Evangelical Christians in general, and Baptists in particular, have been reluctant to observe the occasions of the Church Calendar marked in other Protestant and Catholic traditions for a variety of reasons, some better than others. However, we have lost something significant in the process. For one thing, we have separated ourselves from centuries of Christian tradition that we should hold more dearly than we do. For instance, in many churches today, there will be much ado about Mother’s Day, and very little mention of Pentecost. While there is nothing wrong with Mother’s Day, and we have a biblical command to honor our fathers and mothers, Mothers’ Day is a relatively recent tradition in the grand scheme of history. It was first made a national observance in 1914. The Jewish people began the observance of Pentecost during the Exodus around 3,500 years ago, and for nearly 2,000 years, it has been a significant occasion for the Christian Church. But it is not only our traditions that have suffered, but more importantly our theology has suffered as well. While we make much of Christmas and Easter, and rightly so, we have overlooked the occasions such as Pentecost which are intended to be teaching opportunities to teach and remind us of important doctrinal truths foundational to our Christian faith.
Just the very word “Pentecostal” is certain to evoke all sorts of thoughts in one’s mind. When we hear this word, I suppose we tend to think more of the Pentecostal denomination than the Day of Pentecost, and that causes us to think of the contemporary phenomenon of tongue-speaking, emotionally sensationalized worship experiences, and faith healing. These are not the Pentecostal Principles I wish to discuss today. In fact, these controversial experiences have divided Christians and churches over the last century in a manner very contrary to the true nature of Pentecost as we find it in the Scriptures. And the overemphasis of spectacular outward signs have caused evangelicals, especially Baptists to be afraid of the word Pentecostal rather than cherishing it as a vital part of the Christian faith.
If you are a Christian at all, you are a Pentecostal Christian. This is a Pentecostal Church. There are in fact no other kinds of churches. But when we say that we do not mean that we condone or legitimize certain practices that have taken the label of “Pentecostal” upon themselves, but rather that we are a part of that stream of God’s working in the world that He began on Pentecost in the Book of Acts. And so, as we must always do, we turn to the Scriptures to understand what Pentecost is, and what principles we must draw from that important event in redemptive history for our Christian lives and the life of this church today.
I. The Principle of the Power of the Spirit (2:1-21)
After the resurrection of Jesus, He told His followers that He would send forth the promise of His Father upon them (Luke 24:49a). At the Last Supper, Jesus had told them that He would not leave them as orphans, but that He would ask the Father, and the Father would give to them another Helper who would be with them forever. This Helper, He said, is the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father would send in Christ’s name (John 14:16-18, 26). Of course, the Holy Spirit of God, that third person of the Trinity, had always been at work in the world. In the second verse of the Bible (Gen 1:2), we read the He was moving over the surface of the waters at Creation. And He had worked at various times in diverse ways among God’s people throughout history. But Jesus was promising a new experience that His followers would have with the Holy Spirit. He said to them in John 14:17, “you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” So the promise of the Father that Jesus said would be sent was the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And after being with them for 40 days teaching them concerning the Kingdom of God, He ascended into heaven. But first, He told them in Lk 24:49, “You are to stay in the city (meaning Jerusalem) until you are clothed with power from on high.”
It should catch our attention that the only instruction given to the disciples about what they had to do in order to receive this promise of the Spirit was to stay in Jerusalem. Now, why was it important for them to stay there? Could God not find them in some other place? Surely this is not the case, for we are never anywhere beyond the knowledge and power of God. David writes in Psalm 139:7, “Where can I go from Your Spirit, or where can I flee from Your presence?” Rather, this instruction has to do with God’s calendar of events. During the Exodus, God had instituted among the Jewish people the observance of important festivals and feast days, all of which prophetically foreshadowed the salvation of His people that He would complete in the person of Jesus Christ. One of these was the Feast of the Harvest, also called the Feast of Weeks, because it occurred seven weeks (or approximately 50 days) after Passover. Eventually, as Greek became the lingua franca of the world, this celebration came to be known as Pentecost, meaning “fifty.” On this day, an offering of the first fruits of the wheat harvest were to be brought before the Lord. This was one of three festivals about which the Lord commanded, “all your males shall appear before the Lord God” (Ex 23:17). Therefore, in the days when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, faithful Jews would come from far and wide to observe Pentecost there. And just ten days after Jesus had ascended back into heaven, His followers found themselves in Jerusalem on Pentecost, surrounded by Jews who had traveled from many parts of the world. And in the midst of that event, God did something extraordinary.
A. The Pentecostal Experience (vv1-13)
1. A Private Experience (vv1-4a)
As the early disciples were gathered together, were sudden signs that began to occur. First was an audible sign – there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting (v2). Now there are some important things to notice here. First, this was not a wind blowing. Nothing miraculous at all about the wind blowing; happens every day. This was a noise that was LIKE a violent rushing wind. It didn’t come across the city, it came from heaven, sweeping down into their midst. And it wasn’t experienced all over town – it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And then there was a visible sign – there appeared to them tongues as of fire – some sort of visual image that resembled the shape of a flaming tongue – and these distributed themselves and rested on each one of them. Again notice the important words: not everyone saw this; it appeared to them. And they didn’t reach up and grab hold of them, but rather the visionary flaming tongues distributed themselves and rested on each believer in that house.
These phenomena were signs. In the Bible, a sign functions to draw attention, but the attention is always quickly pointed beyond the sign itself to the reality for which it stands. It is of interest that in both the Greek and Hebrew languages of the Bible, the word is the same for Spirit and wind. In Hebrew that word is ruach and in Greek it is pneuma. Both of these words can be translated as either “spirit” or “wind.” And so the sound that was heard was pointing them not to the wind, but to the Spirit which was descending upon them from heaven, the promise of the Father. You may recall that John the Baptist had spoken of Christ saying that He was the coming One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And so here, audibly and visibly, the disciples are made aware of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We read in verse 4, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” But their experience was not merely private.
2. A Public Experience (vv4b-11)
“They began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.” This Holy Spirit who now indwelt them was empowering them to speak “with other tongues.” This is NOT the same as we find in the contemporary phenomenon of unintelligible ecstatic utterances, for we read that when the crowds began to hear this, they were bewildered because each of them was “hearing them speak in his own language.” They ask in v7, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” Galileans had a reputation of being unlearned and uncultured, and were known to have a very unique dialect among themselves. While it is true that most of the world in that day communicated with each other in the Greek language, these disciples were not speaking only Greek. They were speaking the native dialects of these people, which they could have never studied or learned. The people ask in v8: “And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?” And the languages which were being spoken were the languages of the Parthians and Medes, the Elamites and the Mesopotamians. These were the lands to the East, where many Jews had been born following the Babylonian Captivity. They were speaking the language of Judea (perhaps Hebrew or Aramaic). They were speaking in the languages of Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, all regions of Asia Minor to the North. They were speaking the languages of North Africa: Egypt, Libya, Cyrene. They were speaking in the languages of Rome, Crete and Arabia. So, this was not the utterance of meaningless babel or ecstatic jibberish – they were well understood in the languages of all those present in Jerusalem that day. And what were they saying in all these languages? They were “speaking of the mighty deeds of God!” (v11). God was sending forth the Gospel Message through the followers of Christ to people from all over the world in their own languages.
3. A Perplexing Experience (vv12-13)
This phenomenon caused those who heard to respond with “amazement and great perplexity” as they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Now of course, you know, there are always some who claim to have all the answers. These “mockers” were saying, “They are full of sweet wine!” In other words, they’re drunk. Well, it is true, I guess that they were “under the influence,” but that influence was not the distilled spirits of wine or other strong drink, but the influence of the Holy Spirit, as Peter quickly explained.
B. The Pentecostal Explanation (vv14-21)
Peter quickly dismisses the mockers by saying, “These men are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day” (about 9 am). These were not the hours one would expect to find someone three-sheets-to-the-wind. The explanation of this event comes directly from the Hebrew Scriptures. “This is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel” (v16). And with a lengthy quotation from Joel 2:28-32, Peter uses the words of prophetic scripture to illuminate what the multitudes have witnessed at Pentecost.
The death of Jesus Christ on the cross was the accompanying sacrifice for the initiation of God’s new covenant with humanity. In Jeremiah 31, God spoke through the prophet to announce, “Behold the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers … But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days … I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, … for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jer 31:31-34). These are the days that Joel looked toward when God spoke through him to announce the outpouring of His Spirit. And now, Peter says, that day has come.
In this new covenant day, God will pour out His Spirit on all mankind. That does not mean that every person will receive the Holy Spirit, but it means that every person may receive the Holy Spirit. There is no distinction between gender: sons and daughters. There is no distinction between age: young men and old men. There is no distinction between social class: even on my bondslaves. And as God reveals Himself in Christ by the Holy Spirit to men in this day, they are empowered to prophesy, that is, because they know God in Christ, they can make God in Christ known to others. This was the promise of Jesus in Acts 1:8 – “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses.” And the day of the outpouring of God’s Spirit is the entire age between the coming of the Spirit and the second coming of Christ. During this entire era, in which we now live, God’s offer of salvation is made available to all: “And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!” Thus, the New Testament church is born, whose task it is to make Christ known in our witness and extend this offer of salvation to all mankind.
This brings us to the second Pentecostal Principle:
II. The Principle of the Proclamation of the Savior (vv22-41)
Peter did not limit his announcement to the people to a mere explanation of the present phenomena, but went on to preach the Lordship of Jesus Christ to them. And so we must also make Christ known to the world around us today. “How can we do that,” you may ask? Our task is no different than Peter’s, and in His Pentecostal Proclamation, we find a model for our own witness for Christ.
A. The Content of Our Proclamation (vv22-36)
You will notice that Peter did not wax eloquent about the mysteries of life and the philosophical curiosities of the culture. He presented Christ to the people. He spoke of His life (v22). He spoke of His death (v23). And you will notice that He did not present the death of Christ as an unfortunate accident of history – he says that Christ was “delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” Thus, Peter made it clear that Christ did not the death of judicial injustice, but was given to humanity as the supreme sacrifice for sin. Nonetheless, the hands of humanity are stained with the blood of Christ, for he goes on to say, “you nailed [Him] to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” So we see in the death of Christ the glaring paradox of the love of God and the sinfulness of man. But His death was not the end of His story, for Peter goes on to declare, “But God raised Him up again.” (v24). And from the Old Testament Scriptures, Peter reasons with the people leading them to understand that from days of old, God had foretold through His Word that the Messiah would come and suffer and die and be raised again for us and for our salvation. And He announced to them Christ’s exaltation and Lordship and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit (32-36).
You do not have to be a seminary graduate or a trained theologian to be a witness. The other day, I counted in my library 108 books dealing exclusively with the subject of evangelism. Do you know how many of them Peter had read? Precisely ZERO. But do you know what Peter had read? He had read his Bible (and he only had the Old Testament at that time). And from the Bible alone, he was able to present Jesus to his audience. Oh, friends, spend time in the Word and as you get to know Jesus as we see Him in the Bible, make that Jesus known to others!
Just give the people Jesus. Tell them about His life, tell them about His death, tell them about His resurrection, and tell them that He is LORD. This is the content of our proclamation. But it isn’t enough to just give people information. We aren’t trying to make them smart, we’re trying to get them saved! And this brings us to …
B. The Conclusion of Our Proclamation (vv37-41)
When the people heard Peter’s words, “they were pierced to the heart.” Don’t you know that the Bible says that God’s Word is the sword of the spirit, and the writer of Hebrews says that the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword? It cuts those who hear it right down to their heart. And these said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What shall we do?” Knowing what we now know, what would God have us to do to be made right with Him? And the answer comes quickly: “Repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Now some have jumped the tracks here and taught that baptism in water is necessary for salvation, and if you’ve never been baptized you can’t be saved. That is not what Peter is saying. He is uniting together those twin conditions of the gospel call: repentance and faith. To repent is to turn away from our sins and faith is turning toward God to receive His offer of salvation. Baptism is not equal to saving faith, but baptism is a demonstration of our saving faith. Peter was calling them to act on their faith and demonstrate it by being baptized. Our sins are forgiven when we turn from sin in repentance and turn toward God by faith, and we give testimony to our forgiveness by baptism. Baptism is an outward picture of an inward reality. God has made you clean on the inside. Show that to others through the symbolic act of baptism. Today, for better or worse, we ask people to walk the aisle to make a public testimony of their faith. It would probably be better if instead, we call them to the water to make that public testimony. That is what Peter was doing. And He promised them that if they would turn to God in repentance and faith, that they too would experience what they had seen on that day: “You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This was not something reserved only for the apostles: “The promise is for you and your children and all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” God may be calling someone even as I speak to come to Him and be forgiven, and receive the promise of the Spirit, and to “be saved from this perverse generation!” (v41).
Oh, some expert will say, “Preaching like that,” or “Witnessing like that will never appeal to anyone.” Well, I beg to differ, for on that day, 3,000 people received this word and were baptized. It isn’t too hard for me to believe that this day, one might. We must proclaim the Savior. This is a Pentecostal Principle for all Christians. Now one final one.
III. The Principle of the Practices of the Saints (vv42-47)
Once this New Testament Church is born, what does it do? Here in these verses we are given a glimpse of how Christ intended for His church to continue on until He comes again.
A. We must be a learning church (42a)
They were devoted to the apostles’ teaching. John Stott said, “the Holy Spirit opened a school in Jerusalem that day; its teachers were the apostles … and there were 3,000 pupils in the kindergarten.” There are many who would claim that Christian life is more about experience than instruction, and more about how one feels than what one believes. However, as we see here, the church from the day of its birth was a place of instruction in sound doctrine. The apostles’ teaching was validated in their midst through signs and wonders (43b). Anytime God gave new revelation of Himself to humanity, He validated it with signs and wonders. Now that we have the complete revelation of God’s word in the Old and New Testaments, we are not looking for more signs and wonders. Rather, we are to devote ourselves to the study of this true Word of God that has been passed down to us. We must be a learning church.
B. We must be a loving church (42a – fellowship)
They were not only devoted to the apostles teaching – they were also devoted to fellowship, that Greek word koinonia that so fully describes the life of the church that Jesus intended. If we could define koinonia in the briefest possible way, it would be with the phrase life together. As fellow believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, as brothers and sisters in the family of God, we are sharing in life together with one another. When one rejoices, we all have reason to rejoice. When one suffers, we all suffer with that one. When one is in need, we all marshal our resources to help meet those needs, as we see in vv44-45. And what was their attitude in all this? Verse 46 says that they were glad and sincere in heart. Oh, that the church in our generation would be marked by such glad and sincere love for one another!
C. We must be a worshiping church (42b-43a)
The breaking of bread refers to the observance of the Lord’s Supper, and prayer speaks of their dependence upon God. And through the teaching of the Word, the observance of the ordinances, and their dependence upon God in prayer, there was a sense of awe in their hearts and minds as they sought and saw the glory of God on a daily basis. We see that they were worshiping formally, as they met in the courts of the Temple. And they were worshiping informally, as they met in individual’s homes. Worship characterized everything the early church did. And we wonder perhaps why we do not see the manifestation of God’s glory more vividly in our own day? Might it be that we have ceased to seek His glory consistently and persistently in worship. We must be a worshiping church.
D. We must be a missionary church (47)
As the early Christians worshiped God, others saw something attractive in their lives, and they grew in favor with all the people. Their worship, their fellowship, their growth in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, and their gladness and sincerity demonstrated something to the world around them and like salt in the earth, made the world thirsty for what they had. And so we read that the Lord added to their numbers daily those who were being saved. Every word is important. There is much talk about church growth today, and many ideas and practices, but nothing can ever improve on the original plan. How does the church grow? It grows by people being saved. The Bible does not say that the Lord added to their numbers daily those who were getting mad at their other churches. No, these folks were getting saved. And how are people saved? It is the work of the Lord. The Lord added them to the Kingdom, to His family, and to the local church because salvation is only of God. We have a part to play – we must worship God faithfully, love one another sincerely, serve one another selflessly, grow in our knowledge of the things of God perpetually, and take advantage of every opportunity to give a word of witness for Christ boldly. But alas, it is God alone who holds the key to men’s hearts. So, we must pray, and we must seek Him, and we must ask Him to save our love ones, and make us bold witnesses, for unless He moves, salvation does not happen.
So, on Pentecost Sunday, we must remember these principles. We must reflect on the principle of the Power of the Spirit. We are not, as the early disciples were, waiting for God to pour out the baptism of the Spirit. He has done this once for all at Pentecost. If you have been born-again, you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Don’t let anyone tell you that the baptism of the Spirit must be evidenced by ecstatic manifestations. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” And yet he goes on to say clearly that we do not all work miracles, speak in tongues, or perform healings. But all of us who are in Christ have been baptized with the Spirit’s power, and He now dwells in us. We have the admonition in Ephesians 5:18 to continually seek the filling of the Spirit, which speaks of His control in our lives. We must always seek to yield ourselves over to His control. And as a result of His power within us, we can be His witnesses.
And we must not forget the principle of the proclamation of the Savior. In all that we do in our lives individually and collectively as the church, our task is to make Christ known. It isn’t complicated, we must be constantly growing in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and proclaiming to others what we know about Him – His life, His death, His resurrection, His Lordship – and calling them to faith and repentance. God will hold us accountable for our faithfulness to this task, but He is the one who is responsible for the results. We go and tell. He saves. But He has chosen to save through the work of His church and the word of His Gospel as we proclaim the Savior to the world around us.
And we must be ever mindful of the principle of the practices of the saints. And like that early church who was born on Pentecost, we must be a learning church, a loving church, a worshiping church, and a missionary church. These are the true marks of Pentecostal Christianity, and there really is no other kind.