June 14

Acts 2

1 Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like a violent wind blowing came from heaven and filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And tongues spreading out like a fire appeared to them and came to rest on each one of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven residing in Jerusalem. 6 When this sound occurred, a crowd gathered and was in confusion because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Completely baffled, they said, “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that each one of us hears them in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them speaking in our own languages about the great deeds God has done!” 12 All were astounded and greatly confused, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others jeered at the speakers, saying, “They are drunk on new wine!”

14 But Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed them: “You men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, know this and listen carefully to what I say. 15 In spite of what you think, these men are not drunk, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 But this is what was spoken about through the prophet Joel:

17 ‘And in the last days it will be,’ God says,
‘that I will pour out my Spirit on all people,
and your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
and your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
19 And I will perform wonders in the sky above
and miraculous signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and clouds of smoke.
20 The sun will be changed to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
21 And then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man clearly attested to you by God with powerful deeds, wonders, and miraculous signs that God performed among you through him, just as you yourselves know – 23 this man, who was handed over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you executed by nailing him to a cross at the hands of Gentiles. 24 But God raised him up, having released him from the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held in its power. 25 For David says about him,

‘I saw the Lord always in front of me,
for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced;
my body also will live in hope,
27 because you will not leave my soul in Hades,
nor permit your Holy One to experience decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of joy with your presence.’

29 “Brothers, I can speak confidently to you about our forefather David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 So then, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, 31 David by foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his body experience decay. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 So then, exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he has poured out what you both see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says,

‘The Lord said to my lord,
“Sit at my right hand
35 until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know beyond a doubt that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.”

37 Now when they heard this, they were acutely distressed and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.” 40 With many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves from this perverse generation!” 41 So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added.

42 They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Reverential awe came over everyone, and many wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and held everything in common, 45 and they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need. 46 Every day they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and humble hearts, 47 praising God and having the good will of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved (Acts 2, NET).

Acts 2 easily fits into the top few most important passages in the New Testament; I think there’s a good argument to make that it is the second most important sequence after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the central story of the Bible (so significant, it gets 4 separate tellings!). Acts 2 is the story of the birth of the church.

The notion of a different God in the New Testament as was in the Old Testament is once again shown to be deficient with what you see unfold in this story. With what we see Peter’s sermon, where both the prophet Joel and King David are quoted extensively, we see at least 3 more Old Testament stories given reference in the opening sequence with the disciples experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit. All of the italics you see in this NET translation are OT quotes, either block quotes or partial quotes, that Peter is using.

So, first to note is the elemental experiences they have, this rushing of wind and then the descent and splitting of a holy fire representing the Spirit’s presence. At first glance, I see this playing with both the story of Elijah experiencing the presence of the LORD when he’s on the run, and the Exodus narrative. 1n 1 Kings Elijah has run away from the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, and is in despair when the LORD comes to appear to him and encourage him. As the LORD passes by, Elijah sees and hears the majesty of God in a rushing wind, an earthquake, and in a fire, but actually ends up hearing the voice of the LORD in the stillness that followed these elemental cataclysms. Keep this image in mind for a moment.

In the Exodus story, God’s presence is seen leading the escaping Israelites in a column of cloud by day and fire by night. When they get to the Red Sea, the LORD causes a mighty wind to rush in and part the seas so that the Israelites can cross out of bondage and into freedom. I think this imagery is the more obvious of the story referents where that column of fire representing the presence of God splits to land upon each of the disciples. The story is recorded thus to help us connect the ideas together. You can also think about how at the crucifixion, we get recorded in the gospels that the curtain of the Holy of Holies in the Temple is torn (Matthew says from top to bottom, something completely beyond human capabilities) signifying that God’s presence was rushing out from that particularity into some other expression. It should not be seen as discontinuous, but as changing because of the reality-altering death of Christ.

Now the strangeness really starts in this story. The disciples who receive God’s presence in them begin to speak in strange languages, languages they could not have known as they were predominantly Galileans. We find out why immediately. In Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost, Jews from all over the known world were visiting, and as the disciples spoke, each person was able to hear, in their own native languages, what God had done through the death and resurrection of Christ. In Acts 1, Jesus gives the disciples the key to understanding what the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, what the Spirit’s presence/purpose/job is. He tells them that they will receive power to be witnesses to all that Jesus had done. Here we see it. They have been given a power that was beyond them to witness to all that the Messiah had done for them.

Peter’s sermon that takes up the bulk of the chapter explains all of this. It’s so masterful. He connects multiple Old Testament dots together and makes sense of the marvelous thing that has just happened in terms that the people would understand. Remember what Joel 2 says? You’re seeing it! And why are you seeing it today? Well, remember what our great King David prophetically said in Psalm 110? We know who that guy is! It’s Jesus who was crucified, but who couldn’t stay dead because He was God made manifest (and we had that prophesied to us in Psalm 16, didn’t we?!). That’s what the whole Messiah thing that we’ve all been waiting for was all about!

You can tell it’s all making sense because 3000 people accept Christ on the spot. They all hear the testimony, the witnessing of what God has done in this tragedy (crucifixion) and it’s glorious, eucatastrophic reversal (resurrection), and then they take the instruction of Peter. What do we do? Repent and be baptized, just like John the forerunner had been doing, but now we know exactly what to do with a baptism. We’re going to baptize you in the name of Jesus; he told us to do as much in some of his final instructions (Matthew 28). This inducts you into a new way of living, a new relationship with God, identifying with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as being the thing in which you put your hope, and to which you will find fulfillment in dedicating your energies.

There are all kinds of opportunities to mistake what exactly is the point of Acts 2. Some groups read the last few lines of the chapter and see communism endorsed by the Scriptures. It’s not. The non-coercive nature of their fellowship is the key ingredient that is missed in this interpretation. The nascent church acts in a voluntary unity (put a pin in this unity, we’ll come back to it again in a moment).

Other groups get fixated on the exciting manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s power. This is a good thing, but it’s not the good thing; Jesus told us that being a witness to Jesus’s work in history and in one’s life was going to be the reason for the Spirit’s manifestation of power. We should see the empowering of the Spirit to do things beyond human capacity and control as an important part of His indwelling presence, but I’d also contend that what you see Peter do to make sense of what had just happened is also very much evidence of the Holy Spirit’s activity. Peter had a pretty awesome teacher for a few years, but he was by all accounts not a learned Old Testament scholar. The rapidity and clarity with which Peter taught on Pentecost is an incredible gift to the church, also an incredible manifestation of the Spirit’s power to be a witness to Jesus. What we see throughout the rest of Acts are similar stories where the Holy Spirit empowers the disciples, primarily Peter and then Paul, but others as well, to witness to Jesus Christ in ways that make sense to their hearers, that make clear what God is doing, and to heal the effects of sin including the rifts between peoples as the witnessing goes out not just to the Jews, but into the Gentile world as well.

And this is the third story (you thought I forgot!) from the Old Testament that is being played with in this Acts 2 sequence. In Romans 5, Paul describes Jesus as a new Adam who has made for us a new way to be human, a proper imaging of God, what Adam was always predestined, but had failed, to be. Jesus had achieved this being fully human and divine. In his life and death and resurrection, he undid the curse of Genesis 3. Now in Acts 2, he’s undoing the curse of Genesis 11. Genesis 11 is the story of the Tower of Babel where humanity, in its fallenness and incredible hubris, seeks to attain or obtain godhood without reference to their Creator. As a punishment, God splits them up across ethnic and linguistic lines, confusing their tongues to each other, and making it so they can’t unite in their evil. In this way, God mercifully divides so that through the family of Abraham, He could superintend a solution to this problem.

Christ’s death and resurrection was that solution. But the peoples are still divided until this moment in Acts. Because of the power of the Spirit, God is seen as bringing the peoples back together now united in one accord, honouring the New Adam, the Messiah. This is an undoing of the Tower of Babel, and the logic keeps getting pushed through the book of Acts, and throughout subsequent church history. Who is outside of God’s grace? None! Peter describes that God wills that all would come to know His mercy, the mighty work of Jesus Christ to save and to reintegrate us into proper relationship with our Creator. Acts 2 shows us the first story about the church’s activity to this end.

So this is my prayer this week, that you would find yourself in that story, that you would receive the Spirit’s power to be a witness in your context, and that you would feel love and compassion for the church, this multinational, multilingual, multiexpressional body that, problems though it has, is still the vehicle being used by God to express His lovingkindness to all of mankind.

Next week's text is John 3.