Bestowal of the Spirit of Truth

194:4.1When Je­sus was so sud­denly seized by his en­e­mies and so quickly cru­ci­fied be­tween two thieves, his apos­tles and dis­ci­ples were com­pletely de­mor­al­ized. The thought of the Mas­ter, ar­rested, bound, scourged, and cru­ci­fied, was too much for even the apos­tles. They for­got his teach­ings and his warn­ings. He might, in­deed, have been “a prophet mighty in deed and word be­fore God and all the peo­ple,” but he could hardly be the Mes­siah they had hoped would re­store the king­dom of Is­rael.

194:4.2Then comes the res­ur­rec­tion, with its de­liv­er­ance from de­spair and the re­turn of their faith in the Mas­ter’s di­vin­ity. Again and again they see him and talk with him, and he takes them out on Oli­vet, where he bids them farewell and tells them he is go­ing back to the Fa­ther. He has told them to tarry in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til they are en­dowed with power—un­til the Spirit of Truth shall come. And on the day of Pen­te­cost this new teacher comes, and they go out at once to preach their gospel with new power. They are the bold and coura­geous fol­low­ers of a liv­ing Lord, not a dead and de­feated leader. The Mas­ter lives in the hearts of these evan­ge­lists; God is not a doc­trine in their minds; he has be­come a liv­ing pres­ence in their souls.

194:4.3“Day by day they con­tin­ued stead­fastly and with one ac­cord in the tem­ple and break­ing bread at home. They took their food with glad­ness and sin­gle­ness of heart, prais­ing God and hav­ing fa­vor with all the peo­ple. They were all filled with the spirit, and they spoke the word of God with bold­ness. And the mul­ti­tudes of those who be­lieved were of one heart and soul; and not one of them said that aught of the things which he pos­sessed was his own, and they had all things in com­mon.”

194:4.4What has hap­pened to these men whom Je­sus had or­dained to go forth preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom, the fa­ther­hood of God and the broth­er­hood of man? They have a new gospel; they are on fire with a new ex­pe­ri­ence; they are filled with a new spir­i­tual en­ergy. Their mes­sage has sud­denly shifted to the procla­ma­tion of the risen Christ: “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, a man God ap­proved by mighty works and won­ders; him, be­ing de­liv­ered up by the de­ter­mi­nate coun­sel and fore­knowl­edge of God, you did cru­cify and slay. The things which God fore­shad­owed by the mouth of all the proph­ets, he thus ful­filled. This Je­sus did God raise up. God has made him both Lord and Christ. Be­ing, by the right hand of God, ex­alted and hav­ing re­ceived from the Fa­ther the prom­ise of the spirit, he has poured forth this which you see and hear. Re­pent, that your sins may be blot­ted out; that the Fa­ther may send the Christ, who has been ap­pointed for you, even Je­sus, whom the heaven must re­ceive un­til the times of the restora­tion of all things.”

194:4.5The gospel of the king­dom, the mes­sage of Je­sus, had been sud­denly changed into the gospel of the Lord Je­sus Christ. They now pro­claimed the facts of his life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion and preached the hope of his speedy re­turn to this world to fin­ish the work he be­gan. Thus the mes­sage of the early be­liev­ers had to do with preach­ing about the facts of his first com­ing and with teach­ing the hope of his sec­ond com­ing, an event which they deemed to be very near at hand.

194:4.6Christ was about to be­come the creed of the rapidly form­ing church. Je­sus lives; he died for men; he gave the spirit; he is com­ing again. Je­sus filled all their thoughts and de­ter­mined all their new con­cepts of God and ev­ery­thing else. They were too much en­thused over the new doc­trine that “God is the Fa­ther of the Lord Je­sus” to be con­cerned with the old mes­sage that “God is the lov­ing Fa­ther of all men,” even of ev­ery sin­gle in­di­vid­ual. True, a mar­velous man­i­fes­ta­tion of broth­erly love and un­ex­am­pled good will did spring up in these early com­mu­ni­ties of be­liev­ers. But it was a fel­low­ship of be­liev­ers in Je­sus, not a fel­low­ship of broth­ers in the fam­ily king­dom of the Fa­ther in heaven. Their good will arose from the love born of the con­cept of Je­sus’ be­stowal and not from the rec­og­ni­tion of the broth­er­hood of mor­tal man. Nev­er­the­less, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and unique lives that all men were at­tracted to their teach­ings about Je­sus. They made the great mis­take of us­ing the liv­ing and il­lus­tra­tive com­men­tary on the gospel of the king­dom for that gospel, but even that rep­re­sented the great­est re­li­gion man­kind had ever known.

194:4.7Un­mis­tak­ably, a new fel­low­ship was aris­ing in the world. “The mul­ti­tude who be­lieved con­tin­ued stead­fastly in the apos­tles’ teach­ing and fel­low­ship, in the break­ing of bread, and in prayers.” They called each other brother and sis­ter; they greeted one an­other with a holy kiss; they min­is­tered to the poor. It was a fel­low­ship of liv­ing as well as of wor­ship. They were not com­mu­nal by de­cree but by the de­sire to share their goods with their fel­low be­liev­ers. They con­fi­dently ex­pected that Je­sus would re­turn to com­plete the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fa­ther’s king­dom dur­ing their gen­er­a­tion. This spon­ta­neous shar­ing of earthly pos­ses­sions was not a di­rect fea­ture of Je­sus’ teach­ing; it came about be­cause these men and women so sin­cerely and so con­fi­dently be­lieved that he was to re­turn any day to fin­ish his work and to con­sum­mate the king­dom. But the fi­nal re­sults of this well-meant ex­per­i­ment in thought­less broth­erly love were dis­as­trous and sor­row-breed­ing. Thou­sands of earnest be­liev­ers sold their prop­erty and dis­posed of all their cap­i­tal goods and other pro­duc­tive as­sets. With the pass­ing of time, the dwin­dling re­sources of Chris­tian “equal-shar­ing” came to an end—but the world did not. Very soon the be­liev­ers at An­ti­och were tak­ing up a col­lec­tion to keep their fel­low be­liev­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem from starv­ing.

194:4.8In these days they cel­e­brated the Lord’s Sup­per af­ter the man­ner of its es­tab­lish­ment; that is, they as­sem­bled for a so­cial meal of good fel­low­ship and par­took of the sacra­ment at the end of the meal.

194:4.9At first they bap­tized in the name of Je­sus; it was al­most twenty years be­fore they be­gan to bap­tize in “the name of the Fa­ther, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Bap­tism was all that was re­quired for ad­mis­sion into the fel­low­ship of be­liev­ers. They had no or­ga­ni­za­tion as yet; it was sim­ply the Je­sus broth­er­hood.

194:4.10This Je­sus sect was grow­ing rapidly, and once more the Sad­ducees took no­tice of them. The Phar­isees were lit­tle both­ered about the sit­u­a­tion, see­ing that none of the teach­ings in any way in­ter­fered with the ob­ser­vance of the Jew­ish laws. But the Sad­ducees be­gan to put the lead­ers of the Je­sus sect in jail un­til they were pre­vailed upon to ac­cept the coun­sel of one of the lead­ing rab­bis, Gamaliel, who ad­vised them: “Re­frain from these men and let them alone, for if this coun­sel or this work is of men, it will be over­thrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to over­throw them, lest haply you be found even to be fight­ing against God.” They de­cided to fol­low Gamaliel’s coun­sel, and there en­sued a time of peace and quiet in Je­ru­sa­lem, dur­ing which the new gospel about Je­sus spread rapidly.

194:4.11And so all went well in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til the time of the com­ing of the Greeks in large num­bers from Alexan­dria. Two of the pupils of Ro­dan ar­rived in Je­ru­sa­lem and made many con­verts from among the Hel­lenists. Among their early con­verts were Stephen and Bar­na­bas. These able Greeks did not so much have the Jew­ish view­point, and they did not so well con­form to the Jew­ish mode of wor­ship and other cer­e­mo­nial prac­tices. And it was the do­ings of these Greek be­liev­ers that ter­mi­nated the peace­ful re­la­tions be­tween the Je­sus broth­er­hood and the Phar­isees and Sad­ducees. Stephen and his Greek as­so­ciate be­gan to preach more as Je­sus taught, and this brought them into im­me­di­ate con­flict with the Jew­ish rulers. In one of Stephen’s pub­lic ser­mons, when he reached the ob­jec­tion­able part of the dis­course, they dis­pensed with all for­mal­i­ties of trial and pro­ceeded to stone him to death on the spot.

194:4.12Stephen, the leader of the Greek colony of Je­sus’ be­liev­ers in Je­ru­sa­lem, thus be­came the first mar­tyr to the new faith and the spe­cific cause for the for­mal or­ga­ni­za­tion of the early Chris­tian church. This new cri­sis was met by the rec­og­ni­tion that be­liev­ers could not longer go on as a sect within the Jew­ish faith. They all agreed that they must sep­a­rate them­selves from un­be­liev­ers; and within one month from the death of Stephen the church at Je­ru­sa­lem had been or­ga­nized un­der the lead­er­ship of Pe­ter, and James the brother of Je­sus had been in­stalled as its tit­u­lar head.

194:4.13And then broke out the new and re­lent­less per­se­cu­tions by the Jews, so that the ac­tive teach­ers of the new re­li­gion about Je­sus, which sub­se­quently at An­ti­och was called Chris­tian­ity, went forth to the ends of the em­pire pro­claim­ing Je­sus. In car­ry­ing this mes­sage, be­fore the time of Paul the lead­er­ship was in Greek hands; and these first mis­sion­ar­ies, as also the later ones, fol­lowed the path of Alexan­der’s march of for­mer days, go­ing by way of Gaza and Tyre to An­ti­och and then over Asia Mi­nor to Mace­do­nia, then on to Rome and to the ut­ter­most parts of the em­pire.