Acts 2:1-4

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.




Dig Deeper
I haven’t been to very many college football games in my life and have never been able to go to a regular season professional NFL game but I did get the opportunity to go a game a few years back and watch my home state college team play a big home game. It was my first time being at their stadium, known as Camp Randall, and it was a pretty cool experience. We made our way through the tailgating cookouts and the incredible noise and crowds to find our seats in the chilly autumn afternoon and watch the game. As the end of the third quarter neared and our team, the Wisconsin Badgers, were winning as usual, I got excited because something called the “Jump Around” was nearing. The Jump Around is a Wisconsin football tradition that is nearly twenty years old now. In between the third and fourth quarters, the stadium blasts the 1990 rap hit “Jump” by the group known as House of Pain. It is a fun song with an infectious beat and as the beat begins to pound, the entire stadium of well over 60,000 spectators begins to jump up and down rhythmically with the song and in unison with one another. I had heard people describe the Jump Around and I had even seen glimpses of it on TV, but as I experienced, I realized that it’s just not something that you can describe and do justice to. You have to be there to see it, hear it, and especially to feel it. It was an incredible thing to experience and it’s one of those amazing memories that you hold dear in your mind because you can never really share it with someone and have them fully appreciate it unless they have been there themselves.

I have to believe that the day of Pentecost was something like that, only a much grander and more incredible and meaningful scale. How could you possibly begin to describe such an event? Luke has given us the facts of Pentecost and done it justice on that level, but this is something that we cannot break down into a series of facts and formulas anymore than you could really completely grasp what it was like to be in a war by watching war movies or reading about it. The Holy Spirit is not something that can be described. He must be experienced to be fully appreciated and understood. Keep that in my mind as we read this passage and the remainder of the book of Acts. On one level, Luke is trying to give us a picture of the coming of the Spirit and the formation of God’s family. On another level, the book of Acts is less a description of God’s people and more of an invitation to come and experience God’s family and the power of the Spirit for oneself.

Pentecost is one of those terms that has become so identified with one particular religious group that many Christians get nervous about the term and almost stay away from it completely. It has become so associated with the Charismatic Pentecostal movement that it’s almost like they own the name. It almost reminds me of the way that many people refer to any tissue as a kleenex even though kleenex is a brand of tissues and not the product itself. Pentecost, though, is in many respects the day that God’s church was born. It was the day when the kingdom of God that had broken into the present age through the person of Jesus Christ was focused into the creation of God’s family as the people that had received the promised Holy Spirit and realized the prophecy of Acts 1:4. It is a day of incredible importance and the word “Pentecost” should never be given up or ceded to one group. In the true sense of the word, all Christians are Pentecostals.

Pentecost itself was a Jewish festival that took place fifty days after the Passover. It was known as Pentecost by the time of Jesus but was the same festival known as the Feast of Weeks (or Feast of Harvest) in the Old Testament (see Ex. 23:16; 34:22; Lev. 23:15; Num. 28:26; Deut. 16:9-16; 2 Chron. 8:13). It was a celebration that showed gratitude to God for the coming harvest and also dedicated the firstfruits to him in the prayer and hope that the rest of the crop would soon be brought in as well. It was also the time when the Jews celebrated the moment when Moses received the law at Sinai, fifty days after the Passover. It was the time when God had given his people the standard which would guide them in their way of life as his people.

An interesting parallel can be seen from the writings of the Jewish philosopher Philo, in the first half of the first century as he wrote of the giving of the Law to Moses: “Then from the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the flame became the articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience.” Historian Ben Witherington III, in his book “The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary,” says that “If Luke knew such traditions, his portrayal of these Pentecost events could be taken to suggest not only that Christianity will have a worldwide impact, but that the giving of the Spirit is parallel (and supersedes?) the giving of the Law.”

What this is all means is that this was the day when God unleashed the fullness of his promises for his new covenant people. He had finally given his people the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit and made him available for all time to all those that would enter into Christ. The Spirit would be the fulfillment of God’s promises and would guide them in their way of life as God’s people. This was an event that was parallel to but even greater than the moment when God gave his law to the nation of Israel.

As the morning dawned, the Jerusalem believers were all together, presumably praying although Luke des not say that specifically. He says that the entire house was filled with a sound that he can only describe as sounding like a violent wind. The imagery here is powerful, especially considering that the Greek word for “wind” and “spirit” are the same word. The presence of God being accompanied by the wound of a violent wind was a common Old Testament symbol (2 Sam. 22:16; 1 Ki. 19:11; Job 37:10; Ezek. 13:13). The primary Old Testament connection here, however, seems to come from the prophecy of Ezekiel 37 where the wind and breath of God came upon the dead and dry bones and brought them back to life, telling his people “Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live” (Ezek. 37:13-14). Jesus himself compared the work of the Spirit to that of a strong wind when he declared “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going” (Jn. 3:8). The power of the Spirit was clearly palpable and Luke says that it sounded “like” a violent wind, but what exactly it was like we can’t really even imagine. The Spirit is someone to be experienced not analyzed.

Another powerful symbol of the Spirit and the presence of God consistently through the Old Testament was that of fire as can be seen in such accounts as the burning bush (Ex. 3:2-5); the pillar of fire in the wilderness (Ex. 13:21-22); and passages where God is referred to as a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; see also Heb. 12:29). The fire denoted the divine presence of the almighty God, but once again Luke actually says that it looked “like” tongues of fire (Some theologians, it should be said, see significance in the fact that Luke says that this phenomenon that was like tongues of fire came to rest on each of them. This, they argue, is a sign that the Spirit would belong to all of God’s people but also in an individual way that was never available to all of God’s people in the Old Testament). He is doing his best to put into words something that could only fully be experienced. This is the time that John the Baptist spoke of the Messiah, declaring that “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit [literally “wind”] and fire” (Lk. 3:16). The once-for-all promised baptism of the Spirit had been poured out into the present age like a rushing tidal wave.

As the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit during this incredibly unique event, they began to speak in other “glossa,” a word that clearly referred to a regular known language. This was no doubt an incredible event but Luke describes quite succinctly and clearly that the believers were filled with the Spirit and able to speak in other known languages. There has been much confusion about the gift of speaking in other languages, the gift of tongues, but it really makes a great deal of sense. Why would God give the early church the ability to speak in other languages? [It seems clear from both this passage and a proper reading of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 that the gift on tongues was precisely the ability to speak in other languages rather than forcing the Bible to say something that it does not, namely that this gift of tongues was different from that described in 1 Corinthians, claiming that the tongues of 1 Corinthians is one in the same with the ecstatic utterances practiced today by many Christian sects in the last two centuries as well as many pagan religions throughout world history. Although pagan religions engaged in ecstatic utterances there is no convincing evidence that the Bible ever describes any such practices and no clear evidence that the orthodox early church of the first three centuries did either.]

The reason for this gift of other languages is actually quite sensible. If God’s promise was always that he would have one family of all nations, tribes, and languages (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:1-5; Isa. 2:1-4; Rev. 5:9), then that would be a daunting task for a church that was starting in one place that would consist of a similar people group (namely Jews) that would be limited in the languages that they could speak. God was serving notice through this gift that he was serious about his family being available to all nations of all languages. The sin at the tower of Babel had split humans into people groups and languages and God was now finally reversing that. As we will see, he would start with the Jews from all over the world that were gathered at Pentecost. But the gift of other languages would be invaluable as well as deeply symbolic for a church that had the commission of taking the gospel to all nations. Once they were there and established, the gift could slowly fade away. The family of Christ still speaks in all tongues and languages today albeit not through the supernatural means of the early church. The means may be different but the message of the gospel and God’s one family of many nations is still the same. That will never change.



Devotional Thought
When is the last time that you really experienced the Holy Spirit personally? Set aside some special extra time (as long as you can) during a day or through the night sometime soon to just pray and experience the Holy Spirit. Ask the Spirit to really make himself manifest in your life and be willing to follow his lead. Make sure, though, that as the Scriptures warn to test everything that you experience against the word of God as found in the Bible.