not just ancient natural Israel. Jesus Christ himself is the one of God’s sacred secret whose godly devotion was foretold and described in the inspired Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible. How and why did he come to be “preached about among nations”?

25-27. What shows that Jesus did not intend for his followers to separate themselves from people?

²⁵ He did not instruct his apostles and early disciples to separate themselves from the people of the world and make recluses of themselves in caves in the desert or make monks and nuns of themselves by building monasteries and nunneries and retiring to themselves within such community buildings, thus holding back the revealed light of truth from shining into a darkening world. To the contrary, some days after his resurrection from the dead and before his ascension into heaven to appear to angels and be received up into glory, Jesus Christ said to his disciples:

²⁶ “All authority has been given me in heaven and on the earth. Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And, look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.”—Matt. 28:18-20.

²⁷ Emphasizing again that his followers were to go to the people of all the pagan nations in order to make disciples of Christ, Jesus Christ made this final statement just before they saw him ascend heavenward: “You will receive power when the holy spirit arrives upon you, and you will be witnesses of me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the most distant part of the earth.”—Acts 1:8.

28. (a) What meaning did Jesus’ instructions in Acts 1:8 have? (b) Could there by any doubt that the spirit-filled Christians had the true religion? Why?

²⁸ That meant nothing less than bearing witness and making disciples of Jesus as the promised Messiah of God outside of Jewry, where the true religion had been confined till then, and in all the non-Jewish nations that were steeped in false religion. What else could this mean but an attack on all false religion by spirit-filled Christians who had the true religion? There is no room for doubt and for saying, ‘Well, maybe they had the truth and the true religion, and maybe they did not,’ inasmuch as Jesus’ promise to them debarred such a likelihood or possibility. Concerning that holy spirit that was to impart power to them and for which they were told to wait in Jerusalem, Jesus said to them on the night before his sacrificial death: “When that one arrives, the spirit of the truth, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak of his own impulse, but what things he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things coming.” (John 16:13) They did receive this “spirit of the truth” on the day of Pentecost, Sivan 6, of the year 33 C.E., ten days after Jesus’ ascension to heaven.—Acts 2:1-36.

29. When and how did the attack on pagan false religion begin?

²⁹ About three years and four months later, in early autumn, about Tishri 1, of the year 36 C.E., the attack on the false religion of the pagans was begun by the spirit-filled members of the “congregation of the living God, a pillar and support of the truth.” This was when, under direct command from heaven, the apostle Peter went up from Joppa to Caesarea in Judea and for the first time entered into the home of an uncircumcised Gentile, a non-Jew, an Italian centurion named Cornelius. While Peter was yet preaching the message of truth to Gentile Cornelius and those whom he had gathered into his house to listen to Peter, the holy spirit fell also upon these believing Gentiles. In evidence thereof they began speaking in foreign languages not heretofore learned by them. (Acts 10:1 to 11:18) From then on the door stood wide open for the Christian truth to attack the false religion in all the Gentile nations.

The Crowning Assault upon All False Religion

1. What had the ancient Hebrew Scriptures prophesied, and how did many in the nations respond to Paul’s preaching?

EVEN the prophecies of the ancient inspired Hebrew Scriptures had indicated that in God’s appointed time the light of the truth was to assault the darkness of false religion. The apostle Paul quoted such a prophecy when he said to the people gathered together in the Jewish synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia about eleven years after the conversion of Cornelius to true religion: “Look! we turn to the [Gentile] nations. In fact, Jehovah has laid commandment upon us in these words, ‘I have appointed you as a light of nations, for you to be a salvation to the extremity of the earth.’” After the apostle Paul quoted that prophecy to his mixed audience, what happened? This: “When those of the nations heard this, they began to rejoice and to glorify the word of Jehovah, and all those who were rightly disposed for everlasting life became believers. Furthermore, the word of Jehovah went on being carried throughout the whole country.”—Acts 13:14-49; Isa. 42:6.

2. How was the action of “those of the nations” proof that a successful attack had been made by Paul in his preaching?

² Would you call that a successful attack on false religion? Yes, because it resulted in real liberation of victims of false religion and putting them in the way of “everlasting life” in the new order of Jehovah God, where there will be no false religion. This was a liberation of people from the power of the god of all false religion, to free them for the worship and service of the God of true religion, the Archenemy of all false religion. Such liberation was the gist of the commission given to the apostle Paul when the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him and went on to say: “I have made myself visible to you, in order to choose you as an attendant and a witness . . . while I deliver you from this people and from the nations, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, in order for them to receive forgiveness of sins and an