Bestowal of the Spirit of Truth

194:3.1Many queer and strange teach­ings be­came as­so­ci­ated with the early nar­ra­tives of the day of Pen­te­cost. In sub­se­quent times the events of this day, on which the Spirit of Truth, the new teacher, came to dwell with man­kind, have be­come con­fused with the fool­ish out­breaks of ram­pant emo­tion­al­ism. The chief mis­sion of this out­poured spirit of the Fa­ther and the Son is to teach men about the truths of the Fa­ther’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of di­vin­ity which men can com­pre­hend more fully than all the other di­vine traits of char­ac­ter. The Spirit of Truth is con­cerned pri­mar­ily with the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther’s spirit na­ture and the Son’s moral char­ac­ter. The Cre­ator Son, in the flesh, re­vealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, re­veals the Cre­ator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the spirit” in his life, he is sim­ply show­ing forth the traits which the Mas­ter man­i­fested in his own earthly life. When Je­sus was on earth, he lived his life as one per­son­al­ity—Je­sus of Naz­a­reth. As the in­dwelling spirit of the “new teacher,” the Mas­ter has, since Pen­te­cost, been able to live his life anew in the ex­pe­ri­ence of ev­ery truth-taught be­liever.

194:3.2Many things which hap­pen in the course of a hu­man life are hard to un­der­stand, dif­fi­cult to rec­on­cile with the idea that this is a uni­verse in which truth pre­vails and in which righ­teous­ness tri­umphs. It so of­ten ap­pears that slan­der, lies, dis­hon­esty, and un­righ­teous­ness—sin—pre­vail. Does faith, af­ter all, tri­umph over evil, sin, and in­iq­uity? It does. And the life and death of Je­sus are the eter­nal proof that the truth of good­ness and the faith of the spirit-led crea­ture will al­ways be vin­di­cated. They taunted Je­sus on the cross, say­ing, “Let us see if God will come and de­liver him.” It looked dark on that day of the cru­ci­fix­ion, but it was glo­ri­ously bright on the res­ur­rec­tion morn­ing; it was still brighter and more joy­ous on the day of Pen­te­cost. The re­li­gions of pes­simistic de­spair seek to ob­tain re­lease from the bur­dens of life; they crave ex­tinc­tion in end­less slum­ber and rest. These are the re­li­gions of prim­i­tive fear and dread. The re­li­gion of Je­sus is a new gospel of faith to be pro­claimed to strug­gling hu­man­ity. This new re­li­gion is founded on faith, hope, and love.

194:3.3To Je­sus, mor­tal life had dealt its hard­est, cru­elest, and bit­ter­est blows; and this man met these min­is­tra­tions of de­spair with faith, cour­age, and the unswerv­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion to do his Fa­ther’s will. Je­sus met life in all its ter­ri­ble re­al­ity and mas­tered it—even in death. He did not use re­li­gion as a re­lease from life. The re­li­gion of Je­sus does not seek to es­cape this life in or­der to en­joy the wait­ing bliss of an­other ex­is­tence. The re­li­gion of Je­sus pro­vides the joy and peace of an­other and spir­i­tual ex­is­tence to en­hance and en­no­ble the life which men now live in the flesh.

194:3.4If re­li­gion is an opi­ate to the peo­ple, it is not the re­li­gion of Je­sus. On the cross he re­fused to drink the dead­en­ing drug, and his spirit, poured out upon all flesh, is a mighty world in­flu­ence which leads man up­ward and urges him on­ward. The spir­i­tual for­ward urge is the most pow­er­ful driv­ing force pres­ent in this world; the truth-learn­ing be­liever is the one pro­gres­sive and ag­gres­sive soul on earth.

194:3.5On the day of Pen­te­cost the re­li­gion of Je­sus broke all na­tional re­stric­tions and racial fet­ters. It is for­ever true, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is lib­erty.” On this day the Spirit of Truth be­came the per­sonal gift from the Mas­ter to ev­ery mor­tal. This spirit was be­stowed for the pur­pose of qual­i­fy­ing be­liev­ers more ef­fec­tively to preach the gospel of the king­dom, but they mis­took the ex­pe­ri­ence of re­ceiv­ing the out­poured spirit for a part of the new gospel which they were un­con­sciously for­mu­lat­ing.

194:3.6Do not over­look the fact that the Spirit of Truth was be­stowed upon all sin­cere be­liev­ers; this gift of the spirit did not come only to the apos­tles. The one hun­dred and twenty men and women as­sem­bled in the up­per cham­ber all re­ceived the new teacher, as did all the hon­est of heart through­out the whole world. This new teacher was be­stowed upon man­kind, and ev­ery soul re­ceived him in ac­cor­dance with the love for truth and the ca­pac­ity to grasp and com­pre­hend spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties. At last, true re­li­gion is de­liv­ered from the cus­tody of priests and all sa­cred classes and finds its real man­i­fes­ta­tion in the in­di­vid­ual souls of men.

194:3.7The re­li­gion of Je­sus fos­ters the high­est type of hu­man civ­i­liza­tion in that it cre­ates the high­est type of spir­i­tual per­son­al­ity and pro­claims the sa­cred­ness of that per­son.

194:3.8The com­ing of the Spirit of Truth on Pen­te­cost made pos­si­ble a re­li­gion which is nei­ther rad­i­cal nor con­ser­va­tive; it is nei­ther the old nor the new; it is to be dom­i­nated nei­ther by the old nor the young. The fact of Je­sus’ earthly life pro­vides a fixed point for the an­chor of time, while the be­stowal of the Spirit of Truth pro­vides for the ev­er­last­ing ex­pan­sion and end­less growth of the re­li­gion which he lived and the gospel which he pro­claimed. The spirit guides into all truth; he is the teacher of an ex­pand­ing and al­ways-grow­ing re­li­gion of end­less prog­ress and di­vine un­fold­ing. This new teacher will be for­ever un­fold­ing to the truth-seek­ing be­liever that which was so di­vinely folded up in the per­son and na­ture of the Son of Man.

194:3.9The man­i­fes­ta­tions as­so­ci­ated with the be­stowal of the “new teacher,” and the re­cep­tion of the apos­tles’ preach­ing by the men of var­i­ous races and na­tions gath­ered to­gether at Je­ru­sa­lem, in­di­cate the uni­ver­sal­ity of the re­li­gion of Je­sus. The gospel of the king­dom was to be iden­ti­fied with no par­tic­u­lar race, cul­ture, or lan­guage. This day of Pen­te­cost wit­nessed the great ef­fort of the spirit to lib­er­ate the re­li­gion of Je­sus from its in­her­ited Jew­ish fet­ters. Even af­ter this dem­on­stra­tion of pour­ing out the spirit upon all flesh, the apos­tles at first en­deav­ored to im­pose the re­quire­ments of Ju­daism upon their con­verts. Even Paul had trou­ble with his Je­ru­sa­lem breth­ren be­cause he re­fused to sub­ject the gen­tiles to these Jew­ish prac­tices. No re­vealed re­li­gion can spread to all the world when it makes the se­ri­ous mis­take of be­com­ing per­me­ated with some na­tional cul­ture or as­so­ci­ated with es­tab­lished racial, so­cial, or eco­nomic prac­tices.

194:3.10The be­stowal of the Spirit of Truth was in­de­pen­dent of all forms, cer­e­monies, sa­cred places, and spe­cial be­hav­ior by those who re­ceived the full­ness of its man­i­fes­ta­tion. When the spirit came upon those as­sem­bled in the up­per cham­ber, they were sim­ply sit­ting there, hav­ing just been en­gaged in silent prayer. The spirit was be­stowed in the coun­try as well as in the city. It was not nec­es­sary for the apos­tles to go apart to a lonely place for years of soli­tary med­i­ta­tion in or­der to re­ceive the spirit. For all time, Pen­te­cost dis­as­so­ci­ates the idea of spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence from the no­tion of es­pe­cially fa­vor­able en­vi­ron­ments.

194:3.11Pen­te­cost, with its spir­i­tual en­dow­ment, was de­signed for­ever to loose the re­li­gion of the Mas­ter from all de­pen­dence upon phys­i­cal force; the teach­ers of this new re­li­gion are now equipped with spir­i­tual weapons. They are to go out to con­quer the world with un­fail­ing for­give­ness, match­less good will, and abound­ing love. They are equipped to over­come evil with good, to van­quish hate by love, to de­stroy fear with a coura­geous and liv­ing faith in truth. Je­sus had al­ready taught his fol­low­ers that his re­li­gion was never pas­sive; al­ways were his dis­ci­ples to be ac­tive and pos­i­tive in their min­istry of mercy and in their man­i­fes­ta­tions of love. No longer did these be­liev­ers look upon Yah­weh as “the Lord of Hosts.” They now re­garded the eter­nal De­ity as the “God and Fa­ther of the Lord Je­sus Christ.” They made that prog­ress, at least, even if they did in some mea­sure fail fully to grasp the truth that God is also the spir­i­tual Fa­ther of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual.

194:3.12Pen­te­cost en­dowed mor­tal man with the power to for­give per­sonal in­juries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest in­jus­tice, to re­main un­moved in the face of ap­palling dan­ger, and to chal­lenge the evils of hate and anger by the fear­less acts of love and for­bear­ance. Uran­tia has passed through the rav­ages of great and de­struc­tive wars in its his­tory. All par­tic­i­pants in these ter­ri­ble strug­gles met with de­feat. There was but one vic­tor; there was only one who came out of these em­bit­tered strug­gles with an en­hanced rep­u­ta­tion—that was Je­sus of Naz­a­reth and his gospel of over­com­ing evil with good. The se­cret of a bet­ter civ­i­liza­tion is bound up in the Mas­ter’s teach­ings of the broth­er­hood of man, the good will of love and mu­tual trust.

194:3.13Up to Pen­te­cost, re­li­gion had re­vealed only man seek­ing for God; since Pen­te­cost, man is still search­ing for God, but there shines out over the world the spec­ta­cle of God also seek­ing for man and send­ing his spirit to dwell within him when he has found him.

194:3.14Be­fore the teach­ings of Je­sus which cul­mi­nated in Pen­te­cost, women had lit­tle or no spir­i­tual stand­ing in the tenets of the older re­li­gions. Af­ter Pen­te­cost, in the broth­er­hood of the king­dom woman stood be­fore God on an equal­ity with man. Among the one hun­dred and twenty who re­ceived this spe­cial vis­i­ta­tion of the spirit were many of the women dis­ci­ples, and they shared these bless­ings equally with the men be­liev­ers. No longer can man pre­sume to mo­nop­o­lize the min­istry of re­li­gious ser­vice. The Phar­isee might go on thank­ing God that he was “not born a woman, a leper, or a gen­tile,” but among the fol­low­ers of Je­sus woman has been for­ever set free from all re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tions based on sex. Pen­te­cost oblit­er­ated all re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion founded on racial dis­tinc­tion, cul­tural dif­fer­ences, so­cial caste, or sex prej­u­dice. No won­der these be­liev­ers in the new re­li­gion would cry out, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is lib­erty.”

194:3.15Both the mother and brother of Je­sus were pres­ent among the one hun­dred and twenty be­liev­ers, and as mem­bers of this com­mon group of dis­ci­ples, they also re­ceived the out­poured spirit. They re­ceived no more of the good gift than did their fel­lows. No spe­cial gift was be­stowed upon the mem­bers of Je­sus’ earthly fam­ily. Pen­te­cost marked the end of spe­cial priest­hoods and all be­lief in sa­cred fam­i­lies.

194:3.16Be­fore Pen­te­cost the apos­tles had given up much for Je­sus. They had sac­ri­ficed their homes, fam­i­lies, friends, worldly goods, and po­si­tions. At Pen­te­cost they gave them­selves to God, and the Fa­ther and the Son re­sponded by giv­ing them­selves to man—send­ing their spir­its to live within men. This ex­pe­ri­ence of los­ing self and find­ing the spirit was not one of emo­tion; it was an act of in­tel­li­gent self-sur­ren­der and un­re­served con­se­cra­tion.

194:3.17Pen­te­cost was the call to spir­i­tual unity among gospel be­liev­ers. When the spirit de­scended on the dis­ci­ples at Je­ru­sa­lem, the same thing hap­pened in Phil­a­del­phia, Alexan­dria, and at all other places where true be­liev­ers dwelt. It was lit­er­ally true that “there was but one heart and soul among the mul­ti­tude of the be­liev­ers.” The re­li­gion of Je­sus is the most pow­er­ful uni­fy­ing in­flu­ence the world has ever known.

194:3.18Pen­te­cost was de­signed to lessen the self-as­sertive­ness of in­di­vid­u­als, groups, na­tions, and races. It is this spirit of self-as­sertive­ness which so in­creases in ten­sion that it pe­ri­od­i­cally breaks loose in de­struc­tive wars. Man­kind can be uni­fied only by the spir­i­tual ap­proach, and the Spirit of Truth is a world in­flu­ence which is uni­ver­sal.

194:3.19The com­ing of the Spirit of Truth pu­ri­fies the hu­man heart and leads the re­cip­i­ent to for­mu­late a life pur­pose sin­gle to the will of God and the wel­fare of men. The ma­te­rial spirit of self­ish­ness has been swal­lowed up in this new spir­i­tual be­stowal of self­less­ness. Pen­te­cost, then and now, sig­ni­fies that the Je­sus of his­tory has be­come the di­vine Son of liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. The joy of this out­poured spirit, when it is con­sciously ex­pe­ri­enced in hu­man life, is a tonic for health, a stim­u­lus for mind, and an un­fail­ing en­ergy for the soul.

194:3.20Prayer did not bring the spirit on the day of Pen­te­cost, but it did have much to do with de­ter­min­ing the ca­pac­ity of re­cep­tiv­ity which char­ac­ter­ized the in­di­vid­ual be­liev­ers. Prayer does not move the di­vine heart to lib­er­al­ity of be­stowal, but it does so of­ten dig out larger and deeper chan­nels wherein the di­vine be­stowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus re­mem­ber to main­tain un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with their Maker through sin­cere prayer and true wor­ship.