The Dividing Line

It was the Holy Spirit who transformed the early disciples from timid and disconsolate men into ones who were ablaze and invincible.

If you draw a line through the pages of the New Testament, you will find on one side a good deal of spiritual staleness while on the other an abundance of spiritual freshness. That line runs straight through an upper room where a group of people waited in simple confidence for the promise their Master had made to them to be fulfilled. We read in Acts 2:4: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” That filling was the dividing line in the moral and spiritual development of humanity. It marked a new era—the era of the Holy Spirit.

On the other side of that dividing line, prior to Pentecost, the disciples were spasmodic in their allegiance and achievements. Sometimes they could rejoice that evil spirits were subject to them, and sometimes they had to ask, “Why could we not cast it out?” Sometimes they appeared ready to go to death with Jesus, and sometimes they quarreled over who should have first place in His kingdom. Simon Peter could whip out a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant and then quail before the gaze of a serving maid.

Then came Pentecost. A divine reinforcement took place. They were new men doing new work—no longer spasmodic, but stable. On which side of that dividing line are you? Are you a pre-Pentecost Christian, spasmodic and intermittent, or a post-Pentecost Christian—dynamic and different?

Further Study

2Co 3:1-6; Jn 6:63; Rm 8:11

What does the letter of the law do?

What changes this?