Late on the first Easter Sunday, after the Lord had risen from the sepulcher, ten of the disciples gathered for the evening in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem (John 20). They were afraid and probably confused. Since their leader had been crucified by the Roman power, as organized by their own Jewish leaders, they feared that now his followers might also be hunted down and punished. They closed and locked the doors. Were any of the women there? The story does not say, but Peter and John were, who saw and talked with the angels that morning, and the stories of the women were known. Some time must have been spent wondering and perhaps arguing - was He really alive? How could they know it was really Him? This kind of thing, coming back to life after you’re dead, this doesn’t happen in this real world, there must be some mistake!

Then two of the followers, not of the twelve, but the two that had gone to the village of Emmaus, came in, excited and bursting with their news. They had seen Him! They had walked with Him for seven miles and He had told them wondrous things! They had only recognized Him when He broke bread and ate with them. "Don’t doubt us, it really was Jesus!"

And then as they all talked and argued, there He was, standing with them in the room. "Peace be unto you," He said, and He showed them His hands and feet and His side, where he was wounded. He calmed them, and told them that just as he had come down to mankind, so they must go out and teach to all people all the true things that He had taught in the years He was with them.

It was these truths about how to live one’s life that were saving, not the disciples themselves. These saving truths have the power to remit or retain sins, because they were from the Lord, the disciples only transmitted them from the Lord to those who would listen and take them to heart. Then He breathed on them - representing His holy spirit - so that they would not only want to pass these truths on to people, but would also be given the words to say whenever the times came. And then He was gone again.

Thomas was not there that night. We don’t know why. And Thomas, when he heard the story, just could not swallow it. "Except I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe", he said. (John 20:25.)

The next verse tells us that the next Sunday they gathered again, and that Thomas was present this time. As before, the Lord was suddenly there, saying again, "Peace be unto you", and then directly to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger… and reach hither thy hand… and be not faithless but believing". Now Thomas's response was, "my Lord and my God". It seems as if the Lord came this time just to convince Thomas, because it was Thomas who needed Him.

I think He does work this way. I am reminded of another story, from the gospel of Mark (Mark 9:17-27) where a father comes to Jesus with a young son who is possessed by a devil, and asks Jesus to cure him, and is asked in turn: "Do you believe I can do this?" In Mark 9:24 the father responds. Crying out, he said with tears, "I believe, help thou my unbelief."

I think many people have this conflict between lingering doubts and a desire to have the doubts taken away. If we carry on and make our decisions in life as if the doubts were indeed gone, then indeed they will lose their strength and actually will be gone.

These are the only details given of these two meetings in Jerusalem. Chronologically the next post-Easter stories are the ones that take place in Galilee.

John does go on to say at the end of his gospel "...many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God...." (John 20:30-31). Perhaps there were more post-Easter stories that weren't written down, but the ones we do have are strong. For the disciples who were involved, there was an unstoppable impact from the life and teachings of the Lord, and His crucifixion, and physical death, and now - in these stories - His resurrection. Hearing the Lord's charges to them, these Galilean fishermen and their colleagues launch out into the wide world, and work to achieve the Great Commission, enduring hardships and persecution, and succeeding - probably beyond their wildest dreams!

154. These points may be illustrated by a number of reasoned arguments. For instance, it is well known that, after the Apostles had been given the Holy Spirit by the Lord, they preached the Gospel throughout much of the world, and spread the news of it by word of mouth and by their writings. They did this of themselves from the Lord; for Peter taught and wrote in one way, James in another, John in another and Paul in another, each according to his own intelligence. The Lord filled them all with His Spirit, but each drew a contribution from that source which was determined by the nature of his perception, and they carried out their duty in a way determined by the nature of the ability of each. All the angels in the heavens are full of the Lord, for they are in the Lord and the Lord is in them; but still each speaks and acts in accordance with his own mental state, some simply, some wisely, and so with infinite variety, yet each one speaks of himself from the Lord.

[2] It is the same with every minister of the church, the one who preaches truths as much as the one who preaches falsities; each has his own mouth and his own intelligence, and each speaks as he is guided by his own mind, that is, the spirit which he possesses. All Protestants, whether they go by the name of Evangelical or Reformed, once they have been taught the dogmas handed down from Luther, Melanchthon or Calvin, do not have these three or their dogmas speaking of themselves through their mouths, but they themselves speak of themselves from the leaders. Moreover, each separate dogma can be expounded in a thousand ways, for each is like a cornucopia, from which each preacher chooses what suits and matches his own character, and expounds it according to the talents he possesses.

[3] This can be illustrated by the action of the heart in and on the lungs, and by the spontaneous reaction of the lungs from the heart. These are two distinct actions, but still reciprocally connected. The lungs breathe spontaneously from the heart, but the heart does not breathe by means of the lungs. If this happened, both of them would cease working. It is the same with the heart's action in and on the viscera throughout the body. The heart circulates blood to all parts, but the viscera draw on this blood, each part taking its proper ration to enable it to perform its proper use, and acting in accordance with this, but in different ways.

[4] A further illustration of the same point is this. The evil which comes from one's parents, what is called hereditary evil, works in and on a person; and likewise the good which comes from the Lord, but this is above or within, the evil is below and outside. If the evil worked by means of the person, he could not be reformed, nor would he be liable to blame; and likewise if the good coming from the Lord worked by means of the person, he could not be reformed in that case either. But because either action depends upon a person's free choice, he incurs guilt when he acts of himself from evil, and remains innocent when he acts of himself from good. Now since evil is the devil and good is the Lord, he incurs guilt if he acts from the devil, and is innocent if he acts from the Lord. It is that free choice, which is open to every individual, that makes it possible for a person to be reformed.

[5] It is the same with everything internal and external in a person's character; internal and external are two different things, but still joined in a reciprocal bond. The internal acts in and on the external, not by means of it. For the internal has thousands of plans, from which the external selects only those which can be of use. In a person's internal, by which is meant the voluntary and perceptive mind, there is a vast heap of ideas, which if they escaped through a person's mouth would be like wind from a bellows. Since the internal is concerned with universals, it can be compared with an ocean, a flower-bed or a garden, from which the external helps itself to sufficient for its purposes. The Lord's Word is like an ocean, a flower-bed and a garden. When the Word is present in considerable fulness in a person's internal, then he speaks and acts of himself from the Word, but the Word does not act by his means. It is the same with the Lord, since He is the Word, that is, the Divine truth and Divine good it contains. The Lord of Himself or from the Word acts in and on people, but not by their means, since everyone freely acts and speaks from the Lord when he does so from the Word.

[6] A closer parallel to this might be the mutual relationship between the soul and the body, which are two separate things, but linked in a reciprocal bond. The soul acts in and on the body, but not by means of the body; and the body acts of itself from the soul. The soul does not act by means of the body, because they do not consult and deliberate together; nor does the soul order or beg the body to do this or that, or to speak by its own mouth. Nor does the body demand or request the soul to give it or supply something, for everything of the soul's belongs to the body, and vice versa. It is the same with the Lord's Divine and His Human; for the Divine of the Father is the soul of His Human, and the Human is His body. The Human does not ask its Divine what it is to say or do. Therefore, the Lord says:

On that day you will ask in my name; and I do not tell you that I shall ask the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me, John 16:26-27.

'On that day' means after His glorification, that is, after His union with the Father was accomplished and completed. This is a secret revealed by the Lord Himself for the benefit of those who are going to belong to His new church.