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!

1999. That 'Abram fell on his face' ¹ means adoration is clear without explanation. Falling on one's face' was the reverent way in which the Most Ancient Church, and as a consequence the ancients, expressed adoration. The reason they expressed it in this way was that 'the face' meant the inward parts, and 'falling on one's face' ¹ represented a state of humiliation of those inward parts; and from this it became in the Jewish representative Church an act of reverence. True adoration or humility of heart entails prostration before the Lord face-downwards on the ground as the natural action resulting from it. Indeed humiliation of heart entails the acknowledgement of oneself as being nothing but uncleanness, and at the same time the acknowledgement of the Lord's infinite mercy towards such. When these acknowledgements are fixed in the mind, the mind itself casts itself down towards hell and prostrates the body. Nor does it raise itself until raised up by the Lord, as happens in all true humiliation, accompanied by a perception that such raising up is of the Lord's mercy. Such was the humiliation of members of the Most Ancient Church. It is different however with adoration which does not flow from humiliation of heart, see 1153.

[2] It is well known from the Word, in the Gospels, that the Lord adored and prayed to Jehovah, His Father, and that He did so as though to Someone other than Himself, even though Jehovah was within Him. But the state that the Lord experienced at such times was the state of His humiliation, the nature of which has been discussed in Volume One, namely this, that at such times as these He was in the infirm human derived from the mother. But to the extent He cast this off and took on the Divine His state was different, which state is called the state of His glorification. In the first state He adored Jehovah as Someone other than Himself, even though He was within Him, for, as has been stated, His Internal was Jehovah. In the latter state however, that is to say, the state of glorification, He spoke to Jehovah as to Himself, since He was Jehovah Himself.

[3] The truth of all this however cannot be grasped unless one knows what the internal is and how the internal operates into the external, and furthermore how the internal and external are distinct and separate and yet joined together. The matter may be illustrated however by means of something similar, namely by means of the internal with man and of its influx and operation into the external with him. For the fact that man has an internal, an interior or rational, and an external, see what has appeared already in 1889, 1940. Man's internal is that which makes him human and distinguishes him from animals. It is by means of this internal that man lives on after death and for ever, and by means of it the Lord can raise him up among angels. It is the prior or primary form from which anyone becomes and is a human being, and it is by means of this internal that the Lord is united to man. The heaven itself that is nearest to the Lord consists of these human internals, but being above even the inmost angelic heaven these internals therefore belong to the Lord Himself. In this way the entire human race is directly present beneath the eyes of the Lord. Distance, a visible feature of this sublunary world, does not exist in heaven, still less above heaven - see what has been mentioned from experience in 1275, 1277.

[4] These inward aspects of men possess no life in themselves but are recipient forms of the Lord's life. To the extent then that anyone is under the influence of evil, both that of his own doing and that which is hereditary, he has been so to speak separated from this internal which is the Lord's and resides with the Lord, and so has been separated from the Lord. For although that human internal is joined to the person and cannot be separated from him, yet to the extent he moves away from the Lord he does in a way separate himself from it, see 1594. But such separation is not a complete severance from that human internal - for if it were, man would no longer be able to live after death; but it is a lack of harmony and agreement with it on the part of his capacities which are beneath it, that is, of his rational and external man. Insofar as disharmony and disagreement are present there is no conjunction, but insofar as they are absent man is joined to the Lord by means of the internal, which is achieved in the measure that he is moved by love and charity, for love and charity effect conjunction. Such is the situation with man.

[5] But the Lord's Internal was Jehovah Himself, since He was conceived from Jehovah, who cannot be divided or become the relative of another, like a son who has been conceived from a human father. For unlike the human, the Divine is not capable of being divided but is and remains one and the same. To this Internal the Lord united the Human Essence. Moreover because the Lord's Internal was Jehovah it was not, like man's internal, a recipient form of life, but life itself. Through that union His Human Essence as well became life itself. Hence the Lord's frequent declaration that He is Life, as in John,

As the Father has Life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have Life in Himself. John 5:26.

And elsewhere besides this in the same gospel, 1:4; 5:21; 6:33, 35, 48; 11:25. 'The Son' is used to mean the Lord's Human Essence. To the extent therefore that the Lord was in the human which He received by heredity from the mother, He appeared to be distinct and separate from Jehovah, and worshipped Jehovah as Someone other than Himself. But to the extent He cast off this human, the Lord was not distinct and separate from Jehovah but one with Him. The first state, as has been mentioned, was the state of the Lord's humiliation, but the second the state of His glorification.

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