The True Force

Recently, a friend bought a Tesla and gave me a ride. Innocently, I asked, “Where’s the engine—at the front or back?” He looked puzzled and said, “Tesla doesn’t have an engine. It’s an electric vehicle.” I asked again, “Ya, but something must make those wheels rotate.” He said, “Oh, yes, it doesn’t have an engine but has a motor.” I don’t know if Isaac Newton said it, but in my mind, for something to move, something else must be making it move!

In the opening paragraph (Acts 1:1–8), Luke mentions the “motor” behind the new faith thrice. He says that the Lord Jesus instructed the apostles through the Holy Spirit (1:2). Then, he refers to the message the apostles received, in which John contrasts his water baptism with the Messiah’s baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:5). Then he cites Jesus’s command to the disciples: “You will receive power by the coming of the Holy Spirit and will be my witnesses” (1:8). The “motor” or power behind Jesus’s work and the disciples’ enablement is the same Holy Spirit.

The disciples wouldn’t have considered him the third person of the Trinity, as we now say in theology. But they would have understood that the Spirit of God supervised all things from the first creation. As such, the same Spirit empowers this new creation.

Without his help and empowerment, the disciples couldn’t be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the end of the earth. That was why they were to wait for him in Jerusalem.

Giving this command, the Lord Jesus left the disciples: as they looked at him, he was taken up, and a cloud hid him from their eyes (1:9). As they stared into the heavens and his ascension, two men appeared to them in white clothing (1:10). This is reminiscent of what happened at the tomb (Luke 24:4). Those men said,

“Galileans, why are you standing here and looking into the heaven? This Jesus who ascended before you into the heaven, thus he will come in the same way you have seen him go into the heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

We can imagine the disciples’ trepidation and astonishment at seeing Jesus’s ascension. They couldn’t take their eyes off it. The angels assured them that he would come the same way he left.

In the meantime, they had jobs to do—to take the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. We have the same challenge. While we patiently wait for the Lord to return the way he was taken up, we share his good news widely.