According to the record in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost the one hundred twenty disciples had no thought of giving a message or preaching the gospel. They had no burden out of themselves. It was not that they desired to save sinners and rescue them from the lake of fire because they had seen that sinners would perish. What the disciples had received and were filled with was the Lord Jesus Himself.
The burden that the disciples received consisted of the Lord Jesus and the various processes He passed through. The disciples knew of the Lord’s incarnation, for they were with Him for three and a half years of His human life on the earth, and they saw how the Lord Jesus died on the cross. On the cross the Lord suffered God’s judgment on our behalf, accomplished God’s redemption, and dealt with Satan, God’s enemy (1 Pet. 3:18; Heb. 9:12; 2:14). After He was raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus left the tomb empty and manifested Himself to the disciples. He came into their midst and breathed into them the Holy Spirit (John 20:19-22). Thus, they knew the resurrected Christ.
The disciples also saw the Lord Jesus ascend into heaven (Acts 1:9), and the angels said to the disciples as they were watching, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you beheld Him going into heaven” (vv. 10-11). Thus, they knew not only of the Lord’s resurrection and ascension but also of His second coming.
The disciples, having seen so much concerning the Lord, must have been filled with all that they had seen concerning Him. Their thoughts, concept, and mood were completely saturated with the Lord. Ten days before Pentecost these one hundred twenty disciples, after witnessing the ascension of the Lord Jesus, came to an upper room in Jerusalem (v. 13). They were filled with Christ even before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
The word occupied most adequately expresses the inward condition of the one hundred twenty disciples prior to the day of Pentecost. They were thoroughly occupied with the Lord Jesus. They had nothing else besides Him. Thus, they were able to remain in the hostile environment of Jerusalem. They were not people of the land of Judea or the city of Jerusalem but were Galileans from the northern region of Israel. In the eyes of the priests and the rulers of the people, they were uneducated men and laymen (4:13). However, they listened to the Lord’s word and stayed in Jerusalem. This indicates that only the Lord Jesus had ground in them.
In Jerusalem, at the time when the disciples were waiting for the promise of the Father, there was much opposition to the followers of the Lord Jesus. They were considered to be the “sect of the Nazarenes” (24:5). Thus, those who had a Galilean accent, especially an accent from Nazareth of Galilee, would have suffered hostility and difficulty. Nevertheless, these one hundred twenty people left their hometowns and their families and stayed in Jerusalem under an atmosphere of opposition to pray in one accord (1:14). This proves that they were filled with the Lord Jesus inwardly.
They were filled not only with the Lord Jesus Himself but also with all that He had done. They were filled with His incarnation as God who became flesh, with His living as a man on earth, with His death on the cross, with His burial and resurrection from the dead, with His manifesting Himself to them after His resurrection and His breathing into them the Holy Spirit, with His ascension into heaven before their eyes, and with the angels’ speaking to them concerning His return. All these matters were vividly portrayed before their eyes and imprinted into their being. Each of the one hundred twenty was filled with all these matters.
Furthermore, before His ascension and departure, the Lord Jesus charged the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, so that they would receive power and become His witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Luke 24:47-49; Acts 1:4, 8). They received the Lord’s commission and remained in Jerusalem. On the one hand, they were filled with Christ, and on the other hand, they were waiting earnestly for the power from on high. However, while they were waiting, they were focused on praying in one accord to God. Their prayers may have been filled with praise and thanksgiving for their experiences of the Lord Jesus, and they may have prayed that they would receive power from on high.