Day 37
John 20: 21-23
21Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." 22And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld."
The Disciples' Mission (John 20: 21-23)
As the Father had sent Jesus, so he now commissions them. ‘Sent’ is one of the fundamental truths of this gospel. Everything that Jesus had said and done, including his death, was because the Father had sent him. In spite of what the Jews could do, it was important that the disciples felt the urgency of getting out of the locked room and being sent to a needy world with God’s message. As disciples we need to feel that too.
The equipment for their task
The disciples’ equipment was the Holy Spirit. There are two quite distinct historical eras of Holy Spirit blessing for God’s people. Before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit had been given to individual men and women for special tasks in particular times. After Pentecost (Acts 2:1) every believer is baptized by the Spirit into the body of believers (1 Corinthians 12:13). In these verses Jesus appears to be saying to the disciples, ‘Here is the Holy Spirit to equip you for your task until Pentecost, when the whole church will be furnished with a similar blessing.’ He, literally, ‘expelled a deep breath’ and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’
Think: In what ways are Christians today ‘sent’ into the world around them?
