If Jesus Rose from the Dead, then (#36) After Departing He Would Have Sent the Holy Spirit

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Today is Pentecost. It marks the day when Jesus fulfilled the promise that He would send the Holy Spirit to dwell in us after He left. It is hard not to list this event at the top of the “most-incredible-events-of-all-time”. Is it possible to even begin to contemplate the full reality that the infinite, holy, omnipotent God of the universe has determined to dwell within me?

And yet, He does.

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16

Remember after Jesus rose from the dead, and after meeting with the disciples in Galilee, He instructed them to wait in the city until the Holy Spirit came upon them:

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:4-5,8

There is a lot in this foretelling by Jesus. Next time we will look at the work of the Holy Spirit within us, but it is worth pondering what Jesus was telling the disciples what would happen when the Spirit came upon them.

First, this was going to be a “baptism”. John the Baptist used water; God was now going to use the Holy Spirit. We might think of this as the “sealing” that we read about in several places, including this in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:11-14

Second, they were going to receive power. I don’t know what the disciples might have thought about this when Jesus said these words. For most of the world, if you were told you were going to be granted “power”, your thoughts might go to a number of worldly ways that you might wield it. But the Holy Spirit brought a different kind of power to God’s people. Just think back to what we saw in Peter and John soon after Pentecost. They were arrested and brought before the entire Jewish authority, placed in the center and told to stop speaking in the name of Jesus. These were the guys that were huddled together in fear behind locked doors not too long prior. These were “uneducated”, common fishermen. But now, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, they spoke boldly and courageously in the lion’s den and were willing to face death rather than recant.

And third, the Holy Spirit was going to make them witnesses of Jesus. And that witness was going to be “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”. This didn’t mean that those disciples were going to personally go to Katmandu and Lima and Possum Trot, Kentucky. It meant, just as God had ordained from the very beginning when He created Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, that the disciples would be witnesses who would spawn other witnesses who would, in turn, spawn others until the witness of Christ would reach the ends of the earth.

So, who is this? Who has taken up abode within us?

We normally think of the Holy Spirit, and that would be proper to do so for it is this “third” person of the Trinity who is primarily at work within us. But, we would be remiss if we didn’t remind ourselves at this point that God is truly One. We examined this at the Ascension, but let’s review it, for it is critical to our thinking. 

First, Jesus said that He was going to go away and the Holy Spirit would come to them:

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. John 16: 7

But then, Jesus said He was going away, but He was going to come to them:

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:18

And finally, Jesus told them that He and the Father would come to them:

 If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. John 14:23

Yes, it is true that the Holy Spirit is God and to say that the Holy Spirit lives within you is to sufficiently say that God lives within you. But the triune nature of God would forbid us to allow our thinking to wander far enough away that we begin to tear God apart… to find our thoughts more inclined toward thinking that we serve three separate gods. No, we serve one, triune God. It is the fullness of God which dwells in you: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

This is why Paul can say rightly that Christ lives within him:

I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20

I know it is easy for Christians to say these things, almost by rote: Jesus is in my heart, the Holy Spirit indwells me, Christ in me, the hope of glory, etc… but it is also easy, in doing so, to lose the magnitude of what those truth claims are saying. I suspect this reality, that the fullness of God dwells within us, is, more than any other truth claim in the Scripture, lost on us in its full import. 

This is worth meditating upon daily and thanking God continually for what He has done. 

And, then living as if all of this is really real.

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13
If Jesus Rose from the Dead, then (#1) the Seal Was Broken
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5
If Jesus Rose from the Dead, then (#5) the Angels Would Have Announced It
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Matthew 28:1-6 It may be too bold to say this, but I believe that it should come as no surprise to anyone that the announcement of the Lord’s resurrection was made by the angles, for this, indeed, was a cosmic moment. And, also not surprising, is that there is controversy over this: how many angels, where they were, and what did they really say. Matthew and Mark have one angel; Luke and John have two. We will deal with all of that soon. But today, we want to ponder the fact that it was the angels that announced the resurrection and why. Recall the great passage in Galatians (don’t skip through it… read it): What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.  Galatians 4:1-5 The advent of the Messiah was a “set time”—set by God. It wasn’t just that we landed on a nice calendar day. This was as if all the prophecies and all the promises were set on a timer and they all went off together at this moment. It was a cosmic moment: the time in which God was going to enter the world as a human being in order to redeem those who were in bondage under the law. It was a moment that began with the birth of the Messiah and extended through His resurrection… one big cosmic moment. John Calvin refers to the resurrection as “the closing scene of our redemption.” And the privilege of announcing this cosmic moment was going to be given to the angels. They came to Mary and to Joseph. They came to Zacharias and then on the night of His birth, the heavens were filled with a host of angels announcing the news… not to Herod or to the High Priest, but to the lowly, despised and smelly shepherds. Not in a palace or in the temple, but out in the middle of a common, ordinary field.  Should we, therefore, be surprised that it would be the angels who would announce His resurrection? And, to a woman in a graveyard? We will deal more with this later, but recall that women in that culture were second-class citizens. Jesus changed all of that forever. But it was no small deal in those days that the angels would break the news to a woman, and to Mary Magdalene, who at one time had been possessed by seven demons and no doubt suffered from the ravages those demons would visit upon her.  No, this is not surprising to us, for this is who God is. God’s heart is with the humble. And He blesses His creatures by allowing them to carry out His purposes and plans. Thus, He sends angels to announce the Moment of Moments. So, who are these “angels”?  Well, they are an amazing part of God’s creation. There are tons of them, “innumerable”, says Hebrews 12:22 and “thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand” says Revelation 5:11.  That is a lot of angels! There is even some conjecture that we might each have an “assigned” angel. When speaking of the children, Jesus refers to “their angels in heaven”. This certainly is inconclusive, but there surely are enough of them to go around! Maybe that is why there are so many. One thing we know for sure, they do minister to us: Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? Hebrews 1:14 Angels are strong. They are mighty. They battle the forces of darkness and they serve God as He sends them to fulfill His purposes. They are messengers, but they also carry out some of God’s judgments. When Herod was struck down and eaten by worms because he did not give glory to God, it was an angel that struck him. (Acts 12:23) Some are sent to patrol the earth. (Zechariah 1:8-11) Scripture even says you might have come in contact with angels as they go about their duties in human form: Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2 And so, it was the angels who kicked off the Moment and became quite active in the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. And it was the angels who ministered to Him in His times of need on earth. When Jesus had finished 40 days of fasting and had been tempted by Satan, the angels came and ministered to Him. (Matthew 4:11) When He was in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and His soul was “deeply grieved to the point of death”, an angel came and strengthened Him. (Luke 22:43) I can imagine, then, how much they would have been straining at the bit to save Him from the scourge and the nails. All they needed was a word from Him and they would have swept in like a ferocious army. When Peter impetuously cut off the ear of Malchus, the high priest’s servant, during the arrest, Jesus admonished Peter and said,  Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” Matthew 26:53-54 A Roman legion consisted of 6,000 soldiers. Twelve would be 72,000 mighty angel warriors. If one angel can buckle the knees of the guards, imagine what 72,000 would do?  So, as Jesus was being scourged and nailed, as he hung on the tree, all He needed to do was say the word and the angels would have rescued Him. But He didn’t.  Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how easy it would have been in the midst of all of that pain and suffering to call out for rescue and relief? To just say the word and all the misery of that moment goes away? But no, He didn’t. It was our sin and His love that held Him there—denying Himself for our sake.  The angels who filled the sky with praise and glory at His birth are now held in check, silent at His death. The earth spoke, yes, but the angels remained silent. But! On the 3rd day, all that changed! The angels are released and silent no more. They announce the News of News—“He is not here! He has risen just as He said!” Yes, if Jesus rose from the dead, then the angels would have been there to announce it. You could not have kept them away. He is risen indeed! [previous] [next]