AN IMPORTANT MEETING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 13, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 19.

AN IMPORTANT MEETING.

It is a mistake to suppose that the little company of disciples assembled in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost comprised all the believers in Jesus of Nazareth. After His resurrection and before His ascension He had a meeting with “above five hundred brethren.” 1 Cor. 15:6. The Scriptures do not tell us the exact place of this meeting, but evidently it was somewhere in Galilee. The record says that “the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.” Of course they would tell many others of the believers, and the word was spread abroad among them, thus increasing the attendance. Here was a large company of witnesses to the fact of the resurrection of Christ, and Paul testified nearly thirty years afterward that the greater part of them were still living.

The appointment for this great meeting had been announced to the disciples before Jesus was put to death. In proclaiming to them that He would be smitten, and the flock scattered (Matt. 26:31, 32), He said, “But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.” On the morning of the resurrection, the angel had said to the women at the tomb, “Go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.” It was evidently Christ’s design to have his first meeting with His disciples in Galilee. This was a test of their faith in His resurrection. But they did not believe the testimony of the women, so the Lord had to first meet them at their place of abode and give them ocular evidence that He was indeed alive.

This meeting was necessary in order to reassure those who believed but through a lack of understanding of the Scriptures had been disappointed and disconcerted by the death of Christ. Jesus did not seek to make converts by showing Himself to unbelievers after His resurrection. Conversion was to be through faith, and not by sight. And the basis of faith was to be His Word. No one can ever be a disciple of Christ who believes only what he sees. Had not those disciples who saw Jesus after His resurrection been fortified by an understanding of the Scriptures, they could not have withstood the trials through which they had to pass. The two disciples whom He accompanied to Emmaus were not so deeply and so permanently affected by the visible recognition of the Lord as by His exposition of the Word. “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures.” Luke 24:32.

That was a great and important meeting in Galilee. It proved that Jesus of Nazareth was a successful preacher, even from the standpoint of numbers.