John Calvin Commentary Acts 1:8

"But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." — Acts 1:8 (ASV)

You shall receive power. Our Savior Christ here calls them back both to the promise of God and to His commandment, which was the most direct way to curb their curiosity. Curiosity rises almost always either from idleness or from distrust; distrust is cured by meditating on the promises of God.

And His commandments tell us how we should occupy ourselves and apply our studies. Therefore, He commands His disciples to wait for the promise of God, and to be diligent in carrying out the office to which God had called them. And in the meantime, He notes their great haste, in that they prematurely grasped for those gifts which belonged to the Holy Spirit, when they were not yet endowed with the Spirit.

Nor did they take the right way in this, in that, being called to go to warfare, they desire (neglecting their labor) to take their ease in their inn. Therefore, when He says, you shall receive power, He warns them of their weakness, lest they pursue prematurely those things which they cannot attain.

It can be read very well either way: "You shall receive the power of the Spirit," or, "The Spirit coming upon you." Yet the latter way seems to be the better, because it more fully declares their defect and want, until the Spirit should come upon them.

You shall be my witnesses. He corrects two of their errors in this one sentence. For, first, He shows that they must fight before they can triumph; and, secondly, that the nature of Christ’s kingdom was of a different kind than they judged it to be. Therefore, He says, You shall be my witnesses; that is, the farmer must first work before he can reap his fruits.

From this, we may learn that we must first study how we may come to the kingdom of God, before we begin to dispute about the state of the life to come. There are many who curiously inquire what kind of blessedness that will be which they will enjoy after they are received into the everlasting kingdom of heaven, not caring how they may come to enjoy it.

They reason concerning the quality of the life to come, which they will have with Christ; but they never think that they must be partakers of His death, so that they may live together with Him (2 Timothy 2:11).

Let every man, therefore, apply himself to the work he has at hand; let us fight resolutely under Christ’s banner; let us go forward bravely and courageously in our calling, and God will give fruit in due time.

There follows another correction, when He says that they must be His witnesses. For by this He meant to drive out of His disciples’ minds that foolish and false idea which they had formed of the earthly kingdom, because He shows them briefly that His kingdom consists in the preaching of the gospel.

Therefore, there was no reason for them to dream of riches, of outward dominion, or any other earthly thing, while they heard that Christ then reigned when He subdues the entire world to Himself by the preaching of the gospel. From which it follows that He reigns spiritually, and not in any worldly manner.

And what the apostles had conceived of the carnal kingdom came from the common error of their nation; nor was it any wonder if they were deceived in this. For when we measure it with our understanding, what else can we conceive but that which is crude and earthly?

Consequently, like brute beasts, we only desire that which is pleasing to our flesh, and therefore we instead grasp for what is present. For this reason, we see that those who held the opinion that Christ should reign as a king in this world for a thousand years fell into similar folly. Furthermore, for this reason, they applied all such prophecies that described the kingdom of Christ figuratively, using the likeness of earthly kingdoms, to the gratification of their flesh; yet it was God’s purpose to lift their minds higher.

As for us, let us learn to apply our minds to hearing the preached gospel, lest we be entangled in similar errors, which prepares a place in our hearts for the kingdom of Christ.

In all Judea. Here He shows, first, that they must not work for only one day, since He assigns the whole world to them, in which they must proclaim the doctrine of the gospel. Furthermore, He refutes the opinion which they had formed about Israel.

They supposed that only those who were of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh were Israelites. Christ testifies that they must gather to them all Samaria; who, although they were near in location, yet were far distant in mind and heart. He shows that all other distant and also profane regions must be united to the holy people, so that they may all be partakers of one and the same grace.

It is evident (John 4:9) how greatly the Jews detested the Samaritans. Christ commanded that (the wall of separation being broken down) they both be made one body (Ephesians 2:14), so that His kingdom may be established everywhere. By naming Judea and Jerusalem, which the apostles had found to be full of most deadly enemies, He foretells them of the great difficulty and trouble that was prepared for them, so that He might cause them to stop thinking about this triumph which they hoped was so near at hand.

Nor could they be only a little afraid to come before such cruel enemies, which would further inflame their rage and fury. And here we see how He gives the first place to the Jews, because they are, so to speak, the firstborn (Exodus 4:22). Nevertheless, He also calls the Gentiles, who were formerly strangers from the hope of salvation (Ephesians 2:11). From this we learn, that the gospel was preached everywhere by the clear commandment of Christ, so that it might also come to us.