When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Acts 1:6
Almost two thousand years have come and gone since the disciples asked that question. It came as the disciples met with the resurrected Saviour as He was preparing to leave them and return to Glory. He has already given them the assurance of the Holy Ghost to be with them. As they look back over the past three years, the disciples are naturally wondering what is to come next. They are convinced that the years of itinerant preaching and miracles are over, but what now? He has told them much about His coming kingdom over the past months and years, so they wonder if that is on the agenda. That made sense to them, with their limited grasp on future events. As we consider their question today, we can see how wrong they were and what a glorious part of God’s program they were missing.
The Lord Jesus is going to restore the kingdom, there is no doubt of that! But if He had restored the kingdom at the time the disciples were asking, you and I would have been left out of the program. The times of the Gentiles would have been truncated, and all of the great events of Christian history would have been cancelled. There would have been no missionary journeys by Paul, Barnabas, Silas and the other, and there would have been no other missionary work to spread the Gospel to the four corners of the world. The centuries of Christian testimony, failures and successes, and challenges that were foretold in the second and third chapters of Revelation and that have been lived out until our day would never have occurred. And the Old Testament prophecies of God’s blessings for the Gentiles would be unfulfilled. Yes, the disciples asked their question in sincerity, but they asked it in ignorance. And if we read the next several verses, we find the Lord Jesus answering their question by telling them that the Gospel is to be taken by them to the uttermost parts of the earth. So, no, the kingdom was not to be restored at that time. It was going to wait until after you and I were given an opportunity to enter into the blessings of Christ.
Make no mistake, the kingdom is going to come. The Old Testament is filled with promises and pictures of the kingdom. In fact, the age of Christianity that you and I occupy today is not even mentioned or hinted at in the Old Testament. This great valley of God’s reaching out to the Gentiles has already spanned a period of some two thousand years, a period that Old Testament seers were unable to see. How much longer must Israel wait for the kingdom? We don’t know. We just appreciate the opportunity given to us, and appreciate that we have entered in to something just as wonderful and blessed as the kingdom. We are thankful that the Lord Jesus did not restore the kingdom at the time his disciples asked about it. -Jim MacIntosh