Pentecost

It began with a command to wait. After the resurrection Jesus showed Himself alive over forty days, and told them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father: you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1:3–5). Then He was taken up. They walked back to the upper room and stayed there.

They did not wait passively. They continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers (Acts 1:14). Luke gives the number of the gathering as about a hundred and twenty (1:15). During those days they replaced Judas, and Matthias was numbered with the eleven apostles (1:26).

Pentecost was the Feast of Weeks — fifty days after the sheaf of firstfruits, one of the three pilgrim feasts that filled Jerusalem with visitors from across the empire (Leviticus 23:15–21). When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place (Acts 2:1). The city was crowded, and the disciples were praying.

Then the sound. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting (Acts 2:2). There appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them (2:3). Notice how carefully Luke writes: as of a wind, like as of fire. He is telling you what it resembled, because there is nothing else to compare it to. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (2:4).

The noise brought a crowd. Devout Jews from every nation under heaven were living in Jerusalem, and they came together confounded, because every man heard them speaking in his own language (Acts 2:5–6). Luke lists fifteen homelands — Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the parts of Libya about Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans, and Arabians — all hearing Galileans speak the wonderful works of God in tongues they had never learned (2:9–11).

Not everyone was moved. Some were amazed and in doubt, saying, what does this mean? Others mocked and said, these men are full of new wine (Acts 2:12–13). Peter stood up with the eleven and answered the mockery first: these are not drunk, as you suppose, seeing it is only the third hour of the day — nine o'clock in the morning (2:14–15).

Then he preached, and the sermon is almost entirely Scripture. This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams; on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out My Spirit; and whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Acts 2:16–21). Peter begins the quotation with “in the last days,” where Joel says “afterward.” He is not correcting the prophet. He is telling the crowd which days they are standing in.

The center of the sermon is a man, not an experience. Jesus of Nazareth, approved of God by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him among you, as you yourselves know — delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, and by wicked hands crucified and slain, whom God has raised up (Acts 2:22–24). He argued from Psalm 16 that David could not have been speaking of himself, since David's tomb is with us to this day (2:29), and from Psalm 110 that David called this one Lord. Then the conclusion: let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ (2:36).

The crowd was cut to the heart and said, men and brethren, what shall we do? Peter answered: repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:37–38). Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added to them about three thousand souls (2:41). The “about” is Luke's own; where three thousand were immersed in one day is not stated, though Jerusalem's many stepped ritual baths near the temple are the practical answer — an inference, not the text.

What was left standing is the last thing Luke tells us, and it is the least dramatic and the most demanding. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in breaking of bread, and in prayers. Fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done. All that believed were together and had all things common, selling their possessions and dividing them to all as any had need. Day by day they were in the temple and in each other's houses, eating with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God — and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved (Acts 2:42–47). The year was either AD 30 or AD 33, depending on where the crucifixion is dated; the church has counted from that morning either way.