Verses 1-47
Chapter 2
We may never know precisely what happened on the Day of Pentecost but
we do know that it was one of the supremely great days of the Christian
Church. for on that day the Holy Spirit came to the Christian Church in
a very special way.
Acts has been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit; so before we
turn to detailed consideration of its second chapter let us take a
general view of what Acts has to say about the Holy Spirit.
The Coming Of The Spirit
It is perhaps unfortunate that we so often speak of the events at
Pentecost as the coming of the Holy Spirit. The danger is that we may
think that the Holy Spirit came into existence at that time. That is not
so; God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In fact Acts makes
that quite clear. The Holy Spirit was speaking in David (Acts 1:16); the Spirit spoke through Isaiah (Acts 28:25); Stephen accuses the Jews of having, all through their history, opposed the Spirit (Acts 7:51).
In that sense the Spirit is God in every age revealing his truth to
men. At the same time something special happened at Pentecost.
The Work Of The Spirit In Acts
From that moment the Holy Spirit became the dominant reality in the life of the early Church.
For one thing, the Holy Spirit was the source of all guidance.
The Spirit moves Philip to make contact with the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:29); prepares Peter for the coming of the emissaries of Cornelius (Acts 10:19); orders Peter to go without hesitation with these emissaries (Acts 11:12); enables Agabus to foretell the coming famine (Acts 11:28); orders the setting apart of Paul and Barnabas for the momentous step of taking the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 13:2; Acts 13:4); guides the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:28); guides Paul past Asia, Mysia and Bithynia, down into Troas and thence to Europe (Acts 16:6); tells Paul what awaits him in Jerusalem (Acts 20:23). The early Church was a Spirit-guided community.
For another thing, all the leaders of the Church were men of the Spirit. The Seven are men of the Spirit (Acts 6:3); Stephen and Barnabas are full of the Spirit (Acts 7:55; Acts 11:24). Paul tells the elders at Ephesus that it was the Spirit who made them overseers over the Church of God (Acts 20:28).
For still another thing. the Spirit was the source of day-to-day
courage and power. The disciples are to receive power when the Spirit
comes (Acts 1:8); Peter's courage and eloquence before the Sanhedrin are the result of the activity of the Spirit (Acts 4:31); Paul's conquest of Elymas is the work of the Spirit (Acts 13:9).
The Christian courage to meet the dangerous situation, the Christian
power to cope with life more than adequately, the Christian eloquence
when eloquence is needed, the Christian joy which is independent of
circumstances are all ascribed to the work of the Spirit.
For a last thing, Acts 5:32
speaks of the Spirit "whom God has given to those who obey him." This
has in it the great truth that the measure of the Spirit which a man can
possess is conditioned by the kind of man he is. It means that the man
who is honestly trying to do the will of God will experience more and
more of the wonder of the Spirit.
In Acts 1:1-26; Acts 2:1-47; Acts 3:1-26; Acts 4:1-37; Acts 5:1-42; Acts 6:1-15; Acts 7:1-60; Acts 8:1-40; Acts 9:1-43; Acts 10:1-48; Acts 11:1-30; Acts 12:1-25; Acts 13:1-52
there are more than forty references to the Holy Spirit; the early
Church was a Spirit-filled Church and that was the source of its power.
2:1-13 So when the day
of Pentecost came round, they were all together in one place; and all
of a sudden there came from heaven a sound like that of a violent,
rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And
tongues, like tongues of fire, appeared to them, which distributed
themselves among them and settled on each one of them. And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other tongues as
the Spirit gave them the power of utterance.
There were staying in
Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from all the races under heaven. When the
news of this got abroad the crowd assembled and came pouring together;
for each one of them heard them speaking in his own language. They were
all astonished and kept saying in amazement, "Look now! Are all these
men who are speaking not Galilaeans? And how is it that each one of us
hears them speaking in our own language in which we were born? Parthians
and Medes. Elamites, those who stay in Mesopotamia, in Judaea and
Cappadocia, in Pontus. in Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia. in Egypt and
the parts of Libya round about Cyrene, Romans, who are staving here,
Jews and proselytes. people from Crete and Arabia--we hear these men
telling the wonders of God in our own tongues." They were all astonished
and did not know what to make of it, and they kept on saying to each
other, "What can this mean?" But others kept on saying in mockery, "They
are filled with new wine."
There were three great Jewish festivals to which every male Jew
living within twenty miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to come--the
Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles. Pentecost means "The
Fiftieth," and another name for Pentecost was "The Feast of Weeks." It
was so called because it fell on the fiftieth day, a week of weeks,
after the Passover. The Passover fell in the middle of April; therefore
Pentecost fell at the beginning of June. By that time travelling
conditions were at their best. At least as many came to the Feast of
Pentecost as came to the Passover. That explains the roll of countries
mentioned in this chapter; never was there a more international crowd in
Jerusalem than at the time of Pentecost.
The Feast itself had two main significances. (i) It had an
historical significance. It commemorated the giving of the Law to Moses
on Mount Sinai. (ii) It had an agricultural significance. At the
Passover the crop's first omer of barley was offered to God; and at
Pentecost two loaves were offered in gratitude for the ingathered
harvest. It had one other unique characteristic. The law laid it down
that on that day no servile work should be done (Leviticus 23:21; Numbers 28:26). So it was a holiday for all and the crowds on the streets would be greater than ever.
What happened at Pentecost we really do not know except that the
disciples had an experience of the power of the Spirit flooding their
beings such as they never had before. We must remember that for this
part of Acts Luke was not an eye-witness. He tells the story as if the
disciples suddenly acquired the gift of speaking in foreign languages.
For two reasons that is not likely.
(i) There was in the early Church a phenomenon which has never
completely passed away. It was called speaking with tongues (compare Acts 10:46; Acts 19:6). The main passage which describes it is 1 Corinthians 14:1-40
. What happened was that someone, in an ecstasy, began to pour out a
flood of unintelligible sounds in no known language. That was supposed
to be directly inspired by the Spirit of God and was a gift greatly
coveted. Paul did not greatly approve of it because he greatly preferred
that a message should be given in a language that could be understood.
He in fact said that if a stranger came in he might well think he had
arrived in a congregation of madmen (1 Corinthians 14:23). That precisely fits Acts 2:13. Men speaking in tongues might well appear to be drunk to someone who did not know the phenomenon.
(ii) To speak in foreign languages was unnecessary. The crowd was made up of Jews (Acts 2:5) and proselytes (Acts 2:10).
Proselytes were Gentiles who had accepted the Jewish religion and the
Jewish way of life. For a crowd like that at most two languages were
necessary. Almost all Jews spoke Aramaic; and, even if they were Jews of
the Dispersion from a foreign land, they would speak that language
which almost everyone in the world spoke at that time--Greek.
It seems most likely that Luke, a Gentile, had confused speaking
with tongues with speaking with foreign tongues. What happened was that
for the first time in their lives this motley mob was hearing the word
of God in a way that struck straight home to their hearts and that they
could understand. The power of the Spirit was such that it had given
these simple disciples a message that could reach every heart.
(i) There was kerugma (Greek #2782). Kerugma (Greek #2782)
literally means a herald's announcement and is the plain statement of
the facts of the Christian message, about which, as the early preachers
saw it, there can be no argument or doubt.
(ii) There was didache (Greek #1322). Didache (Greek #1322) literally means teaching and elucidated the meaning of the facts which had been proclaimed.
(iii) There was paraklesis (Greek #3874)
which literally means exhortation. This kind of preaching urged upon
men the duty of fitting their lives to match the kerugma (Greek #2782) and the didache (Greek #1322) which had been given.
(iv) There was homilia (Greek #3657) which means the treatment of any subject or department of life in light of the Christian message.
Fully rounded preaching has something of all four elements.
There is the plain proclamation of the facts of the Christian gospel;
the explanation of the meaning and the relevance of these facts; the
exhortation to fit life to them; and the treatment of all the activities
of life in the light of the Christian message.
In Acts we shall meet mainly with kerugma (Greek #2782) because Acts tells of the proclamation of the facts of the gospel to those who had never heard them before. This kerugma (Greek #2782) follows a pattern which repeats itself over and over again all over the New Testament.
(i) There is the proof that Jesus and all that happened to him
is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In modern times less and
less stress has been laid on the fulfillment of prophecy. We have come
to see that the prophets were not nearly so much fore-tellers of events
to come as forth-tellers of God's truth to men. But this stress of early
preaching on prophecy conserved the great truth that history is not
haphazard and that there is meaning to it. To believe in the possibility
of prophecy is to believe that God is in control and that he is working
out his purposes.
(ii) In Jesus the Messiah has come, the Messianic prophecies are
fulfilled and the and the New Age has dawned. The early Church had a
tremendous sense that Jesus was the hinge of all history; that with his
coming, eternity had invaded time; and that, therefore, life and the
world could never be the same again.
(iii) The kerugma (Greek #2782)
went on to state that Jesus had been born of the line of David, that he
had taught, that he had worked miracles, that he had been crucified,
that he had been raised from the dead and that he was now at the right
hand of God. The early Church was sure that the Christian religion was
based on the earthly life of Christ. But it was also certain that that
earthly life and death were not the end and that after them came the
resurrection. Jesus was not merely someone about whom they read or
heard; he was someone whom they met and knew, a living presence.
(iv) The early preachers went on to insist that Jesus would
return in glory to establish his kingdom upon earth. In other words, the
early Church believed intensely in the Second Coming. This doctrine has
to some extent passed out of modern preaching but it does conserve the
truth that history is going somewhere and that some day there will be a
consummation; and that a man is therefore in the way or on the way.
(v) The preaching finished with the statement that in Jesus
alone was salvation, that he who believed on him would receive the Holy
Spirit and that he who would not believe was destined for terrible
things. That is to say, it finished with both a promise and a threat. It
is exactly like that voice which Bunyan heard as if at his very
shoulder demanding, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or wilt
thou have thy sins and go to hell?"
If we read through Peter's sermon as a whole we will see how these five strands are woven into it.
God's Day Has Come (Acts 2:14-21)
2:14-21 But Peter
stood up with the eleven and raised his voice and said to them, "You who
are Jews and you who are staying in Jerusalem, let this be known to you
and listen to my words. These men are not, as you suppose, drunk; for
it is only nine o'clock in the morning. But this is what was spoken by
the prophet Joel, 'It will be in the last days, says God, that I will
pour out from my Spirit upon all men, and your sons and your daughters
will prophesy and your young men will see visions and your old men will
dream dreams, And I will pour out from my Spirit upon my men servants
and my maid servants in these days and they will prophesy. I will send
wonders in the heaven above and signs upon the earth below, blood and
fire and vapour of smoke. The sun will be changed into darkness and the
moon into blood before there comes the great and famous day of the Lord.
And it shall be that all whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved."'
This passage brings us face to face with one of the basic
conceptions of both the Old and the New Testaments--that of The Day of
the Lord. Much in both the Old and in the New Testaments is not fully
intelligible unless we know the basic principles underlying that
conception.
The Jews never lost the conviction that they were God's chosen
people. They interpreted that status to mean that they were chosen for
special privilege among the nations. They were always a small nation.
History had been for them one long disaster. It was clear to them that
by human means they would never reach the status they deserved as the
chosen people. So, bit by bit, they reached the conclusion that what man
could not do God must do; and began to look forward to a day when God
would intervene directly in history and exalt them to the honour they
dreamed of The day of that intervention was The Day of the Lord.
They divided all time into two ages. There was The Present Age
which was utterly evil and doomed to destruction; there was The Age to
Come which would be the golden age of God. Between the two there was to
be The Day of the Lord which was to be the terrible birth pangs of the
new age. It would come suddenly like a thief in the night; it would be a
day when the world would be shaken to its very foundations; it would be
a day of judgment and of terror. All over the prophetic books of the
Old Testament and in much of the New Testament, are descriptions of that
Day. Typical passages are Isaiah 2:12; Isaiah 13:6 ff.; Amos 5:18; Zephaniah 1:7; Joel 2:1-32 ; 1 Thessalonians 5:2 ff.; 2 Peter 3:10.
Here Peter is saying to the Jews--"For generations you have
dreamed of the Day of God, the Day when God would break into history.
Now, in Jesus, that Day has come." Behind all the outworn imagery stands
the great truth that in Jesus, God arrived in person on the scene of
human history.
Lord And Christ (Acts 2:22-36)
2:22-36 "Men of
Israel, listen to these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God
to you by deeds of power and wonders and signs, which God, among you,
did through him, as you yourselves know this man, delivered up by the
fore-ordained knowledge and counsel of God, you took and crucified by
the hand of wicked men. But God raised him up and loosed the pains of
death because it was impossible that he should be held subject by it.
For David says in regard to him, 'Always I foresaw the Lord before me,
because he is at my right hand so that I should not be shaken. Because
of this my heart has rejoiced and my tongue has exulted, and,
furthermore, my flesh shall dwell in hope, because thou wilt not leave
my soul in the land of the dead nor wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see
corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt
make me full of joy with thy countenance.' Brethren, I can speak to you
freely about the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried and
his memorial is amongst us to this day. Thus he was a prophet; and
because he knew that God had sworn an oath to him, that one of his
descendants should sit upon his throne. He spoke with foresight about
the resurrection of the Christ, that he would neither be left in the
world of the dead nor would his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God
raised up and all of us are his witnesses. So then when he had been
exalted to the right hand of God he received the promise of the Holy
Spirit from the Father and poured out this which you see and hear. For
David did not ascend up into heaven. and yet he says, 'The Lord said to
my Lord, sit upon my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool
for thy feet.' So then let all the house of Israel certainly know that
God has made this Jesus whom you crucified Lord and Christ."
Here is a passage full of the essence of the thought of the early preachers.
(i) It insists that the Cross was no accident. It belonged to the eternal plan of God (Acts 2:23). Over and over again Acts states this same thing (compare Acts 3:18; Acts 4:28; Acts 13:29).
The thought of Acts safeguards us from two serious errors in our
thinking about the death of Jesus. (a) The Cross is not a kind of
emergency measure flung out by God when everything else had failed. It
is part of God's very life. (b) We must never think that anything Jesus
did changed the attitude of God to men. It was by God Jesus was sent. We
may put it this way--the Cross was a window in time allowing us to see
the suffering love which is eternally in the heart of God.
(ii) Acts insists that this in no way lessens the crime of those
who crucified Jesus. Every mention of the crucifixion in Acts is
instinct with a feeling of shuddering horror at the crime it was
(compare Acts 2:23; Acts 3:13; Acts 4:10; Acts 5:30). Apart from anything else, the crucifixion shows supremely how horrifyingly sin can behave.
(iii) Acts is out to prove that the sufferings and death of
Christ were the fulfillment of prophecy. The earliest preachers had to
do that. To the Jew the idea of a crucified Messiah was incredible.
Their law said, "A hanged man is accursed by God" (Deuteronomy 21:23).
To the orthodox Jew the Cross made it completely impossible that Jesus
could be the Messiah. The early preachers answered, "If you would only
read your scriptures rightly you would see that all was foretold."
(iv) Acts stresses the resurrection as the final proof that
Jesus was indeed God's Chosen One. Acts has been called The Gospel of
the Resurrection. To the early Church the resurrection was
all-important. We must remember this--without the resurrection there
would have been no Christian Church at all. When the disciples preached
the centrality of the resurrection they were arguing from experience.
After the Cross they were bewildered, broken men, with their dream gone
and their lives shattered. It was the resurrection which changed all
that and turned them from cowards into heroes. It is one of the
tragedies of the Church that so often the preaching of the resurrection
is confined to Easter time. Every Sunday is the Lord's Day and every
Lord's Day should be kept as resurrection day. In the Eastern Church on
Easter day, when two people meet, one says, "The Lord is risen"; and the
other answers, "He is risen indeed!" A Christian should never forget
that he lives and walks with a Risen Lord.
Save Yourselves (Acts 2:37-41)
2:37-41 When they
heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and
to the other apostles, "Brethren, what are we to do?" Peter said to
them, "Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit, for this promise is to you and to your children and
to all who are afar off, to all those whom the Lord your God invites."
With many other words he gave his witness and he urged them, "Save
yourselves from this crooked generation." So they accepted his word and
were baptized and on that day there were added to them about three
thousand people.
(i) This passage shows with crystal clarity the effect of the
Cross. When men realised just what they had done in crucifying Jesus
their hearts were broken. "I," said Jesus, "when I am lifted up from the
earth will draw all men to myself" (John 12:32).
Every man has had a hand in that crime. Once a missionary told the
story of Jesus in an Indian village. Afterwards he showed the life of
Christ in lantern slides thrown against the white-washed wall of a
house. When the Cross appeared on the wall, one man rose from the
audience and ran forward. "Come down from that Cross, Son of God," he
cried. "I, not you, should be hanging there." The Cross, when we
understand what happened there, must pierce the heart.
(ii) That experience demands a reaction from men. "Repent," said
Peter, "first and foremost." What does repentance mean? The word
originally meant an afterthought. Often a second thought shows that the
first thought was wrong; and so the word came to mean a Change of mind.
But, if a man is honest, a change of mind demands a change of action.
Repentance must involve both change of mind and change of action. A man
may change his mind and come to see that his actions were wrong but be
so much in love with his old ways that he will not change them. A man
may change his ways but his mind remains the same, changing only because
of fear or prudence. True repentance involves a change of mind and a
change of action.
(iii) When repentance comes something happens to the past. There
is God's forgiveness for what lies behind. Let us be quite clear that
the consequences of sins are not wiped out. Not even God can do that.
When we sin we may well do something to ourselves and to others which
cannot be undone. Let us look at it this way. When we were young and had
done something bad there was an invisible barrier between us and our
mother. But when we went and said we were sorry, the old relationship
was restored and we were right with her again. Forgiveness does not
abolish the consequences of what we have done but it puts us right with
God.
(iv) When repentance comes something happens for the future. We
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and in that power we can win battles
we never thought to win and resist things which by ourselves we would
have been powerless to resist.
2:42-47 They
persevered in listening to the apostles' teaching, in the fellowship. in
the breaking of bread and in prayers. Awe was in every soul; and many
signs and wonders were done by the apostles. All the believers were
together and they were in the habit of selling their goods and
possessions and of distributing them amongst all as each had need. Daily
they continued with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from
house to house they received their food with joy and in sincerity of
heart; and they kept praising God and everyone liked them. Daily the
Lord added to them those who were being saved.
In this passage we have a kind of lightning summary of the characteristics of the early Church.
(i) It was a learning Church; it persisted in listening to the
apostles as they taught. One of the great perils of the Church is to
look back instead of forward. Because the riches of Christ are
inexhaustible we should ever be going forward. We should count It a
wasted day when we do not learn something new and when we have not
penetrated more deeply into the wisdom and the grace of God.
(ii) It was a Church of fellowship; it had what someone has
called the great quality of togetherness. Nelson explained one of his
victories by saying, "I had the happiness to command a band of
brothers." The Church is a real Church only when it is a band of
brothers.
(iii) It was a praying Church--these early Christians knew that
they could not meet life in their own strength and that they did not
need to. They always went in to God before they went out to the world;
they were able to meet the problems of life because they had first met
him.
(iv) It was a reverent Church--in Acts 2:43
the word which the King James Version correctly translates fear has the
idea of awe in it. It was said of a great Greek that he moved through
this world as if it were a temple. The Christian lives in reverence
because he knows that the whole earth is the temple of the living God.
(v) It was a Church where things happened--signs and wonders were there (Acts 2:43).
If we expect great things from God and attempt great things for God
things happen. More things would happen if we believed that God and we
together could make them happen.
(vi) It was a sharing Church (Acts 2:44-45);
these early Christians had an intense feeling of responsibility for
each other. It was said of William Morris that he never saw a drunken
man but he had a feeling of personal responsibility for him. A real
Christian cannot bear to have too much when others have too little.
(vii) It was a worshipping Church (Acts 2:46);
they never forgot to visit God's house. We must remember that "God
knows nothing of solitary religion." Things can happen when we come
together. God's Spirit moves upon his worshipping people.
(viii) It was a happy Church (Acts 2:46); gladness was there. A gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms.
(ix) It was a Church whose people others could not help liking. There are two Greek words for good. Agathos (Greek #18) simply describes a thing as good. Kalos (Greek #2570)
means that a thing is not only good but looks good; it has a winsome
attractiveness about it. Real Christianity is a lovely thing. There are
so many people who are good but with their goodness possess a streak of
unlovely hardness. Struthers of Greenock used to say that it would help
the Church more than anything else if Christians ever and again would do
a bonnie thing. In the early Church there was a winsomeness in God's
people.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)