22:1. (2008 WT, msg. 9)
2. Where the divine stream flows, we have the life of God, the fellowship of the Body, the testimony of Jesus, and the work of God—Gen. 2:10-14; Psa. 36:8-9; 46:4a; John 7:37-39; Rev. 22:1. (2008 WT, msg. 9)
3. When we give the Lord the preeminence in our entire being, making Him our first love, He becomes the divine stream to us, flowing within us and out of us as the first works; the first works are works that are motivated by, issue from, and express the Lord as our first love; only works that are motivated by the first love are gold, silver, and precious stones—v. 1; 2:4-5; 1 Cor. 2:9; 3:12. (2008 WT, msg. 9)
4. The flowing of the divine life, which started on the day of Pentecost and has been flowing throughout all generations to this day, is just one stream for God’s goal to build up the church for His corporate expression—Matt. 16:18; cf. Ezek. 47:1-12. (2008 WT, msg. 9)
D. In Acts there is a group of people who know the meaning of resurrection and ascension, who live by Christ as their life, who act by Christ as their power and authority, and who realize that they are the Body and act in the Body and for the Body in the one divine stream; this is the intrinsic significance of the book of Acts—John 20:22; Acts 1:8-11, 14; 2:1-4, 24, 32-33; 4:33. (2008 WT, msg. 1)
III. The continuation of the book of Acts is the corporate continuation of Christ with the corporate living of the perfected God-men as the reality of the Body of Christ—28:31; cf. John 5:17: (2008 WT, msg. 12)
A. The book of Acts was actually not ended but left open that more may be added; the reason for this must have been that the work of the Holy Spirit in preaching Christ for His propagation, multiplication, and spread through the believers of Christ was not yet completed and needed to be continued for a long period of time. (2008 WT, msg. 12)
B. Such an evangelistic work for Christ’s propagation, multiplication, and spread is according to God’s New Testament economy for the producing of many sons for God (Rom. 8:29) that they might be the members of Christ to constitute His Body (12:5) for the carrying out of God’s eternal plan and the fulfillment of His eternal will; this is revealed in detail in the twenty-one Epistles and the book of Revelation, which follow the book of Acts. (2008 WT, msg. 12)
C. Since God is after a corporate vessel, we must be brought into the reality of the Body of Christ and learn to live the Body life by denying our natural life; otherwise, we are useless in His hand and can never fulfill His goal. (2008 WT, msg. 12)
D. In the four Gospels God was incarnated, passed through human living, died, and resurrected, thus completing Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9); in the book of Acts this embodiment of God, as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), spreads Christ into His believers, working the processed Triune God into His chosen, redeemed, and transformed people to make them the constituents of the church, through which God may be expressed. (2008 WT, msg. 12)
E. The ultimate issue of the church will be the New Jerusalem in eternity future as God’s full and eternal expression, which will also be God’s eternal kingdom as the sphere in which He reigns in His divine life in eternity forever and ever; this should be the reality and goal of all our gospel preaching today as we follow the pattern of the apostle Paul—”proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, unhindered”—Acts 28:31. (2008 WT, msg. 12)