Although the other apostles had witnessed the risen Christ and were born again of His resurrection Spirit that He breathed on them Sunday evening after the return of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Thomas, who was not with them at the time, refused to believe it. So great was the power of…
Although Jesus’ tomb was found empty very early on the morning of Resurrection Sunday, to His followers at the time that didn’t immediately translate into our present understanding of what had happened. Even in spite of the angelic appearance and announcement that He had risen from the dead—a spiritual experience that gave way to the…
It was on that evening of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead when He appeared to His apostles that they were born again. Like the first man Adam who became alive as God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so did these come alive spiritually as Jesus breathed into them the Spirit of His…
On the evening of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead He appeared to all but Thomas of His remaining apostles (recall that Judas had hung himself). At that meeting fifty days before the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them in power at Pentecost, He breathed into them His Breath of eternal life. They had conceived…
Immediately after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the apostle John notes that as part of His sending of His apostles as the Father had sent Him, Jesus breathed into them the Holy Spirit by which they were born again of His immortal life. For that Spirit could not be given until He had been glorified (Joh…
Immediately following Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, after telling his disciples that as the Father had sent Him so was He sending them, the apostle John notes that Jesus “breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Joh 20:22). This was not his version of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that…
Writing after the other gospels had long been in circulation, John in His gospel notes several things about Jesus’ first resurrection appearance to His apostles that in the intervening years the Lord reminded him of that were significant. It was John who records that the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, that Jesus’…
Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances began with Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, followed by an appearance to Peter, then to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Eight days later He appeared to them again (Joh 20:26), and then a third time to a number of them at the Sea of Galilee…
Unlike their very tangible, of-this-world interactions with Jesus before His crucifixion (which, like those they had with any other person they never doubted but accepted at face value) the interactions His disciples had with Him after His resurrection were decidedly of a more spiritual nature. To be sure, they came to absolutely believe that what…
Although the light of the truth began to dawn with the morning light on that first day of the week when Jesus was resurrected from the dead, it wasn’t until later that evening when Jesus first appeared to most of His apostles that the intensity of that light began to break the bondage of darkness…