Until the day in which he was taken up. — We notice, as a matter of style, the same periodic structure that we found in the opening of the Gospel, made more conspicuous in the Greek by an arrangement of the words which places “he was taken up” at the close of the sentence. On the word “taken up,” see Note on Luke 9:51.
That he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments. — The words admit of two possible meanings — (1) that he work of “commanding” was left to the Holy Spirit, guiding the spirits of the disciples into all the truth; (2) that in His human nature the Lord Jesus, after, as before, His passion, spoke as one who was “filled with the Holy Ghost” (Luke 4:1), to whom the Father had given the Spirit not by measure (John 3:34). As the Apostles were still waiting for the promised gift, the latter aspect of the words is, we can scarcely doubt, that which was intended by the writer.