The Forty Days Between the Resurrection and the Ascension

I have recently been confronted with several references to the forty days of teaching that the disciples were privileged to receive from their Lord in the days between His resurrection and ascension. What was it that He taught them in those days? Was there new revelation from what they had already known? Was there a progressive enlightening of their minds? If so, what was the precise nature of this revelation? There have been several attempts by theologians to answer this question in a manner that is faithful to Scripture. Two books in particular that give intriguing answers come to mind: Jus Divinum by The Presbyterian Divines of Westminster and  T.V. Moore’s The Last Days According to Jesus.

In the second chapter of Jus Divinum, the authors appeal to the idea of the binding examples in Scripture to help establish the doctrine of church government. In the course of their defense of the biblical example of church government, they insist that the apostles must have received from Christ some instruction concerning the precise form of church government that He wished His church to observe throughout future generations. They put it in the following manner:

In the very front of the Acts it is said, that Christ after His resurrection (and before His ascension) gave commandments to the Apostles and spake of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God Acts 1:2,3, & etc. viz. of the politie of the church some say. Of the Kingdom of grace say others. Judicious Calvin interprets it partly of church government, saying, “Luke admonisheth us that Christ did not so depart out of the world, as to cast off all care of us. For by this doctrine he shows that he hath constituteth a perpetual government in His church. Therefore Luke signifies, that Christ departed not, before He had provided for their Church government.”1

T. M. Moore (a 19th century Southern Presbyterian) approached the forty days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, in the following manner:

This is hardly a leading doctrine in the Christian system that was not in some sense brought forward during these memorable interviews. There is hardly a phase of Christian experience that is not brought into review in the words spoken by our Lord during this remarkable period. It was, therefore, to the apostles a period of training, that fitted them eminently for the great work to which they were called in preaching the gospel to all nations. Like the forty days that preceded the public ministry of the Lord, it was designed and adapted in an eminent degree to furnish preparation for the  new manifestation of the kingdom then to be made.2

1. Jus Divinum (London: Printed by J.Y. for Joseph Hunscot, 1647) p. 14

2. T. V. Moore Last Days of Jesus (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1858) pp. 298-299