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Pentecost

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C. Norman Kraus

Pentecost as it is reported in Acts is the climax of the three-act drama of incarnation. Act one presents various scenes in the ministry of Jesus. Act two is the Passion of the Christ. Act three is the triumphant advance of the victorious Lord. At Pentecost “the promise of the Father” was fulfilled (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). The ministry, death, and resurrection were not the completion of the promise. That is why Jesus told his followers to wait in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the point of departure for the triumphant mission – “beginning at Jerusalem” – and they were to “sit tight” until the promise had become full reality (Luke 24:47–49). It was not simply a matter of their receiving an individual spiritual capability for service and witness to what Christ had finished. No, they were not to begin their mission because the Father had not yet completed the ­formation of the new body through which the Christ would continue and expand his presence and ministry.

The drama of incarnation does not conclude with a final act that neatly wraps up the loose ends of the story and draws the curtain. Rather it ends with an open future for those involved. Pentecost is a commencement in the same sense that we use the word to describe a graduation. It is simultaneously climax and beginning. It concludes with the assurance that this is not the end but the beginning. Christ is not dead or absent in some far-off spiritual realm. The kingdom he announced is not set aside to some future millennium but enters a new era of fulfillment. His ministry is not concluded but universalized through his new body. Surely this is part of the good news! . . .

Luke makes clear what he understood to be of central importance in the account. He does this both by the language he uses and by the way he constructs the account. His summaries in 2:42–47 and 4:32–37 highlight preceding developments and act as a bridge to the next sections of the story. These summaries indicate clearly what Luke thought had really happened. Further, just as there are parallelisms between the birth, life, and ministry of Jesus (Luke) and the church (Acts) so there are in both accounts fairly obvious allusions and parallelism with the story of the exodus and formation of Israel into a people of God. Both of these literary devices indicate the same answer to our question. What really happened at Pentecost was the forming of the new covenant community of the Spirit. Let us look more closely at the significance of these characteristics of Luke’s account.

The teaching that the church was born at Pentecost is, of course, not new. Nor is the idea of continuity as well as discontinuity with Israel new, although this has been a matter of dispute within evangelicalism. What has not been sufficiently recognized is that the new thing that happened on Pentecost is the new community. It is this parallelism with the formation of Israel from a “mixed multitude” into a “people” that Luke’s many allusions to Exodus seem to underscore.

The immediate manifestations of the Spirit’s presence were fire, wind, and speaking in other tongues. All three have a rich and varied symbolic use in the Old Testament and other Jewish literature. No doubt Luke consciously alludes to this tradition. To make exodus symbolism primary is not to rule out all other possible allusions, but rather to highlight the fundamental significance in his account.

As the Israelites left Egypt the special presence of the Lord leading his people was manifested in the “pillar of fire” (Exod. 13:21–22; 14:24). Now the presence appears again and disperses itself, resting on each one in the representative new Israel (Acts 2:3). The mysterious “violent wind” which dried up the waters of the Red Sea (Exod. 14:21) and whipped in the faces of the Israelites as they crossed to Sinai now again filled the house with a roar and is fully identified as God’s Spirit. The play on words in the original language of the Bible makes this more obvious. Both ruach (Hebrew) and pneuma (Greek) have the double meaning of wind and spirit. . . .

The symbolism of speaking and hearing in different dialects is also multifaceted. It most likely alludes to the confusion of languages at Babel (Gen. 11:7–9). The Spirit’s presence reverses Babel, and as Saint Paul said, in Christ there are no “barbarians,” that is, those of uncouth languages (Col. 3:11). It also indicates the universality of the salvation message and therefore the mission and nature of the new people being formed. The connection with Exodus and Sinai is not so apparent until we learn that there was a Jewish tradition that the Mosaic Law had been given in seventy languages simultaneously, indicating the universal scope of its authority. Luke’s account of the new covenant’s being announced in many languages may well be a parallel to this Jewish tradition. . . .

In his sermon at Pentecost, Peter explained all this as the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. Jesus, the true Messiah, has sealed the new covenant in his death. Now, risen and victorious, he is forming his new people. Just as the Israelites were “baptized in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2), marking decisively their separation from their old family identity in Egypt, so Peter called upon his audience to be baptized and to save themselves from the old “crooked generation.” Just as Israel received their new identity as the people of God at Sinai through the gift of the law, so the new people is constituted through the gift of the Spirit. And just as great signs accompanied Israel’s deliverance and formation into a covenant nation, so “signs and wonders done through the apostles” accompanied the birth of the new community of the Spirit. . . .

On the day of Pentecost, to be saved meant to join the messianic community. On that day, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ was a public act of acknowledging that Jesus was truly the Messiah, the rightful leader of God’s people, and a declaration of allegiance to him by throwing in one’s lot with the original apostolic band. To be as explicit as possible let me perhaps overstate the point. It was not a matter of “receiving Jesus into their hearts” and then being urged to find a church (voluntary society) of their choice for fellowship. It was not a matter of an inner experience of justification or even of conversion that made them members of the spiritual or invisible body of Christ to be followed by baptism and “joining the church.” It was not a matter of “saving their souls” and then gathering them into conventicles or visible religious societies.

Within the new group defined by allegiance to Jesus Christ they received the Holy Spirit, for it was the victorious Messiah and Lord of the new community who was giving the Spirit (Acts 2:33). The Spirit of the ascended Christ now became the Spirit of his new body. Peter’s promise that following repentance and baptism they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (2:38) was not the promise of a “second experience” but the announcement that it is within the community of the Spirit that the new reality is to be found. ◆