The Gospel of the Forty Days: Witness, Part 2       We continuing our series of articles on what commands (Ac 1:2) and teachings (Ac 1:3) the resurrected Lord Jesus gave, or might have given, during the forty days before His Ascension, and continue from last week’s discussion of Jesus’ last earthly words: “You shall be my witnesses” (Ac 1:8). We showed how Scripture teaches that the Apostles were to be personal, evidentiary eye-witnesses to the facts of Jesus’ life, suffering and death, resurrection, exaltation at God the Father’s right hand, and God’s appointed judge of the living and the dead.       As the Apostolic and Church Fathers preserved the Apostolic Tradition, the significance of their eyewitness testimony was recognized. For example, St. John Chrysostom (344/354-407 AD) wrote: “How then account for the fact that these men, who in Christ’s lifetime did not stand up to the attacks by the Jews, set forth to do battle with the whole world ...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Witness, Part 1          We continue our series of articles seeing what commands (Ac 1:2) and teachings (Ac 1:3) the resurrected Lord Jesus gave during the forty days before His Ascension.          One of Jesus’ clearest commands and His last recorded words before He ascended was, “You shall be my witnesses ... to the ends of the earth” (Ac 1:8; cf., Mk 16:15, 20, Lk 24:47-48; cf. Mk 13:10). The Apostles in particular were to be personal witness, even evidentiary eye-witnesses, to the facts of Jesus’ life (Jn 15:27, Ac 10:39), suffering and death (Lk 24:46; Ac 10:39), resurrection (Ac 1:22; 2:32; 10:40-41; 13:31; Lk 24:46-48), exaltation at God the Father’s right hand (Ac 5:32), and God’s appointed judge of the living and the dead (Ac 10:42; cf., Mt 28:18).          Even the authorities were amazed at “uneducated, common men” such as Peter and John but they “reco...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 6       Following our recent articles on Christ’s command to baptize, we thought it appropriate to address the following statement published each week on this “Church” page [of the Mojave Desert News ]:  “Some will vainly trust baptism as sacramental. 1 Corinthians 1:17 deals with that false teaching very clearly and succinctly, ‘For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel ....”       Now there are several problems with this statement. But first, note that Christianity since the Apostles and through the present (Catholic, Orthodox) has always understood baptism to be a sacrament (something God does), as have the main denominations created by the 16th Century Protestant Reformation (Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican, and later, Methodist). Those who reject the concept of sacrament are the multiple Baptist groups (begun in the 17th Century) and some newer 20th and 21st Century...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 5       We have been considering Christ’s command to the Apostles to baptize, and last week began to look at the effect baptism as making one a child of God. This is so important that we might look a little more at what it means.       St. Paul says, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ” (Gal 3:25-26). Baptism incorporates us into Christ and makes us children of God. This is God’s intention: God the Father predestined believers “for adoption to Himself  as sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:5).       It is the Holy Spirit, given in baptism, which makes one a son or daughter of God (Ro 8:14) for the Holy Spirit is a “Spirit of sonship” or “Spirit of adoption as sons” (Ro 8:15), and thus also heir of God and fellow-heir with Christ (Ro 8:17; Eph 1:11). As children of God and heirs, if we...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 4         In this fourth article on Christ’s command to baptize given to the Apostles during the forty days between His Resurrection and Ascension, we discuss the second effect and purpose of Christian Baptism: sonship, adoption, becoming a child of God. (The first being incorporation into Christ, discussed in the prior article.) How might Jesus have taught about this during those forty days?       Probably as St. John speaks of it: “To all who received Him, who believed in His Name, He gave power to become children of God; who were born ... of God” (Jn 1:11-12).       But how is one born of God? That was the question Nicodemus raised, and Jesus replied: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:5). “Water and the Spirit” is an obvious reference to the baptism that Jesus would institute. To the woman at...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 3       In this third article on Christ’s command given to the Apostles to baptize, we left off last with the idea that Jesus Christ, in His glorified humanity, was now able to generate a whole new sanctified race of those who are incorporated into Him through baptism. What might Jesus have taught the Apostles during those forty days about being incorporated into Christ?       Scripture tells us quite a bit actually. The evening before Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, at the Last Supper He spoke to His Apostles about their future incorporation into Him in these words – and we are pointing out the number of ways He expresses it: [1] “You will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you” (Jn 14:20) and [2] if anyone loves Jesus, Jesus and the Father “will come to him and make Our home with him” (Jn 14:23). Then He admonishes them to [3] “Abide in Me,” and says that they [4] cannot bear fruit “unle...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 2       Last week we began discussion of Jesus’ command to the Apostles to baptize, given during the forty days between His Resurrection and Ascension. An observant person may have asked, Why does Jesus command to baptize in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Mt 28:20), and yet at Pentecost Peter said to be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ (Ac 2:38)?       There are at least two answers. First, any time Jesus Christ is mentioned in the New Testament, as Son of God He is always in reference to the Father; and in the context of baptism, Peter here, and the New Testament elsewhere, speaks of the Holy Spirit given in baptism. Therefore, one can truly say that to baptize in the Name of Jesus Christ is to reference the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Perhaps for this reason, or because of the clarity of Jesus’ command, the early Church records that the words spoken while administering baptism ...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 1       “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:20). The verse tells us that Christ (now resurrected and speaking with His Apostles before His ascension) commanded them to baptize all peoples as they became disciples. With the same words, Jesus also spoke of God’s revelation of Himself: baptism was to be in the Name (singular, one God) of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (three Persons), thus reinforcing what the Apostles had learned being with Jesus: that God had, in Christ, revealed Himself to be three divine Persons possessing simultaneously the one divine nature of the one God as revealed to Israel. So Jesus’ command (Ac 1:2) and teaching (Ac 1:3) here are part of his “gospel of the forty days.”       Jesus spoke on different occasions during the forty days of the baptism He was commanding the Apostl...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Apostolic Teaching Office       In recent articles we’ve seen that Jesus’ “gospel of the forty days” included that the Apostles would appoint their successors, what today we call bishops, priests, and deacons. Interestingly, St. Paul states that these different offices of ministry (charisms) are gifts of the risen and ascended Christ (Eph 4:7-8), indicating again a likelihood that Jesus’s instruction during the forty days would include both the nature of the charisms and the ministerial office.       Now St. Paul also says the function of these charisms is that the Church attain “the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” so we no longer be tossed around by human doctrines and deceits. (Eph 4:12-14). Such refers to doctrine, clearly part of Jesus’ teachings given during the forty days (Ac 1:2-3; cf., Lk 24:26-27, 45-46).       The doctrinal function of the ministeri...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Priesthood       We again consider the “gospel of the forty days” (Ac 1:2-3), and consider what Jesus may have taught the Apostles after His resurrection about their priesthood.       In the New Testament (NT) the Christian community is described as a “holy priesthood” (1 Pt 2:5), a kingdom of priests to God (Rev: 1:6, 5:10, 20:6). This fulfills God’s original intention for Israel to be a kingdom of priests (Ex 19:6) but which they lost through idolatry. This NT “holy priesthood” we call the “common priesthood” or “priesthood of all believers.” So St. Paul can appeal to all to present themselves “as a living sacrifice,” our “spiritual worship” (Ro 12:1).       Yet, as St. Paul put it, “all the members [of the Body] do not have the same function” (Ro 12:4), and so we distinguish between the “common priesthood” and the “ministerial priesthood.” The book of Hebrews develops wonderfully Ch...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Bishops and Presbyters       Last week we saw that the “gospel of the forty days” after Jesus’ resurrection (Ac 1:2-3) included that the Apostles would appoint their successors, and we discussed the origin of the terms “bishop” and “deacon.” There is a third term from the Greek which the Apostles adopted as a title for an office in the early Church. The Greek OT and the NT refer to “elder” in many different contexts, but the first time it is used as a designation of an office in the Church is in Acts 11:30 where St. Barnabas and St. Paul (Saul) brought famine relief to the Judean “elders.” The Greek term is presbuteros , or in English, “presbyters.” Also in Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas appoint presbyters in all the mission churches, and there are presbyters with the Apostles at the council of Jerusalem (Ac 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; cf., Ac 21:18).       In Paul’s farewell address to the presbyters of Ephesus (Ac 2...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Appointing Bishops and Deacons       Imagine you are one of the Twelve – well, eleven now – and you are with the other followers of Jesus – 120 of you together – praying for the coming of Holy Spirit (Ac 1:15). Peter now stands up and you see he has a new air of authority, or maybe it’s new confidence. So you have a hunch about what’s coming. You remember during one of Jesus’ talks after His resurrection (Ac 1:2-3) that Peter had asked Him about His saying that they would sit on twelve thrones (Lk 22:29-30) – but now there were only eleven and – (no one wanted to think, let alone speak, of Judas, that traitor). (Remember, this is just your imagination now....)       Jesus had replied, “Elect the twelfth. It is your duty, Peter, to do so.”       “Mine? Not mine, Lord! I ask You to choose him.”       “I elected My Twelve once and I formed them. Then I appointed t...

The Gospel of the Forty Days:  The Church as the Restored Kingdom       Last week we developed the theme of the Messianic expectation of the restoration of the Kingdom of David, and asserted that in Jesus’s teaching about the “kingdom of God” during the forty days between His resurrection and ascension (Ac 1:3), He would have taught that this kingdom is now the Church. Let’s explore that a bit more.       David’s kingdom was based on covenant with God (2 Sam 7:1-29), which included God’s promise to establish an eternal kingdom with a descendant of David, and “I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son.” Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that Jesus, in the flesh, is a descendant of David (Lk 2:4-7, 3:31); and in previous articles we have discussed some of the Bible’s evidence that Jesus is, at the same time, in His Divinity, the Son of God.       Now at the Last Supper, Jesus says to the Twelve, “As My Father appoin...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Giving is Blessed, Not Receiving        We are continuing to identify what commands (Ac 1:2) and teachings (Ac 1:3) the resurrected Lord Jesus gave, or might have given, during the forty days before His ascension – what Jaroslav Pelikan called the “Gospel of the Forty Days.”       In St. Paul’s last farewell address to the elders (presbyters) of Ephesus (around 58 AD), the Acts of the Apostles ends with this sentence: “In all things I have shown you that by so toiling [as Paul had], one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Ac 20:35.) Paul’s word to “help the weak” is reminiscent of Gal. 2:9-10 where he reports of the earlier meeting he and Barnabas had with the “pillars” of the Church in Jerusalem (Acts 15) who had sent him and Barnabas to the Gentiles, admonishing them only to “remember the poor, which very thing I was eage...