Pentecost Sunday
True to his word, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit in power to the church. The sending of the Holy Spirit is the catalyst that stirs the apostles to undertake the mission that Jesus had given them in the previous chapter. Not coincidentally, Jesus pours out the Spirit on the Old Testament feast day of Pentecost.
The timing of the Spirit’s outpouring, therefore, invites us to consider how the events of that Pentecost morning bring Old Testament expectation to fulfilment. Pentecost in Acts 2, then, points us both backwards and forwards in redemptive history.
These verses document the Spirit’s coming to the church. This section is in two parts.
- The first part, 2:1–4, is bracketed by the word ‘all’ and records what happened to these believers when the Spirit came.
- The second part, 2:5–13, records the initial and uncertain reaction of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to this work of the Spirit. Both sections set the stage for Peter’s explanatory sermon beginning in 2:14.
Acts 2:1–4. And when the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all together in the same place. And suddenly there came to pass from heaven a sound like that of a rushing, powerful wind, and it filled the whole house where they were seated. And there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and they rested upon each one of them, and all were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other languages just as the Spirit was enabling them to speak out.
In order to help us understand the significance of what he is about to describe, Luke tells us that Jesus sent the Spirit on ‘the day of Pentecost’. The word ‘Pentecost’ is derived from the Greek word ‘fiftieth’.
It refers to the fact that this feast, called the ‘Feast of Weeks’ in the Hebrew Old Testament, occurred fifty days after Passover (Lev. 23:16–21; Deut. 16:9–12).2 Biblically, the feast was to be characterized by a joyful remembrance of the Lord’s provision of that year’s harvest (Deut. 16:11, 9; Lev. 23:16).
Sources dating after the New Testament period indicate that some Jews commemorated at Pentecost the giving of the Mosaic Law at Sinai. It is doubtful, however, that such an understanding was current in the first century or has informed Luke’s understanding of the events of this Pentecost.
It is best, then, to see Pentecost’s significance in light of the Old Testament feast that celebrated God’s goodness and faithfulness in providing the ingathered harvest. Two further observations support this conclusion. First, God commanded Israel at Pentecost to present the ‘firstfruits of [their] labour, of what [they] sow in the field’ (Exod. 23:16, ESV).
Correspondingly, the apostle Paul can say that New Testament believers have received the ‘firstfruits of the Spirit’ (Rom. 8:23). In identifying the events of Pentecost with the Feast of Weeks, Luke is stressing that Pentecost is ‘the day of firstfruits … of the full harvest of the Spirit to come at Christ’s return’.5 Second, Luke tells us that the events bring fulfilment to the Feast of Weeks: ‘when the Day of Pentecost was fulfilled’. While some translations render the verb symplērousthai ‘arrived’ (ESV) or ‘had come’ (NASB; cf. NIV, NKJV), it is preferable to render it ‘was fulfilled’.
Luke has used this same verb at Luke 9:51 (‘And it came to pass when the days of his [i.e. Jesus’] ascension were being fulfilled [symplērousthai], even he himself set his face to go to Jerusalem’).
Not only does Luke give us in 2:1 a ‘sonorous Septuagintal phrase that intimated the fulfilment of prophecy’, but the verbal connection with Luke 9:51 establishes a connection between the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the events of Pentecost.
In the opening words of 2:1, then, Luke is offering guidance in understanding the significance of the day of Pentecost. Pentecost is an epochal event in the history of redemption. It brings Old Testament expectation to its intended fulfilment. It represents the dawn of the ‘last days’ harvest of the Spirit. It is indissolubly linked to and on the order of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Each of these points, we shall see, surfaces in Peter’s sermon in 2:14–36.
Luke tells us that ‘they were all together in the same place’. Since he does not explicitly identify here those gathered together, we may infer that they are the 120 disciples mentioned at 1:15. Neither does Luke explicitly specify their location. Presumably, the upper room of 1:13 is meant.
In 2:2–4, Luke proceeds to record three phenomena: an unearthly sound, tongues of fire, and the disciples speaking in languages (lit. ‘tongues’) unknown to them.
The first event mentioned is ‘a sound like that of a rushing, powerful wind’. Since this sound is ‘from heaven’ it is clearly a supernatural phenomenon. In the Old Testament, both powerful sounds (Exod. 19:16) and a rushing wind (cf. 1 Kings 19:11) were signs of the presence of the Lord.
Furthermore, the association between ‘wind’ and the Holy Spirit is one that Jesus himself forged in his earthly ministry, and has even earlier Old Testament roots (see John 3:8; Ezek. 37:9–10). God the Father and God the Son have sent God the Spirit to be with the church.
If the Spirit manifests his presence audibly in the wind, he manifests his presence visibly in ‘divided tongues as of fire’ that ‘rested upon each one of them’. Like the wind, fire is a sign of God’s presence with his people (Exod. 14:24; 19:18).
More is being said, however, than that God is present with his people. This scene reminds us of John the Baptist’s words in Luke 3:16, ‘[Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,’ as well as Jesus’ promise at Acts 1:5, ‘because John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’.
What is the significance of the descent of ‘divided tongues of fire’ falling and resting upon every one of these disciples? We may first note that the baptism of which John spoke was a baptism of Spirit and fire, specifically the consuming fire of judgment (see Luke 3:17).
Tellingly, these tongues of fire do not consume these disciples. This fact indicates that the Spirit whom Jesus has sent comes upon these individuals to bring blessing and not judgment. If we ask why this is the case, the answer is that Jesus, at the cross, endured on their behalf the judgment due to them (see Luke 12:49–50).
The third event that Luke mentions is that the disciples ‘began to speak in other languages’. In view here are ‘intelligible languages different from their own’. This linguistic facility is not the product of acquired learning.
It is the gift of the Holy Spirit: they speak as those ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ and ‘just as the Spirit was enabling them to speak out’.
What is the significance of the Spirit enabling these disciples to speak in other languages? In view is the apostles’ commission to be Jesus’ witnesses ‘unto the end of the earth’ (1:8). Significantly, Luke will soon call attention to the multiplicity of languages represented by those observing the disciples on the day of Pentecost (2:5–13). Speaking in other languages, then, is a token of the fact that the Spirit has granted the church the competence to commence carrying out the commission that Jesus has given her.
This is the first of several instances in Acts in which believers are said to be ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ (see 4:8, 31; 6:3; 9:17; 13:9, 52; see also Luke 1:15, 41, 67). Luke does not insinuate that these disciples were altogether bereft of the Spirit before Pentecost.
Neither does he point to this filling as a ‘second blessing’ experience for these and subsequent generations of disciples. The Spirit’s filling, rather, denotes divinely provided empowerment to carry out the commands of God.
While the filling in view in Acts 2:4 is specific yet Paul’s command in Ephesians 5:18 (‘be filled with the Spirit’) indicates that the Spirit is still at work to fill believers.
2:5–13. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound was occurring, the multitude assembled and was confounded, because they were hearing—each one in his own language—them speaking. And they were astonished and they were amazed, saying ‘Behold, are not all of these who are speaking Galileans?
And how is it that we are hearing—each one in his own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and those who dwell in Mesopotamia; Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya around Cyrene, and those who reside in Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we are hearing them speaking in our own languages the great things of God.’ And all of them were amazed and were at a loss, one saying to another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others jeered and said, ‘They have been filled with sweet new wine.’
Having described the work of the Spirit in the midst of the church, Luke now records reactions to this work from those outside the church. The initial respondents are ‘Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven’ who are ‘dwelling in Jerusalem’.
The word ‘dwelling’, as Marshall notes, ‘need not necessarily imply permanent residence’. Pentecost was one of the three great pilgrim feasts mandated by Old Testament Law. Consequently, ‘devout’ or law-regarding ‘Jews’ from around the Roman world would have come to Jerusalem to attend the feast.
Luke tells us that these men came ‘from every nation under heaven’. Although they are ‘Jews’ or ‘proselytes’ and not pagans, we are given a hint of things to come: the progress of the gospel ‘unto the end of the earth’ (1:8).
This point is confirmed by Luke’s detailed account of the geographical origins of these onlookers (2:9–11a). Luke mentions fifteen locations from which they hail, each a centre of the Jewish population.
Richard Bauckham has convincingly argued that this list ‘is carefully designed to depict the Jewish Diaspora with Jerusalem at its centre’. Luke’s list moves broadly from east to west, and from north to south. This geographical representation illustrates Luke’s claim that these Jews have come to Jerusalem from around the inhabited world.
Tellingly, ‘Rome’ is near the end of the list—the very place at which Luke will conclude this book, and therefore a harbinger of things to come. This table of nations, then, anticipates the progress of the gospel as it radiates from Jerusalem to Rome, and therefore to the inhabited world.
At three points in the narrative, attention is called to the tongue-speaking of the disciples: ‘they were hearing—each one in his own language—them speaking’ (2:6); ‘and how is it that we are hearing—each one in his own language in which we were born?’ (2:7); ‘we are hearing them speaking in our own languages’ (2:11).
Luke’s report (2:6), and the witnesses’ words (2:7, 11) make clear that the ‘various vernacular languages of these peoples were being spoken’. What catches the attention of these onlookers is not ecstatic, nonsensical babble, but supposedly uneducated ‘Galileans’ (2:7) speaking in the known tongues of peoples from around the Roman world.
Luke does not provide a detailed summary of the disciples’ speech. Even so, the crowds remark that the disciples were ‘speaking … the great things of God’ (2:11). The word translated ‘great things’ (megaleia) is used in the Septuagint22 (Deut. 11:2; Ps. 71:19; 105:1; 106:21) and ‘points to God’s mighty acts in delivering his people’.
The disciples are presumably speaking of the redemptive work of God centred upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. One of the first indications of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit in and among these disciples is their witness to Jesus Christ.
The crowd’s response is a mixture of amazement and scepticism. Luke registers their astonishment at these proceedings in more than one place—‘they were confounded’ (2:6); ‘and they were astonished and they were amazed’ (2:7); ‘and all of them were amazed and at a loss’ (2:12).
These responses confirm that the miracle of tongues was not ‘self-authenticating’.These repeated affirmations of bewilderment prepare us for the official, apostolic explanation of these events that will come in Peter’s sermon. As is so often the case in redemptive history, God’s redemptive word authoritatively interprets his redemptive deeds.
While many were amazed, ‘others jeered and said “They have been filled with sweet new wine” ’ (2:13).26 As will happen again in Acts, the witness of the disciples to Jesus occasions division among the hearers (see also Luke 12:51–53).27 In this case, some individuals venture crass naturalistic explanations of a miracle unfolding before their eyes: the work of God the Spirit is attributed to drunkenness.
What is needed, then, is not simply an explanation of what is taking place (2:14–36), but a work of the Spirit renewing and transforming darkened and rebellious hearts, and so enabling people to receive the truth in the way of repentance and faith (2:37–41).
Author:Waters, G. P. (2015).
