Significance of Pentecost 

Jesus ascended into heaven at 7:30 am on May 18, 30 CE, after his final appearance to the apostles. At about one o’clock that same day, as the apostles and one hundred and twenty believers (including Mary, mother of Jesus and one of his brothers) were praying in the upper room of the Mark home, they all sensed an unusual presence. The group consciousness grew into a deep and heartfelt shared experience of spiritual joy; these believers felt an intense sense of confidence and spiritual strength. Almost immediately, they all felt a strong impulse to go out into the city and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. Most of all, they wanted to tell people the joyous news that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Peter rightly reckoned that this sudden rush of spiritual joy was the manifestation of the promised Spirit of Truth, and he encouraged the whole group to go to the temple and do as their hearts had bid them do: proclaim the gospel that had been left to them by Jesus. And they did as Peter suggested.

When Jesus was on earth, he preached a gospel and lived the truth that rescued mankind from the superstitious belief that humanity is innately influenced by the devil. Jesus lifted humanity to a new and dignified status of a faith child of the living God. And when he left the world, he sent in his place a spirit presence – the Spirit of Truth. This spirit lives in all people of goodwill and its purpose is to inform each generation of mankind anew of the message of Jesus.

There were no priests conducting any ritual that day; the believers did nothing special to receive this good spirit. They were merely sitting in quiet prayer. It was bestowed in the city as well as in the country. And this is true today, as then. There is never any need to go off on a long quest or look for a favorable environment to access this Spirit of Truth. This spirit was bestowed world-wide; all souls receive it depending upon their love for truth and their capacity to comprehend spiritual realities.

Every succeeding group of mortals on the earth will have the most up-to-date version of the gospel of the kingdom as a result of this good spirit of Jesus. And this ever adaptive gospel message provides enlightenment and guidance for groups and individuals so that they can solve the always-new and ever-changing difficulties of the spiritual life as they live it. In essence, since Pentecost, all truth-seeking believers can live Jesus’ life and teachings anew. The Spirit of Truth fosters a powerful, spiritually progressive force in the believer. The new teacher will unfold the nature of Jesus for each individual who yields to its guidance.

This spirit will help all believers recall and understand the Master’s life and his words anew; we can better reinterpret his life on earth as we are and where we are. We can witness to the power of the Master’s teachings in our personal lives, carrying those teachings into our everyday experience as the spirit-filled children of God. Jesus taught us that we are the children of God and now his Spirit of Truth comes, leading us into all truth and an ever-expanding consciousness and experience of that sublime sonship.

The work of this Spirit of Truth is primarily to nurture and strengthen the truth in a personal way, for the individual. When we truly comprehend truth for ourselves, we can experience true independence of thought and perform the right action. The fact of Jesus' earthly life provides a fixed point in time, while the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth provides for the perpetual expansion and endless growth of the religion which he lived and the gospel which he proclaimed.

But the Spirit of Truth does more. Had Jesus not sent this replacement for his physical presence, his believers and followers would feel like orphans adrift, lonely and bereft without a savior. But knowing we carry his Spirit in our hearts, we can rejoice in his continued companionship and love through all of life’s trials and triumphs.

Since the day of Pentecost, all mankind can now experience the guidance of spirit endowment from three sources: The Father (his indwelling spirit), the Son (the Spirit of Truth), and the Spirit (the spirit of the Holy Spirit). The bestowal of the Spirit of Truth brought to the world and its people the last of the seven-fold spirit endowments designed to aid in the ascending search for God.

How do we know and recognize the Spirit of Truth? The Spirit of Truth does not create a consciousness of himself, so we will not comprehend his presence with the intellect. The Spirit of Truth does not speak of himself, but we can recognize his presence when we enjoy an increasing consciousness of, and fellowship with, Jesus. And this is the experiential proof of his presence.

Jesus' life was the revelation of a human being subjected to the Father's will, but we are not expected to literally try to follow his example. His life on earth, along with his death on the cross and resurrection, became part of a new gospel in which his followers focused on the divinity of Jesus and attached the erroneous idea of atonement. This notion that Jesus was the sacrificial son who would satisfy the Father's stern justice and appease the divine wrath was an error made by his disciples to directly apply Jesus' gospel teaching to Jewish theology. These teachings arose from a commendable effort to make the gospel of the kingdom more appealing to unbelieving Jews. Though these efforts failed as far as winning the Jews was concerned, they did not fail to confuse many honest souls in all subsequent generations.

Even though Jesus’ gospel did become so greatly distorted from its original simplicity and beauty, this new version carried many of its fundamental truths in rudimentary form. The new preachers went out into the world with unfailing forgiveness, matchless good will, and abounding love. And they retained Jesus’ teaching that God is the Father of Jesus, even if they largely failed to understand the fact that God is the Father of every individual. But the concealed essential principles of the kingdom of heaven will eventually re-emerge and they will transform the world. The Master’s teachings of the brotherhood of mankind – the goodwill of love and trust – is the secret of a better civilization. And with every generation, these truths become stronger and more attractive in those who seek to know Jesus better.

In spite of the mistakes that were made in these early days regarding the teaching of the gospel of Jesus, they seemed to have no negative bearing on any individual’s spiritual growth. In less than thirty days after the Spirit of Truth was bestowed on Pentecost, the apostles advanced themselves spiritually more than they had in all the years of their close personal association with the Master. As for the substitution of emphasis on the risen Christ for the sonship of God, this substitution did not interfere at all with the very rapid spread of the teachings of the apostles and others in subsequent years. In fact, the addition of the new teachings about the person of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead seemed to greatly aid in that rapid spread.

Jesus had taught: "John did indeed baptize you in token of repentance and for the remission of your sins, but when you enter the heavenly kingdom, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." The term "baptism of the spirit" came into general use around the time of Pentecost. What it meant to those who used it was the conscious reception of the Spirit of Truth (Jesus’ spirit presence) along with an understanding that this new spiritual power was an addition and enlargement of all spirit influences that can be experienced by any God-conscious soul. And this is still true today. If you embrace the teachings of Jesus, they will continue to expand and inevitably reveal themselves more fully in your existence.

Since Pentecost, humanity is still in search of God, but there is an exhibition of God also searching for humanity and sending his spirit to reside within them once they have been found.