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!

367. (iv) The person, however, who separates the Lord, charity and faith is not a form which can receive them, but rather one which destroys them.

Anyone who separates the Lord from charity and faith takes away life from them; charity and faith without life either are non-existent or are abortions. The Lord is life itself; see on this 358 above. Anyone who acknowledges the Lord and separates charity from Him, only acknowledges Him with the lips. His acknowledgment and confession are merely cold, lacking any faith; for they lack spiritual essence, since charity is the essence of faith. Anyone, however, who does charitable deeds and fails to acknowledge the Lord as being the God of heaven and earth, one with the Father, as He Himself teaches, can perform only deeds of natural charity, which do not contain everlasting life. People in the church know that all good which is essentially good comes from God, consequently from the Lord, who is the true God and everlasting life (1 John 5:20). The same is true of charity, since good and charity are one.

[2] Faith separated from charity is no faith, because faith is the light of a person's life, and charity is its heat. Therefore, if charity is separated from faith, the result is like separating heat from light. This causes a person's state to resemble the state of the world in winter, when everything above ground dies off. Charity and faith, if they are to be real charity and real faith, can no more be separated than the will and the understanding; if they are separated, the understanding is reduced to nothing, and the will soon follows. It is the same with charity and faith, because charity dwells in the will, and faith in the understanding.

[3] Separating charity from faith is like separating essence from form. The learned world is well aware that essence without form and form without essence are nothing, since essence cannot have any quality except from its form, nor is form any continuing entity except from its essence. Hence nothing can be predicated of either if they are separated one from the other. Charity is also the essence of faith, and faith is the form of charity, precisely as was said before, that good is the essence of truth and truth is the form of good.

[4] These two, good and truth, are in every single thing which comes into existence in essence. Since therefore charity relates to good, and faith to truth, they can be illustrated by comparisons with many features of the human body, and with many phenomena on earth. An exact comparison is with the respiration of the lungs and the systolic motion of the heart; for charity can no more be separated from faith than the heart can from the lungs. For if the heart-beat ceases, the respiration of the lungs ceases at once; and if the respiration of the lungs ceases, total unconsciousness supervenes, and inability to move any muscle, so that shortly afterwards the heart also stops and all trace of life vanishes. This comparison is exact, because the heart corresponds to the will and thus also to charity, and the respiration of the lungs to the understanding and thus also to faith. For, as stated above, charity dwells in the will and faith in the understanding; this and nothing else is the meaning of 'heart' and 'breath' in the Word.

[5] The separation of charity and faith also agrees exactly with the separation of blood and flesh. Blood separated from flesh is gore and turns into rotting blood; and flesh separated from blood becomes progressively rotten and breeds worms. 'Blood' too in the spiritual sense means the truth of wisdom and faith, and 'flesh' means the good of love and of charity. This meaning of blood was demonstrated in my Apocalypse Revealed, 379; and of flesh, 832.

[6] Charity and faith, for one or the other to be anything, can no more be separated than in the human body food and water, or bread and wine. For food or bread taken without water or wine merely distend the stomach and ruin it as undigested lumps, turning into rotting mud. Water or wine without food or bread also distend the stomach, as well as the vessels and passages, which being thus deprived of nutriment cause wasting in the body to the point of death. This comparison too fits, since 'food' and 'bread' in the spiritual sense mean the good of love and of charity, and 'water' and 'wine' mean the truth of wisdom and faith (see Apocalypse Revealed 50, 316, 778, 932),

[7] Charity combined with faith and faith combined in return with charity can be likened to the beauty of a girl's face coming from the mixture of red and white in it. This likeness too is exact, since love and the charity that comes from it in the spiritual world glows red with the fire of the sun there, and truth, and the faith that comes from it, shine white with the light of that sun. Charity separated from faith can therefore be likened to a face inflamed with spots, and faith separated from charity to the colourless face of a corpse. Faith separated from charity can also be likened to a paralysis down one side, known as hemiplegia, which, if it advances, proves fatal. It can also be likened to St Vitus' or Guy's dance, which attacks people bitten by a tarantula. The faculty of reason becomes like this, and like the victim dances madly, believing itself then to be alive, yet it is no more able to assemble rational thoughts together and think about spiritual truths, than when someone is lying in bed in the grip of a nightmare. These remarks are enough to demonstrate the two theses of this chapter, first, that faith without charity is no faith and charity without faith is no charity, and both are lifeless unless the Lord gives them life; and secondly, that the Lord, charity and faith make one, just as in a person life, will and understanding do, and if they are separated, each of them is destroyed, like a pearl collapsing into dust.