Acts 2:12

Before he ascended, Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for “the promise of the Father”, which he called being baptized with the Holy Ghost (Acts 1:4–5). He promised that they would receive power when the Holy Ghost came upon them, and that they would be his witnesses “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Luke’s Gospel ends with the same promise of power from on high (Luke 24:49). Luke has just told of the ascension and the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas (Acts 1:9–26), and Acts 2:1 is the answer to all that waiting.

The word Pentecost, pentēkostḗ, means “fiftieth”. The feast, called Shavuot in Hebrew, fell on the fiftieth day after Passover. It began as a harvest feast, when the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were offered to the LORD (Leviticus 23:15–17), and it was one of the three feasts in the year at which every man of Israel was to appear before the LORD in Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 16:16). By the first century it was also kept in remembrance of the Law given at Mount Sinai, about fifty days after Israel came out of Egypt. So on the day that recalled the giving of the Law, God gives his Spirit to his people, and the new covenant promise of his law written in their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33) begins to be fulfilled. The feast also filled Jerusalem with worshippers from many lands, and so the Spirit came with a crowd from the whole known world close at hand.

“Was fully come” translates symplēróō, which means to fill completely, and in the passive, as here, to be complete. The day had fully arrived. It was the time God had appointed, and the promises of the Father, of the prophets and of Jesus all meet in it.

The believers were “all with one accord in one place”. Homothymadón, a word Luke uses often in Acts, means with one mind, by common consent. They were agreed in what they were doing, which was waiting and praying as the Lord had told them, and they were together. Luke leaves the place unnamed here. Some place it in the upper room where they had been meeting, and others in a court of the temple, and the next verse calls it a house. Paul later writes of the unity the Spirit gives, “one body, and one Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3–6).

The Spirit comes “suddenly”, in God’s time and by his doing. The first sign is something heard. The word for “sound”, ēchos, is a loud noise or roar, and elsewhere it can mean a report or rumour that spreads. This sound came “from heaven”, from God himself, and it was “as of a rushing mighty wind”. The verb behind “rushing” is phérō, a very common word meaning to bear or carry, used here of a wind driven along with force. The sound “filled all the house where they were sitting”, and the verb there, plēróō, means to make full. The whole house was full of it, and every person in it heard.

The second sign is seen. “There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.” “Cloven” translates diamerízō, to part or divide. It is used of parting garments by lot and of parting goods among people, and that sense of distributing is its usual one. So the tongues were parted out among the believers, and one rested on each of them.

“Tongues” is glōssa, the tongue of the mouth and, by extension, a language. Here it describes the shape of what they saw, and in the next verse the same word names the languages they speak, so the sign points ahead to what the Spirit is about to do. The word for fire, pŷr, means fire, the flames of something burning. These tongues were “like as of fire”, having the look of fire. Fire often marks God’s presence in Scripture: the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in the bush (Exodus 3:2), he came down on Mount Sinai in fire (Exodus 19:18), and he led Israel by night in a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21). Fire in Scripture also speaks of cleansing and of zeal, and both belong to the Spirit’s work in his people.

“It sat upon each of them.” Every believer in the room received the sign. In the Old Testament the Spirit came upon particular people for particular tasks, prophets, kings and craftsmen among them. Now he comes upon every one of Christ’s people, as Jesus had promised: the Comforter would abide with them for ever, and would be in them (John 14:16–17). Paul says that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13).

“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” All of them, the whole company, were filled. The verb is passive, and the filling was God’s act. This “filled” is plḗthō, a different word from the plēróō of the house in verse 2, so the two verses share the English word only. Luke often uses plḗthō when the Spirit fills someone for a task, especially for speaking, as when Peter, “filled with the Holy Ghost”, answers the rulers of the people (Acts 4:8).

They “began to speak with other tongues”. Glōssa here means languages, and “other” (héteros) shows that they were languages other than the believers’ own Aramaic or Greek. Verses 6 to 11 make plain that these were languages the people in the crowd knew as their own.

They spoke “as the Spirit gave them utterance”. The verb, apophthéngomai, means to speak out or declare plainly, and it is used of speech that God gives. The Spirit gave them both the power to speak and what they said, and what they said was clear, as the crowd’s own words show.

This is the outpouring the prophets foretold. Joel had promised that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, on sons and daughters, servants and handmaids (Joel 2:28–29), and Peter quotes that prophecy to explain this very day (Acts 2:16–21). Isaiah had spoken of the LORD pouring water upon him that is thirsty (Isaiah 44:3).

“There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.” The verb for “dwelling”, katoikéō, means to live in a place in a settled way. Many in the crowd were pilgrims come for the feast, and this word shows that others had made their homes in Jerusalem, having come from abroad to live there. They were “devout”, eulabḗs, a word built from taking hold well, and so careful, reverent and God-fearing. These were people who took God seriously. “Nation” is éthnos, a nation or people, the word that elsewhere often means the Gentiles. Here it names the many lands from which these Jews had come.

“Every nation under heaven” is a sweeping phrase for the whole world as they knew it, and verses 9 to 11 fill it in. The Jews had been scattered for centuries, especially since the exile to Babylon, and their communities lived across the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire to its east. At the feast they came home to Jerusalem, and so God gathered the nations to hear on the very day the Spirit came.

This is the gospel’s reach from its first hour. God told Abraham, “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). To his Servant he said, “I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). Isaiah saw all nations flowing to the house of the LORD (Isaiah 2:2–4) and heard God say he would gather all nations and tongues (Isaiah 66:18). Jesus sent his disciples to “teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19–20) and to preach the gospel in all the world (Mark 16:15).

“When this was noised abroad” is in the Greek “when this sound came about”. The noun is phōnḗ, a sound or voice, and the verb is gínomai, to come into being or happen. The sound was most likely the one from heaven in verse 2, and the news of it spread through the city. “The multitude came together, and were confounded.” Synchéō means to pour together or mix up, and so to throw into confusion. The crowd was bewildered, “because that every man heard them speak in his own language”. The word for language is diálektos, from which we get “dialect”, the speech of a particular people or region.

“They were all amazed and marvelled.” Two strong verbs describe them. Exístēmi means literally to stand out of, and so to be beside oneself with astonishment. Thaumázō means to wonder or marvel, and comes from the noun thaûma, a wonder. “Behold,” they said to one another, “are not all these which speak Galilaeans?” A Galilaîos is a native of Galilee, the northern region where Jesus did most of his work and where most of his disciples came from. The people of Jerusalem and Judaea looked down on Galileans as country people, less educated, with an accent of their own. That made it all the more astonishing that these men spoke fluently in the languages of distant nations, and it pointed straight to God.

“And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” The verb akoúō means to hear, and also to understand what is heard. “Every man” is hékastos, each one. “Our own tongue” joins hēmōn, “our”, and ídios, “one’s own”, to diálektos again. “Wherein we were born” uses gennáō, to be born. These pilgrims heard the language of their birth, the speech of their homes, from men who had never learned it. In verse 11 they say it again: “we do hear them speak in our tongues”, using akoúō and glōssa.

What the crowd heard was “the wonderful works of God”. The word is megaleîos, magnificent or great, and in the plural, as here, it means mighty deeds, God’s great acts. These are his works through all of history, in creation, in his covenant with Israel and in delivering his people, and above all what he has just done in Jesus Christ, his life, death, resurrection and ascension, and now the pouring out of his Spirit. Peter’s sermon goes on to tell those very works (Acts 2:22–36). The first thing ever said in all these languages by the Spirit-filled church was praise of God for what he has done.

“They were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?” Exístēmi appears again, and with it diaporéō, to be thoroughly at a loss, perplexed, with no explanation in reach. Their question uses the verb thélō, which means to will or wish, and in this question it carries the sense “to mean”: what does this mean? It is the right question, and God gives the answer at once through Peter, whose sermon and its fruit fill the rest of the chapter (Acts 2:14–41). He explains the day from Joel’s prophecy and from the exaltation of Jesus. By the end, the same crowd is pricked in the heart and asks a better question, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37), and about three thousand believe and are baptized (Acts 2:41).

Everything in these verses comes from the risen Lord Jesus. He had told his disciples that it was for their good that he should go away, because then he would send the Comforter (John 16:7). He promised that he would not leave them comfortless (John 14:18), that the Spirit would teach them all things (John 14:26), that the Spirit of truth would testify of him (John 15:26), and that the Spirit would convince the world of sin, guide his people into all truth and glorify him (John 16:8–14). Peter tells the crowd plainly whose work this is: Jesus, exalted at the right hand of God, “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

So the wind, the fire and the tongues are the sign that Christ reigns and is still with his people, as he promised to be always, to the end of the world. Through the Spirit his scattered followers become one body, and together they are built into a holy temple, “an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21–22). Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and in heaven they sing that he has “redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9–10). Pentecost is the first day of that gathering.

At Pentecost God kept his word on the day he had chosen. The promise of the Father, spoken by the prophets and repeated by Jesus, came true to the hour, and that is who God is: he keeps his promises.

The Spirit came upon every believer in the room, and the fire rested on each one. Every one of Christ’s people has the same Spirit dwelling in them, for life and for witness. The first thing the Spirit did was to open their mouths to tell the wonderful works of God, in the languages of people who had come from the ends of the earth. From that day the gospel has belonged to every nation and every tongue, and the church’s mission is the one Jesus gave at the beginning of Acts (Acts 1:8).

The crowd shows two ways to meet God’s work. Some asked, “What meaneth this?”, and God answered them through his word. Others mocked, and the Spirit’s work went on all the same. We have the answer Peter gave that morning, and the same Spirit who gave the disciples their words still makes the wonderful works of God known.