Next came the twelve apostles, and took up the chain of testimony. Immediately after the resurrection they inquired of the Lord, "Wilt thou at this time restore again _the kingdom_ to Israel?" Their minds were filled with the thought of the kingdom. "We trusted," said the two disciples going to Emmaus, "that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." And so it was. The question was, _when_? The Lord does not rebuke the disciples for entertaining the thought of the kingdom; He simply tells them, "It is not for you to know _the times or the seasons_, which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be _witnesses_ unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth" (Acts i. 7, 8). Agreeably to this, the apostle Peter, in his address to Israel, offers them _the kingdom_. "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, and the times of refreshing shall come from the presence (απο προσωπου) of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." Have we here the development of the Church? No. The time had not yet arrived for this. The revelation of the Church was yet to be, as it were, forced out as something quite extraordinary--something quite out of the regular course of things. The Church as seen in the opening of the Acts exhibits but a sample of lovely grace and order, exquisite indeed in its way, but not anything beyond what man could take cognizance of and value. In a word, it was still the kingdom, and not the great mystery of the Church. Those who think that the opening chapters of Acts present the Church in its essential aspect have by no means reached the divine thought on the subject. Peter's vision in Acts x. is decidedly a step in advance of his preaching in chapter iii. Still, however, the grand truth of the heavenly mystery was not yet unfolded. In the council held at Jerusalem for the purpose of considering the question that had arisen in reference to the Gentiles, we find the apostles all agreeing with James in the following conclusion: "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things" (Acts. xv. 14-17). Here we are taught that the Gentiles, as such, are to have a place with the Jews in the kingdom.