(Suggested Reading: Chapter 2:1-41)
The next scene is in a house. This is not without its meaning. Paul writes to Timothy “that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” —1 Tim. 3:15. Now notice the expression “the church of the living God” in the verse just cited. “The Church of God” is found eight times in the New Testament, and always in connection with Paul. God witnesses that there is a Church of God on the earth —1 Cor. 1:2, 2 Cor. 1:1; that Paul persecuted it—1 Cor. 15:9, Gal. 1:13—that no one is to offend or despise it—1 Cor. 10:32, 1 Cor. 11:22—and that it is to be shepherded and ruled according to Paul’s instructions—20:28, 1 Ti. 3:5. But at this point in time it had not yet been established. It is “the mystery of Christ which in other generations has not been made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in (the power of the) Spirit” —Eph. 3:4,5. It was not hidden in the Scriptures, although they contain many beautiful types of Christ and the Church. No, it was hidden in God Himself, so that only He could reveal it. The Lord told Peter that “on this rock I will build My church” —Mat. 16:18. The time has now come to begin the building.
The Day of Pentecost
The day of Pentecost is one of the feasts of the Lord which are given to us in Leviticus 23. A brief outline of these feasts follows this chapter for general reference. The feast of Pentecost was the foreshadowing of the events which took place in the second chapter of Acts. The Jews were told to “count from the morning after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, seven weeks; they shall be complete; even unto the morning after the seventh Sabbath shall ye count fifty days” —Lev. 23:15, 16. Fifty days? Yes, fifty days exactly, for the name Pentecost means “fiftieth.”
Now when we see the reason for the count and the exact period our hearts are filled with delight at the beauty of His Word. The count started “from the morning after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering.” The wave sheaf is Christ risen and accepted before God for us, for it was “at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week” that the Lord rose from among the dead. For forty days after that He was on this earth before His ascension and for ten days after the Apostles waited at Jerusalem until the promised Spirit came, making up the full fifty days needed for the Day of Pentecost.
The Coming of the Holy Spirit
So “when the Day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” The feasts of the Lord, of which Pentecost was one, had become “feasts of the Jews” —see John 5:1. After all the Lord had meant nothing to the guilty nation. Unquestionably they had by this time restored the veil of the temple which God had rent at the death of Jesus. Everything was to go on here as though He had never visited this earth. Or so they thought.
But God’s thought now was to go on without them. True, He bore with their system—their temple, priesthood, etc. for some time. But He revealed His real thought in the beginning—a people outside the pretensions of religion suited to the flesh. His own meet in a house, entirely apart from fellowship with those who had crucified and slain His Son with wicked hands. The Jews had placed themselves under the law—not God—Ex. 24:7—and had only proved that man, left to himself, can give nothing to God. That being the case God will put His Spirit into man that he may have power with God.
So it is that the coming of the Holy Spirit is announced with a sound out of heaven—v. 2. The house is filled as it must be when a Divine Person is present. In the next verse “there appeared unto them tongues as of fire.” Here was a twofold testimony that God was present—presented to their ears— “he that hath ears to hear let him hear” —and their sight—tongues of fire. The reason that the sound came out of heaven is that when the Lord Jesus went to heaven as a Man He took the Holy Spirit with Him—the Spirit who had descended in a bodily form as a dove upon Him at the river Jordan. That is why the Lord said “but the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name” etc.—John 14:26. The Father would not have needed to send the Holy Spirit, so to speak, if He had remained here. And so there was “a sound out of heaven” accompanied by a demonstration of power.
The Unity of the Body of Christ
At the Jordan the Holy Spirit had descended on Christ in bodily form as a dove—at Pentecost on men in the form of parted tongues of fire. Apart from any other teaching the central thought is this—that the Holy Spirit, in descending, united the risen, ascended Head of the body, Christ, to His members here below. In so doing He formed the Church of God, which until that moment did not exist. Ephesians 1 teaches us the divine order—Christ must first be glorified before this could happen— “and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from among the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who filleth all in all” —Eph. 1:19-23. From this it will be seen that the Holy Spirit could not come down to form the Church until Jesus was at the right hand of God—that is until God had demonstrated His satisfaction of His work of accomplished redemption, not only by raising Him from among the dead but by bringing that Man into the glory of God. The unity of Christ and the Church found visible expression in the Holy Spirit alighting on that Blessed Man who was to be the Head at the Jordan, then on His members at Jerusalem.
Redeemed by the blood of Jesus, men are now fitted to be the habitation of God in the Spirit—Eph. 2:22. This is a twofold thing, the Church as a universal assembly being the temple of God—1 Cor. 3:16—and the individual believers, indwelt by the Spirit also, whose bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit—see 1 Cor. 6:19. And so “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
The New Center
The old center had been Jerusalem. This alone was the place where men ought to worship. It was the divine center on earth, the place where the Lord had set His Name and where alone His presence was to be found. But when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven God morally set aside the old center by establishing a new one. We say “morally set aside” because historically He still recognized the old center until the Jews stoned Stephen—of which more later. In setting up a new center God knew full well that they would treat this “ambassador for Christ” as they had treated His beloved Son.
At this point the question might be asked, what is the new center? We know that, when the Lord’s rejection by the Jews pressed upon Him He announced “for where two or three are gathered together unto My Name there am I in the midst of them” —Mat. 18:20. This is, in a sense, the new center on earth—the Lord Jesus in the midst of His own, as we see in John 20. There the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews and Jesus came and stood in the midst and said unto them “Peace be unto you!” Having said this, He showed them His hands and His side. This made the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Now this is exceedingly blessed unless we start Judaizing it into an earthly center to replace the old earthly center—Jerusalem. That was the sin of the Church after the first century and led to the establishment of the devil’s earthly center—Rome. Let us then be clear on this cardinal truth that the new center is heaven where Jesus is. No present enjoyment of the Lord’s presence with us during the Church’s stay on earth in any way sets aside the parallel truth that we worship in heaven, although on the earth, for we are a heavenly people. We worship inside the veil—the holiest of all—Heb. 10:19-22. As well, we are blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” —Eph. 1:3.
Two Views of the Holy Spirit’s Presence on Earth
With the day of Pentecost fully come the Holy Spirit descends from heaven since Jesus has gone on high. Before the cross Jesus had said that He would come—John 14—and again before His ascension—1:8. Our second chapter gives us two views of the Holy Spirit’s presence down here.
. . . The Holy Spirit in Relation to the World—Three signs are given us to signify the character of the Holy Spirit’s work in the world. First there is a mighty rushing wind which filled all the house. This signifies the Spirit as the Agent of the new birth under Christianity as formerly in all God’s previous ways with man—read John 3. When the Lord revealed this truth to Nicodemus His people were under the law. Now under grace the Spirit’s work in this connection abides the same. But if a man is to be born again now he must hear the gospel. So the next two signs reveal its content. The parted tongues as of fire speak of one characteristic of the gospel—judgment on all men who refuse to believe. The tongues are as of fire because God is intolerant of evil; they are parted because He will make no distinction between the sins of Jew or Gentile— “tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile” —Rom. 2:9. “For our God is a consuming fire” —Heb. 11:29. The other characteristic of the gospel is the blessing on all men who will believe. They began to speak “with other tongues.” Every man heard them speak in his own language the wonderful works of God. This opened the door for Peter’s first sermon and the salvation of “about three thousand souls” in one day. What a contrast to what the law did for Israel— “and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men” —Ex. 32:28. But the wonderful message of the gospel could not be confined to Israel—which explains the many tongues—a foreshadowing of the moment when the gospel would be universally proclaimed. How could it be otherwise, coming as it does from the heart of a God who so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son?
. . . The Holy Spirit in Relation to the Church—The Church was formed on the day of Pentecost by the corporate action of the Holy Spirit in uniting Christ, the Head of His body the Church—Eph. 1:22, 23—to His members below—Eph. 5:30. We must not confuse the Church in its present divided state with the Church as God sees it, in which only born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have any part. In God’s viewpoint every believer has a part to play in the workings of that one body—1 Cor. 12:12-27—just as our hands, feet, etc. play a part in the workings of our natural bodies, which provide the Apostle’s figure. The Holy Spirit is the link we have with Christ, our glorified Head in heaven. His descent at Pentecost fulfilled the Lord’s words— “ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence” —1:5. This happened only once—on the day of Pentecost. The baptism of the Spirit refers to His descent to earth to unite Christ in glory to His members in this world. Since the Holy Spirit is still in this world—in our bodies—1 Cor. 6:19—and in the Church—Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 23 etc. how could there be more than one baptism of the Spirit? But perhaps you say what is meant then by the Scripture “for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” —1 Cor. 12:13. Well, suppose that two hundred years ago a great soldier founded a famous regiment and gave it a name. It was formed in a certain place and at a certain time. As it moved about in peace time it might enlarge its enlistment in different towns. As time passed its ranks would be thinned by battle, retirements etc. but new recruits would replace those lost. Each officer or man in the regiment, say one hundred years after its founding, would remain a living link with the dead soldiers of the past, and be as much a member of the regiment as they. So is it with the baptism of the Spirit.
This is the doctrine which Paul unfolded later. But the action came first, the understanding of it later. This is typically the pattern followed in Acts— “all that Jesus began both to do and teach” —1:1—given to us at the beginning.
“To the Jew First”
Observe that they spoke “with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” —verse 4—in the house first. Afterwards, when this became general knowledge, “the multitude came together, and were confounded, because every man heard them speak in his own language” —v6. The multitude would indeed be a great one, the temple area itself being able to accommodate vast numbers of people at feast times—Jews from the parts mentioned in verses 9-11. This produced amazement, doubt and skepticism in the hearers and is the background to Peter’s sermon. Note that Peter is addressing Jews, for the gospel is to the Jew first. The first converts are Jews.
Peter’s Role as an Apostle
The Lord had said to the Apostles “ye shall be witnesses unto Me” 1:8. Peter becomes the first and the foremost of these witnesses, commencing with his preaching to the Jews—2:14—to the end. In the Acts his ministry runs a set course after which Paul takes over. Indeed the Book of Acts can roughly be divided into Peter from 2:14 on, to Paul Chapter 13 to the end. Partly this is because the Adam race is comprised of Jew and Gentile, to both of whom the gospel is addressed Peter being the Apostle to the Jews and Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles. Both men were vessels broken by God like Gideon’s pitchers so the light could shine through. Peter was broken by denying Christ after He knew Him; Paul by persecuting Him before he knew Him. Peter received his commission from the Lord on earth; Paul from the same Lord in glory. Granting all this there is still another reason for the early prominence of Peter and the subsequent rise of Paul.
The Lord gave Peter the keys of the Kingdom of the heavens see Mat. 16 and also that power of binding and loosing which was later entrusted to the Church, but which was initially vested in Peter. This was grounded on Peter’s confession of Christ as the Son of the living God. The Lord then affirmed that he was Peter a stone, a bit of a rock and on this rock Peter’s confession of Christ as Son of God He would build that Church against which the gates of hades should not prevail. The building of the Church started at Pentecost and is still going on, in spite of Satan’s opposition. We must not, however, confuse the Church and the kingdom of heaven. Men generally do this, picturing Peter as the first Pope on cathedral murals, with keys dangling from his girdle. No, the thought is the delegation of the Lord’s authority to Peter so that both Jews and Gentiles might enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord did not entrust anything vital to Peter or any other man, for He retained the keys of death and hades. The Lord Himself will turn these keys at the end of the kingdom when death and hades are cast into the lake of fire Rev. 20:14 as Peter turned his at the beginning of the kingdom. So it is that Paul’s work could not begin until Peter’s was finished. Peter’s work was administrative in character. It gave practical effect to the breaking down of “the middle wall of partition” Eph. 2:14 which had separated Jew and Gentile. Peter turned the first key to let the Jews in at Pentecost; the second key to admit Cornelius and the other Gentiles. Pentecost was in “the house” Joppa by “the sea side” well known figures of Israel and the nations respectively.
Peter and John seem associated at the beginning as later Paul and Barnabas. But the two apostles who tower above the others so that they virtually divide the book are Peter and Paul, with Stephen the bridge between them.
Peter Preaches With Power
Peter rises and refutes the baseless charge that those who spoke by the Holy Spirit are drunk. He refers them to their own prophet Joel just as Paul later refers the Greeks to their own poet Aratus when he is called a babbler 17:18. Peter is associated with the eleven in his preaching; he does not stand alone v. 14. Although Peter is first to confess Christ as Son of God it is left to Paul to “preach Jesus in the synagogues that He is the Son of God” 9:20. Peter, being the Apostle to the Jews, presents Him as the Messiah they have rejected and slain, and whom God has raised up. Thus their controversy is with God. Peter’s preaching is a continuation of the Lord’s closing words in Luke’s gospel “thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things” Luke 24:46-48.
Peter does not claim that Joel’s prophecy is fulfilled, but rather “this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.” It is simply the character of things, for the Jews and Jerusalem are prominent in Joel’s prophecy, which has yet to be fulfilled.
Peter next branches out from the narrow ground of the Jews and Jerusalem to the much broader one of “men of Israel” v. 22. He demonstrates their common guilt by their treatment of their Messiah. He quotes Ps. 16 as proof of the Messiah’s confidence in God in life, death and resurrection, for these things applied to Him and not to the Psalmist. To prove this he points to David’s sepulcher, for he is dead and buried. David didn’t rise from the dead but their Messiah did, of whom David wrote. Peter says “He... spake of the resurrection of Christ” etc. v. 31. So the history of what happened to Jesus agreed with David’s prophecy. Peter makes his case iron clad by quoting yet another Psalm “the LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” Ps. 110:1. David never ascended to heaven but Christ did, so here is further proof that David was prophesying of Christ and not writing of himself. Notice the dual proof as to Christ resurrection (Ps. 16) and ascension (Ps. 110).
The proof is so perfect that the godly Jews break down. Think of it their God has reversed their decision by making that same Jesus whom they crucified, both Lord and Christ. So the Messiah they were looking for is gone and with Him the hope of Israel. No wonder they are pricked in their hearts and exclaim “what shall we do?” Peter tells them and about three thousand souls are saved.
My wife’s grandfather, who was a preacher in the pioneer days of Canada, had a pungent comment on Peter’s preaching at Pentecost. He used to say that at the beginning one sermon saved three thousand souls because the Holy Spirit was in it, but that now it takes three thousand sermons to save one soul. This is ever true, for “it is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing” John 6:63.