In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus prophesied that He would build His church. Following that, in the book of Acts the Lord gave us a pattern by which we can clearly see how He produces and builds His church. We see this pattern of the producing of the church with the one hundred twenty on the day of Pentecost. Originally, all of these one hundred twenty were far away from God. Although they were in Judaism, they were nonetheless astray from God. Then the Lord Jesus came and called them. In a sense, He discipled them. Through the record of the four Gospels, we see how the Lord brought them back to God and also baptized them into God. Thus, by the time of the Lord’s resurrection, this one hundred twenty had been brought back to God and had been baptized into God.
Many Christians do not see the crucial matter that the resurrected Christ came back to His disciples as the very pneuma, as the life-giving Spirit. They see that Christ was the Word of God; that, as the Word, He became flesh; that when He was crucified on the cross, as the Lamb of God, He took away our sins; that He was resurrected; that He has ascended to the heavens, where He is now seated on the throne of God; and that He is coming again. They see all these matters, and we see them too. But because of the subtlety of the enemy, they do not see the crucial matter that as the resurrected One, Christ came back to His disciples as the life-giving Spirit.
First Corinthians 15:45 says that the last Adam, Christ, became the life-giving Spirit. In the flesh Christ was the last Adam, but in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Although all Christians see that Christ in the flesh was the last Adam, not many see that in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. On the day of His resurrection, Christ did not come back to the disciples as the last Adam in the flesh. Rather, He came to them in resurrection as the life-giving pneuma, as the life-giving Spirit. On this occasion He did a significant thing: He breathed Himself into His disciples (John 20:22). This breathing was the breath of the pneuma, and this breath of pneuma was the life-giving Christ, the Christ of resurrection. By this unique act of breathing, the resurrected Christ breathed Himself into His disciples.
Firstly, the one hundred twenty disciples were brought back to God and baptized into God. As those who had been brought back to God and baptized into Him, they were ready to receive the resurrected Christ into them. Therefore, on the day of His resurrection the resurrected Christ came as the life-giving Spirit and breathed Himself into them. Prior to that time, Christ had been among them, but He had never come into them. But that day, the resurrected Christ as the life-giving pneuma came into them to be their life, their content, their substance, and their very element for the building of God. The resurrected Christ as the life-giving pneuma is the building element, the building substance, for God’s house. On the day of His resurrection this substance entered the disciples.
Many Christians have the mistaken concept that before the day of Pentecost the Spirit had not come to the believers. This concept is absolutely wrong. According to Acts chapter one, before the day of Pentecost the one hundred twenty prayed in one accord for ten days. If the Spirit had not been in them, how could they have been kept in one accord for ten days? It would have been impossible. Even many today who have the Spirit find it difficult to be one with others for any length of time. What do you think would happen if more than a hundred Christians tried to meet together in one accord for ten days for the purpose of praying together? Probably after the first day there would be a fight. Some would pray to establish a mission, others to set up a chapel, and others to open a seminary. Eventually, they would end up fighting with one another. The only way the one hundred twenty could have been in such oneness before the day of Pentecost was through the resurrected Christ who had come into them as the life-giving Spirit on the day of resurrection. Therefore, in those days prior to Pentecost, the one hundred twenty had been brought back to God, had been baptized into the Triune God, and had received the resurrected Christ as the pneuma to be their life and content. Before Pentecost, they lived and prayed by this life-giving Spirit.