Can you imagine that first summer after the day of Pentecost. In the first few chapters of Acts, Luke describes a church clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49 and Acts 1-2). God’s power first fell upon all the disciples who were gathered in one house. God’s power filled the house with the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and God’s promise of the Holy Spirit appeared as divided tongues of fire resting upon each one of them. Tongues were native languages that were understood by the Jewish pilgrims and worshippers from all over the Roman Empire and Mesopotamia. The amazed throng of worshippers asked the key question: “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:12). The church today still asks the same question as she reexamines her identity. But the church should know. Rather the question should be asked by those who are amazed today, because they have encountered Christians clothed with power from on high.
God chose Pentecost, the feast of the fiftieth day after the Passover, to disclose that he had changed the world forever. Pentecost celebrated the end of the grain harvest and God’s creation of a new nation of Israel by the covenant of the Law of Moses (Exodus 23:16). (See also more on the feast of Pentecost at www.jewishencyclopedia.com). Israel’s prophets announced that God would renew his people by a new giving of his law (Micah 4:2, Jeremiah 31:33-34, Ezekiel 36:24-28, Hebrew 12:18-29). John the Baptist also announced that God’s Messiah would sift his people like the grain harvest and gather the wheat into the barn (Luke 3:15-18). So God was doing something new in Israel, fifty days after he had provided his own lamb, his own son Jesus, as a sacrifice for the freedom of his people and the world from the bondage of sin. The Apostle Peter stood up with the other eleven apostles that morning and answered the question: “What does this mean?” Thousands gathered to hear, as he quoted from the prophet Joel to explain things. What they were witnessing was the fulfillment of God’s promise to pour out his Spirit on all flesh (See Acts 2 and Joel 2). The result of this miracle would be fantastic and far-reaching.
First, God’s promise of the Holy Spirit was for all flesh. Second, everyone who received the promise of the Holy Spirit would be so endowed with God’s word that they would be able to prophesy (or speak forth) the words of God, male and female and young and old. Indeed, God’s people would be a nation of priests and prophets administering the gospel and providing counsel in the word of God for the whole world (Exodus 19:5-6, Jeremiah 31:31-34, 1 Peter 2:9-10, 4:10-11, and 1 John 2:20-21). Third, God would manifest wonders that would shake and change the form of this age and this world; for this is what the apocalyptic descriptions symbolize (Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 4, Zephaniah 1, Micah 1, and Matthew 24). Fourth, the offer of salvation would be made to all, so that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lastly, Peter preached about the installment of their king that day. When Jesus poured out the promise of the Holy Spirit, he also exercised his righteous judgment as Lord to separate and gather his people into his kingdom. The kingdom of God was the special hope of Israel; the very act of God to change the form of this world so that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
How can such a great beginning continue in us with greatness today? By greatness I do not imply we should seek the Barnum & Bailey greatness of the Greatest Show on Earth. I mean the greatness exemplified by the early Christians who lived for their King in the power of faith, conviction of truth, joy of fellowship, zeal of holiness, energy of love, confidence of hope and strength of endurance. All this power came from the Holy Spirit. This is part of the picture I glean from Acts. In the Apostle Peter’s sermon summary recorded in Acts 3, Peter proclaimed the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel’s forefathers through Jesus whom God chose as Messiah to redeem His people. He proclaimed that Jesus is exalted in the heavens until the time of his return when he shall restore all things. This will be the consummation of Israel’s hope of the kingdom of God. Yet he also preached the good news that those who choose to believe and turn in repentance to Jesus as the Messiah will receive the blotting out of their sins. In essence Peter’s proclamation is similar to his Pentecostal sermon, but instead of linking the gift of the Holy Spirit to the forgiveness of sins, Peter instead announced that times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
This is my expectation for enjoyment of the Pentecostal blessing which was poured out by our Lord Jesus upon all flesh. My expectation is times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord. As the church and as Christians we may experience the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the Lord’s presence in many different ways. All his sovereign ways are righteous, and his Spirit rules the times even if it appears to us to be ordinary or even a time of decline. Many showmen focus on the way of revival by creating an expectation of the greatest show on earth. Church history provides ample evidence that the Holy Spirit is capable of great demonstrations of Christ’s sovereignty. But some only see the power at work in Pentecost, the Reformation, the great awakenings, the Restoration, and other contemporary movements and revivals.
One interpretation of church history views the time after the first century as a dark age of the church’s apostasy. Yet the Holy Spirit clothed the Christians of this same historical period with power that amazed and convicted their contemporaries. They simply remained faithful and so overcame the most intense persecutions. They were victorious over the darkness of the Roman Empire, the greatest pagan empire in world history up to that time. At the same time they faithfully preserved the scriptures, and articulated and fought to preserve the foundational doctrines of the identity and nature of Jesus Christ, who is the foundation and cornerstone of God’s spiritual house. Clothed with power from on high they kept the faith and Christ changed the form of their age and of this world. I am not disregarding that leaders in the early church embraced heresies and institutional practices that imitated the ways of the world (See Acts 20). Even when according to the parable of Jesus in Matthew 13, the enemy succeeds in mixing the weeds among the wheat; nevertheless Christ is sovereign and still changes the world forever through his gathered, devoted and faithful people because they are clothed with his power from on high.
