If God was going to save the world, and reclaim His global kingdom, then the exiling, the confusion, the ignorance and scattering had to be ended. Pentecost signals this dramatic reversal in a spectacular way.
A major festival season of the Church, the word “Pentecost” is a near transliteration of the Greek word meaning “fiftieth,” since this celebration comes fifty days after the Passover. In Judaism, it was the culmination of the Feast of Weeks (Exodus 34:22). Indeed, it is a culmination: The culmination of the work of Jesus the Christ. On this fiftieth day after His victory on Golgotha, from His throne on high, King Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to mark, claim, and indwell the people of God, that is, all those with allegiance to Jesus. Of all the things in Christianity, this is the one thing that underscores a demarcation from those who have not been baptized. Christians are precisely those people in whom the true and living God has given His Spirit. Keep this in mind throughout the preaching season of Pentecost.
What happened in this text is the historical record of gospel-fulfillment. It is not about your personal-Pentecost, spirit-gifts encounter. What takes place here in Acts 2 is so much grander. It is the epic unveiling of the mystery of Pentecost. We hear about the outpouring of the chief benefits Jesus of Nazareth won for us on the cross and through the empty tomb. It needs to be preached this way. It should be preached as an unrepeatable, one-off event signifying a monumental change in divine-human relations. Simply put, Pentecost is a landmark in the history of redemption. Jews and Gentiles, the nations of the earth who are represented here by a plethora of regional names and a listing of the nations, if you will, are now going to be included in God’s covenant family where once, from the time of the Tower of Babel, they had been excluded and exiled. Something new is taking place. Those who sat on the outside of God’s family welcome are now on the inside. What hallmarks them all as one in the Lord, is how they will all be indwelt by the Holy Spirit because they have been cleansed from unholiness by the blood of Christ.
Those who sat on the outside of God’s family welcome are now on the inside. What hallmarks them all as one in the Lord, is how they will all be indwelt by the Holy Spirit because they have been cleansed from unholiness by the blood of Christ.
What we have here is the debut showing of humanity rehumanized in the full likeness of God, possessing, once again as in Eden, the Holy Spirit within their persons. In other words, the day of Pentecost is the first day of pay-dirt for mankind in the new world order: Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor ushered into the Kingdom of God from the kingdoms of Pharaoh and Caesar. All of it is hallmarked by Baptism as the redeemed children of God, endowed with the Holy Spirit as proof they belong to the new and true Lord of Heaven and earth, are united in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. So no, the disciples are not liquored-up for breakfast and Pentecost is not normative, at least, not prescriptive in the same way. Instead, it is the event which jolts the world into taking note that something entirely new is taking place. God is coming to live in our midst through the indwelling Spirit of God gifted through the Word of Christ because we have been reconciled by the blood of Christ. There is good news for all the world on Whit Sunday[1]: the exile is over for Jews and Gentiles alike.
Like all epoch-making mighty works of God, Pentecost was accompanied by a spectacular, miraculous occurrence which both authenticated this event as an act of the God of Israel and served as a meaningful symbol of the earth-shaking change taking place in world history. It is a symbol lifted straight from the prophetic word of the Old Testament prophets: Tongues of fire rested on each of the apostles. Moving on from the phenomenon of what seemed to be tongues of fire we find the stated effect in verses 5-12. Persons from the various parts of the Roman and Parthian empires heard, “the wonders of God,” in their, “own tongues,” which apparently ought not to have been so, which is why they were bewildered and amazed.
The most widely held interpretation of Acts 2 is it records a language miracle. That it was necessary for God to miraculously intervene so all could recognizably hear the Pentecost message. The assumptions here have been:
(1) The crowd in Acts 2 spoke many different native languages.
(2) The disciples and apostles were unable to speak these native languages.
(3) A language miracle was required either on the part of the disciples and apostles’ speaking or in their auditors’ hearing.
But considering the overarching story of Scripture, this so-called language miracle of tongues might be reconsidered. An examination of 2:1-13 reveals there is no reference to any specific language, let alone fifteen languages. The listing is of people-groups and geographical areas, not languages. The people groups are Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Cretans and Arabs. The geographical areas mentioned are Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, “parts of Libya” near the city of Cyrene, and Rome (a city).
Keep in mind, then, that the crowd assembled on Pentecost consisted of God-fearing Jews, and given how the text delineates people-groups and geographical areas, and Peter addresses and interacts with them in one language without difficulty or translation. Therefore, we find two common languages uniting these Jewish people-groups living in the Roman and Parthian empires: Greek and Aramaic.
Greek was the common language for the western provinces of the Roman Empire. Romans in the West spoke Greek, not “Roman” or Latin, as their native tongue. Given this fact, it is no wonder Peter was able to address the crowd on the day of Pentecost without need for translation. Toward the East, the Jews who were, “residents of Mesopotamia,” did not speak “Mesopotamian,” but Aramaic as their native tongue. Likewise, those Jews from Media, Arabia, Elam and Palestine (where the disciples were from) would have spoken Aramaic as their first language, with Greek for many if not all of them, as a second or third tongue.
What engendered bewilderment and (2:6-12) ridicule (2:13) was how the wonders of God were being declared in Aramaic and Greek, when these Galileans should have known that only Hebrew was permitted to be spoken when praying, singing, or speaking of God’s word in the Temple. They were in violation of an established tradition.
Peter explains how what was taking place was the ministry of the Holy Spirit, not in giving the disciples “other tongues” to speak, but rather they spoke in other tongues, “…as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). This last word, “utterance,” is important because it refers to the kind of divinely authoritative speech characteristic of a prophet or similarly inspired person. Peter is not given a new language in 2:14. Instead, his speech is described as bold, authoritative, and inspired by the Spirit. The miraculous work of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was about inspiring the Gospel message and empowering it with authority and efficacy, remarkably in Greek and Aramaic. The real point of the tongues phenomenon lies not with spiritual endowments but in its redemptive historical significance; i.e., what it means concerning God’s promises to reclaim His global kingdom and its peoples. In this case, it is those beyond the territorial borders of Israel in the Gentile regions.
The real point of the tongues phenomenon lies not with spiritual endowments but in its redemptive historical significance; i.e/ what it means concerning God's promises to reclaim His global kingdom and its peoples.
Here, then, is the miracle of Pentecost. A sermon was given in the language of the Gentiles that even Gentiles could understand. God was now speaking and inviting those once-alienated Gentiles back into His family, back into covenant love with Him. The miracle of Pentecost was the Gospel being prophetically declared in the Courtyard of the Gentiles in a language understandable to the Gentiles themselves. The mystery of Pentecost unveiled is how the Gentile nations, exiled from the covenant favor of God because of the audacity of the Tower of Babel and graphically scattered from His presence and confused in their languages so they could not understand His Word, these people (the likes of you and me) are now welcomed in by the blood of Christ. Gentiles are welcomed in by way of an invitation spoken in our own language.
Pentecost is the reversal of the Babel exiling. It reverses the scattering and gathers in the Temple. It puts an end to the deafness and ignorance of non-Jews by preaching the Gospel of God’s grace, God’s welcome to all the world. If God was going to save the world, and reclaim His global kingdom, then the exiling, the confusion, the ignorance and scattering had to be ended. Pentecost signals this dramatic reversal in a spectacular way.
At the heart of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit launches the new Temple of the Lord, His holy Church.
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Additional Resources:
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in Acts 2:1-21.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Acts 2:1-21.
[1] Whitsun is the name used in Britain and Ireland, and throughout the world among Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists, for the Christian festival of Pentecost.
