The Coming Of The Holy Spirit At Pentecost
THE COMING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AT PENTECOST
ACTS 2:1-13
When Jesus went back to his Father, he left behind a little group of ordinary people with the impossible job of making him known worldwide. But he also gave them the promise of power.
Verses 1-4. Originally a festival marking the beginning of the wheat harvest in ancient Israel (Exodus 34:22), the Feast of Weeks was so called because it fell on the fiftieth day after Passover (see Leviticus 23:15ff. for the calculation). Hence the term “Pentecost,” which means “fiftieth” in Greek. It is interesting that the later Jews celebrated the giving of the Law at Sinai at this festival, and thought of the voice of God sounding in every nation under heaven. Is this in the background of 2:6-8?
The disciples were gathered possibly in the temple precincts or in the upper room when the promise of 1:4,8 was made good. There were two outward manifestations of the Spirit’s presence and power (2:2-3)—notice the guarded language, half concealing exactly what occurred. But the consequentials were unmistakable in Spirit-inspired utterances (2:4). Christianity lives by the communication of the truth of God to men by men.
2:5-11. What was it that arrested attention among the motley crowd assembled in Jerusalem for the feast? Was it the universality of the Christians’ message, each man hearing a language he could understand, although the hearers came from many parts of the ancient world of the Jewish dispersion and the speakers were Galileans who were noted for their guttural accent (Mark 14:70)? If so, Pentecost witnesses the reversal of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). Otherwise, was it the remarkable speech of the disciples which expressed with rapture “the mighty works of God” (2:11)? This Pentecostal glossolalia is apparently different from the spiritual gift in 1 Corinthians 14 (which is to be used in private and public worship, and with caution and restraint).