Acts 1:6 and the Apostles’ Ignorance About the Kingdom

Prophetic models and their underlying assumptions influence how we interpret Scripture. The atheist Bertrand Russell believed Jesus taught his coming, the end of history, and the kingdom’s arrival would occur simultaneously. Further, he believed Jesus said they would happen in his generation based on passages like Matt 16:27–28; 24:1–3, 34. Russell rejected Christianity because these events—as he conceived of them—did not happen in the timeframe Jesus specified. He believed Jesus and the apostles erred regarding prophecy.

Conservative Christians sometimes charge Jesus and the apostles with error for the same reason. Thomas R. Schreiner, for example, says, “Paul believed Jesus would return soon, and history would come to an end.”¹ He says the Apostle’s letters reflect this mistaken belief. Schreiner’s prophetic model causes him to make such statements.

The importance of prophetic models to our understanding of Acts is clear from the start. Luke’s prologue² establishes the kingdom as the theme of the book. Jesus gives commandments to his disciples “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). 

Another statement in Luke’s closing scene reinforces this theme. There, Paul is speaking with the Jews in Rome, “preaching the kingdom of God” (Acts 28:31). The kingdom of God is the controlling narrative in Acts.

Immediately after the prologue, Luke records a question by the apostles: “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Most commentators say this question shows the apostles’ ignorance regarding either the nature of the kingdom or its timing or both. These conclusions arise from assumptions built into the writer’s prophetic model. Let’s examine a few examples.

Historic Premillennialism and Acts 1:6

Brock D. Hollett once held an orthodox preterist view of prophecy, similar to inmillennialism. Over time, he migrated to an unorthodox hyper-preterist view. After repenting of this erroneous view, he adopted historic premillennialism.³ This prophetic perspective led him to certain conclusions about the apostles’ question in Acts 1:6. He explains them in his book Debunking Preterism:

If the Olivet Prophecy is about the permanent desolation of the Jewish kingdom in AD 70, the reader must wonder why Jesus’ disciples later asked him if he was going to immediately “restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1: 6). Preterists would have us believe that the disciples misunderstood the very foundation of the Lord’s teaching about “the kingdom of God” after they had spent more than three years learning about it from his own lips, proclaiming its message, and hearing him teaching about it for an additional forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3)!…⁴ The apostles were not confused about the Master’s teaching regarding the nature of God’s kingdom, and they correctly understood the Old Testament prophecies concerning the final restoration of Israel’s kingdom. Their question in Acts 1:6 … indicates that they were ignorant of the timing of the kingdom being restored to Israel.⁵ 

George Eldon Ladd, another historic premillennialist, explains the nature of the kingdom’s restoration. He says, 

The day will come when “all Israel,” the vast majority of living Jews, will be saved.” [But,] Israel must be saved in the same way as the church—by turning in faith to Jesus as their Messiah (Rom. 11:23), and the blessings which Israel will experience are blessings in Christ—the same blessings which the church has experienced.⁶

In this view, the apostles understood the kingdom’s nature, but, they asked an uninformed question about its timing.

Dispensational Premillennialism and Acts 1:6

G. Campbell Morgan held the dispensational premillennial view on Israel and the church until near the end of his life. In 1943 he wrote, “I am quite convinced that all the promises made to Israel are found, are finding and will find their perfect fulfillment in the church. It is true that in time past … I gave a definite place to Israel in the purposes of God. I have now come to the conviction … that it is the new and spiritual Israel that is intended.”⁷

In 1924, while still a dispensationalist, Morgan wrote the following about the disciples’ question in Acts 1:6:

 Christ rebuked, not their conception that the kingdom is to be restored to Israel—for that He never rebuked—but their desire to know when it would take place.… A popular interpretation of this is that Christ said to them: “There is to be no restoration of the kingdom to Israel.” Christ did not say so. What He did say was: It is not for you to know the times or seasons.… [The apostles] were absolutely ignorant of the next step in the programme of God.⁸

John MacArthur, a dispensationalist, says, “Jesus’ reply in Acts 1 is no rebuke for thinking the kingdom would be a literal, earthly one.… He tacitly affirmed that His kingdom would indeed be established on earth, but not according to their timetable.”⁹

Dispensationalism teaches the apostles knew the nature of the kingdom—it would be a theocratic kingdom like that of David and Solomon.¹⁰ However, they were ignorant of its timing.

Amillennialism and Acts 1:6

Amillennialists say the apostles had an erroneous view of the kingdom when they asked their question. Sam Storms, for example, quotes O. Palmer Robertson with approval: “The fact that they spoke of its being ‘restored to Israel’ indicates that they were thinking of it as a national entity with its center located in Jerusalem and its domain encompassing the land of their fathers.”¹¹ Jesus intended to “restore Israel, but by a means and in a way that they cannot begin to imagine.”

J. W. McGarvey, another amillennialist, states two facts:

First, the apostles still misconceived the nature of Christ’s kingdom; second, that the kingdom was not yet established.… Their misconception consisted in the expectation that Christ would reestablish the earthly kingdom of Israel, and restore it to its ancient glory, under its own personal reign. In his reply, the Savior does not undertake to correct this misconception, but leaves it as a part of that work of enlightenment yet to be effected by the Holy Spirit.¹²

Amillennialists believe Jesus did not correct the apostles’ mistake about the nature of the kingdom but still answered their when question. Storms says the disciples “had asked specifically ‘when’ [the kingdom’s] restoration would occur.… He told them in Acts 1:5b that the Spirit would come ‘not many days from now.’”¹³

McGarvey says, “The time at which the kingdom of Christ was inaugurated is the point of transition from the preparatory dispensation, many elements of which were but temporary, into the present everlasting dispensation.”¹⁴

 In this view, the apostles were wrong about the nature of the kingdom. Their when question was, therefore, irrelevant. Jesus addressed it anyway and ignored their error.

Postmillennialism and Acts 1:6

Postmillennialism has an advantage over the above systems. It teaches the church will make disciples of all nations, including ethnic Israel, during the messianic age. This clears the apostles of error regarding the kingdom’s nature. David Brown observes the following about Christ’s words to the apostles:

The spirit of [Acts 1:6–8] is worthy of notice. While not discouraging the hope of an eventual restoration of the kingdom to Israel, in some sense at least, he represses all expectation of it in their own day, teaching them that, on his departure, they would have other work on hand, with which it would rather become them to take up their attention.¹⁵

Later, Brown says Acts 1:6–7 teaches “a general conversion of the natural Israel.”¹⁶

Postmillennialism teaches the apostles understood the nature of the kingdom—it is the spiritual reign of Christ in the messianic age. Toward its latter end, the Jewish nation will come into it on the same terms as the other nations. As to time, the apostles were wrong to expect this ingathering in their day.

Inmillennialism and Acts 1:6

Inmillennialism allows the apostles to be correct about both the nature of the kingdom and its timing. It teaches that the kingdom is the spiritual reign of Christ over his people in his churches.¹⁷ That kingdom came in the apostles’ generation. In it, Jesus will reign until he overcomes all his enemies (1 Cor 15:25). The church will “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:18–20). In this way, God has fulfilled all his promises to Israel, now defined as those with Abraham’s faith (cf. Rom 4:9–16; 2 Cor 1:20). This is how God has restored the kingdom to Israel.

Hollett’s words above bear repeating: the apostles “had spent more than three years learning about it from his own lips, proclaiming its message, and hearing him teaching about it for an additional forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3).”¹⁸ To charge them with error in Acts 1:6 is a serious matter.

Regarding their knowledge of the nature of the kingdom, we offer the following additional observations. When the apostles asked their question in Acts 1:6, they

1. Had already preached the kingdom knowing the Son of Man would come before they finished going over the cities of Israel (Matt 10:7, 23)
2. Knew the kingdom would come without observation (Luke 17:20–21)
3. Possessed the keys of the kingdom (Matt 16:19)
4. Knew no one could see the kingdom without the new birth (John 3:3).

If they were ignorant about the kingdom’s nature, how could they have preached it, or used its keys? If they knew it would come “without observation” and that a spiritual birth was necessary to enter it, how could they not have understood it was the spiritual reign of Christ over his people?

As to timing, the apostles 

1. Knew men were already taking the kingdom by force (Matt 11:12; Luke 16:16)
2. Knew the Son of Man would come in his kingdom before some of them died (Matt 16:27–28)
3. Had heard Jesus—in the Olivet Discourse just forty-five days earlier—say he would return in their generation to end the Mosaic age (Matt 24:1–3, 34). They knew the “day and hour” of Jesus’ coming was unknown (Matt 24:36).

So, the apostles were asking a legitimate timing question. They knew the kingdom would come in their generation. They wanted to know if it would come when God poured out the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4–5). Jesus’s response was consistent with what he had told them in the Olivet Discourse.

Conclusion

Acts 1:6 allows us to see how prophetic paradigms affect our understanding of Scripture. Each of the four major models—historic premillennialism, dispensational premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism—suggests the apostles were ignorant about either the nature of the kingdom or its timing. Inmillennialism says they were well-informed on both counts.

1. Thomas R. Schreiner, Spiritual Gifts: What They Are & Why They Matter (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2018), 150.
2. See, for example, the pericope heading in The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Acts 1:1–3.
3. Hollett documents his journey in Debunking Preterism: How Over-Realized Eschatology Misses the “Not Yet” of Bible Prophecy (Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2018), 242–44.
4. We will see below that inmillennialism avoids this conclusion.
5. Hollett, Debunking Preterism, 233.
6. George Eldon Ladd, The Last Things: An Eschatology for Laymen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 25. Emphais in original.
7. “G. Campbell Morgan,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Campbell_Morgan.
8. G. Campbell Morgan, The Acts of the Apostles (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924), 20.
9. John MacArthur, The Second Coming: Signs of Christ’s Return and the End of the Age (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 225.
10. The image in this post is Solomon at his throne, by Andreas Brugger (1777). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
11. Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (Fearn, Scotland: Mentor, 2013), 284-85. The quote is from O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2000), 130.
12. J. W. McGarvey, A Commentary on Acts of Apostles (Cincinnati: Wrightson & Co., 1863), 12.
13. Storms, Kingdom Come, 285.
14. McGarvey, Acts of Apostles, 12.
15. David Brown, Christ’s Second Coming: Will it be Premillennial?, 7th ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1882; repr., Rosemead, CA: The Old Paths Book Club, 1953), 36.
16. Brown, Second Coming, 406.
17. We discussed this definition here.
18. Hollett, Debunking Preterism, 233.