When Were the Disciples Filled With the Holy Spirit?

Tom: We’re continuing with the gospel, the Gospel of John, we’re presently going through. We’re in John:20:21Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
See All.... Dave, actually, 22, 21, but I don’t think we really covered verse 21 well. “Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you; as my Father hath sent me, even so I send you.” Sounds like the beginning of a commission here.

Dave: Well, that’s a good way to put it, Tom. This isn’t exactly what we call “The Great Commission,” because that happens at the end of Matthew after He has appeared to, I think, 500 of them, and He says, “Go into all the world; make disciples of all nations.” Or Mark:16:15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
See All...: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

It’s a rather solemn declaration, Tom. “As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.” Wow! The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Well, we’re not the Savior. But He’s going to send us out to deliver men from sin and from the judgment of sin and to lead them into eternal life, so we are representing Christ and declaring what He has done. We get into that in the next two verses down. “As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.”

I wonder how many people (I speak to my own heart) take that really seriously. Jesus had a mission. He had one purpose in life, and that was to fulfill the Father’s will. Now, we have one purpose in life, if we are Christians—those of us who’ve come to know Him. He has purchased us with His blood. We’re not our own, we belong to Him. And now He tells us that He is sending us out into the world to proclaim that He’s the Savior of sinners, to declare what He has done, to represent Him, to live for Him, you know—to live as Christ would live, to act as Christ would act.

What is it, that little bracelet that some of these NBA players...

Tom: What Would Jesus Do?

Dave: What Would Jesus Do? Yeah, WWJD, or whatever. And they don’t do what Jesus would do. I don’t know why in the world some of these guys wear that.

I remember in Communist days in the Soviet Union back in the Iron Curtain days, you could be going through a museum in, let’s say, in Moscow, or Leningrad, and here’s a group of grammar school kids coming through, looking at all the lies of Communism, and then they come before a stature of Lenin—which, they were all over the Soviet Union; they’ve been knocked down, now, just like Saddam Hussein’s have been knocked down in Iraq—but you could hear the teacher say to the children, “Whenever you’re facing a choice in life, remember this: What would Lenin do?” Tom! Actually, that was what they taught! Because Lenin was like their god.

Well, what would Jesus do? Well, we’re representing Him. And when I do something that I shouldn’t do, and then people say, “Oh, that guy’s a Christian! Well, if that’s Christianity, I don’t want to have anything to do with it!” I’ve heard people say, “Yeah, these Christians, they can go to church on Sunday and pray some holy prayers and sing these hymns—you try to do business with them during the week!”

So we’re His representatives. But we have a mission in life, and I wonder how many people who are listening to my voice now, how seriously you take that? We’ve got all kinds of other missions, all kinds of other ambitions—things that we want to do, and we think about and we devote ourselves to. How much time do I devote to Christ and really thinking about what He wants me to do? Seeking His will, seeking His guidance, because He will guide us. It can be a very exciting life as we allow the Lord to guide us.

So “As the Father has sent me, even so, send I you.” Wow.

Tom: Now, Dave, who was He talking to? These are people huddled in a room in fear of the Jews! And Jesus comes and gives them this commission. Something else has to happen here, doesn’t it?

Dave: Right. They’re going to have to receive the Holy Spirit. They’ll be baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. They’ll be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. But then, Tom, building on what you just said, then you’ve given the audience out there the opportunity to say, “Oh, well, this was just for them. That’s who He’s talking to, it’s just for the disciples.”

Tom: Yeah, just who are His disciples, Dave?

Dave: “…Not for us now! These are special guys…”

Tom: Ohhhh.

Dave: …but if we go to that verse that I was quoting out of Matthew 28, He tells His disciples, “Make disciples of all nations, and you teach them to observe everything I commanded you.” Oh wow! Wait a minute now! So Jesus has just said, “As my Father sent me, so send I you.” Now they’re to go out and tell other people that they bring into this fold, they bring into this relationship with Christ, then they’re to say to them, “And as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus is sending you.” So we can’t get away from it.

You know, as a former Catholic—or you knew, when you were a Catholic—that the successors of the apostles were the bishops, the authority in the Catholic Church. And they only had the authority to do this.

But the Bible says, “You disciples make disciples. And the disciples that you make—how do you make disciples? You bring them into this relationship with Christ, of obedience and love and trust and the desire to follow Him and to be what He wants them to be. You teach them to observe everything I commanded you.”

So, Tom, you and I today are the disciples of a disciple of a disciple of a disciple of a disciple all the way back to the original disciples! And we are supposed to obey Christ, as they were taught to obey Him, and, in fact, we have a responsibility to do what He taught them and commissioned them to do. Now that’s going a bit far, but we get into that in the next two verses.

Tom: Mm-hmm, and, Dave, without this, it’s hopeless for these disciples to go out. But I’ll read the verse: John:20:22And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
See All...: “And when he had said this [that is, when Jesus had said this], he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”

Dave: I think that happened on the Day of Pentecost. He’s just telling them now. But He said, also, later, in the Book of Acts, “You will receive power after the Holy Spirit is come upon you. You will be my witnesses.” So, how is this…

Tom: So, Dave, you’re placing this at Pentecost? Not in the room where He is? Where He’s speaking to the disciples? How’s that?

Dave: I don’t think that they…that He is imparting the Holy Spirit to them right at that moment. I think that’s pretty clear from the way they acted still after that. They are going to receive the Holy Spirit. I mean, you’ve got the next chapter. Peter says, “I’m going fishing.” Doesn’t sound like…he’s certainly not filled with the Holy Spirit. They were filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. I think that was a vital day in the history of the church. Now, each of us, when we receive Christ—when we put our faith in Christ—then we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

But the scripture very clearly says—well, let’s take John:7:37In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
See All...: “On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”

And John says, “This spake he of the Holy Spirit, which they that believed on him should receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Then Peter on his sermon on the Day of Pentecost says, “Christ, having been exalted to the Father’s right hand, now he has given what you see [they’re all speaking in the different languages, and so forth]…. “

Tom, I could be wrong, and there may be people out there who disagree with me, but that’s the way I think it happened. The next verse is a tough one, and I guess we’re going to defer that until next week.