What is the Relationship of Pentecost to THE CHURCHES THAT JESUS BUILT?

[Alan Gross]

"Since the Holy Spirit does have this great work
within the Lord's churches,
it may also be properly said that the Lord's churches
are spiritual bodies;
it is:

i.) Holy Spirit indwelled, (John 14:16; 20:22).

This is not to be confused
with the indwelling of individual believers, (Rom. 8:9).

Talking about THE CHURCHES THAT JESUS BUILT
gets to be a kind of free-for-all, as to where others
may be getting at or coming from someone who professes
a "church" to be something else entirely, from what I am saying.

By saying, "The Lord's churches are spiritual bodies",
I am referring exclusively to
Organized Local Divine Institutions as Governing Bodies
Commissioned to Conduct God's Business,
as being the only kind of "church" that kind be discussed, Biblically.

I am saying, then, that, "The Lord's churches are spiritual bodies",
because they are the only Institutions on Earth

(those Apostles gathered who were at the time Jesus was speaking
to "them", meaning that He was speaking to "them" as His assembled Biblical "church" Organization, as above,
and were already Jesus' "church" that He had founded;
i.e., He placed in the church, first Apostles, etc.),

and then, it was Jesus' "church" that He had promised to send
and/or pray to the Father to send, etc., "another Comfortor",

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,
that He may abide with you forever;" John 14:16.

That is the Shekinah Glory that was to permanently indwell
Jesus' Organized Local Divine Institutions as Governing Bodies
Commissioned to Conduct God's Business,

as it says in that verse, "He may abide with you forever",
with "you", again being an indication of those Apostles gathered
who were at the time Jesus was speaking
were assembled as a Biblical "church" Organization of His, as above,
and were already Jesus' "church" that He had founded.

Jesus was promising to send another Comforter,
to Indwell His "church(es)", "forever", until He Comes Again.

That promise was fulfilled on The Day of Pentecost,
just as John the Baptist had predicted,

"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance:
but he that cometh after me is mightier than I,
whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost..." Matthew 3:11.

That is what is meant by The Churches that Jesus Built
being said to be:

Holy Spirit indwelled

In every passage but one where baptism is associated with the Spirit,
the uniform usage in the Greek is with the preposition en ("in");

in no case does it ever have dia ("through" or "by means of') nor meta ("with").

The one exception is Mark 1:8 where there is no preposition of any sort,
but the case form of the noun (dative) is locative which rules out the idea
that the Spirit is the agent of the baptizing.

Remember, it was JESUS that was TO BAPTIZE with THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Let the Greek student consult;
Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16; Mark 1:8; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; and Acts 11:16.

And we wouldn't want to say that the Lord couldn't have
His Biblical "church" Organization was up and running before Pentecost,
just because that would have been prior to the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
coming upon His first church there in Jerusalem,

since to say that the Lord couldn't have His Biblical "church" Organization
up and running before Pentecost,
sure wouldn't be saying much for
the Personal Presence of The Lord God Jesus Christ
with His Apostles, now would it?

Jesus' churches have been Indwelt
by the Presence of The Holy Spirit, fully and officially,
since the Day of Pentecost.

"In whom ye also are builded together
for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Ephesians 2:22.

That is where "ye" are the saints in the church at Ephesus,
who were Jesus Biblical "church" Organization there at that location,

and who were "builded together" which should sound very familiar,
i.e., "I will build My church",

and they, as one of Jesus' churches
had been Indwelt by the Presence of The Holy Spirit,
and were, "an habitation of God through the Spirit."

That is the Shekinah Glory Indwelling His Presence as The Holy Spirit
is the church at Ephesus' "Candlestick", just like God's Dwelling places
in The Old Testament, of The Tabernacle and The Temple.

Since those saints at Ephesus had been warned in Revelation, by Jesus,
that He could come to remove their "Candlestick",
so not just any "church",
at any time, can be said to still have a "Candlestick",
based on their present condition, right?,
that is if they ever did in the first place.

What then, is the relationship of Pentecost to the Lord's churches He Founded?

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[Alan Gross]

What then, is the relationship of Pentecost
to the Lord's churches He Founded?

Certainly not the founding of the church,
for we find the events of Pentecost
repeated on at least two other occasions;
(Acts 8:14-17; 10:44-48; cf. 11:15-17).

Are we then to infer that the first founding of the Lord's church,
but if Pentecost
was that event and the founding of the Lord's church,
Pentecost was not successful and had to be repeated?

Pentecost was God's attestation to the church that now
and henceforth to the end of the age
was to be His chosen house of witness.

It was simply the repetition of God's action
when the Tabernacle was raised,
(Exodus 40:33-35),

and when the Temple was completed, (2 Chronicles 5:13-15).

Twice before this the Jews had seen and recorded God's attestation
and certification of a new house of worship;

then, without the events of Pentecost, most Jews
would not have accepted the Lord's church as God's house of witness,

or had they done so, they would have considered it
vastly inferior in Glory to the Tabernacle and the temple;
this could never be.

But who could doubt that a new economy had come in
when the Lord repeated His certification.

A. Like the Tabernacle and Temple of the Old Testament,
the Lord's church of the New Testament
was established before it was accredited, credentialed,
or filled by the Cloud of God's Approving Glory . . .

The Lord's church, therefore, was established
in the days of Jesus' sojourn in the flesh
and the work of its construction
was begun with the material prepared by John the Baptist,
later the twelve apostles of our Lord:
and at the close of His earthly ministry
we find this little band in Jerusalem began to transact business
by the election of a successor to Judas.

Also, they were assembled together
to receive collectively the Holy Spirit,
and to them, as The Lord's church assembled,
were added daily such as were being saved.

1. Three Old Testament types:

a. The Tabernacle was built before the Glory Cloud filled it
(Exodus 40:34-38).

b. Solomon's Temple was built before the Glory Cloud filled it
(1 Kings 8:10,11).

c. Ezekiel's Ideal Temple (after Solomon's Temple was destroyed)
was built before the Glory Cloud filled it
(Ezekiel 43:1-6; Daniel 9:24; Joel 2:28-32).

B. The Lord's church was promised
the abiding glory of the Holy Spirit
(Matthew 3:11,12; Mark 16:17,18; John 1:33; 7:37, 39; Acts 1:8).

C. The church received the promised Holy Spirit
(Gen. 11:1,9 cf.; Joel 2:28-32)
- Clearwaters, The Local Church of the New Testament.
p. 25, 26.



At Pentecost, the Lord put His stamp of approval upon Jesus' church
composed almost, if not totally, of Jewish believers;

therefore, it was necessary to repeat this for the sake of the Samaritan
and Gentile believers, who might otherwise be disparaged by the Jews.

Therefore, it is recorded:

"Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had received the word of God,
they sent unto them Peter and John:

"Who, when they were come down, prayed for them,
that they might receive the Holy Ghost:

(For as yet he was fallen upon none of them:
only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.)

"Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost,"
(Acts 8:14-17).

And again: "While Peter yet spake these words,
the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.

"And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished,
as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles
was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.

"For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.

"Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water,
that these should not be baptized,
which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" (Acts 10:44-47).

When Jesus is said to have baptized with the Holy Spirit,
that was a once-for-all event; it was never repeated upon any group,
and it happened only three times in history,
and those three times exactly corresponded
to the divisions of the commission in Acts 1:8.

It is expected that there will be many who will disagree with this statement,
because there is a great deal of confusion relative to Jesus' Baptizing with the Spirit
and the believers experiencing a Filling of the Spirit;

these two events regarding The Holy Spirit of God
are not at all synonymous as many people think.

The Jesus Baptizing with the Holy Spirit was for His churches;

while the filling of the Spirit is for individuals;

Jesus Baptizing HIS first church body in Jerusalem
with the Holy Spirit was never repeated upon any group;

while the filling of the Holy Spirit for individuals is repeated many times;

When Jesus Baptized HIS first church body in Jerusalem
with the Holy Spirit it was for the purpose of certification
as well as enduement with power;

while the filling of the Holy Spirit for individuals
is only for preparation for service;

Jesus Baptizing the church in Jerusalem with the Holy Spirit
was a transient event;

while the filling of the Holy Spirit for individuals
is a continuing privilege and duty, (Ephesians 5:18).

Only three events can be certainly identified
as Jesus Baptizing with the Holy Spirit,

and yet, there are several instances
of the filling of individuals by the Holy Spirit.


But Pentecost was more
than God's certification of the Lord Jesus' church
as His house of worship,

it was first and foremost,
Jesus' certification of the Messiahship and Divine Sonship
of being the One Whom the Jews had crucified.

It was proof that Christianity was not just another "religion."

Without this fact, Christianity and THE CHURCHES THAT JESUS BUILT
would never have been heard of beyond the walls of Jerusalem,
because she would have had no hope, no power, no message.

At the same time that God certified The Lord's churches,
He also empowered that Divine Organization Jesus had built
for the work for which it had been organized.

Thus had the Lord said to His church on the evening of His resurrection,

"And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you:
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem,
until ye be endued with power from on high,"
(Luke 24:49).

Jesus did not even intimate that this would constitute the origin of the church,

but spoke to them in a corporate capacity, and promised them

that they would be Empowered by THE HOLY SPIRIT of GOD,

for the work of evangelizing, indoctrinating, and edifying.

In Acts 1:8, this Empowering is associated

with the church's witness of the Lord.

As individual water baptism does not constitute

the beginning of the Christian life,

so neither did Pentecost constitute the beginning of the Lord's churches;

Both water baptism and Pentecost are testimonies before the world.

That is the Relationship of Pentecost to
THE CHURCHES THAT JESUS BUILT.