2. Is the Holy Spirit received through the
help of Apostles or Elders of the Church?
(Part 2 – Some other teachings to be kept in mind
here)
Before looking further at this point in detail, it is
necessary to take note of some related things:
The Unity of the whole Church: For this please read Ephesians 2:12-22 attentively, prayerfully, and repeatedly. The summary
of this passage from Ephesians is that before the salvation and reconciliation
with God made available for the whole world through the Lord Jesus, amongst the people of the world the Law of the Lord, His teachings and instructions, and the methodology
of the way to approaching God was available only with the Jews. This was a
matter of great pride for the Jews, and because of this
they considered themselves over and above every other nation and people of the
world. But now, after being brought together into one by
the Lord Jesus, all of these things have been made
available to every person in the whole world, no longer
are they the monopoly of the Jews – now all the Christian
Believers on coming into faith in the Lord Jesus have been made one, after becoming one in the Lord Jesus there remains no
differentiation between the Jews and gentiles, and all are
together being made the one dwelling place of God by the Holy Spirit, by being
built on the foundation of the teachings of the Prophets and Apostles (Ephesians 2:20-22) – on one teaching, through one Spirit, for one God, as one kind of people, joined together, made effective, and all being used
together (Ephesians 4:4-6), without
any distinctions of any kind whatsoever.
The social categorization prior to unification: At the time of the establishment of the first
Christian Believer’s Assembly, from the point of view of
the Israelites, the society had four broad categories of people –
(1) Jews, the chosen people of God; they
had with them God’s Law, His rituals, and
His Word; they had with them God’s Temple and the
responsibility of worshipping Him and praying to Him; therefore
they considered themselves to be of the highest order amongst all of mankind, they felt that there is no one like them and neither ever can
be. (2) The Samaritans, who were not
fully Jews, and not entirely gentiles, but somewhere in
between the two. The Jews did not consider them as equivalent
to them, but the Samaritans believed
themselves to be the descendants of Jacob, and followed
the Jewish Law, worship, and rituals (John 4:9, 12, 20, 25), and therefore like
the Jews, they felt themselves superior to the gentiles. (3) The
gentiles, who were not even considered worthy of being
God’s mercy or His favor; the Jews considered it abhorrent
and blasphemous to have anything to do with them (Acts 10:28). (4) The disciples of John the
Baptist, from whom Peter and Andrew etc. had come to the
Lord Jesus (John 1:35-42); the
disciples of John the Baptist were Jews, but because of
having become his followers, they were seen as somewhat different from the rest
of the Jews. To all of these categories of people God sent
the Christian Believers who had come from the Jews, i.e.
Phillip, Peter, John, and Paul with the Gospel. Through the ministry of those Christian Believers who came from
the Jews, all those others too received the Holy Spirit, same
as the initial Jewish Christian Believers had received, and this, in the Word
of God was stated as an affirmation of the Lord’s teaching and as something
according to the will of God (Acts 11:15-18).
The point to be understood is that God used the Jews,
to unite in Him, all the other people considered different or sub-standard to
the Jews – which is a practical application of Ephesians 2:20-22 – bringing everyone
together into one body, to be the one temple of God. It was essential to do this, so that those
who had become the Christian disciples form the Jews would see for themselves and then understand as well as accept that once in the Lord
they are not special, and neither are the non-Jews in any
way inferior to them (Acts 10:28, 35;
11:1-4, 18). If this had not been done through the Jewish Christian
Believers, and had the understanding and concepts of those
initial Jewish Believers, Apostles and Elders of the Church, and other
Christian Believers not been corrected and changed, then
it would have become very difficult for the Jewish Believers to accept and
believe that in the Lord Jesus the non-Jews too have become the same as them, and they too have the same Holy Spirit as them, and
they too have the honor of being the children of God, just like them. If this
had not been done, then in that condition from the very beginning there would
have been a great divide and segregation within the Church, which
would have been extremely difficult to overcome later on. In this context, it is important to note that despite so many proofs and
explanations, this differentiation and divisiveness did
not immediately go out from the initial Church, discrimination
continued to occur (Acts 6:1); Satan
misses no opportunity to sow divisiveness amongst the people of God.
- To Be Continued
Next: Understanding the three
examples
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