Читать книгу The Acts of the Apostles - William Barclay - Страница 17

THE DAY OF PENTECOST

WE may never know precisely what happened on the Day of Pentecost, but we do know that it was one of the supremely great days of the Christian Church – for, on that day, the Holy Spirit came to the Christian Church in a very special way.

Acts has been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit; so, before we turn to detailed consideration of its second chapter, let us take a general view of what Acts has to say about the Holy Spirit.

The Coming of the Spirit

It is perhaps unfortunate that we so often speak of the events at Pentecost as the coming of the Holy Spirit. The danger is that we may think that the Holy Spirit came into existence at that time. That is not so; God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In fact, Acts makes that quite clear. The Holy Spirit was speaking in David (Acts 1:16); the Spirit spoke through Isaiah (Acts 28:25); Stephen accuses the Jews of having opposed the Spirit all through their history (Acts 7:51). In that sense, the Spirit is God in every age revealing his truth. At the same time, something special happened at Pentecost.

The Work of the Spirit in Acts

From that moment, the Holy Spirit became the dominant reality in the life of the early Church.

For one thing, the Holy Spirit was the source of all guidance. The Spirit moves Philip to make contact with the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:29), prepares Peter for the coming of the messengers from Cornelius (Acts 10:19), orders Peter to go without hesitation with these messengers (Acts 11:12), enables Agabus to foretell the coming famine (Acts 11:28), orders the setting apart of Paul and Barnabas for the momentous step of taking the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 13:2, 13:4), guides the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:28), guides Paul past Asia, Mysia and Bithynia, down into Troas and from there to Europe (Acts 16:6), and tells Paul what awaits him in Jerusalem (Acts 20:23). The early Church was a Spirit-guided community.

For another thing, all the leaders of the Church were men of the Spirit. The Seven are men of the Spirit (Acts 6:3); Stephen and Barnabas are full of the Spirit (Acts 7:55, 11:24). Paul tells the elders at Ephesus that it was the Spirit who made them overseers over the Church of God (Acts 20:28).

And further, the Spirit was the source of day-to-day courage and power. The disciples are to receive power when the Spirit comes (Acts 1:8); Peter’s courage and eloquence before the Sanhedrin are the result of the activity of the Spirit (Acts 4:31); Paul’s conquest of Elymas is the work of the Spirit (Acts 13:9). The Christian courage to meet the dangerous situation, the Christian power to cope with life more than adequately, the Christian eloquence when eloquence is needed, and the Christian joy which is independent of circumstances are all attributed to the work of the Spirit.

Finally, Acts 5:32 speaks of the Spirit ‘whom God has given to those who obey him’. This has in it the great truth that the degree to which we can possess the Spirit is conditioned by the kind of people we are. It means that anyone who is honestly trying to do the will of God will experience more and more of the wonder of the Spirit.

In the first thirteen chapters of Acts, there are more than forty references to the Holy Spirit; the early Church was a Spirit-filled Church, and that was the source of its power.