The Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles

The Lord left his apostles with instructions and with great gifts. The instructions are listed in several distinct places, but the the gifts are more scattered, both in the four gospels and in the book of Acts later, being given as the apostles needed them.

First, about the apostles... just to clarify, here I'm referring to "the disciples" as including anyone who has followed along to hear the Lord, and "the apostles" to mean the twelve men that the Lord recruited specifically, as listed in Matthew 10, Mark 3, and Luke 6.

Who were the apostles? From the lists in Matthew and Mark, which are the same, we have: Simon (Peter), James and John the sons of Zebedee, Andrew (Peter’s brother), Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew (the publican), Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, (as is Matthew, so they are brothers, too), Thaddeus, (also known as Libbeus), Simon the Canaanite (also called Simon the Zealot), and Judas Iscariot. Bartholomew is almost undoubtedly another name for Nathaniel, see John 1. The list in Luke includes another Judas, "Judas the brother of James" and doesn’t have Thaddeus.

The stories of how they were individually chosen differ, especially in the gospel of John, but that these twelve were appointed by the Lord is clear. A point of interest is that - other than Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot they are all from towns around the sea of Galilee - and perhaps those two are as well. These twelve have their names inscribed on the twelve foundations of the walls of the holy city New Jerusalem, in Revelation 21:14 in which there are also the twelve gates. These men were chosen to represent all the different states of the natural human being that can be receptive of the Lord. They are from Galilee because Galilee represents that natural state of the human mind. The number twelve in the Word represents all possible states of mankind.

What is indicated here is that all people, everywhere, can be saved or regenerated if they repent and turn to the Lord in their lives. No one is "outside" of His reach. We are born natural, everyone is, but we are so formed that our minds can be raised to what is higher, called spiritual for our conceptions of Divine truth, or Celestial for our perceptions of Divine good. But we all start in a natural state and can only move upward by listening to the Lord’s teachings in His Word, and following Him as those Apostles did.

Not all of our natural states are states of good; they can be selfish, domineering, and cruel. But the Lord said that He came "not to save the just but to call sinners to repentance". Perhaps this is why Simon the Canaanite and Judas were two that He called. Simon is little known, but in some places in the Word, "Canaan signifies an external worship without a true internal worship". (See Arcana Coelestia 1060). Can the Lord work with that - with external worship that's internally barren? Yes, as a starting point. And, even Judas, who betrayed the Lord so terribly, we are told, repented of his betrayal of the Lord. (Matthew 27:3-5)

The Lord's Instructions to the Apostles

The two most comprehensive sets of instructions are in Luke 10:1-17 where seventy Disciples are sent out two by two, apparently to a specified list of cities that Jesus intends to visit, and then in Matthew 20:1-19 where the chosen twelve Apostles are sent out to all Israel. Later, as recorded in different epistles, the Apostles go out further, through a wide region.

The basic instructions were to preach that the kingdom of heaven is near, that all should be led to repent of their sins, and that all who wish should be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles should not take any money or extra clothing along, and they were to depend entirely on the Lord’s providence with no doubt that they shall be welcomed, fed, and sheltered. If they were welcomed, they should stay and preach the good news about the risen Lord and His teachings, and if they were not, they should shake from their feet the dust of that place and go on to a place where they were welcome. See Matthew 10, 28, Mark 13, 16, Luke 9, 10:24.

There are several assurances for the twelve. The Lord has told them to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit is sent to strengthen them, and in John 20 where the ten are gathered it is said that He breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit". Also, in his long talk with them in John 14, 15, 16) He assures them that his crucifixion and death are necessary to his mission and they should even rejoice that it is coming. He shows them from scripture that it has all been prophesied from long ago, (see Mark 4:34) and that what seems to them a tragedy, is truly His glorification and the end of the work He came to do. They, His twelve, are in the same steam of providence and will be protected. "Don’t be anxious," He tells them, "I will put into your mouths what you are to say, I will bring into your memories the incidents to tell to the people".

Here is a listing of the chapters and verses in John where such things are said: John 14:1-3, 10, 16-18, 26-28, 15:11, 16, 26-27, 16:7, 13-15, 22, 26-27, 33. Or simply read the three chapters and pick out your favorites.

A marvelous gift is mentioned in Matthew 10:13, "But blessed are your eyes for they see and blessed are your ears, for they hear…".

In the book of Acts, the Lord vividly shows the apostles that when they speak in their Galileen dialect every listener will hear their words as his own language in his ears; not gibberish, but Arabic to the Arabs, Greek to the Greeks, and Latin to the Romans.

When Peter starts to preach to a gathering of sympathetic Jews he speaks clearly and unafraid, saying that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and that people should worship Him openly and repent of how they might have felt earlier. Peter’s talk in Acts 3 and 4 is a bold and powerful one. No more hiding behind locked doors.

The early history of the Christian church shows just how well all this worked out. You know what? The Apostles preached to the peoples in the Near East 2000 years ago, and their preaching is just as relevant today as it was then: "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Being at hand has nothing to do with the date or the state of political history in the world, it has to do with the inside of your mind. The Lord is just as close to you now as He was then, and He never turns away, though we might turn away from him. Remember that He said "behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears and opens the door He will come right in." This hasn’t changed nor will it ever change, but He leaves us in freedom to ignore His knocking, if that is what we want. We have to make the choice, but He is always ready if we choose to open the door.

"With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright; With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward." Psalm 18:25-26

Additional readings: Joshua 2:14-24, Matthew 7:1-20, Psalm 87, Psalm 88

The Lord says in His sermon on the mount "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:7-8). All the blessings pronounced in that sermon involve the same principle. We read also, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38), and "With the same measure that ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" (Matthew 7:2, Mark 4:24).

There are many other passages of the same import, all implying that in order to receive good we must do good. And it is a fact that in a marvelous way under the Divine Providence what we wish for others in the end becomes our own lot. If we wish good for others and work to that end, good will be our final lot; if we wish evil and failure for others, our life will end in disaster.

From the letter of our text the appearance is that the Lord is merciful only to those who are merciful and that He rewards evil for evil as well as good for good. Yet God is no "respecter of persons." He loves the good and happiness of all equally. He is in fact mercy itself and goodness itself. He therefore can do only good, and that continually. God cannot be unmerciful nor can He withhold mercy where it can be received.

To understand our text we need to know the true nature of man and his relation to the Lord. That we may have a true sense of the importance of this knowledge and that we may see how true even the literal sense of our text is it may be helpful to consider briefly what has resulted from the want of such knowledge.

The Word is the same in its letter to everyone who reads it. Yet people derive exactly opposite doctrines from the same passages. This cannot be said of other writings. Why is it? The cause is not in the Lord, nor is it in the Word. It is in man. Many false systems of religious faith have been drawn from the Bible because men have not understood the principle according to which the Bible is written and have read into it their own desires.

Throughout the Scriptures God shows Himself as bestowing favors and as meeting out punishments just as an arbitrary earthly monarch might do, and as doing this "for His own glory." But this is because He has to reach mankind who, even at their very best, are selfish and perverse.

Everyone when left in freedom will incline to that idea of God and to those religious doctrines which are most in harmony with his own nature. It is true every day that to the impure the Lord appears Impure, to the revengeful He appears revengeful, to the unforgiving He appears unforgiving unless His forgiveness is purchased by penance. This is the real reason

for the great diversities in religious faith. If a man believes Christ to be a mere man or if he believes that Christ in undergoing death on the Cross expiated the sins of the world, he so believes not from rational conviction but because such teachings are in harmony with his own character. It is only as man becomes regenerated that the Lord can show Himself to him as He really is. A selfish man cannot conceive that anyone can do a really unselfish deed. The impure think that all are impure.

Man is a recipient of life from the Lord and is related to Him as a branch to the vine. And life is not given him once for all: he is a constant recipient of life. It flows into him from moment to moment. This is true also in the realm of nature. Plants receive the same heat and light from the sun and grow in the same earth. Yet they are innumerable in their varieties. But man differs from them in that he is not, as they are, a passive recipient. He chooses what he will receive.

A diseased or defective eye does not see things as does a perfect eye, though the object and. the light is the same. The principle is this: if we are good and true, we are open to the reception of goodness and truth. If we are evil, truth and goodness do not appeal to us as virtues and we do not want them. Even on the natural plane what is sweet to one may not be pleasant to another; it depends on the condition of his body.

This law works on the spiritual plane as well as on the natural because the natural and physical are only the lower effects of the same spiritual laws operating on the plane of nature. In the spiritual world the influx of heavenly life causes pain to the wicked and they cannot endure it and flee to their own abode.

Life goes forth from the Lord to all, but this life is not to be appropriated by man and used for selfish purposes if it is to retain its original quality. It is to go forth and produce good works. If shut up within one's self, it is like pure water which, when not flowing, becomes stagnant and breeds corruption. A selfish man absorbs life and does not give it forth. To receive life from the Lord into ourselves for the sake of ourselves is to gather it into dead and stagnant pools in which hideous things are bred. These seem to us then to be from God, but they are actually the offspring of our own perverted life, the creations of our own diseased vision. What a man receives from the Lord is changed to partake of his own internal nature, and consequently it and the source of it appear to him like himself, of his own quality and disposition.

Whatever is received from the Lord should be an ever-living and overflowing stream, with no stagnant pools, never stopping in its work but always going forth to bless. Life is life, love is love, mercy is mercy only as the recipient of it is a free and active medium through which it may pass on to others continually by the active cooperation of the recipient.

Thus in proportion as one is merciful the Lord appears, or shows Himself merciful; as he is pure and upright, the Lord shows Himself upright; but as he is froward, the Lord shows Himself froward. This is the great cardinal principle which characterizes all revelation.

Such is the general teaching of the text. As a man is in himself, so he judges God to be, for so God appears to him.

This doctrine explains many passages of Scripture. It enables us to understand why God is sometimes represented as being angry and as possessing other human infirmities. To reach men and meet their needs the Word must be embodied in ideas and clothed in language adapted to their states and capacities. Because men were selfish the Lord had to appear to Moses and the prophets as a vengeful God, a God delighting in sacrifices and burnt offerings, a God like themselves who, when offended, needed to be appeased. It was better for them to have such a God than to have no God, no being who could exercise any restraint over them. It was better for them even to worship the sun and moon than to acknowledge nothing higher than themselves.

In the wise providence of the Lord He appears to men in such a character as the best good of their state is capable of receiving. When man's state is such that he cannot see the light, it is in mercy provided that darkness shall appear as light to him.

There is a lesson in this for us. If we would see God as He is, a being of pure unchanging love and wisdom, the only way we can find Him is to learn and do His will. This enables Him to form us into His own image and likeness. It is when we receive His qualities in ourselves by exercising them that we really see Him and we make ourselves living receptacles of His qualities by doing what He would have us do.

"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, 'Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?' Jesus answered and said unto him, 'If a man loves me; he will keep my words: and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:22).