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!

18. The Imputation of the Lord’s Merit Is Nothing More nor Less Than the Forgiveness of Sins That Follows upon Repentance.

It is believed in the church that the Lord was sent by the Father to make atonement for the human race, and that this was accomplished by his fulfilling the law and by his suffering on the cross, that in this way he bore our damnation and paid the full price, and that if it were not for this atonement, payment, and propitiation, the human race would have died an eternal death. This is believed to have been a matter of justice, which some, too, call “retributive justice.”

It is quite true that we would all have perished if the Lord had not come into the world, but how we should understand the Lord’s fulfilling everything in the law has been explained in its own chapter above [sections 8-11]. An explanation of why he suffered the cross has also been given in its own treatment [sections 12-14,15-17], enabling us to see that this was not a matter of retributive justice, since that is not a divine attribute. Justice, love, mercy, and goodness are divine attributes, and God is justice itself, love itself, mercy itself, and goodness itself. Further, where we find these we find no vindictiveness and therefore no retributive justice.

[2] Until now, many people have understood “fulfilling the law” and “the suffering on the cross” to mean that through them the Lord paid the full price for the human race and delivered it from the predicted or fated damnation. Put this together with the principle that we are saved simply by believing that this is what happened, and what follows is the dogma that the Lord’s merit is imputed to us if we take these two acts to be a substitute for our giving satisfaction [to God for our sins], though they actually belong to the Lord’s merit. However, this dogma collapses in the light of what has been said about the Lord’s fulfillment of the law and his suffering on the cross. At the same time we can see that “the imputation of merit” is a phrase without substance unless we take it to mean the forgiveness of sins that follows repentance. You see, nothing that belongs to the Lord can be credited to us, but salvation can be transferred to us by the Lord after we practice repentance-that is, after we see and acknowledge our sins and then desist from them, doing this because of the Lord. Then there is a way in which salvation is transferred to us: we are saved not on the basis of our own worth and our own righteousness but by the Lord, the only one who has fought and overcome the hells and who alone thereafter fights for us and overcomes the hells for us.

[3] These accomplishments are the Lord’s merit and righteousness, and they can never be credited to our account-because if they were, the Lord’s merit and righteousness would be attributed to us as though they were our own. This is something that never happens and that cannot happen. If imputation were possible, we could claim the Lord’s merit when we were impenitent and irreverent and think ourselves justified by doing so. Yet this would be polluting what is holy with profane things and profaning the Lord’s name, because it would be focusing our thoughts on the Lord but our will on hell, when in fact all we are is what our will intends.

There is a faith that is God’s and a faith that is our own. People who practice repentance have the faith that is God’s. People who do not practice repentance but think in terms of imputation have a faith that is their own. God’s faith is a living faith; our own faith is a dead faith.

[4] The following passages show that both the Lord himself and his disciples taught repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, because the kingdom of the heavens is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

Jesus said, “Bear fruit that is consistent with repentance. The axe is already lying against the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:8-9)

Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all perish.” (Luke 13:3, 5)

Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)

Jesus sent out his disciples, and they went out and preached that people should repent. (Mark 6:12)

Jesus said to the apostles that it was necessary for them to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47)

John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:3; Mark 1:4)

“Baptism” means a spiritual washing, which is a washing from sins and is called “rebirth.”

[5] This is how the Lord describes repentance and the forgiveness of sins in John:

He came to what was his own, and yet his own people did not accept him. But as many as did accept him, he gave them power to become children of God and believe in his name, who were born, not of blood, and not of the will of the flesh, and not of the will of a man, but of God. (John 1:11-13)

“His own people” means people of the church at that time, the church where the Word was; “children of God” and “believing in his name” mean people who believe in the Lord and who believe in the Word; blood means distortions of the Word and justifying what is false by that means; the will of the flesh means the will belonging to our own [lower] self, which is essentially evil; the will of a man means the understanding belonging to our own [lower] self, which is essentially false; and “those born of God” means people who have been reborn by the Lord.

We can see from this that we are saved if we are focused on good and loving actions that come from the Lord and on truths of our faith that come from the Lord; we are not saved if we are wrapped up in ourselves.

The Lord as the Divine-Human One Is Called “The Son of God” and as the Word Is Called “The Son of Humanity”