The Acts of the Apostles are divided essentially into three parts-chapters
1, 2 to 12; and 13 to the end. Chapters 11, 12 may be termed transitional
chapters founded on the event related in chapter 10. Chapter 1 gives us
that which is connected with the Lord's resurrection; chapters 2-12 that
work of the Holy Ghost of which Jerusalem and the Jews were the centre, but
which branches out into the free action of the Spirit of God, independent
of, but not separated from, the twelve and Jerusalem as the centre; chapter
13, and the succeeding chapters, the work of Paul, flowing from a more
distinct mission from Antioch; chapter 15 connecting the two in order to
preserve unity in the whole course. We have indeed the admission of
Gentiles in the second part, but it is in connection with the work going on
among the Jews. These latter had rejected the witness of the Holy Ghost to
a glorified Christ, as they had rejected the Son of God in His humiliation;
and God prepared a work outside them, in which the apostle of the Gentiles
laid foundations that annulled the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and
which unite them-as in themselves equally dead in trespasses and sins-to
Christ, the Head of His body, the assembly, in heaven. [see note #1]