Pentecost---Initiation Day

[HKHaugan]

Before we get into the subject of spiritual gifts it would be helpful if we visited the single most important event after the coming of the Lord Jesus and that is His sending the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is the Holy Spirit who brings our minds, our hearts and our spirits into spiritual reality. This is where the shift to true reality begins.

Acts 2 “1 The day of Pentecost came. The believers all gathered in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound came from heaven. It was like a strong wind blowing. It filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw something that looked like tongues of fire. The flames separated and settled on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in languages they had not known before. The Spirit gave them the ability to do this (NIRV).”

We are going to take this one verse at a time. This event is so important for us as believers that we need to, as the prayer says, “read mark, learn, and inwardly digest.”

Vs.1 The day of Pentecost came. The believers all gathered in one place.

First, it is the ‘day.’ When you look at this passage closely it is the arrival of something dramatically different, new and visible. Jewish history of course had a series of dramatically different events from the Flood, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, the giving of the Ten Commandments, the pillars of fire and cloud leading God’s people through the wilderness and the miracles surrounding the prophets but these were external actions of God. They were external reminders of God always in control. They were external manifestations of the power of God and they happened in a one place at a one time with a one people.

But what happened at Pentecost was something no one anticipated, no one expected and no one guessed. Even though the Prophets spoke of a new experience (Jeremiah saying that the Law would be written on the heart, 31:33), that experience was culturally interpreted as the arrival of a deliverer who would right the world politically. Again it would be another external experience to prove the Jews were right and give them worldly power. Already they had been given the revelation of One Father, One Son but another One was on the way. This time however it would not be external it would be internal. This would be the seal, the final gift, the One Spirit and it would be in one place. All the disciples were told to do was to wait and not leave Jerusalem.

What will happen will happen fittingly in the light of day, happening visibly and the revelation of what had been blurred in the ‘night’ of mystery and lost in the ‘darkness’ of sin. This is more than a 12-hour day trapped in man’s limited physical apprehension of sunrise and sunset. It is a spiritual day dawning and the murky night of fear being overcome. What we know now on this side of the Cross and the Resurrection is what had been hidden in the dark night of the past was now exposed. The devil, his evil spirits and his spirit of sin hiding in the darkness of sin’s fear, intimidation and all the works of self-centeredness were drawn out into the open by the Cross and their power forever negated as majestically shown by the Resurrection. But far more than that this was a day of God’s lighting the heart, overwhelming the mind and restoring the spirit. This was spiritual daylight.

Second, it was the day of Pentecost. Pentecost (Gk.penthkosths-fiftieth) the Feast of the Firstfruits, the thanksgiving for the corn harvest, which took place 50 days after the Passover. Like all things in the Old Testament it was a ‘shadow and copy’ of things to come. There would be a spiritual harvest, people coming alive in the Spirit, discovering intimacy with God and one another, the Body of Christ growing by leaps and bounds and the arrival of the Kingdom of God against which the gates of hell could not withstand its onslaught. The mind would believe spiritually and find a broad expansive world and universal view. The heart would trust spiritually and find the pleasure of relational fulfillment on a level none could have imagined. The lonely isolated spirit would discover a transformed faith that moved from self to Jesus providing a power of thought, confidence in identity and assurance in action. This was a harvest of meaning, significance and purpose.

Third, the day of Pentecost had come. But these ‘firstfruits’ were different. The Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus would herald in a new spiritual revelation. All that has been described, His promise of ‘living water’ that would never cease, of the gift He would send, the Spirit of truth, the fulfillment of prophecy that the heart would be transformed and we would be born again spiritually and that He would actually be at one with us in our minds and hearts through His Holy Spirit, these firstfruits of the Spirit of God became a reality, all of it had arrived. But there were far more spiritual fruits in the offing. Spiritual gifts in 1Cor., Rom.12 and Eph.4 and the spiritual atmosphere of love, joy, compassion, sound mind and more mentioned in Gal.5 that enable the spiritual gifts to function. Humanity would be forever challenged, charged and changed.

Fourth, they are in one place. The fact that they were in ‘one place’ is important because it establishes a common shared unified witness. The Apostles knew they could share what each had experienced. They were united in their outreach because their hearts were one in Jesus. ‘One place’ is not separate experiences but the same experience given to many. There is the one place from which God operates and that is the Kingdom of Heaven. One Creation is from one Creator.

There is but one image of God and that is Jesus. Each of us is created to be like that one image. There are no other images. There is only one of each of us. No one before or after us will be the same. Each of us has been created to be unique. Each one of us has been given one place in history and in eternity. Jesus showed us was that there is only one time to live and die. There is only one life not many and one way to live that life not many. There is only one physical death and one eternal destiny for each of us.

There is only one Cross, one sacrifice on that Cross and only one Person who could pay the one debt all of us owe. There is only one truth, God’s truth as it is revealed in Scripture. There is only one love, God’s love. It would be the sure thing that it was God when He came in one place as He did when He came in the one body of Jesus and one time to return when He comes on the one Day of Judgment when every ‘one,’ each one, will appear before Him.

‘One place’ is One Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all, not many lords, many faiths, many baptisms and many gods which was the atmosphere of the world in which they lived. “4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph.4:4-6 NIV).” There is only One Good Shepherd, One Light, One Bread, One Blood, One Body, One Gate, One Savior, One Redeemer, One Advocate, One Holy Scripture and none comes to the Father except through the One Lord Jesus, the Christ.