The Coming Of The Holy Spirit At Pentecost

by R. Armstrong, London, Ontario | Category: The Holy Spirit | May 1977

The Promise

Before Calvary our Lord told His disciples He would go away, and that He would pray the Father to send another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, who would be with them for ever (John 14:16,17). The word "Comforter" here is a divine title, the Greek word parakletos meaning, called to one's side and capable of giving aid. The same word is used of the Lord Jesus, now in heaven as an Advocate (1 John 2:1). God's purpose was to provide an Advocate in heaven and a Comforter on earth for His people, until the Lord returns. The word "another" in John 14:16 is allos, meaning another of the same kind, One like Himself. This is the Trinity acting in unity, as also shown in John 15:26, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send ... from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me".

The Preparation

It was the day of Christ's resurrection, and evening shadows darkened the streets of Jerusalem. The disciples, afraid of the Jews, bewildered and uncertain of Christ's whereabouts, no doubt discussed the events of the day, as they waited behind closed doors. The stark tragedy and brutality of Christ's crucifixion, with all its disappointment, were still stinging in their hearts, and they were afraid of possible reprisals on those known to be His followers. It was all like a nightmare! Then there was the unlikely story of Mary Magdalene, that she had seen Him alive, and that He had spoken to her. To them, it was like an idle tale, and they did not believe it (Luke 24:11).

Had these men remembered nothing of what He had told them? Was that all the three years in His company had done for ~hem? Doubts and fears are one thing, but outright unbelief is another. How did the Lord deal with it? Suddenly, and without warning, "Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you, and ... He showed unto them His hands and His side" (John 20:19,20). This is one of those heart-moving scenes of Scripture, as those eleven young men looked in astonished silence into the face of their risen Lord, and saw His hands and side. Unbelief and fear vanished like mist before the morning sun. A flood of memories came surging back of all He had said to them. What a difference when He is in the company! Then John tells us a surprising thing, which the other gospel writers omit. After He had said, "As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you", then "He breathed on them, and said ... Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:21,22). The word "breathed" is emphusao, to breathe upon, and is the symbolic act of the Lord Jesus breathing on His apostles the communication of the Holy Spirit (Vine). The Spirit did not come into them that night as some have supposed, for had the Lord not said earlier, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away; the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you"? (John 16:7, see also John 7:38,39).

Then the Lord's instructions were clear, "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued (clothed) with power from on high" (Luke 24:49, AV). The Greek word for "tarry" means to sit down, and here implies waiting for the promise of the Father. Nowhere else in Scripture is tarrying instructed by the Lord in this frame of reference. It was a specific location, the city of Jerusalem, where they were to wait. We emphasize this for its importance, because many groups of Christians generally described as "pentecostal" have taken the verse right out of context, and have built a wrong teaching around it. They say that after receiving Christ one should, with others, continue in "tarrying meetings" to induce a second blessing or baptism of the Holy Spirit. In fact some are now teaching that without such an experience it is doubtful if one is saved. It is a travesty of the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit for humans to dare to command the Spirit of God to act outside of divine revelation. John, by the same Holy Spirit warns us, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). The anointing (chrisma) of the Holy Spirit will teach us concerning all things, and is always consistent with divine revelation. This is the true charismatic experience.

Pentecost marked the historic descent of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of God's people, and all who believed were baptized in the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). With Pentecost came the gifts of the Spirit in confirmation of the new message of the kingdom of God, such as miracles, healings, tongues, and raising of the dead. In those beginning days, these gifts, working through the apostles, were always under the control of the Holy Spirit, and the apostles were never embarrassed by miracle failures. They always worked under the sovereignty of God, according to His own will. It is very doubtful whether these miraculous gifts continued after the apostolic age. We are not now referring to physical healings from the Lord in response to the prayer of faith, but even this is always consistent with "praying in the Holy Spirit", and according to the will of God (1 John 5:14, Jude 20).

The Fulfilment

Pentecost means "fiftieth" and every instructed Jew was aware that this festival day was a fulfilment of the "Feast of Weeks" given to Israel, as one of the seven feasts in Leviticus 23. This particular Pentecost was exactly 50 days after the Lord's resurrection, itself the glorious antitype of the wave sheaf offering of the new harvest, in those same festivals of the Lord. Jerusalem would be crowded at Pentecost weekend. Foreign exchange stalls would be thriving, as animal and commodity markets in the temple area competed for the purchases by Jewish worshippers who sought the favour of God as they offered sacrifices in lifeless ritual. Christ had gone back to heaven from Olivet to His Father's right hand. "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21).

In Jerusalem, in a room, away from the crowded streets, the disciples waited, in prayer, pondering the issues of the tremendous days ahead. "And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:2-4). This sovereign act of the Holy Spirit imparted the unique and unparalleled gift of tongues. Jews and proselytes from 15 different countries, who had come to Jerusalem, heard them speaking in their own tongues the mighty works of God. This use of the gift was consistent with Paul's later message, that tongues were for a sign to the unbeliever, and not to the believer, a fact being overlooked today (1 Cor. 14:22). Paul also recalls the message of Isaiah centuries before, when God said He had spoken to Israel "by men of strange lips and with another tongue... yet they would not hear" (Isa. 28:11,12).

The news travelled quickly that a tongue-speaking phenomenon had broken out in the city. As the crowds gathered "they were all amazed, and marvelled saying... are not all these which speak Galileans... how hear we ... in our own language wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:7,8). The miracle was in the speaking, not the hearing. They spoke with other tongues, and without interpreters. It was orderly, powerful and convicting.

The Purpose

Peter preached the first gospel message in the new church age, and there is no evidence that he spoke this in another tongue. The burden of his message was Jesus Christ and His resurrection, and about 3000 were saved that first Lord's Day. Why only 3000 out of the hundreds of thousands who were in the city? Paul answers this in Romans 11, "a remnant according to the election of grace ... obtained it, and the rest were hardened" (vv. 5-7). Scripture does not say the 3000 spoke in tongues, but it does say "there were added unto them (the 120 of Acts 1:15) in that day about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers" (Acts 2:41,42). God bore witness then, and in after days, to the apostolic ministry "by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will" (Heb. 2:4).

The Lord added daily to the church those who were being saved (Acts 2:47). The word added means to lay alongside additionally, and here it refers to addition to the local church, not the Body of Christ, for they had already been baptized in the Holy Spirit into the Body. Christ was building His church, against which the gates of hell could not prevail, whereas the apostles were engaged in planting churches of God, which later became the object of bitter persecution by Roman imperialism. The continuing Christian witness, through the channel of the Lord's new Fellowship, represented by the first century churches of God, depended on the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thus signs and wonders marked the early developing days of the new testimony of God, and continued until replaced by the completed revelation of New Testament Scriptures. In this more complete way God is now speaking finally in His Son (Heb. 1:2), rather than through gifts of miracles to men. "The just shall live by faith" (Heb. 10:38 AV) is the norm in this age of silence of God. Many spiritual giants who have been filled with the Holy Spirit performed no miraculous signs. In this age God is moving forward in electing grace. We see the Son's work in atonement, the Holy Spirit's work in the regeneration and anointing of the believer and the baptism in the Spirit into the Body of Christ. Co-extensive with these age-long purposes there are to be churches of God, forming a "habitation of God in the Spirit", a "spiritual house", a "holy priesthood" for "spiritual sacrifices" (1 Pet. 2:5; Eph. 2:19-22). This is an area of truth as vital today as in the first century.

Because all the gifts of the Spirit outlined in 1 Cor. 12:4-11, which must include the raising of the dead, are not fully evident today, we are

reluctant to accept as valid present-day attempts by many to revive these special gifts. The failure rate is too high, and the origin is open to serious question. It is the fulness of the Spirit that complements the life of faith, in all who are fully committed to keep the word of God and to do His will. The crucified life Paul spoke of in Gal. 2:20 gives place to the Spirit-filled life yielding the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22).

We must in all honesty confess, as disciples of our Lord in churches of God, the need for a greater manifestation of the power of the Spirit of God in our lives and ministry. There is also an increasing need for the sound expositional teaching of the word of God, cast in the mould of the living orthodoxy of New Testament revelation relative to the house of God, and the gathering out of His people (Rom. 6:17). But may we be delivered from preaching and teaching this essential doctrine without life in the Spirit. As we move in this world and work in the churches, may we be "the epistle of Christ... written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh... sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:3-6).

The time is short until the Lord comes, so let us spend our lives in the shadow of the Almighty, and throw ourselves on the resources of the Holy Spirit, to come out with anointed lips to speak the message of God.

R. Armstrong, London, Ontario | May 1977
The Holy Spirit