During these forty days, Christ as the One in resurrection also spoke to the disciples the things concerning the kingdom of God. Although we are not told in Acts what the Lord spoke concerning the kingdom, we may infer what He said by considering other portions of the Word. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus taught the disciples much concerning the kingdom. It is not likely that during the forty days after His resurrection, He gave the disciples something new concerning the kingdom. Rather, He may have repeated what He taught them in the Gospels. When the Lord spoke regarding the kingdom in the Gospels, the disciples were not able to understand what He was teaching them. They did not have the spiritual insight to understand the kingdom of God, because the Lord was not yet in them. But in John 20 they received the wonderful person of the resurrected Christ into them as the life-giving Spirit. As a result, in Acts 1 they were very different, for Christ, the life-giving Spirit, was now within them as their life and person. Because they had the life-giving Spirit within them, they were able to understand the Lord’s speaking concerning the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is not a material kingdom visible to human sight; it is a kingdom of the divine life. The kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life into His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The kingdom of God is the ruling, the reigning, of God with all its blessing and enjoyment. It is the goal of the gospel of God and of Jesus Christ. To enter into this kingdom, people need to repent of their sins and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15) so that their sins may be forgiven and that they may be regenerated by God to have the divine life, which matches the divine nature of this kingdom (John 3:3, 5).
The kingdom of God is actually Christ Himself (Luke 17:21) as the seed of life sown into His believers, God’s chosen people (Mark 4:3, 26), and developing into a realm in which God may rule as His kingdom in His divine life. Regeneration is its entrance (John 3:5), and the growth of the divine life within the believers is its development (2 Pet. 1:3-11). The kingdom of God is the church life today, in which the faithful believers live (Rom. 14:17), and it will develop into the coming kingdom as an inheritance reward (Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5) to the overcoming saints in the millennium. Eventually, it will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal kingdom of God and the eternal realm of the eternal blessing of God’s eternal life for all God’s redeemed to enjoy in the new heaven and new earth.
In Acts 1:3 the Lord Jesus as the One in resurrection must have helped the disciples to have such a proper realization concerning the kingdom of God. The disciples must have begun to see that the kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life to His believers, that it is the propagation of Christ as life to His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The disciples certainly must have understood that they were now part of the propagation, the spreading, of Christ, and thereby were part of the kingdom of God.
After the resurrected Lord finished the forty-day training, He had the peace to leave the disciples. Thus, He brought them all to the Mount of Olives where He was carried up into heaven (vv. 11-12). His ascension brought Him into a new stage—the stage of a resurrected man living in the heavens to execute the things God determined on this earth. This resurrected One is now sitting in the heavens to execute God’s administration (2:36; Heb. 12:2).
After the resurrected Christ breathed the life-giving Spirit into the disciples as life, life supply, and everything related to their inner man, they all became God-men, men who had been mingled with God. They were filled with the divine life essentially, but they were not yet qualified to carry out God’s economy. Therefore, the resurrected Christ had to ascend to the heavens to be exalted by God and to be given the kingship, the lordship, and the headship over all things. He also obtained the throne, the glory, and all the authority in the universe. While the one hundred twenty were praying on the earth for ten days, God was making the exalted Christ to be the King, the Lord, and the Head of all things. God was giving the authority, the throne, and glory to His exalted One—Christ as the One in ascension.
As the One in ascension, Christ poured out the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33) upon all flesh (2:17a) to baptize all His believers into one Body (1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13). In Acts 2:33 Peter declared, “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He has poured out this which you both see and hear.” The exalted Christ’s receiving of the promise of the Holy Spirit was actually the receiving of the Holy Spirit Himself. Christ was conceived of the Spirit essentially for His being in humanity, and He was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry among men. After His resurrection and ascension, He still needed to receive the Spirit economically again so that He might pour out this Spirit upon His Body to carry out on earth His heavenly ministry for the accomplishment of God’s New Testament economy. The same Spirit who was breathed into the believers essentially as life in Christ’s resurrection was poured out upon them economically by Christ in His ascension. In and after His ascension Christ received the all-inclusive Spirit from the Father economically and poured Him out upon the believers for their ministry and work.
Christ poured out the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, that is, all fallen human beings, without distinction of sex, age, or status, in order to baptize all His believers into one Body (2:17a; 1:5). It was through the Spirit that Christ as the Head of the Body baptized all His believers into His Body (Matt. 3:11; Acts 1:5; 11:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:13). The New Testament reveals that Christ is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33). Concerning the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus said in Acts 1:5, “John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This was accomplished in two steps, in two instances. First, on the day of Pentecost, Christ, the Head of the Body, having received the Spirit economically once again in ascension, baptized the Jewish believers into the Spirit. That was the first step, the first instance, of Christ baptizing the Body into the Spirit. Then in the house of Cornelius, Christ, the Head, baptized all the Gentile believers into the Spirit (10:44-47; 11:15-17). That was the second step, the second instance. By these two steps, these two instances, Christ the Head of the Body, baptized His entire Body into the Spirit once for all.
Because Christ has baptized all His believers into His Body by means of the Spirit, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body.” The Spirit is the sphere and element of our spiritual baptism, and in such a Spirit we were all baptized into one organic entity, the Body of Christ. Therefore, we should all, regardless of our races, nationalities, and social ranks, be this one Body. Christ is the life and constituent of this Body, and the Spirit is the reality of Christ. In this one Spirit we were all baptized by Christ into this one living Body to express Christ.
In this way the baptism in the Holy Spirit was accomplished once for all. Now what we need is not to be baptized in the Holy Spirit again, but simply to experience the baptism already accomplished in the Holy Spirit. Even as we need not be crucified again because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, so also we need not be baptized in the Holy Spirit again. Christ the Head has already baptized the whole Body in the Holy Spirit. We need only experience what the Head has already done to the Body.
If we would experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit, we must first realize that the Lord has ascended, establishing His lordship and His headship (Acts 2:36). Because Christ was established as the Lord and Head, He poured down the Holy Spirit upon His Body (v. 33). Second, we must have a right relationship with the Body. Thus, we may tell the Lord as the Head that we know His Body, that we are regenerated members of His Body and are rightly related to it, and that on this standing we claim the baptism in the Holy Spirit already accomplished upon His Body. Then we will indeed experience the wonderful baptism in the Holy Spirit. If we do not understand the ascension of Christ or do not have a right standing with the Body, no matter how much we pray and tarry, it will be difficult to have the experience. Therefore, if we would experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we must realize that Christ today is ascended and is the Lord and Head of all to the church, and we must stand in a right position in respect to the Body.