compare John 14:16, 17, 26;
15:26; 16:7, 13.

[1397] Acts 1:7, 8; compare Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32.

[1398] Matt. 28:19, 20.

[1399] Acts 1:9-11; see also Luke 24:50, 51.

CHAPTER 38.

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY.

MATTHIAS ORDAINED TO THE APOSTLESHIP.[1400]

After witnessing the Lord's ascension from Olivet, the eleven apostles
returned to Jerusalem filled with joy and thoroughly suffused with the
spirit of adoring worship. Both in the temple and in a certain upper
room, which was their usual place of meeting, they continued in prayer
and supplication, often in association with other disciples, including
Mary the mother of the Lord, some of her sons, and the little sisterhood
of faithful women who had ministered to Jesus in Galilee and had
followed Him thence to Jerusalem and to Calvary.[1401] The disciples,
most of whom had been dispersed by the tragic events of that last and
fateful Passover, had gathered again, with renewed and fortified faith,
about the great fact of the Lord's resurrection. Christ had become "the
firstfruits of them that slept," "the first begotten of the dead," and
"the firstborn" of the race to rise from death to immortality.[1402]
They knew that not only had the grave been compelled to give up the body
of their Lord, but that a way had been provided for the striking of the
fetters of death from every soul. Immediately following the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus, many righteous ones who had slept in the tomb had
been resurrected, and had appeared in Jerusalem, revealing themselves
unto many.[1403] The universality of the resurrection of the dead was
soon to become a prominent feature of apostolic teaching.

The first official act undertaken by the apostles was the filling of the
vacancy in the council of the Twelve, occasioned by the apostasy and
suicide of Judas Iscariot. Sometime between the ascension of Christ and
the feast of Pentecost, when the Eleven and other disciples, in all
about a hundred and twenty, were together "with one accord in prayer and
supplication," Peter laid the matter before the assembled Church,
pointing out that the fall of Judas had been foreseen,[1404] and citing
the psalmist's invocation: "Let his habitation be desolate, and let no
man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take,"[1405] Peter
affirmed the necessity of completing the apostolic quorum; and he thus
set forth the qualifications essential in the one who should be ordained
to the Holy