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!

7847. 'And put it onto the two doorposts and onto the lintel' means the truths and forms of good of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'the doorposts' as the truths of the natural; and from the meaning of 'the lintel' as the forms of good belonging to it. The reason why the doorposts and lintel have this meaning is that 'the house' means the actual person or his mind, and parts forming the door mean the things that serve to lead into it. These, it may be evident, are the truths and forms of good of the natural; for the natural man receives instruction first, before the rational man, and the ideas he learns during that time are natural ones, into which spiritual ideas, which are more internal, are gradually instilled. From this one may see in what way the truths and forms of good of the natural serve to lead in. Furthermore lintel and doorposts are similar in meaning to a person's frontlets and hands; for it is in the nature of angelic ideas to associate natural objects with human characteristics. The reason for this is that the spiritual world or heaven is in form like a person, and therefore all things in that world - that is, all spiritual realities, which are truths and forms of good - have connection with that form, as has been shown where correspondences are the subject, at the ends of quite a number of chapters. And since in angelic ideas natural objects become spiritual realities a house does so too. To them it is a person's mind; the bedrooms and other rooms are the inner parts of the mind, and the windows, doors, doorposts, and lintels are the outer parts leading in. Since angelic ideas are like this they are also filled with life; and that being so, things which in the natural world are lifeless objects become objects filled with life when they pass into the spiritual world. For everything spiritual is filled with life since it comes from the Lord.

[2] The fact that 'doorposts and lintel' is similar in meaning to a person's 'frontlets and hands' may be seen from the following words in Moses,

You shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. You are to bind them as a sign onto your hand, and let them be as frontlets between your eyes. And you are to write them onto the doorposts of your house, and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:5, 8-9; 11:13, 18, 20.

Since they hold a similar meaning to each other both observances have been stated here.

[3] As regards the meaning of 'lintel and doorposts' in the spiritual sense as the forms of good and the truths of the natural which lead into spiritual things, this is clear from the description in Ezekiel of the new temple, which means the spiritual Church. There reference is made many times to doorposts and lintels, objects which were also measured. This would never have been done unless those details had also meant something descriptive of the Church or of heaven, that is, something spiritual, such as the following details in that prophet,

The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering, and put it onto the doorpost of the house, and onto the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and onto the post of the gate of the inner court, on the first day of the month. Ezekiel 45:19.

[4] In the same prophet,

The prince shall enter by the way of the portico outside, and stand by the gate post; and the priests shall make his burnt offering. At that time he shall worship on the threshold of the gate. Ezekiel 46:2.

Anyone may recognize that 'the temple' here is not used to mean the temple but the Lord's Church, for the kinds of things described here in a number of chapters have never come about, and never will. In the highest sense 'the temple' is used to mean the Lord's Divine Human. He Himself teaches this meaning in John 2:19, 21-22; and in the representative sense 'the temple is therefore used to mean His Church. For statements that the angel measured the lintels of this new temple, see Ezekiel 40:9-10, 14, 16, 24; 41:21, 25. This measuring of them would have had no importance unless 'the lintels', and also the numbers involved, had meant some aspect of the Church. Because 'the doorposts and lintel' meant the truths and forms of good in the natural, which serve to lead in, the ones in this new temple were square, Ezekiel 41:21. For the same reason the doorposts in Solomon's temple were made of planks of olive wood, 1 Kings 6:31, 33. 'Olive wood' meant the good of truth or the good which is that of the spiritual Church.