Wellum understands Jesus to be teaching in this passage that “Israel’s end time
152 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 140.
153 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 140.
154 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 140.
155 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 140–41. Bock cites James Scott’s chapter on Rom 11:26; see James M. Scott, Restoration: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 72 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 489–526. Scott includes a helpful summary of his exegetical conclusions regarding the crucial passage of Rom 11:26 (Scott, 524–26).
156 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 140–41.
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restoration is about to occur at Pentecost (Joel 2:28–32; Acts 2:14–21), starting in Jerusalem with Jewish believers and extending to Judea and Samaria (Acts 8, thus a reconstituted Israel) [emphasis added] and to the Gentile nations (Acts 10–11), thus creating a new humanity in Christ.”157 For Wellum, this is a prime example of “how Old Testament restoration promises for Israel are applied to the church in Christ.”158 The Spirit’s coming is tied to the Messiah’s arrival and the whole messianic age rooted in the new covenant—the head of which is Christ himself who is “the true Israel and last Adam,” the one who fulfills all the prior covenants, and applies the promises of God to the church.159
Bock puts forward a different understanding and finds fault with the PC view.160 The text features the disciples inquiring of Jesus if the current time is when he intends to restore the kingdom to Israel, and Jesus responds by telling the disciples the timing of this is not for them to know—only the Father. Bock argues that the disciples’
question and Jesus’s response is significant because nothing that Jesus says corrects the hope they had for promises to the nation presupposed in the question.161 Bock writes,
Many Jewish texts expected that Israel would be restored to a place of great blessing (Jer 16:15; 23:8; 31:27–34 [where the New Covenant is mentioned]; Ezekiel 34–37;
Isa 2:2–4; 49:6; Amos 9:11–15; Sir 48:10; Pss Sol. 17–18; 1 En 24–25; Tob 13–14;
Eighteen Benedictions 14).4 The question is a natural one for Jews. Luke 1–2 expressed this hope vividly (Luke 1:69–74; 2:25, 38).162
157 Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 762.
158 Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 761.
159 Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 761–62.
160 For Bock’s extended exegesis of the passage see Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53, 56–63.
161 Darrell L. Bock, “Progressive Dispensationalism,” in Parker and Lucas, Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies, 142–43.
162 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 141.
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In the Luke-Acts storyline neither the definition of Israel nor the expectations for Israel are changed, rather, the focus shifts to God’s eschatological work now centered in Christ.163 Bock avers, “Throughout Acts, Jesus is the blessing’s mediator. Throughout Acts, Israel’s role remains central to the hope of salvation, including the expectation of national restoration. Acts 10–15 works out this story as it extends into all the world.”164
Other problems exist with the PC, restoration-of-reconstituted-Israel understanding of this text. Many interpreters who disagree with a view like Bock’s, affirm that the disciples are operating with an errant expectation of a restored kingdom to Israel. Thomas Schreiner (a contributor to the edited volume Progressive Covenantalism), believes the disciples’ expectation is skewed because they still fail to comprehend the already-not-yet character of the kingdom that infused Jesus’s ministry, as well as not fully understanding Israel’s reconstitution and their resultant mission.165 Schreiner references Polhill’s commentary on Acts which is worth quoting at length:
It is not surprising from Jesus’ prior remarks about the coming of the Spirit and the fulfillment of God’s promises (v. 5) that the disciples concluded the final coming of God’s kingdom might have been imminent. In Jewish thought God’s promises often referred to the coming of Israel’s final salvation, and this concept is reflected
elsewhere in Acts (cf. 2:39; 13:23, 32; 26:6). Likewise, the outpouring of the Spirit had strong eschatological associations. Such passages as Joel 2:28–32 were
interpreted in nationalistic terms that saw a general outpouring of the Spirit on Israel as a mark of the final great messianic Day of the Lord when Israel would be
“restored” to the former glory of the days of David and Solomon.
Jesus corrected the disciples by directing them away from the question about
“times or dates” (v. 7). . . . In denying such knowledge to the disciples, the hope in the Parousia is not abandoned.26 If anything, it is intensified by the vivid picture of Jesus returning on the clouds of heaven in the same mode as his ascension (Acts 1:11). Neither did Jesus reject the concept of the “restoration of Israel.” Instead, he
“depoliticized it” with the call to a worldwide mission. The disciples were to be the true, “restored” Israel, fulfilling its mission to be a “light for the Gentiles” so that God’s salvation might reach “to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:6).166
163 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 141–42.
164 Bock, “Critique of Gentry and Wellum,” 142.`
165 Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ (Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 2008), 104.
166 John B. Polhill, Acts, New American Commentary, vol. 26 (Nashville: Broadman, 1992),
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In short, advocates of PC believe the disciples were mistaken in their expectation that there would be a national restoration of Israel’s kingdom—rather, “Israel’s” restoration would involve the church expanding to all nations through the proclamation of the gospel.
Michael Vlach raises important objections that apply to the PC view. Acts 1:3 indicates that central to Jesus’s forty days of post-resurrection instruction of the disciples is the topic of the kingdom of God. Is it reasonable to think that after Jesus’s tutelage, the disciples still misunderstood the nature of the kingdom and the nature of Israel’s role in it?167 Was Jesus ineffective as a teacher? He had already been able to enlighten the disciples to how the Scriptures pointed to him (cf. Luke 24:27).168 Understanding the disciples to be misguided in thinking that Israel would have a political and national role within the larger kingdom program of God involves either doubting their intelligence, or Jesus’s ability as a teacher, or both.169 In addition, why would Jesus not correct the disciples errant thinking? Vlach remarks, “Jesus often corrected erroneous thinking.
Would this not be the perfect time, just before His ascension, to calibrate an erroneous view? If He does not, He will ascend to heaven with His trusted disciples being misguided on a topic of great importance. But no correction occurs.” 170
In addition, Vlach points out that it is incorrect to conclude that Jesus’s statement in verse 1:8 regarding the disciples being his Sprit-filled gospel witnesses to the ends of the earth, entails a redefinition of the disciples’ kingdom expectations.171 To
84–86.
167 Michael J. Vlach, He Will Reign Forever (Silverton, OR: Lampion House, 2017), 404.
168 Vlach, He Will Reign Forever, 404.
169 Vlach, He Will Reign Forever, 404.
170 Vlach, He Will Reign Forever, 404–5.
171 Vlach, He Will Reign Forever, 406.
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illustrate, Vlach describes a father promising his sons that he has planned a camping trip for them, but when it happens will be a surprise:
One day the sons say, “dad are we going camping now?” The Father’s response is
“I’m not telling you when we are going. It’s a surprise. But what I want you to focus on now is doing your chores and schoolwork well.” The father’s statement is not a dodging of the question. Nor does it mean the camping trip is redefined to be chores and schoolwork. The father’s response is a statement that chores and schoolwork are to be their focus until the camping trip arrives. The same is true for the kingdom.
The apostles were to focus on the task at hand and the Father would determine the kingdom’s timing.172
The most natural reading of this passage is that Jesus does not wish to correct the disciples’ expectation of a future restoration of the nation of Israel in the kingdom (because that will occur, just at a future, undisclosed time), but he does desire to redirect their focus to the mission he has already charged them with to take the gospel of the kingdom to all nations (Matt 28:18–20).