Basic HTML Version
Resurrected Christ Appears
481
We Will Recognize Our Loved Ones
The face of the risen Savior, His manner, His speech, were all
familiar to His disciples. As Jesus rose from the dead, so those
who sleep in Him will rise again. We will know our friends, as the
disciples knew Jesus. In the glorified body their identity will be
perfectly preserved. We will recognize those we love.
Jesus reminded His disciples of the words He had spoken before
[369]
His death. “And He opened their understanding, that they might
comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written,
and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the
dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
And you are witnesses of these things.’ “ Christ’s life, His death
and resurrection, the prophecies that pointed to these events, the
sacredness of God’s law, the mysteries of the plan of salvation, the
power of Jesus to forgive sins—all these they were to make known
to the world.
“And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to
them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they
are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Christ would give His Holy Spirit to them more abundantly after His
ascension. But He breathed His Spirit on them now to impress them
with the fact that without the Holy Spirit they could not fulfill their
official duties in connection with the church.
The gift of the Spirit is the gift of the life of Christ. It endows
the receiver with the attributes of Christ. Only those who possess
the inward working of the Spirit and in whose life the Christ-life is
revealed are to minister in behalf of the church.
“If you forgive the sins of any,” said Christ, “they are forgiven
them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Christ here
gives no liberty for anyone to pass judgment on others. This right
belongs to God. But He places a responsibility for the individual
members on the organized church. The church has a duty to those
who fall into sin to warn them, instruct them, and if possible to
restore them. Deal faithfully with wrongdoing. Call sin by its right
name. Declare what God has said about lying, Sabbath breaking,
stealing, and every other evil. If they persist in sin, the judgment you