Acts 2

Acts 2:1-47

Subdivision 3. (Acts 2:1-47.)The Promise of the Spirit fulfilled. The fulfilment of the promise is not long delayed, and we come now to the real commencement of the Church of God on earth. In saying this it must be remembered we are simply using the familiar word, which has so long retained its place that it would be now almost affectation to change it. Every one knows that the strictly accurate term is the “assembly,” and that this also needs to be further defined as the assembly which is Christ’s Body, or we shall fall into confusion. And this is the good of adhering to the common phraseology, negative enough in character to receive meaning from Scripture, but which, under. stood in this way, may become as definite as we can desire. The word “Church” in itself means only something belonging to the Lord, and so may apply to an assembly or a building, as in fact, people apply it. The Scripture-word “assembly” cannot be confounded in this fashion, but yet in itself would not distinguish the Jewish “assembly in the wilderness” from the Christian one so widely different, or even that heathen assembly which the town-clerk at Ephesus dismissed (Acts 19:41).

The word “Church” has the advantage that it does not really occur in Scripture; so that in using it invariably for the Christian assembly we can make it definite without any confusing with a scriptural word. Thus it will be easily understood if we use it here. As already said, for the doctrine of the Church we need not look in the Acts. We have to go further now, and say, that for the doctrine of the Spirit we must not look in the Acts. It is important to recognize this, that we may retain the truth of the doctrine. In the Acts we shall not find “sealing,” “anointing,” or the “earnest” of the Spirit, or any terms equivalent with these. Of the baptism with the Spirit we do hear, but without the help of Corinthians should not be able to understand it. On the other hand, of the Spirit being poured out, coming and falling upon men we hear in the Old Testament, as well as in the book before us.

These things have been urged in various interests, and we must not ignore them: Scripture is as perfect in its form as in its matter, and it is only by strict attention to such things as these that we honor its perfection and obtain its deepest secrets. The Spirit is also spoken of as given and received; we have the “gift” of the Spirit, as elsewhere the gifts." Now the absence of certain terms which speak of the Spirit’s inward operation is not to be wondered at in what is an historical account. As the public Witness to Christ, it is natural that the outward manifestations should be dwelt upon, rather than the inward, more really important though these last might be. Thus also the gift of tongues is specially noticed. When the Spirit fell or came upon men in the Old Testament times, it was seen similarly in works of power put forth; and the coming upon men speaks naturally of enduement with power. Of the work in the heart no spectator could be witness, save as this showed itself in fruit in the life in due season. And this does not lack in what is before us now, as is most evident; but it does not give us insight into the character of the Spirit’s outpouring seen at Pentecost. It is to the Gospel of John that we must turn, in fact, to know the real significance of the Pentecostal gift; although, as we have seen in going through this, even John does not speak of the Church. That it is the Spirit Himself who comes, the Lord there makes very plain to us; but the effect as declared is the perfecting of the truth and of the individual life; the circle into which you are brought by it is that of the acknowledged family, or, as Paul would say, the sons. The Spirit is the “Spirit of adoption”; the “gift” of the Spirit is to individuals; and, while producing necessary oneness of mind and heart, does not in any other way seem to imply the formation of a “body.” Yet that it was the baptism of the Spirit that was received at Pentecost, does not admit of question; and “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” Thus the Church, the Body of Christ, came into being, -a body such as never had existed before. It was not proclaimed at its birth, however, nor for a good while afterwards. It was Christ that was proclaimed, -Christ come into the world, crucified by men, raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, ascended up to God, and now Lord and Christ, a Prince and Saviour, to give remission of sins. The present revelation opens gradually, developing out of Old Testament Scripture fulfilled, and as a message also to the people of the Old Testament; and only as it is seen that Israel will still refuse the grace of God, is there a widening of the sphere of the proclamation, and new characters begin to be assumed by the assembly. The present division does not go beyond the first form of the message.

1. Pentecost is named from its connection with the Sheaf of Firstfruits, being the fiftieth day from this which speaks of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Upon this day two loaves of firstfruits, the beginning of the harvest, were offered to God. Their typical application is shown very clearly by the fact that they are baken with leaven, and therefore can represent nothing but men in that condition to which the fall has brought them, although the action of the leaven has been stopped by the fire, -that is, the holiness of God which has its effect in self-judgment. They are a “new meal-offering to the Lord,” the fruit of, and in character akin to that “corn of wheat” which, that it might not abide alone, fell into the ground and died (John 12:24); the presence of the leaven being met by a sin-offering, which is followed by two lambs for a peace-offering, with seven lambs, a bullock, and two rams, for a burnt-offering. There is adequate witness to peace accomplished, with a full realization of acceptance with God, -the work of Christ in its completeness for the soul.

This, of course, does not give the Church in its unique character as that, but rather in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel which began with it; consequently, all the more in the character in which, in fact, we see it in the Acts. The “feast of weeks,” as they called it, fulfils its typical significance, as Passover and the sheaf of firstfruits had fulfilled theirs. Pentecost finds the disciples gathered once more together. In those days of expectancy, it seems to have been habitual with them, and not as if any premonition of what was to take place had brought them at this time. But suddenly there comes from heaven a sound rousing them all to instant attention. It is like that of a powerful sustained breathing: so I think the words should be understood; it is confessedly “blowing” or “breathing” rather than “wind” as in the ordinary versions; and the latter of these two words should have the preference. It is not a storm that can furnish us with the symbols here; and in consistency with this, “rushing” is better replaced with “sustained.” The simple force is “carried on”; it is not intermittent, as breathing might otherwise be taken to be. The idea suggested is that of inspiring, animating agency, though beyond human, -a heavenly power; not fitful or (as we say) impulsive, but lifting and bearing on with divine energy.

It is the “power from on high,” which the Lord promised, that has manifested itself; and, as the savor of the ointment once poured upon Him at that time filled the house, so now the house is filled with that which is poured out upon those whom divine grace has identified with Christ risen and gone up to God. Upon Him when in the world the Spirit had come to abide, the testimony to Him who was not of the world; so now upon those not of the world, because chosen by Him out of it, yet sent into it as His representatives, the Spirit comes to abide. Upon Him it was the seal of His perfection; upon them it is the seal of their perfection in Him. The sound is not alone; a light as of fire appears in the form of tongues parting themselves, which rest upon each one there; and they all, filled with the Spirit, begin to speak in the diverse languages into which sin has divided the tongues of men. Grace is pursuing man with its testimony wherever his sin has carried him; as a consuming lire to his sin, but as light for his darkness, and in love which testifies by those who, themselves once the servants of sin, now speak with tongues enfranchised and given utterance by the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit in man, not occasionally merely, nor, as one may say, officially, but characteristically and abidingly, so that it may be pressed as a part of one’s responsibility to “be filled with the Spirit,” (Ephesians 5:18,) is indeed the perfect witnesss of how grace has come in for us, and therefore of the value before God of Christ’s precious work. This is what we have insisted on in the Acts, rather than the doctrine -any doctrine -of the Church of God. This is the key to the missionary activity which so pervades it, as the coming into the realization of it from out of legal shadow makes it the New Testament Exodus. The height of Christian position we must wait for in Paul; for to him is the administration of the mystery committed. 2. The great word, as we see now, is testimony. The gift of tongues is prominent from the first; and this it is that attracts the multitude. It was indeed a new thing in Israel, and its significance is at once manifest. Tongues were not needed for Jews in Palestine. The gift said at once, “Here is something to go forth.” The scattering of the Jews, the privileged possessors of a revelation from God, was in His providence a preparation for the evangelization of the nations, and had, as we find abundantly in the Acts itself, been the scattering of seed widely among them.

The Hellenistic Jews, with whom we shall soon be brought in contact, had taken up with some earnestness, if with less intelligence, the questions arising from their necessary relations with the paganism around. But, although there were thus many proselytes, yet there could not be said to exist any true missionary spirit, and the temper of the stricter Jews towards those who turned to them from the idolatry on all sides was not encouraging. Now had come the breath of change; and a new message must come with the new spirit. God was claiming His creatures, far as they might have wandered from Him; the miraculous gift was at once a trumpet to call the mass together, and a means of reaching personally all who should come. There is no need for noticing the strange and differing versions that have been given by interpreters of what, though a miracle, is so simple a fact. It is plain that this crowd of people of many languages heard these men who were evidently Galileans speaking in these tongues. The miracle, as one of old remarked, was with those that spoke, not with those that heard; and therefore they were real languages the speakers used. Not even the “great things of God” that they heard them utter seem to have made such an impression upon the multitude, as this wonder of their use of unfamiliar speech. The Jews, unacquainted with these dialects, mocked the disciples as men who were drunken with new wine; but the rest marvelled. 3. It is specially to these uncomprehending ones, men of Judea and inhabitants of Jerusalem, that Peter, standing up with the eleven, addresses himself in explanation. They were, in fact, the guilty ones to whom yet, first of all, the gospel was to be preached. He gravely remonstrates against their groundless thought, of men being drunk so early in the day. The third hour of the day was that of the daily sacrifice, the custom prevailing being to abstain from food and drink, specially upon the feast-days, until this was offered. This is only a means, however, of gaining the hearing that he seeks: for explanation of what was taking place he refers them to their own scriptures.

Joel had spoken of an outpouring of the Spirit in the last days which would affect young and old, men and women, after this manner. The apostle cannot mean indeed that this is the proper fulfilment of this prophecy, which speaks definitely of what shall take place after Israel’s deliverance, when Jehovah should be openly dwelling in the midst of her, as now too surely He was not.

But what if already these things which they were witness of were the premonitory signs of the incoming of those last days? We have only to remember that the time of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel had been a matter of enquiry on the part of the disciples with their risen Lord, and that He had definitely refused them satisfaction. Peter could not then say that the days of Joel were upon them. Yet he could warn them that such times were coming, which, with all their blessing, involved antecedently the “great and glorious day of the Lord,” which for man’s sin would not be light for all, but might be darkness (Amos 5:18). And he reminds them of the darkening of sun and moon that would precede it: what if already the things they witnessed might be signs of this great day? By and by we shall find a definite promise given that, if there were nationally repentance and the reception of Him whom they had crucified, He would return, and bring in that time. Plainly, then, as far as Peter knew, it might not be far away; and it was in the mind of God that Israel should thus have the offer of all that He had promised, without any drawback to the mercy so declared. But Joel had added the necessary condition of salvation in the trial of those days: -a condition which could hardly be called one indeed, so naturally would it be the resource in trial to “call upon the Name of the Lord,” (that is, “of Jehovah.”) Yet even here, alas, might the unbelief of man make this a stumbling-block over which to fall and perish: for, in fact, Jehovah had come to them already, and they had rejected Him! From this point, then, Peter begins to preach to them Jesus. He does not shun the title of Nazarene which was such an offence to them. Had not God borne witness to Him by mighty works and signs, which He wrought by Him in their very midst? Could they deny it? -an unbribed witness, surely. What then had been the issue? They, the men of law, had used the hands of lawless men -of the Gentiles, to crucify and slay Him. That might seem, at least, the effectual disproof of His claims; nay, nothing had been accomplished but what had its place in the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God by which He had been delivered up; all man’s attempts would indeed have been futile, apart from this! Spite of the Cross, God had shown His estimate of Him by resurrection from the dead. The Firstfruits from the dead, He had broken bands which yet had released no one besides after this manner. Others had been indeed raised up, but at last to return again and moulder in the dust to which man is sentenced. Not so with Him: it was not possible for Him to be held by it. Peter cites their scriptures in proof of this; and as sufficient witness, David, of whose line Messiah was to come: in the sixteenth psalm, David, though speaking in the first person, speaks evidently of Another than himself, who, perfect in a perfect pathway, Jehovah always before Him, always therefore for Him, gave unwavering steadfastness to all His steps. It was a pathway of life, therefore, even though it led through death; in which His flesh dwelt in confident hope, that He would not abandon His soul to hales, nor suffer piety such as His to see corruption. Beyond, the face of God was the brightness before Him. Of David himself certainly, all this could not be said. Not to him could this perfection be ascribed; and his monument amongst them showed him to have seen corruption, like all others. Not of himself, then, did he speak; and there was but One of whom it could be spoken. As a prophet he looked forward to Him whom God had sworn, as the fruit of his loins, to set upon his throne, King of the final Kingdom; final, because perfect, as necessary in the perfection which He manifests here. But David’s throne, would the Jew have argued, where is David’s throne today? Did He take it? Is He filling it, -the Nazarene? And Peter could never have replied, as so many since have done for him, that the throne of heaven was, as the greater, inclusive of the less! No, his argument is a very different one. He has been in death, as this perfect One was to be; He has come up out of it, His flesh even not having seen corruption. That God has raised Him up, all the disciples there were witnesses. But more, the Spirit with its tongues of fire was His witness. “Being by the right hand of God exalted,” says the apostle, “and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this which ye now see and hear.” But that is not the argument: he is coming to it; and again he draws from David’s arsenal. The weapon is one with which the Lord has before met and silenced the scribes; now it is to do the happier work of bringing the unbelieving to the faith of the gospel. David has shown, he would let them know, that there was to be for that Son whom he owns to be his Lord, a time of waiting for the Kingdom, with enemies opposing. He shows also that this waiting time would be while He was personally exalted at the right hand of God. “Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes the footstool for Thy feet.” Thus the pause before the taking of David’s throne is itself a proof of the Messiahship of Jesus, instead of being an argument against it; and David himself it is who testifies to this. Thus His enemies are to be put down, and those who call upon Jehovah’s Name and find salvation in the last days must accept as Saviour Him whom Israel has rejected: for, “let all the house of Israel know assuredly,” concludes the apostle, “that God has made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” 4. The proof is conclusive, and the arrow of conviction is winged by the Spirit to the hearts of the listeners there. “Brethren,” they cry out in alarm, “what shall we do?” And the grace that meets them is full and immediate. Let them in true repentance give up their sinful opposition to the Christ of God, and be baptized, each one, in dependence on the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins, and they should themselves receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; for the promise was to them and to their children, and to those afar off, even as many as the Lord (Jehovah) their God should call. But we must look at this more particularly. In the Lord’s commission to His disciples, as we have it in Luke’s Gospel, repentance and remission of sins are to be preached in the Name of the risen Christ to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. This is accordingly what we find here, -repentance and remission of sins; though with an addition which has to be taken into account. The Name of Jesus Christ has been proclaimed by the apostle to the sinners of Jerusalem; faith in that Name, if real, will of necessity produce repentance in the hearts of His rejectors hitherto. What a discovery of the state of man is the cross which he has given to the Christ of God! “Pricked in the heart” they may well be; but the apostle declares the mercy of God as pledging itself to those who, undoing their former rejection, take their place now as loyal subjects of the Crucified One. As the open sign of this, they must be “baptized in dependence on the Name of Jesus Christ:” baptism being the authoritative way of discipling (Matthew 28:19), and His Kingdom being a Kingdom of truth (John 18:37). Peter is using thus the two keys of the Kingdom (Matthew 16:19; see the notes). The connection of baptism with the remission of sins is a difficulty with many. It has been so much abused in the interests of sacramentalism, that it is no wonder if the very allowance of any connection should be abhorrent to those who, rightly refusing the mediatorship of sinful men between the soul and God, identify such a thought with any connection of the kind. But it is not faith to be afraid of Scripture; and, in some sense, Scripture does make baptism, not a prerequisite to the washing away of sins, but the actual doing of this. If Peter here bids his hearers be baptized for the remission of sins, Ananias clinches the two things together in his words to Saul of Tarsus: “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the Name of the Lord.” It is not the place yet to examine this particularly, but it cannot fairly be denied that the washing away of sins of which he speaks is put as the effect of baptism. If we are to meet Romanism effectually, we must frankly own the truth that is in it. It is not possible to maintain the ground that here a remission of sins by men is not intended.

Did not the Lord, in fact, say to His disciples, “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them”? He certainly did. To be able to illustrate this by the example of baptism cannot surely endanger the gospel with those who know it. Nor can any limiting the power to remit sins to the apostles avail to alter the conditions of the case. We can only affirm that the question of the Jews, in the sense in which they made it, is simply unanswerable: “Who can forgive sin, but God alone?” We must answer: As before God, none! He does not give His glory to another. On the other hand, to apply a text like this to the preaching of the gospel, as if this were the power of the keys, as is so often done among Protestants, is to weaken the cause which it is intended to defend. Whose sins do I remit, when I preach the gospel? Clearly, none! And it is just here, where the question is of sins being put away from before God, that it is utterly impossible for men to do anything. Neither baptism nor anything else that can be done by man, can cleanse a soul for heaven; nor has it to do with admission there at all, but with discipleship, and therefore with the earth, and not with the heaven. It does not even admit into the Church; for there another baptism, that of the Spirit, perfectly distinct from it, takes its place, as we have seen.

He who as Creator has given everything its place from the beginning does not override this, and confound all our thoughts by making matter do the work of Spirit, any more than He puts man into His own place. We must keep these lines clear, or everything falls into confusion. But there is a sphere of things on earth, which is in a peculiar way that of His interests, in which He has put man in responsibility to have things after His own mind, and where therefore a certain authority is necessarily committed to him. Here things are to be kept clean for Him; and therefore he must be able to pronounce within fixed limits between clean and unclean; therefore to cleanse for that sphere. Admission to fellowship or re, admission after the suspension of this, these are examples with which we are all familiar. Baptism for the remission of sins is not difficult to understand in this way, -an authoritative, governmental remission, which testified on God’s part to a soul His disposition towards it, if, on its side, there were no dishonesty of heart, but truthful response to the divine approach to it. The Gift of the Holy Spirit is promised to every one who turns to God after this manner in true subjection to Jesus Christ as Lord. We must, of course, distinguish this one Gift common to all from the various “gifts” (charismata, -a different word) which were imparted variously. These will come to be considered in another place. Where the Spirit is, the gifts of the Spirit will, more or less, be found. The one is the Source; the other the stream; and, amid the changing forms of the latter, the fundamental Gift, without which is no Christianity, abides the same. The apostle closes with assuring them of Israel’s interest in the blessing, even though it had a wider range, as Joel had declared as to the day of which he spoke. The promise, he tells them, is for you and for your children; but beyond these, for all that are afar off, -the Gentiles; yet not as claim; even Israel could have no claim; it depended for all entirely upon the call of God’s grace: “to as many,” he adds, “as the Lord (that is, Jehovah) our God shall call.” We shall have to notice in its place that, when we come to the reception of the Spirit on the part of the Gentiles, the insistence upon baptism as a condition drops. God takes things into His own hands, as one may say, and the Spirit falls upon Cornelius and those with him while they are yet listening to Peter’s address, and before ever a hint of baptism has been given. Saul of Tarsus, again, is baptized first, and so are the disciples of John at Ephesus. In the case of the Samaritans, again, even when they have been baptized there is still delay; and they have to receive the Spirit from the apostles’ hands. Thus the order of reception is conditioned upon the persons: for the Jews who had openly rejected the Lord, baptism is always a pre-requisite; they must openly own Him whom they had disowned. The varying order, but above all, the entire setting aside of ordinances in the case of the Gentiles (which is our own case, for the most part now,) at once destroys the ritualistic teaching as to baptism.

According to this, Cornelius must have received the Spirit while in an unregenerate condition! for he had not yet received the “sacrament of regeneration.” Thus do the simple facts of history of themselves refute the whole system of error. Scripture is in all its parts prophetic; and the wisdom of God has given ample warning against the inroads of evil, for those who have hearts open to receive instruction. We shall see this more and more, as we go on with the inspired writer. “With many other words,” he adds, “did (Peter) testify, and exhort them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation.” 5. God is at work, and the harvest is large and immediate: three thousand souls in one day! Nor was this temporary emotion; but the effects were permanent as they were deep. “They persevered in the apostles, teaching and fellowship, -in the breaking of bread and prayers.” In this enumeration, that to which they owed all -the teaching -comes necessarily first, as the root of all the rest. Here was what gave them their fellowship; it was in the truth: participation in that drew them together. They had nothing of the poet’s liberalism, -“for forms of faith let graceless zealots fight;” -grace had come to them in inseparable companionship with truth, which they found not in the world, but which had exposed the world and set them apart from it to Him whom the world had crucified and by whose cross they were crucified to it. Of the Church they knew little yet; but they had found Christ; and the force of that irresistible attraction which drew them as to a common centre, drew them to one another. The Church began as the spiritual creation of that Spirit which had come to bear witness of Christ; and it knew Him before as yet it had learned to know itself. These things find illustration in that which follows next, -“the breaking of bread,” -which from its first application to a common meal, we see here set apart to its sacred use in reference to that which the Lord had instituted for a remembrance of Himself. It is strange that any should dispute this application in the place before us, where certainly we are not meant to understand that the disciples “persevered” in partaking of food, nor in coming together tor this, (which they never did,) nor in the “love-feasts,” of which we read in Jude, but which were not an institution of Christ at all, and probably a later practice. The preliminary meal, of which the disciples had partaken with their Lord before the Last Supper, was the passover, which could not be thought of in this connection. And if as is very probable, it was at the end of a common meal that they remembered the Lord’s death, there could be no reason for so unlikely a thing, and so repulsive to the warm Christian hearts of those who are here spoken of, as naming the meal with which the Supper was associated, while forgetting that which alone made it worthy of mention. The breaking of bread, in the mention thus made of it, shows the Lord as the Centre of His people, the Object before them, the Sustenance of their true life, the Effecter of their communion with one another: this realized in that precious Death, passed for ever, yet ever abiding in that which it has wrought and that which it has displayed. Lastly, prayer manifests the sense of constant need which the nearer we are to God is always the more realized. The effect upon the outside multitude was that of fear; signs and wonders being continually wrought by the apostles as the special witnesses to the Risen Saviour. The people in the mass seemed with them, as in His early life with the Lord Himself. They were, in fact, at present in that border land, so hopeful, yet so unsafe, which will presently empty itself either into the fixed abodes of conviction and faith, or with more likelihood, into the seats of alienation and rejection. Among those who believed was manifested a unity of heart and interest, in which the natural selfishness of the fallen condition was swallowed up in the fulness of a love which the sense of divine love had begotten. They were together in such sort that all they had was held in common; not by any law or outward constraint, which would have spoiled it all, but in the consciousness of what they were all to Christ, and what Christ was to each and all of them. Enriched by Him with a blessing which nothing could diminish, but the more they ministered it, the more they had it, “they sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, as any one had need.” So by more than miracles was the power of the Spirit displayed among them. As for the rest, they were in their own consciousness but a remnant of Israel who had received Messiah. And though by the indwelling of the Spirit the House of God after a new manner had begun upon earth, yet their daily resort was still to the temple; and this was in the love that still waited upon His ancient people, permitted and used of God for testimony to the nation. But the temple after all was not where they could enjoy what was peculiar to themselves.

The bread in which they remembered what had made all new to them was broken at home. In spite of the ambiguity of the expression, and the reference to the ordinary meal which follows it here, this is the most natural application of the breaking of bread in this place also.

There seems scarcely need to tell us that they ate their meals at home! and to refer it, as has been done, to their having no longer part in the peace-offering or other sacrifices, has everything against it, at so early a date as this. Long afterwards we hear that the many thousands of the Jews who believed were all zealous of the law; and Paul even is persuaded to enter purified into the temple with men who were distinctly to have an offering offered for every one of them (Acts 21:20; Acts 21:26). It is vain, therefore, to seek to transfer these new-made Christians to a later time than that to which we have, in fact, arrived. God bore long with the continuance of that which had been His own institution, and it would be many years before the epistle to the Hebrews would be written. The statement here seems certainly to have its only proper application to the Lord’s Supper, while it would be not unsuited in such connection to speak of how even the common meals were taken with the gladness which the Christian feast had communicated to them. Thus the happy days went on; and day by day the Lord added together those that were being saved. Israel would not yet turn to the light vouchsafed her; but a remnant were being marked off, in which would be found the nucleus of a new testimony: to the principalities and powers in heavenly places was to be made known in the Church the manifold wisdom of God.