‘BELIEVERS’ BEFORE AND AFTER THE DAY OF PENTECOST
I always believed that the disciples were Christians before the day of Pentecost; but one day this question came: Did anyone believe before the day of Pentecost that Jesus was going to die for their sins and rise again after God had justified them?
I turned to Matthew 16:16 and read Peter’s confession: “And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Then I turned to John 11:27 where Martha makes her confession. “She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even he that cometh into the world.”
And then there is John 20:26–29, Thomas’s confession. Thomas had said that he wouldn’t believe that Christ had risen from the dead except “I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side” (verse 25).
Eight days later, Jesus appeared before them, and said, “Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing” (verse 27).
And Thomas said, “My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (verses 28–29).
I saw then that the disciples had believed that Jesus was the Son of God, that He was the Messiah, but no one believed according to Romans 10:9–10: “Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
And the Scripture says that “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame” (verse 11).
Or you might read from 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.”
You see, none of the disciples knew that Christ was going to die for their sins, and was going to suffer as their substitute, that He was going to put sin away; and that God was going to lay upon Him the iniquity of us all. They did not know that “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”
No one knew that Jesus was going down to the dark regions and conquer Satan and strip him of his authority, and paralyze his death-dealing power so that men who had been held in bondage all of their lives could be set free by confessing Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
No one knew that. No one knew about righteousness—what it meant.
They confronted me, and at first, I wondered why we had never seen it before.
The disciples were Jews under the first covenant. They were under the blood of bulls and of goats. They had obeyed the law in regard to sacrifice, in regard to the keeping of the Sabbath and everything else regarding the law. They had a limited righteousness under the law as servants. But they knew nothing better than that.
They knew that a Messiah was going to come, but they thought it was purely national. They thought that He would free them from the Roman law and give them back the kingdom that was established by David.
None of them believed in Christ as we believe in Him today, because they had no teaching. Jesus hadn’t opened that up to them. He had left it to Paul to open up—the part of His finished work.
You remember Galatians 1:8–12: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema [or accursed]” (verse 8). That is strong language, isn’t it?
Verses 11–12 are significant: “For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel, which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.”
To Paul was given the revelation of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ; to Paul was given the revelation of the body of Christ of which Jesus is the Head; to him was given the revelation of the union of the believer with Christ; and to him was given the revelation of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ.
How much was taught by the “spoken Word” we don’t know. It isn’t recorded in the book of Acts. You understand that none of the churches had more than two or three of Paul’s epistles until after the beginning of the second century. John’s gospel wasn’t written until after 110 A.D., so that all the revelation that John had was not known until after the gospel of John had been written.
You remember that Paul was not sent to the Jewish people but was sent to the Gentiles.
You remember the church teaching in 1 and 2 Corinthians, in Ephesians, Philippians, and in Colossians was only locally known. It is true that some of them had parts of the Old Testament, but there was no printing at that time. Copies had to be made by slaves and poor men; and most of the converts were poor. They had no access to the Hebrew Scriptures; and, if they had, they could not have read them. So, you see, that on the day of Pentecost, there was very little known.
The things that amazed me and made me think was that when Peter preached, he did not say, “Repent and believe.” In fact, the words faith or believe were not used on the day of Pentecost.
God didn’t demand faith of the disciples in the upper room. He didn’t demand anything of them, only that they tarry for the Holy Spirit.
BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
We notice some significant things in the four Gospels where it speaks about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Beginning with Matthew 3:11, we read, “I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.” (The preposition in is not in the Greek.)
Now notice this carefully, “I am going to immerse you in water, but Jesus is coming and he is going to immerse you in the Holy Spirit.”
The immersion in the water was for their bodies. The immersion in the Holy Spirit was for their spirits. But what did it do to their spirits? It recreated them.
When they were immersed in the Spirit, they received eternal life. They were born again. Then the phenomenon of fire was manifest in a tongue that sat on their heads.
The disciples must have looked in amazement. They did not understand what it meant. But we know that this message of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, of the body of Christ, of the church, was going to be proclaimed with tongues of fire, a resistless message just as fire is resistless.
That is the reason for the great persecutions that come upon the church. I question if there has ever been a persecution of a dead, formal church.
After the tongues of fire were manifested, then it says: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues” (Acts 2:4).
He had recreated them. He had made their bodies a temple, a sanctuary. Now He enters into this new home. He had dwelt in the Holy of holies and in the tabernacle, and in the temple. Now He is going to dwell in their bodies.
You understand Romans 12:1–2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies”—a temple of God. I want you to present it to God for His use.
This is just as we have in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20: “Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.”
“Glorify God…in your body.” That is a striking sentence. The body is not only a temple, but I want you to glorify God with your body.
Now I can see why the body would need be perfectly well, healthy, and strong; and that it be free from all unclean habits—because it is the temple of God.
Philippians 1:20–21 throws a little more light on it: “So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
And you might think of Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.”
The great truth of indwelling was only hinted by Christ in John 7:38–39, in which Jesus said, “From within him shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive.”
But you say, “What about that sentence in John where Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22)? That is the instance that is recorded in the gospel of Luke 24:45: “Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures.” When He breathed on them, he touched their minds, just as they did under the first covenant. It was not in any sense their receiving the Holy Spirit as you and I receive Him today, or as they received Him on the day of Pentecost.
KNOWLEDGE BEFORE AND AFTER THE DAY OF PENTECOST
Perhaps it might be good for us to think of just a few things that the disciples and others did not know on that wonder day.
No one had ever been redeemed, so they knew nothing about redemption except the redemption out of Egypt. That was a national redemption.
No one knew anything about eternal life. John’s gospel had not yet been written. What Jesus said, John recorded. John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” That was a new kind of life. The very word, zoe, was new to the ears of most of the hearers.
No one had ever been recreated. The new birth was unknown to them. The little talk that Jesus had with Nicodemus when He told him that he must be born again hadn’t recreated Nicodemus. Nicodemus didn’t understand what it meant. He said, “How can a man be born when he is old?” (John 3:4). Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew” (verses 6–7).
Man’s physical body is not born again. Man’s spirit is the real man. It is the part that is born again. One should study this very carefully. Read John 3:3–8 as though you had never read it before. Don’t read it with any preconceived notions. Eliminate everything from your mind; and you will discover this fact: that it was a prophecy of the birth of the church.
They were to be born of the Holy Spirit. The thing that took place on the day of Pentecost was the birthday of the body of Christ.
Nicodemus didn’t understand it. No one else understood it until it was revealed to Paul.
You see, no one had ever talked about a new creation, a new kind of man. It was utterly new to them.
2 Corinthians 5:17 would have fallen upon dead ears.
No one had ever been made righteous. The only righteousness they knew was the reckoned righteousness that Abraham had, and the law righteousness that those who kept that law had.
But here is a new kind of righteousness. A phenomenon had taken place at the death of Jesus. The curtain that had shut men out of the Holy of holies had been rent from the top to the bottom. There is no longer any secret place where men meet God under the blood of bulls and goats.
Now a new thing has taken place. Man can enter the presence of God without the sense of guilt or condemnation. Hebrews 4:16 becomes a reality. Write out this verse:
The tenth chapter of Hebrews, the second verse, is effective. He said that the sacrifices that they made continuously did not make them perfect.
The same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered? because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. (Hebrews 10:1–3)
In the twelfth and thirteenth verses it shows how Christ, by one sacrifice, has perfected forever them that are sanctified. When a man is cleansed by the blood of Christ, he can stand in the Father’s presence as though sin had never been.
Then there is 1 Corinthians 1:30. Every believer should know this Scripture: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.”
Read Romans 3:26, the marginal rendering. Jesus becomes the righteousness of the man who has faith in Jesus.
No one had ever known anything about indwelling. Jesus said, “For he abideth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17).
No one had ever had real friendship with the Father under the first covenant. That was practically impossible. No one had ever used the name of Jesus. No one had ever called God, Father. They crucified Jesus for doing it. No one knew of the new covenant. No one knew of the new kind of love.
All this came by revelation knowledge after the day of Pentecost, after men had received eternal life and had received into their bodies the great, mighty Holy Spirit.
HOW MUCH DO YOU REMEMBER?
- Did the disciples believe Jesus was Christ before the day of Pentecost? What it according to Romans 10:9–10?
- Who was Paul sent to with his revelation of the substitutionary sacrifice?
- Were the words faith or believe used on the day of Pentecost? What were the disciples to do?
- a. What was the immersion of water for?
b. What did immersion in the Holy Spirit do to them? - Explain 1 Corinthians 6:19–20.
- Had anyone ever been redeemed? Had any eternal life? Were there any new creations?
- How did Jesus answer Nicodemus?
- Did anyone understand that the body of Christ had been born until Paul had his revelation?
- a. Had any been made righteous?
b. What does righteousness mean?
c. Could the law make anyone righteous? - a. Explain 1 Corinthians 1:30.
b. What came by revelation knowledge after the day of Pentecost?