All the Gospels contain instances of Jesus giving the Great Commission to His disciples, but evidently He did not just give it once. The contexts are different suggesting that He repeated these instructions on at least four separate occasions. This fact obviously reflects the importance of this instruction. The charge that Luke recorded here and in Acts 1:8 was apparently the last one that Jesus gave.526It occurred just before Jesus' ascension into heaven.
24:44 Jesus reminded the disciples that He had previously taught them that He would fulfill everything written about the Messiah in the Old Testament. The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms were the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible in Jesus' day. Fulfillment was a divine necessity (Gr. dei).
24:45-46 Then He proceeded to open their understanding (cf. v. 31) showing them first how He had done this so far (cf. v. 27). He explained how His sufferings and resurrection, the great psychological barriers to the Jews of Jesus' day, had fulfilled biblical prophecy. We have seen how the disciples failed to grasp these things as Jesus taught them before His passion. Luke again stressed the importance of Scripture in understanding God's program. As Jesus opened the Scriptures, God opened the disciples' minds.
24:47 Next Jesus proceeded to show them how the Old Testament also predicted that the gospel should go to everyone, all the nations or Gentiles, beginning from Jerusalem (e.g., Isa. 2:2-3; 42:6; 49:6; 60:3; Joel 2:1; Mic. 4:1-2). This was also teaching that the Jews of Jesus' day resisted strongly. The theme of Gentile evangelism is strong in Luke (Luke 10), and it carries over into Acts (Acts 10; et al.). Likewise Luke featured Jerusalem as Jesus' city of destiny throughout his Gospel. Now it was to become the hub from which the gospel would go out into all the world. Thus this verse is a kind of strait in which the main emphases in Luke converge and through which they pass to Acts. It is Luke's mission statement for the church.
24:48 Evangelism was a key motif in Luke's Gospel, and it, too, continues in Acts. The phrase "these things"evidently refers to the messianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. The disciples were witnesses to the fact that Messiah had come as predicted. The Scriptures predicting the evangelization of the nations could only attain fulfillment if the disciples bore witness. We see again the blending of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in Jesus' explanation.
When God created man, He gave him a cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28). Essentially this was to rule over the earth. This involves the advancement of civilization. This is the responsibility of every human being. When Jesus arose from the dead, He gave His disciples another mandate. Essentially this was to evangelize the world. This involves the advancement of Christianity. This is the responsibility of every Christian.
24:49 Having explained the disciples' responsibility, Jesus next announced what He would do. The promise of the Father refers to the Holy Spirit that God promised in the Old Testament to pour out on His people (Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 39:29; Joel 2:28-29; cf. John 14:16-17). These Old Testament prophecies are of an outpouring of the Spirit in the kingdom, as the contexts indicate, but a similar outpouring of the same Spirit came on Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5; 2:16). It was perhaps this promise of the Spirit's outpouring that led the disciples to view it as inaugurating the kingdom (Acts 1:6). Jesus corrected their misunderstanding (Acts 1:7).
Finally Jesus instructed the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until the Spirit clothed them (Acts 1:8). This was a common figure of the Spirit's enabling presence and power in the Old Testament (e.g., Num. 11:25, 29; Judg. 3:10; 14:19; 1 Sam. 11:6; et al.). This "power from the Most High"has been evident through this Gospel (e.g., 1:35; et al), and it is very evident in Acts as well.
". . . Jesus' words in Luke 24:46-49 not only provide a bridge to the early part of Acts but fit with a series of statements describing the missions of key characters, from the summary of John the Baptist's mission early in Luke to the summary of Paul's mission late in Acts."527
". . . Luke not only presented Jesus as the fulfillment of the Isaianic Servant, but also worded his version of the commission to depict the disciples as those who were to take up the Servant's mission after Jesus' departure."528
