The Holy Spirit

Pentecost and the Coming of the Spirit

Fifty days after the resurrection, on the feast of Pentecost, the promise of Jesus came true. The Holy Spirit was poured out on the gathered believers with the sound of a rushing wind and tongues like fire, and the frightened disciples became bold witnesses of the risen Christ. Peter preached, three thousand were baptized, and the church was born. Pentecost is the day the promised Spirit came to dwell in God's people.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.Acts 2:4 (KJV)

Waiting in Jerusalem

Before He ascended, the risen Jesus told His disciples not to rush out but to wait. Ye shall receive power, He said, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me. So about a hundred and twenty of them gathered in Jerusalem, and continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. They did not manufacture the Spirit or work themselves into it. They waited on the promise of the Father, trusting the word of Jesus that what He had promised, He would give.

It is worth remembering how weak they were. Days earlier they had scattered when Jesus was arrested. Peter had denied Him. Left to themselves they would never have shaken the world. Everything that followed depended not on their courage but on the gift they were waiting for.

The wind and the fire

When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house. There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Wind and fire, the ancient signs of God's living presence, now rested on ordinary men and women.

The tongues were not gibberish. Devout Jews from every nation under heaven were in the city for the feast, and each heard the wonderful works of God spoken in his own language. It was a sign that the good news was for all peoples, and a quiet undoing of Babel, where languages once divided the nations. At Pentecost the one message of Christ crossed every language at once.

Peter preaches and the church is born

The same Peter who had denied his Lord to a servant girl now stood before the crowd and preached Christ crucified and risen. He quoted the prophet Joel: This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh. The long-promised day had arrived. He proclaimed that the Jesus they had crucified God had raised up and made both Lord and Christ, and the crowd was pierced to the heart and cried out, What shall we do?

Repent, Peter answered, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. That day about three thousand souls were added, and the church was born, not as a human society but as a people filled with the Spirit of God.

From fear to boldness

The change in the disciples is one of the strongest evidences of what happened at Pentecost. Only weeks before, they had fled when Jesus was arrested, and Peter had denied even knowing Him. They had huddled behind locked doors for fear. Then the Spirit came, and the same men walked into the open and proclaimed the risen Christ to the very city that had crucified Him, undeterred by threats, prison, or death. Something real had entered them.

That something was the promised power. Jesus had said, ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me. The boldness of the early church was not natural courage but the overflow of the Spirit. It is a pattern that has repeated ever since, wherever timid people are made brave to speak of Jesus by the same Spirit who fell at Pentecost.

A gift for all who are called

When the crowd, cut to the heart, asked what they should do, Peter's answer opened the gift to everyone. Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. The outpouring was not for that generation only, nor for a special few, but for all whom God would call, in every place and age.

That includes us. Pentecost is not merely a story about the first Christians; it is the beginning of an age that has never ended. The same Spirit given that day is given still to all who turn to Christ. What began in one upper room in Jerusalem has reached to the ends of the earth, exactly as Jesus said it would.

The reversal of Babel

There is a quiet wonder in the fact that the crowd at Pentecost heard the gospel each in his own language. At Babel, long before, human pride had built a tower to make a name for itself, and God had scattered the nations by confusing their speech. At Pentecost the Spirit gathered the nations again, not by erasing their languages but by carrying one message across all of them at once. What sin had divided, the Spirit began to reunite around Christ.

This is a sign of the whole work of the Spirit in the age of the church. He is gathering a people for God out of every nation, tribe, and tongue, not by making everyone the same but by joining them all to the same Lord. Pentecost points forward to the great multitude no man can number, from all peoples, standing together before the throne. The Spirit who came that day is still gathering that family in.

So Pentecost belongs to the whole world, not to one people or one place. The fire that fell in Jerusalem was meant to spread to the ends of the earth, and it has, wherever the gospel is preached and hearts are opened by the Spirit. Every believer, in every land and language, who has been drawn to Christ is part of what began that morning. The wind that filled one house has become a wind that fills the earth, and it is still blowing.

What Pentecost means, and Christ at the center

Christians hold Pentecost to be the moment the promised Spirit was poured out to dwell in the church permanently, the birthday of the new covenant people of God. Here Christians of goodwill differ on some questions, for example whether the dramatic signs of that day are the normal pattern for every believer since, or belong especially to that founding moment. On such matters faithful believers disagree, and this page takes no side. What all agree on is greater than what divides them: at Pentecost the Spirit came, and He came in fulfillment of the word of Jesus.

For notice whose Spirit He is. Peter says the risen and exalted Jesus, having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth this. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost is the gift of the ascended Christ, and the sermon He empowered was about Christ, and the crowd He convicted He turned to Christ. Pentecost is not a festival of the Spirit apart from Jesus. It is the day the Spirit came to fill the earth with the knowledge and the love of the Lord.

Related: The promise of the Spirit · Being filled with the Spirit · The symbols of the Holy Spirit · The Holy Spirit