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1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. ~ Acts 2:1-4
Today, we transition into our study of Acts 2 where the promise the Lord Jesus had made to the disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit is about to be fulfilled. It is the faithfulness of God that is the fuel to our faith in Him. If He were not true to His promises, we would doubt His goodness and choose to be defined by another. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have made the decision to believe God's promises to the point of risking our eternity upon them.
In v.1 of today's passage we read, "When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."
It was the day of Pentecost which means "fifty," as in fifty days after the Passover feast. Pentecost came at the end of the wheat harvest in Israel, and the Jews were instructed by God to take the newly harvested wheat and make of it two loaves of bread. These loaves were symbols of Jew and Gentile. It was the Lord Jesus who said He came first to the Jews. Then according to John 10:16 He said, "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd." The other sheep the Lord Jesus referenced are the Gentiles. So, on the day of Pentecost, God took the Jews and the Gentiles and brought them together and made them one.
In addition, these loaves were to be baked with leaven. Leaven is yeast and is an object lesson of sin in the Bible. The wave loaves are the only sacrifice in all the Old Testament that ever had leaven included in them. It was God's way of telling us that His people are not perfect people. Believers in the Lord Jesus are people who have been forgiven yet we are still sinful. Thus the loaves were baked with leaven. Luke tells us that 120 people were gathered together into that one place at the Temple. Once they were baptized by the Spirit, they were baptized into one body of believers known as the Church.
In v.2 of today's passage we read, "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting."
The wind in Scripture often is used by the Lord as symbolic of the Holy Spirit. The wind is often used in the Bible to point us to the symbolic nature of God's invisible power. To Nicodemus the Lord Jesus said you must be born of the Spirit to enter heaven. He likened being born again or being made alive to God to the wind which blows wherever it desires and no man can tell where it comes from or where it will go. The Holy Spirit is like the wind, He is invisible, we cannot see Him. Life in the Spirit for the born again believer is the experience of God's resurrection power that needs not any props of any kind. The result is transformational change from within.
The word translated "wind" is an interesting word used only one other place in the New Testament. It was a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind. It literally means the sound of a blast of breath. There was no movement in the air, just the rushing sound or noise of a mighty wind. It was a great sound out of heaven as if the very blast of God’s breath had reached the earth. The Holy Spirit is the breath of God. This mighty blast of breath who came from God has made us alive to God and His culture. The Holy Spirit of God came to earth on the day of Pentecost in order to fill the hearts of believers with the very presence of God.
In v.3-4 of today's passage we read, "3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
Fire purifies by burning off dross, garbage and waste. The Lord Jesus used fire symbolizing how believers will experience the purifying passion of the Holy Spirit within. The Holy Spirit creates within each believer in the Lord Jesus a strange hunger for the Lord who produces a desire to be defined by Him. Once we begin to be defined by God's Word, the Spirit of God burns away that which is inconsistent with God's definition of things.
The "other tongues" mentioned here were known languages which were understood by those who heard the disciples speak. The disciples could not understand the languages that they spoke that day in Jerusalem. These were intelligent utterances praising God and the people gathered around that day heard the believers testifying about the mighty works of God. This is the purpose of the filling of the Spirit in the believer, that we might speak with boldness about the mighty works of God.
Interestingly, the Greek word translated "tongues" is recorded 50 times in the original Greek of the New Testament. The number 50 symbolizes deliverance from a burden. In Leviticus 25, God commanded Israel that on every fiftieth year, on the Day of Atonement, that a Jubilee was to be declared with the sound of a trumpet. During the Jubilee year, all debts were settled in favor of the debtor and inheritances were returned to their rightful owners. Also, those who worked as slave laborers in order to repay a debt were granted their freedom to return home to their families and their land. This is what the Holy Spirit's application of the Gospel to you and me has done. Through the application of the Gospel to you and me, God has freed us to return home to Him to enjoy what we could never have enjoyed before the sacrifice of His Son on the cross of Calvary.
