Before His crucifixion, Jesus informed His disciples that they would do greater things than He had done, because He was going to His Father. This was followed by a declaration that He was going to send them a Counselor to be with them forever. This counselor was the Spirit of Truth. He would live within them. This Spirit would also teach them all things including what Jesus had taught them. This was obviously a great deal for these disciples to process. This consternation was compounded by what Jesus did after His resurrection. He proclaimed, “Peace be with you! As the Father sent me, I am sending you.” He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This was overwhelming. What did all this mean?
We pick up in the book of Acts where the disciples are immersed (baptized) in the Holy Spirit. In essence, this was Christ living in them. The Spirit was now their continual Counselor and Teacher. The Spirit gifted each of them to propagate the good news of the gospel. The Spirit would establish divine connections in order to accomplish this. He would open many doors of opportunity and purposefully close others.
The disciples would spend their lives assimilating and acclimating to the enormity and the energy of what the Spirit was doing in and through them personally and in their assemblies of faith. He taught them to move without hesitation past their assumptions and prejudices. As a result, they permeated the entire known world with the message of the forgiveness of sins, the kingdom of God, and Jesus Christ as Lord.