Chapter I · The Upper Room — J. C. Ryle
— Acts 1:131
WE are told in these simple words what the Apostles did immediately after the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ into heaven. Fresh from the wonderful and touching sight of their beloved Master being taken away from them,- with the message brought by angels, bidding them expect His Second Advent, still ringing in their ears.- they returned from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem, and went at once “into an upper room.” Simple as the words are, they are full of suggestive thoughts, and deserve the close attention of all into whose hands this volume may fall.
Let us fix our eyes for a few minutes on the first place of meeting of Christians for worship of which we have any record. Let us examine the first congregation which assembled after the great Head of the Church had left the world, and left His people to themselves. Let us see who these first worshippers were, and how they behaved, and what they did. I venture to think that a little quiet contemplation of the subject may do us good.
This “upper room,” we should remember, was the forerunner of every church and cathedral which has been reared in Christendom within the last eighteen centuries. St. Paul’s, and York, and Lincoln, and all the stately ministers of our own land; St. Sophia at Constantinople, St. Isaac at St. Petersburg, St. Stephen’s at Vienna, Notre Dame at Paris, St. Peter’s at Rome, all are descendants from this “upper room.” Not one can trace its pedigree beyond that little chamber. Here it was that professing Christians, when left alone by their Master, first began to pray together, to worship, and to exhort one another. This room was the cradle of the infant Church of Christ, and the beginning of all our services. From this room the waters of the everlasting gospel first began to flow, which have now spread so widely throughout the world, however adulterated and corrupted they may have been in some ages and in some parts of the earth. I invite my readers, then, to come with me and examine this upper room as it appeared on Ascension day.
I. There are certain points arising naturally out of the text before us which appear to demand special notice. Let us see what they are.
Concerning the shape and size and form of this room, we know nothing at all. It was probably like many other “upper rooms ” in Jerusalem. But whether it was lofty, or low, or square, or round; whether it stood east and west, or north and south; whether it was ornamented or decorated or perfectly plain, we have not the slightest information, and the matter signifies very little. But it is a striking and noteworthy fact that in the original Greek it is called the upper room, and not an upper room, as our Authorized Version calls it. I venture to think that there is much in this. I believe there is the highest probability that this was the very room in which our Lord first appointed the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and in which the Apostles first heard those well-known words, “Take, eat; this is My body,”—” Drink ye all of this, for this is My blood,“—those famous words which have been the cause of so much unhappy controversy with some, but the source of such mighty comfort to others.—I believe it was the same room in which the disciples were “in the habit of abiding” during the fifty days between the Resurrection and Pentecost. Here, again, the original Greek helps us to a conclusion, if literally translated. I believe it is the same room in which the disciples were assembled with “the doors shut for fear of the Jews,” when the Lord Jesus suddenly appeared in the midst of them after His resurrection, and said, “Peace be unto you: as My Father sent Me, so send I you;” and “breathed on them, saying, Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:21-22).—I believe it is the same room in which, a week afterwards, He appeared again, and rebuked the scepticism of doubting Thomas, saying, ” Be not faithless, but believing.”—I believe it is the same room in which our Lord appeared, and did eat before His disciples, and said, “Handle Me, and see: a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have” (Luke 24:39). On all these points I freely grant that I have nothing but conjectures to put before my readers. But they are conjectures which appear to me to be founded on the highest possible probability, and as such I think they demand our reverent consideration. But we may now turn boldly from conjectures, and look at things which are most plainly and unmistakably revealed.
(1) Let us then, first and foremost, look at the worshippers who were gathered together in this first place of Christian worship.