(3) After his passion.--Literally, after He had suffered. The English somewhat anticipates the later special sense of "passion."

By many infallible proofs.--There is no adjective in the Greek answering to "infallible," but the noun is one which was used by writers on rhetoric (e.g., Aristotle, Rhet. i. 2) for proofs that carried certainty of conviction with them, as contrasted with those that were only probable or circumstantial. No other New Testament writer uses it.

Being seen of them forty days.--St. Luke uses a peculiar and unusual word (it occurs twice in the LXX.: 1Kings 8:8, and Tobit 12:19) for "being seen," perhaps with the wish to imply that the presence was not continuous, and that our Lord was seen only at intervals. This may be noted as the only passage which gives the time between the Resurrection and the Ascension. It had its counterpart in the forty days of the Temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:2), as that had had in the earlier histories of Moses (Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:9; Deuteronomy 9:18) and Elijah (1Kings 19:8). There was a certain symbolic fitness in the time of triumph on earth coinciding with that of special conflict. If we ask what was the character, if one may so speak, of our Lord's risen life between His manifestation to the disciples, the history of the earlier forty days in part suggests the answer. Then, as before, the life was, we may believe, one of solitude and communion with His Father, no longer tried and tempted, as it had then been, by contact with the power of evil--a life of intercession, such as that which uttered itself in the great prayer of John 17. Where the days and nights were spent we can only reverently conjecture. Analogy suggests the desert places and mountain heights or Galilee (Luke 4:42; Luke 6:12). The mention of Bethany in Luke 24:50, and of the Mount of Olives in Acts 1:12, makes it probable that Gethsemane may have been one of the scenes that witnessed the joy of the victory, as it had witnessed before the agony of the conflict.

The things pertaining to the kingdom of God.--This implies, it is obvious, much unrecorded teaching. What is recorded points (1) to the true interpretation of the prophecies of the Messiah (Luke 24:27; Luke 24:44-45); (2) to the extension of the mission of the disciples to the whole Gentile world, and their admission to the Kingdom by baptism (Matthew 28:19); (3) to the promises of supernatural powers and divine protection (Mark 16:15-18); (4) to that of His own perpetual presence with His Church (Matthew 28:20).

Verse 3. - Proofs for infallible proofs, A.V.; appearing unto them for seen of, A.V.; concerning for pertaining to, A.V. The addition of the words by many proofs makes it necessary to understand the words allowed himself (παρέστησεν ἑαυτόν) in the sense which it bears both in classic and Scriptural Greek, of proved or demon-strafed: "To whom he gave distinct proofs of his being alive after his passion;" the proofs follow - being "seen of them" for forty days at intervals, talking with them, and (ver. 9) "being taken up while they were looking." Doubtless, too, he had in his mind those other proofs which he records in Acts 10:41, and those referred to by St. Paul (1 Corinthians 15:5-8). For this sense of παρίστημι, see Acts 24:13, "to rove:" and Lysias's 'Oration against Eratosthenes' (p. 125), where the almost identical phrase occurs which we have here, Ἀμφότερα ταῦτα πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις παραστήσω, "I will prove both these things by many certain proofs." The A.V. rendering, "infallible proofs," was quite justified. Stephanus says, "De certo et indubitato signo dicitur apud Rhetoricos" ('Thesaurus,' 9216); and the technical meaning of τεκμήριον in Aristotle is a "demonstrative proof," as opposed to a σημεῖον, which leaves room for doubt; and in medical writers, which is important as regards St. Luke, the τεκμήριον is the "infallible symptom." St. Luke, by the use of the word here, undoubtedly meant to express the certainty of the conclusion based on those proofs. Appearing unto them. The Greek ὀπτανόμενος, corresponding to the φανερωθεὶς of the Epistle of Barnabas, cap. 15, only occurs in the New Testament in this place. In the Septuagint of 1 Kings 8:8 it is used of the staves of the ark within the veil, which "were not seen without." The idea intended to be conveyed, both by the use of this verb and by the use of διὰ (by the space of), is that our Lord was not with the apostles always, as he was before the Resurrection, but that he came and again disappeared (St. Chrysostom). They were fleeting appearances spread over forty days. The nearly related substantive, ὀπτασία, means "a vision," and is frequently used by St. Luke 1:22; Luke 24:23; 26:19. It is also found in 2 Corinthians 12:l. Concerning the kingdom of God; a subject which had deeply engaged their thoughts (Luke 19:11), and on which it was most needful that they should now be fully instructed, that they might teach others (Acts 20:25).

1:1-5 Our Lord told the disciples the work they were to do. The apostles met together at Jerusalem; Christ having ordered them not to depart thence, but to wait for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. This would be a baptism by the Holy Ghost, giving them power to work miracles, and enlightening and sanctifying their souls. This confirms the Divine promise, and encourages us to depend upon it, that we have heard it from Christ; for in Him all the promises of God are yea and amen.To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion,.... That is, after his sufferings and death; for that he suffered many things, and at last death itself, is certain from the acknowledgment of the Jews themselves, who own, that they put him to death on the passover eve (d); as well as from the accounts of the evangelists; and from the soldiers not breaking his legs, when the rest that were crucified with him were broken, because he was already dead; and from his "ricardium" being pierced with a spear, from whence blood and water sprung, after which it was impossible he should be alive; and from the testimony of the centurion who watched him, to whom Pilate sent to know if he was dead, and how long he had been dead; and from his being buried, and lying in the grave so long as he did: and yet after, and not withstanding this, "he showed himself alive"; he raised himself from the dead, and hereby declared himself to be the Son of God with power, which cannot be said of others; there were others that were alive after death, but not by their own power; as the widow of Sarepta's son, the daughter of Jairus, Lazarus, and the widow of Nain's son; but these did not "show themselves alive", as Christ did, who appeared often to his apostles: for after he had first appeared to Mary Magdalene, he showed himself to the two disciples going to Emmaus; then to ten of them, Thomas being absent; after that to them all, Thomas being present, when he convinced him of the truth of his resurrection; after that he appeared to seven of the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and then to all the apostles; and to five hundred brethren at once on a mountain in Galilee; and once to James alone, and to them all again when he was parted from them and went up to heaven; and so they must be proper and sufficient witnesses of his resurrection: and this evidence of his being alive, he gave to them, by many infallible proofs; or by many signs and tokens, and which were most sure and unquestionable arguments of his being alive; as his eating and drinking with them, walking and talking with them in a free and familiar manner, showing them his hands and his feet, and side, that they might see the scars which the nails and spear had made; and which were not only a proof that he was risen again, but risen again in the same body in which he suffered; and that they might feel and handle him, and know that he was not a spirit, a phantom, a mere apparition, but was really risen and alive: being seen of them forty days; not that he was seen by them for forty days together continually, but at certain times, within the space of forty days; for between his first and last appearance, many others intervening, such a length of time run out; so that it was not a single and sudden appearance that surprised them; but there were many of them, and a distance between them, and this for a considerable term of time; hence they had opportunity of reflecting upon these appearances, and of satisfying themselves of the truth of things. This number of "forty days" is a remarkable one in Scripture. The flood was forty days upon the earth; and so long Moses was in the mount with God; such a number of days the spies were searching the land of Canaan; so many days Goliath presented himself to the armies of Israel; and so long a time Elijah went in the strength of the meat the angel provided for him; and for such a length of time the prophet Ezekiel was to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; and such a term of time was given out by Jonah for the destruction of Nineveh; and so many days Christ fasted, and was tempted in the wilderness. The Jews pretend (e), that forty days before Jesus was put to death he was led forth, and a crier went before him, declaring, that whoever would, had liberty to testify to his innocence if they could, but no man appeared for him: but this is false; the truth of the matter is, that for forty days after his resurrection he showed himself to his disciples, and by proving the truth of his resurrection, he proved his own innocence and uprightness. If the testimony of Rabbenu Hakadosh, as cited by Galatinus, could be depended on, the Jews had a notion of this forty days' conversation of the Messiah with his disciples, after his resurrection; who say (f),

"the Messiah, after his resurrection, shall converse with the righteous, and they shall hear his precepts "forty days", answerable to those forty days in which he shall be in the wilderness to afflict his soul, before they shall kill him; and these being finished, he shall ascend to heaven, and sit at the right hand of God, as it is said, Psalm 110:1.

But this seems rather to be the pious fraud of some Christian, than the words of a Jew: however, they do say (g), that "the days of the Messiah are "forty days", as it is said, Psalm 95:10 "forty years long was I grieved"; or, as they interpret it, "shall I be grieved with this generation":

intimating, that the generation of the Messiah, and of the wilderness, would be much alike, and equally grieving to God, and reckoning a day for a year, as the Lord did with that generation, Numbers 14:33. These forty days Christ was with his disciples, may be an emblem of the forty years which were to run out from his death, to his coming again to take vengeance on the Jewish nation; for so long time was there from thence to the destruction of Jerusalem. And Christ was not only seen of the disciples at certain seasons during this space of time, but he was also heard by them: for it follows,

and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God; the kingdom of the Messiah, the Gospel dispensation; concerning the doctrines of the Gospel they were to preach, and the ordinances of it they were to administer; concerning the church of God, the nature, order, and officers of it, and the laws and rules by which it should be governed; concerning the kingdom of grace, what it consists of, and wherein it lies; and of the kingdom of glory, of meetness for it, his own grace, and of the right unto it, his own justifying righteousness: some of these things they might have before but very little knowledge of; and may be these are the things he had to say to them, and which, till now, they could not bear; and being no more to be with them in person, he instructs them in them,

(d) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 43. 1.((e) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 43. 1.((f) Gale Razeya apud Galatin. de Arcan. Cathol. ver. l. 8. c. 23. (g) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 99. 1.