The Birth of the Church
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: John 20:22 (KJV)
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:4 (KJV)
Jesus spoke of being born again in John chapter 3. He called it being born of God’s Spirit. When did this actually take place for the disciples? It happened after Jesus died on the cross and rose again. In John 20:22 it notes that He visited the disciples and breathed on them, telling them to receive the Holy Ghost. The Greek actually says that He breathed in, not on. That is the point where they were born again, born from above, born of God’s Spirit. Jesus had prophetically spoken in John 3 of people being born again. Then, in John 20:22 it was fulfilled with the first believers and continues even now as people choose to receive the Lord.
At that moment when the disciples received the Holy Spirit, they were born of the Spirit and the church was born. The church is the body of born-again believers, not a building or organization. When the disciples became born again, they were the first believers, the first members of the body of Christ. The church was not born at Pentecost because they were already born-again by that point.
It is important that we base our doctrine on the patterns set forth in Scripture. According to divine pattern, based on the Scriptures, the church could not have been born at Pentecost. One must first be born of the Spirit, or born again, according to John 3. Then one can be filled, or baptized, with the Holy Spirit, as in Acts 2. Holy Spirit will not enter a sinful vessel. He waits until the person is a new creation. Therefore, when we look at the beginning of the church, we see two distinct events:
The church was born after Christ’s resurrection when Jesus breathed into them.
The church was empowered on the day of Pentecost.
When was the church really born? It happened when the disciples were born again, receiving the Holy Ghost as Jesus breathed into them. Scripturally speaking, that is when the church was actually born.
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For more on this topic, see my earlier post The Day The Church Was Born.
