1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians - we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
“What does this mean?”
That’s a very good question. Just what is Pentecost, why is it an important event in Church history, and why is it an important, on-going gift to the Church today?
Pentecost is the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell and fill the lives of those early disciples of Christ. It took place fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus and marked the birth of the Christian Church.
Just 10 days ago we celebrated Ascension Day, but just like the ascension of Jesus, Pentecost does not receive the recognition it deserves in the Church.
This is a huge mistake, because without Pentecost, the Christian Church would have come to a grinding halt and fizzled out to nothing all those years ago.
Christmas gave the Church its Saviour and Easter gave the Church its message. Pentecost gave and continues to give the Church its power. The power of the risen Christ has now been released within the lives of all believers. Christmas was God with us, Easter was God for us, and Pentecost is God in us.
When the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and the other believers on the Day of Pentecost, those who heard them were amazed to hear them speaking in their own languages, so they asked, “What does this mean?” The same question needs to be asked today.
There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding when it comes to Pentecost in the modern Church. Many say that the meaning of Pentecost is that we should have the same experience as the disciples, namely, that we are to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. You’ve probably had other Christians ask you, “Have you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” And of course, if you have not spoken in tongues, you are regarded by many as incomplete, almost a second-rate Christian, but this shows a complete misunderstanding of the text. In the original Greek, the word for tongues in Acts 2 is glossa. Strong’s Enhanced Lexicon defines glossa as “The language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations.” It is a human language. The tongues that the apostles spoke in on the Day of Pentecost were human languages, not incoherent babbling.
So we need a Biblically sound understanding of Pentecost, which will, in turn help us to see what Pentecost means to us today.
The context of the events in Acts chapter 2 is important. We need to see what happened that day in light of what Jesus said to His disciples in the previous chapter.
“While staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, ‘You heard from me; for John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’” (Acts 1:4-8)
Just as the ministry of Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit descending on Him at His baptism, so the ministry of the disciples depended on them receiving the Holy Spirit and relying on His power.
What happened in Acts 2 was a significant event in the history of the Church. It ushered in a new period in the way God deals with His people. Pentecost signals the dawning of the age of the Holy Spirit. And the purpose of the Spirit in God’s people is to empower them for witness to all the nations.
So the meaning of Pentecost is God’s equipping His Church with the power of His Spirit so that He will be glorified among the nations.
The point of Pentecost is mission, and the goal of mission is, as Isaiah 11:9 says, that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
God’s vehicle for being glorified among the nations is the Church. In order to understand this event, we need to look at the ancient Jewish Festival of Pentecost. In the Old Testament it was known as the Feast of Weeks. Seven weeks (exactly 49 days) were counted after the crops were planted, and this feast was held on the fiftieth day. During this festival everyone was to bring to the Lord a tribute of a free-will offering. The purpose of this feast was to commemorate the completion of the grain harvest. A distinguishing feature was the offering of two loaves of bread made with leaven or yeast. This was important because most of the bread brought as an offering in other festivals were made without yeast, a symbol of human sin. This feast is prescribed by God to Moses in Leviticus 23.
So Pentecost was initially a harvest feast, where the Jews were to offer to the Lord the first fruits of the new grain. Among other rituals, they were to wave before the Lord two loaves of wheat bread, made with yeast.
Until the events described in Acts 2, this was exclusively a Jewish festival. The Jews were God’s chosen people, and Gentiles were excluded.
But now, in Acts 2, there was a remarkable and significant change.
As God established His Church, the same Church we are part of today, He put the Jews and Gentiles on an equal footing. The Old Testament Feast of Weeks, the harvest festival, is a picture, or a shadow of the true harvest - the harvest of God’s people.
Why were two loaves specified in the Old Testament festival? Why not one, or ten, or a hundred? The two loaves were a picture of what was to come in the New Testament Church: Two peoples, Jews and Gentiles coming together as one people within the Body of Christ. God had planned this union thousands of years before when He first instituted the festival. Now, in the New Testament, it all began to make sense. In Galatians 3:28 Paul writes to the Church, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” As the Church we are united as one.
We don’t need two loaves anymore. 1 Corinthians 10:17, speaking of Holy Communion in the Church, says, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
Secondly, the significance of loaves made with yeast in the ancient festival. The reason these loaves were made with yeast is a picture of the reality that although we are redeemed in Christ, we are still sinners who must learn to get along with each other in the Church. It is also a reminder to us that without the power of the Spirit, we can do nothing. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who makes all the difference in the Church.
The Church is God’s means of taking the Gospel to the nations, resulting in His being glorified in all the earth. This means that our purpose as His Church is not to focus on ourselves and our own happiness. The Church is not about me, and it’s not about you. We exist to spread the knowledge of God to all the nations, beginning here in our own “Jerusalem.” If we lose our outward focus, with the overall purpose of God’s glory, we have lost our reason for existence. It’s been said before that the Christian Church is the only organisation that exists for the benefit of its non-members.
In Acts 2, Luke goes into great detail describing the various nations that were represented at Pentecost. Remember, that those who were there were in Jerusalem to celebrate the original Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks. They had yet to grasp the reality of Jesus as the promised risen Messiah. Peter had yet to preach his sermon recorded in the second half of Acts 2.
Verse 5 is vital in the context of Pentecost. “Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.” These were God-fearing men from, as Luke records in verses 9-11, “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.”
The scope of God’s plan of salvation is to reach all the nations.
There is an interesting parallel here with what happened in Genesis 11. In chapter 10 there is list of nations, which came together to build the tower of Babel. God judged those proud men by confusing their languages. Here, at Pentecost, God reverses this process by His grace. He now turns this confusion of different tongues into a miracle of miraculous speech whereby they could all understand each other. The gift of speaking in tongues that day was a special miracle to demonstrate God’s purpose in taking the Gospel to all the nations. It enabled the Church to be launched in all of these places when these men returned to their homes.
The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all nations. In Revelation 5:9 John is given a vision of the song of praise to Jesus being sung in Heaven: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Our task as the Church today is to continue the mission that Jesus has given us. But how can we possibly fulfill this task? We are a redeemed people, saved by the power of the blood of Christ, yet we remain tainted by our sin. Even though our eternal destiny as Christians is sealed, we remain sinners.
So how then, does the Church carry out its mission and fulfill its purpose when it is comprised exclusively of sinners?
By the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
The necessary power for fulfilling God’s plan is His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not just a force. He is the third person of the Trinity, God in every way. We know that He is a personal being in that He can be grieved. You cannot grieve an impersonal force. Jesus calls Him the Paraclete, or Comforter. The word means, “one called alongside to help.” We know that He is God because He performs deeds, such as creation, which only God can do. In Acts 5:3, Peter accuses Ananias of lying to the Holy Spirit. You can’t lie to an impersonal force. Peter then continues in the next verse by saying, “You have not lied to man but to God.”
Before the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit regenerated people and empowered them for serving God. But He did not permanently indwell all believers. We know this from David’s cry in Psalm 51:11. “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” He would not have said that if God’s Spirit was a permanent reality in his life.
In the Upper Room during the Last Supper, Jesus had told the disciples that He would send His Holy Spirit to be with them forever. He added, “You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:17)
This prophesy was realised on the Day of Pentecost, when the disciples were baptised with the Holy Spirit.
All who believe in the saving power of Jesus Christ, at the moment of salvation, receive the Holy Spirit. Some argue that you have to be baptised in the Spirit and speak in tongues as a sign of the Spirit indwelling you, but this is not Biblical. 1 John 4:15 says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” It’s the confession of faith in Christ that makes the difference – not speaking in tongues. God lives in all Christians in all His fullness, in and through His Spirit.
In Acts 1:5, Jesus said that the apostles would be baptised by the Holy Spirit, which occurred on the Day of Pentecost. Baptism refers to being totally identified with the Spirit and to the initial reception of the Spirit. Paul tells the Corinthian Church, “In one Spirit we were all baptised into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
It’s interesting that Paul wrote this to the Corinthian Church, a Church which was seriously divided and had been corrupted by all kinds of worldly influences. If the baptism of the Spirit were a special experience for the spiritually elite, Paul would not have said such a thing to the Corinthians, who were not noted for their spiritual maturity.
Nowhere in the Bible are Christians commanded to be baptised with the Holy Spirit, for the simple reason that it is not something we are to do, or an experience we are to seek, but rather, it is God’s action performed in the believer at the moment of salvation. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a command given to us. It is not an experience. It is an act of God whereby the believer in Jesus Christ is indwelt by the Spirit of God, sealed for redemption, and placed into the Church, the body of Christ.
We are, though, commanded to be filled with the Spirit, which means co-operating with God’s Spirit by yielding ourselves to His control.
Being filled with the Spirit is a daily discipline. To be filled with the Spirit, we must empty ourselves by confessing our sin and dying to self. We need to yield ourselves fully to God and depend on Him step by step. Galatians 5:16 says we should “walk by the Spirit.” Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” The word “let” here is important. If you let something happen, you have some control over that event or action. You can let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, or you can choose not to.
If you are a Christian, you have the Spirit of God within you, but it is your choice as to whether He dwells in you richly or poorly. 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” God would not have put that statement in the Bible if it were not possible to quench the Spirit.
The results of a consistent daily walk in the Spirit will be the fruit of the Spirit which Paul lists in Galatians 5:22-23. “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
The initial outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was marked by three symbolic and supernatural phenomena. First, there was the sound of a violent rushing wind that filled the house. Then, there was the visible sign of tongues of fire resting on each person. Finally, there was the miraculous speaking in foreign languages which they had never learned.
The sound of the violent rushing wind was primarily a picture of invisible power. We can’t see the wind, but we can see the power it has at times. The disciples heard the noise as a miraculous sound that came from heaven. Verse 6 tells us that the noise was so loud that people gathered around the house to see what was happening.
When Jesus had His conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, He said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
The Holy Spirit, like the wind, is a mighty power, but we cannot see Him. We can only see His effects. One of His most powerful miracles is when He gives spiritual life to those who were dead in their sins.
The second phenomenon was the appearance of what seemed to be tongues of fire resting on each person in the room. The ESV says in verse 3, “tongues as of fire.” The NIV translation says, “What seemed to be tongues of fire.” This is an important detail, because it wasn’t actual fire which rested on each of them.
John the Baptist, speaking of Jesus, said in Matthew 3:11, “He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John is actually speaking about two very different baptisms here, and we know this from what he says in the very next verse. “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12)
All Christians are Spirit-baptised, while those who reject Jesus Christ will be judged or “baptised” with fire.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit we receive at the point of our conversion must not be confused with the baptism of fire.
Vernon McGee writes, “The baptism of fire is judgment which is yet to come. In the Book of Revelation we see the wrath of God revealed from heaven, fire from heaven. That is a baptism of fire. If men will not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then they must have the baptism of fire - judgment. The baptism of fire is for those who have rejected Jesus Christ. I used to go to a prayer meeting which a wonderful preacher attended. I loved that dear brother, although his theology differed from mine in some points. He would always pray that fire would fall on us. And I always cancelled out that prayer and said, ‘Lord, for goodness sake, don’t let fire fall on us.’ Fire, you see, is judgment. Fire burns. That is yet to come. When the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost they saw something that in appearance looked like fire.”
The meaning of Pentecost then and now, was not to encourage believers to have an ecstatic experience for their own edification. The meaning of Pentecost was that God gave the Holy Spirit to His Church so that they would bear witness to the nations for His glory. Pentecost is not about us. It is about God and His glory.
The remainder of Acts 2 records Peter’s sermon preached immediately after the supernatural infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Peter preached Christ crucified. As he concluded his sermon, verse 37 says the people “Were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
Peter’s reply was, “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” We’re told that about 3000 souls were saved from eternal damnation that day.
Don’t miss the significance of what happened here. Pentecost happened 50 days after the death of Jesus. Just hours before, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Now, less than 2 months later, he gets up in front of a crowd and as a direct result of his preaching, 3000 people turned to Christ. This man who couldn’t be seen for dust when accused of being one of Jesus’ followers is now completely transformed.
That’s the power of the Spirit, convicting sinners to turn to Jesus in repentance, and bringing glory to God at the same time.
Do you want to bring glory to God? If so, tell people about Jesus and the hope He offers them. That is the reason for the Church’s existence, and why God has empowered us with His Spirit. The goal of the Gospel is the glory of God.
One word of warning before we close. The Gospel was not a popular message in the first century, and nothing has changed in our day.
The book of Acts records many miraculous conversions, but also some fierce opposition to the preaching of the Gospel. We should expect the same response, but we must not be discouraged. Never apologise for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Just proclaim it faithfully and simply. God’s Spirit is the one who will change hearts.
God’s purpose at Pentecost was to equip His Church with the mighty power of the Holy Spirit so that we would be His witnesses to all the nations, resulting in His eternal glory.