[Jesus] showed Himself alive [to His disciples]…being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
—Acts 1:3
When Christ began to preach, He took up the message of John: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Later on He said, “That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1). This could not be until the King had ascended His throne. Then He and His disciples would be ready to receive the Holy Spirit, bringing the kingdom of God into their hearts.
Acts 1:3 tells us that all the teaching of Jesus during the forty days after the Resurrection dealt with the kingdom of God. It is remarkable how Luke, in the last verses of Acts, summed up all the teaching of Paul at Rome, who “testified the kingdom of God” (Acts 28:23) and was “preaching the kingdom of God” (verse 31).
Christ, seated upon the throne of God, was now King and Lord of all. To His disciples He had entrusted the announcement of the kingdom, which is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). The prayer He had taught them—“Our Father which art in heaven…Thy kingdom come” (Luke 11:2)—now had new meaning for them. The reign of God in heaven came down in the power of the Spirit, and the disciples were full of this one thought: to preach the coming of the Spirit into the hearts of men. There were now on earth good tidings of the kingdom of God—a kingdom of God ruling and dwelling with men, even as in heaven.
When Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God in Acts 1, He implied all the characteristics of a kingdom. The first two characteristics of every kingdom are the king and his subjects. We know the King of God’s government to be the crucified Christ, and the disciples His faithful followers. Acts 1:8 tells us of a power that enabled the disciples to serve their King, and that was the Holy Spirit, the third mark of a kingdom. Their work was to testify of Christ as His witnesses, and their aim was to reach the ends of the earth—the fourth and fifth marks of a kingdom. But before they could begin, their first duty was to wait on God in united, unceasing prayer, and so we have the sixth mark of a kingdom.
If we are to take up the prayer of the disciples, it is essential to have a clear impression of all that Christ spoke to them in that last moment, and what it meant for their inner lives and service.