In the previous chapter, we learned what the gospel is, but in this chapter, we will begin walking down a road that leads us to understand how we can personally experience the “good news” of Jesus for ourselves. Hang on for the ride; this is really good news!

To begin our conversation on this subject, we will jump into the last portion of Luke’s Gospel account in chapter 24. It is here that we find Jesus reconnecting with His disciples after His resurrection.

Luke tells us in the Book of Acts that immediately after Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb, He was seen by His disciples for a period of forty days. During this time, the Bible tells us that Jesus spoke with them and taught them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).

Now, we learned a few chapters back that Jesus was not to stay with them forever in physical form. Soon, He would ascend into Heaven, no longer being with them… but through the Holy Spirit that He promised to pour out upon them, He soon would be in them.

This experience of the infilling of God’s Spirit into their hearts would prove to be an essential element of their experience with God as it relates to both personally experiencing the gospel of Jesus as well as the carrying out of His mission in the earth as His disciples.

This is an amazing moment in time, as Jesus is wrapping up His final teachings on earth to His disciples, instilling in them everything that He feels they need to know before He ascends into Heaven.

There was absolutely no way that Jesus was going to leave His disciples without clear instructions. So Jesus spends His time within this forty-day window diligently teaching, equipping, and giving instruction to His disciples for what was to happen next.

While the reality of the gospel had been established, with Jesus having died, been buried, and now being risen from the grave… the message of the gospel had not yet been proclaimed to anyone.

But this was all soon to change.

Let’s take a moment to walk through and examine, bit by bit, a critical passage of Jesus’ final words to His disciples in Luke 24, as Jesus has just concluded this forty-day stretch with His disciples prior to being “carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51).

We are going to break down Jesus’ words here into four parts in an attempt to more fully understand the important words that He is communicating.

Let’s turn to Luke 24.

“Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high’” (Luke 24:46–49).

There are four elements in this address that Jesus is giving to His disciples that we want to highlight and focus on. Let’s examine them together.

1. “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day” (Luke 24:46).

2. “and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).

3. “And you are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48).

4. “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).

These four elements are critical to pay attention to, as they set the framework in which the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon humanity for the first time following Jesus’ resurrection. It also points to the first time that the gospel message would be presented to the world.

Jesus’ words to His disciples not only lay out where all of this was to take place, but how it was to happen, and what the call to action would be as a result of the hearing of the gospel message.

As we have discussed previously, Luke not only wrote the Gospel of Luke, but he also wrote a Part II to his Gospel, a sequel if you will, which we have already referenced numerous times together: the Book of Acts.

Luke wrote these two accounts of Jesus’ life and the life of His disciples to a man named Theophilus. It is important to note that the end of Luke’s Gospel letter to Theophilus and the very beginning of His second letter, the Book of Acts, have a slight overlap.

In Acts 1, Luke adds some more details to the end of Jesus’ life and ministry on earth just before He ascended into Heaven, meshing with chapter 24 of His first letter, the Gospel of Luke.

Let’s briefly read a portion of the opening segment of Acts 1 and let it bring more confirmation to what we just discussed, and shine more light on what Jesus was saying to His disciples at the end of Luke 24.

Here is what Luke writes in Acts 1:4–8:

“And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’” (Acts 1:4–8).

In this passage, Jesus’ words help us more fully understand the core points He shared with His disciples in Luke 24. Jesus wanted His disciples to wait in Jerusalem because from that place, He would send the promise of the Father, which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, very soon. Additionally, Jesus points out that this baptism of the Holy Spirit would fill the disciples with the supernatural power necessary to be His witnesses in the earth, fulfilling His purpose and calling in their lives to go “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

It was necessary for Jesus to live, suffer, die, be buried, and rise again from the dead. Without this, there would be no gospel message to preach. This was and is the gospel. If all that Jesus had done was just suffer and die, that would be no more than any other man has ever done, or yet even could do. But what separated Jesus from the rest of men (and His good news from any other person’s good news) was that He was more than just a man. He was fully God. As man, He died. But as God, He rose from the dead. While mere mortal men die and stay dead, Jesus’ resurrection is proof that He was more than a mortal man.

If Jesus doesn’t get up from the grave, the gospel message is not good news at all. As a matter of fact, it was Jesus’ triumphant resurrection from the dead that proved, and still proves even to this present day, that He alone is God.

The resurrection of Jesus is not something just to read about. It is a reality to be experienced. An experience which, in just a few short days, all of Jesus’ disciples would partake in for themselves, as they would all be filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the same Spirit that was in Jesus, raising Him up from the grave. Soon they too would experience the resurrection themselves, being filled with the Holy Spirit… God in them… Christ in them… the Hope of Glory (Romans 8:11; Colossians 1:27).

This personal experience of the resurrection of Jesus is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which equips all disciples of Jesus with the power necessary to fulfill His mission in the earth.

Just as it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die, it was also going to be necessary that this gospel be preached, and that all who hear its message would respond. A response Jesus said would include the following:

  1. Repentance
  2. Remission of sins in His name (the name of Jesus)

And that all of this would take place…

  1. In Jerusalem
  2. Among all nations

And that the disciples themselves would personally witness it.

Then… _"when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven’” _(Acts 1:9–11).

What do the disciples do now?

They do what they have been doing for the last three or so years that they had been following Jesus. The only thing they knew to do: obey Him and follow His instructions.

So off they go, returning “to Jerusalem with great joy” (Luke 2:52).

Reflection Questions: