Sunday: From Secondhand to Firsthand
WEEK 4
SUNDAY
FROM SECONDHAND TO FIRSTHAND
Acts 1:1-8
We come now after these preliminaries to look at the mastery that came into life with the coming of the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is redemption applied. In him the potentialities become the actualities. The word of redemption becomes flesh in us. All that Jesus accomplished for us in the way of redemption was accepted by the believers when they received the Holy Spirit—the accomplishment became an acceptance. Redemption was applied where it counts, namely, on the inside of us. Nothing is ours until it moves from the outside to the inside, becomes us.
That happened to the disciples—the secondhand became firsthand. “Are you a mystic?” a radiant friend of mine was asked. “No,” he replied, “I’m not a mystic; I’m just a first-hander.” The disciples were not mystics but first-handers. Before they had been catching what they could from Jesus; now, through the Spirit, they were the centers of contagion. Their realization of God was no longer in quotation marks but in direct statement—very direct indeed!
This is seen in the changed attitude of Jesus toward them. The disciples asked him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” And his reply, “Rather, you will receive power” (Acts 1:6, 8) Note “are you . . . ? “Rather, you. . . .” The emphasis was shifted from him to them. Hitherto they had been looking to him to do everything; now he was looking to them to do everything.
He was not only going to work miracles on the inside of them; they themselves were to work miracles, for they were miracles.
This shift of emphasis is seen where it says: “After he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:2 RSV). Hitherto his commandments were given from the outside; now they would be from the inside: “given commandment through the Holy Spirit.” He would speak from within through the Holy Spirit. That changed their religion from a religion of authority to a religion of the Spirit. They were being commanded not from without but from within. And no authority is real authority until it becomes identified with us. Then it is real authority. These apostles became authoritative.
O Lord, my inmost being is the place of your throne; rule me from there, and then I shall be ruled. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If he is to command me from within, then my within must be clear and attuned.