After the Lord finished this forty day training, He had the peace to leave them, so He brought them all to the Mount of Olives where He was carried up into heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:11-12). This brought Him into another new stage. Before His incarnation, He was merely God. His incarnation brought Him into a new stage, a stage for Him to live on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, a stage for Him to be a man living God. That was His second stage. Then His ascension brought Him into a third stage. This stage is that of a resurrected man living in the heavens to execute the things God determined on this earth. This resurrected One is now sitting in the heavens to execute God’s administration (Heb. 12:2). This One in the heavens is the Head.
After the disciples received the life-giving Spirit breathed into them by the resurrected Christ, as life, as life-supply, and as everything related to their inner man, they all became the God-men, the men who had been mingled with God. Then they were filled with the divine life essentially, but they were not qualified to carry out God’s economy. Therefore, the resurrected Christ had to ascend to the heavens to be exalted by God, and to be given by God the kingship, the lordship, and the headship over all things. He also obtained the throne, the glory, and all the authority in the universe. While the hundred and twenty were praying on the earth for ten days, God was making the exalted Christ to be the King, the Lord, and the Head of all things. God was giving the authority, the throne, and the glory to His exalted One.
In the forty days of the resurrected Lord’s training, the disciples learned the lesson, so, after the Lord ascended to the heavens, they could pray together for ten days in Jerusalem in a threatening environment (Acts 1:12-15). They prayed together in a fearless way, forgetting about their eating, their drinking, and their living. Acts 1 is a wonderful record showing us how the hundred and twenty could stay together under a threatening situation for ten days, caring for nothing except the charge of the ascended Christ (vv. 14-15). Among them there was no disputation, no fighting, only oneness. Before the Lord’s death, the twelve were still fighting over who was going to be greater (Luke 22:24). They were so natural, selfish, fleshly, and even sinful. Peter was very natural and very selfish. The two sons of thunder, James and John, begged the Lord Jesus to give them the two top positions when He came in His kingdom (Mark 10:35-37). They wanted to sit with Him, one on His right hand and one on His left hand. When the other ten heard this, they were indignant (v. 41). They were bothered because they were also ambitious. However, after the Lord’s resurrection, His stay with them for forty days, and His ascension to the heavens, they and those of the hundred and twenty all became different. They were not only regenerated, but also transformed persons to some extent, so they could pray together in one accord for ten days. It would be difficult for even a handful of us to pray for ten hours in one accord, but they were one hundred twenty praying for ten days in a place which was full of threatening. At that time the religious leaders of Jerusalem were threatening to put the followers of Jesus to death. They were under this kind of death threatening, yet they dared to stay there and pray for ten days, and they prayed in one accord. They did not care for their safety or their peace. They cared for the Lord’s commission, for the Lord’s testimony, (Acts 1:8; Luke 24:48), and for the preaching in His name of the gospel (Luke 24:47; Matt. 28:19).
While the hundred and twenty disciples were praying and while the exalted Christ was executing on the throne in the heavens, the day of Pentecost came (Acts 2:1-4). There was a wonderful scene in the universe which should have been seen by the angels as the spectators on the day of Pentecost. The Head was sitting on the throne in the heavens executing God’s administration, and the Body, represented by the one hundred twenty, was coordinating with the Head for ten days to carry out God’s move on the earth. Then on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out from the Head and by the Head to the disciples and on the disciples (Acts 2:17-18). This means heaven was brought to earth, and God was poured out on man. This pouring out was not essential, but economical. It was not for life, but for power, for administration. What was needed on the day of Pentecost was not life, but power, even the mighty power to carry out God’s administration. After the blowing of the mighty wind, those one hundred twenty became not only spiritual persons, but heavenly persons. They became the very joint between heaven and earth. They joined the heavens and the earth, and they were cooperating with the heavenly Head to carry out God’s eternal administration. This was the pouring out of the fully consummated Spirit by the heavenly Head, the pouring out of the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God by the resurrected and ascended Christ, to accomplish the baptism of His Body in the Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost, the exalted Christ was poured out as the Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God, upon the hundred and twenty prepared ones, fifty days after His resurrection. On the day of resurrection, He was the all-inclusive breath which was breathed into His disciples as the Spirit of life. But after forty days training and ten days preparation, the heaven and the earth were ready for the pouring out of this exalted One as the Spirit of power upon the believers on this earth who had been made ready.
What happened on the day of resurrection and on the day of Pentecost are landmarks in the universe. On the day of resurrection, the resurrected Christ, as the all-inclusive breath, was breathed into the disciples. On the day of Pentecost, the exalted Christ, the authorized Christ, as the mighty wind, was blown upon these ready believers. After Pentecost, within them was the all-inclusive breath and upon them was the mighty wind. On the day of resurrection the resurrected Christ was the breath to be breathed into His disciples, and on the day of Pentecost the exalted Christ was the mighty wind blown upon these ready believers. Within them they had the breath; upon them they had the wind. Within them they had the all-inclusive Christ as the resurrected One for their life, and upon them they had the ascended Christ as the exalted One for their power, for their authority, and for their uniform.