The Story

You can tell the story of the first Easter Day, about the women who went early to the sepulchre with spices and ointments which they had made ready, and the angel from heaven who^, rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulchre and told the women that the Lord was risen. Who can tell me whether any of the women or of the disciples saw the Lord on Easter Day, or on other days after He was risen? Yes, they saw Him, by the sepulchre, in Jerusalem, and in Galilee. During forty days after the Lord arose they saw Him many times, until they were sure that He was alive and with them still.

At last one day the Lord came to the disciples at Jerusalem, and talking with them He led them out of the city and across the valley to the Mount of Olives and to Bethany. How often He had gone with them over this same path! And had they been with Him at Bethany before? Who lived there whom the Lord loved? Now on the Mount of Olives, near Bethany, the Lord blessed the disciples and ascended from their sight. The story is told in a very few verses in the Gospels. Let us read them. (Luke 24:50-53; Mark 16:19)

Would you like to hear more about this last meeting of the Lord with the disciples? The same Luke who wrote one of the Gospels wrote another book called The Acts of the Apostles. In the beginning of this book he tells more about this last meeting. The Lord talked with the disciples and promised them that the Holy Spirit would come to them and give them power to do His work. "And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Then two angels talked with the disciples, and they came back from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem. Let me read you this from the Acts. (Acts 1:4-12)

Soon after this the promise was fulfilled. The Holy Spirit came to the disciples with wonderful power. It was at the time of Pentecost, a feast which the Jews kept fifty days after the Passover. The disciples were together in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit from the Lord came with "a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." Then the disciples began to speak "with other tongues." There were there at Jerusalem people from many different nations, and as they listened to the disciples each one heard his own language. It was a part of the new power which the Holy Spirit had brought to them. Let me read you about the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-13)

In our lesson today and in several following lessons we shall read some verses from the Gospels and some from the book called The Acts of the Apostles. The Acts and the Epistles are not books of the Lord's Word; they do not have the continuous spiritual meaning which the books of the Word have; but they are most useful books of Christian teaching, and are especially precious as being the account of the ministry of those who had been with the Lord, and of others who learned directly from the Lord's disciples.

The Acts is believed to be written by Luke, the same who wrote the Gospel. He writes both to a friend whom he calls Theophilus, "lover of God." Compare the first verse of Acts with the first verses of Luke's Gospel. Luke is mentioned in the Epistles as a companion of Paul. (Colosians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11) In one of these passages you find him called "the beloved physician." In the Acts he often says "we," having been himself one of the party. The book of Acts, as its name implies, tells of the acts or doings of the apostles and the first followers of the Lord. In Acts 1:8 the Lord tells the disciples what their work will be; to be witnesses unto Him, "both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." This was exactly the order in which their work developed, and the order in which the story is told in the book of Acts.

There are three parts of our lesson today: two great events, the ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, of which I have spoken to the younger children; and one other thing, the choice of one to take the place of Judas.

You read of the Lord's ascension in Mark 16:20, Luke 24:50-53, and Acts 1:1-14. How long was it now after the Easter Day? (Acts 1:3) Where was the Lord with the disciples when He ascended from their sight? (Luke 24:50, Acts 1: 12) You see how the disciples were still expecting that the Lord would establish a great earthly kingdom (Acts 1:6), and how gently He told them that they could not yet understand the kingdom that He was establishing. (Acts 1:7) Describe to me as well as you can what the disciples saw as the Lord ascended from their sight. And what were they told by the two men in white clothing? You can see that all this was an outward picture of the fact that the Lord was now too Divine for the disciples to see Him any more. That He sat on the right hand of God, means that He now had all Divine power. The cloud which received Him out of their sight was like their own obscure thoughts, as their thought about the earthly kingdom, which hid the Lord from them. And when they should learn the real meaning of His kingdom and of other things told in the letter of the Word, it would be an opening of the cloud and a coming of the Lord again. This was what the two angels meant.

Read the list of the apostles in Acts 1: 13, and compare it with the list in Matthew 10: 2-4. Compare what is said of Judas in Acts 1:18 with Matthew 27:5-8. Read now how another was chosen to take Judas' place. It reminds you of the dividing of the land of Canaan among the tribes, and of the choosing of Saul as king, when the Lord guided the lot. What was the name of the one chosen in Judas' place?

Now the third part of our story, in Acts 2:1-13. The Lord had told the disciples that He would send the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit to be with them and comfort them. (John 14:16-18, 26) The promise was renewed on the last time that the Lord was with them, at His ascension. (Acts 1:5, 8) A few days later the promise was fulfilled in a wonderful way.

Do you know the meaning of the word "Pentecost," and do you know other names by which the same feast was called? Does the sound of a rushing, mighty wind seem at all like the sign which the Lord used at another time when He said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit"? (John 20:22) Had the speaking with other tongues been promised? (Mark 16:17) It was a token of the power which the Lord gave the disciples to speak His new message to all kinds of people. As you read the list of countries in verses 9-11, can you place them on the map? Later on in this book of Acts we shall go to many of these countries with the apostles. (Read Acts 2:41-47.)

1. How are books of the Word distinguished from books not of the Word? Is the Acts a book of the Word?

2. When was the ascension? Where?

3. Who was chosen in Judas' place? How was he chosen?

4. What and when was Pentecost? What came to the apostles at Pentecost?

Deeper Study

"The books of the Word are all those which have an internal sense, but they which have not, are not the Word." (A. 10325) A list of the books of the Word then follows, those of the New Testament being "the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; and the Apocalypse." Swedenborg's friend, Dr. Beyer, asked him in a letter in regard to the writings of the apostles, and he replied: "In respect to the writings of the apostles and Paul, I have not quoted them in the Arcana Coelestia, because they are doctrinal writings, and consequently are not written in the style of the Word, like those of the prophets, of David, of the evangelists and the Book of Revelation. The style of the Word consists altogether of correspondences, wherefore it is effective of immediate communication with heaven; but in doctrinal writings there is a different style, which has indeed communication with heaven, but mediately. They were written thus by the apostles, that the new Christian Church might be commenced through them; wherefore matters of doctrine could not be written in the style of the Word, but they had to be expressed in such a manner as to be understood more clearly and immediately. The writings of the apostles are, nevertheless, good books for the church, insisting upon the doctrine of charity and its faith as strongly as the Lord Himself has done in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. . . ." (Documents 224) In reading the Acts we shall remember this distinction between it and the Gospels. We shall value it for its simple narrative of the first Christian workers, and for its teaching of Christian doctrine. Also, while books not of the Word do not have the continuous spiritual meaning, there are in some of them, as in Job and the Proverbs, many examples of the use of correspondences by the wise ancients, which are frequently quoted by Swedenborg. There are also events recorded in the Acts, like the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit in our present lesson, and the miracles done by the apostles, which are representative of spiritual things.

What spiritual fact in regard to the Lord's relation to the disciples is represented by His ascending from their sight? The Lord used the same word in His saying to Mary Easter morning: "I ascend to My Father and your Father; and to My God, and your God." (John 20:17) It meant that as His union with the Divine became full and complete He passed beyond their natural sight and literal finite understanding. What is meant by the saying in Mark 16:19, that He sat on the right hand of God? Compare Matthew 28:18. There is a beautiful meaning in the place of the ascension. The Mount of Olives has been associated with some of the most tender expressions of the Lord's love, and Bethany with some of the most receptive states in simple, loving hearts. It seems to say that in the loving states represented by Bethany on the Mount of Olives we come as near as we in this world can come to the Divine and to heaven. (E. 638, 899; A. 9780)

A cloud represents literal and obscure thought in regard to Divine and heavenly things. Remember the dark cloud at Sinai and the bright cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration. Plainly the cloud at the ascension represents the literal and obscure thought in the disciples' minds, which prevented their better understanding the Lord and His kingdom. This also helps us to understand the words of the two angels and the Lord's own predictions in regard to His coming again in the clouds of heaven. (Matthew 24:30; 26:64) The clouds in which He comes are the clouds of the letter of the Word. He comes as the letter is opened, and the inner meaning seen, which explains how He is with us in this world forever as truly as when He walked with men, This opening of the letter of the Word and the revealing of its inner meaning has been accomplished by the Lord through Swedenborg. It is an essential part of His second coming. (R. 642, 820; T. 779)

That the Holy Spirit is the Lord's own personal influence He made very plain in John 14:16-18, 26, and in John 20:22. In the place last referred to, as in our lesson, the Spirit is represented by a breath or wind. Remember the Lord's words to Nicodemus, in which the influence of the Lord and heaven is likened to the wind, and also the Lord's rebuking of the stormy wind, where it represents the influence of hell. The fire which rested on the disciples represented a new love and zeal for the Lord's truth. New tongues (predicted also in Mark 16:17) represented new power to acknowledge and to teach the truth about the Lord and Christian life. The Lord would give them power to speak it not only to all nations, but to all sorts and conditions of men. (T. 146; E. 455) that whoever receives the power from the Lord, also receives pleasures that last forever.

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