John William McGarvey · 5 of 38

Acts II · Part 1

II: 1. Thus far our author has been engaged in preliminary statements, which were necessary to the proper introduction of his main theme. He has furnished us a list of the eleven apostles, and the appointment of the twelfth; rehearsed briefly their qualifications as witnesses of the resurrection; informed us that they were in Jerusalem, dwelling in an upper room, but spending the most of their time in the temple, and waiting for the promised power to inaugurate on earth the kingdom of Christ. He now proceeds to give an account of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and enters upon the main theme of the narrative, (1) “When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”

The day of Pentecost was the fiftieth day after the Passover. It was celebrated, according to the law of Moses, by offering the first fruits of the wheat harvest, in the form of two loaves made of fine flour. On account of the seven weeks intervening between it and the Passover, it is styled, in the Old Testament, “the feast of weeks.” But the fact that it occurred on the fiftieth day, gave it, in later ages, under the prevalence of the Greek language, the name of Pentecost, which is a Greek adjective meaning fiftieth.

This is one of the three annual festivals at which the law required every male Jew of the whole nation to be present. The condemnation and death of Jesus had occurred during one of these feasts, and now, the next universal gathering of the devout Jews is most wisely chosen as the occasion for the vindication of his character and the beginning of his kingdom. It is the day on which the law was given on Mount Sinai, and henceforth it is to commemorate the giving of a better law, founded on better promises. It is remarkable that the day of giving the law was celebrated throughout the Jewish ages, without one word in the Old Testament to indicate that it was designed to commemorate that event. In like manner, the day of the week on which the Holy Spirit descended has been celebrated from that time till this, though no formal reason is given in the New Testament for its observance. The absence of inspired explanations, however, has not left the world in doubt upon the latter subject; for the two grand events which occurred on that day—the resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit, are of such transcendent importance, that all minds at once agree in attributing to them, and especially to the former, the celebration of the day.

That we are right in assuming that this Pentecost occurred on the first day of the week, there is no room for doubt, though Dr. Hackett advocates a different hypothesis. After stating that the Lord was crucified on Friday, he says, “The fiftieth day, or Pentecost (beginning, of course, with the evening of Friday, the second day of the Passover) would occur on the Jewish Sabbath.” He seems to have forgotten, for the moment, that Friday was “preparation day,” and that Saturday was, therefore, the first day of unleavened bread. According to the law, the count began on “the morrow after” this day, which was Sunday. Counting seven full weeks and one day from that time, would throw the fiftieth day, or Pentecost on Sunday, beginning at six o'clock Saturday evening, and closing at the same hour Sunday evening. As certainly as Jesus arose on Sunday, he died on Friday; and as certainly as this Friday was the preparation day of the Passover, so certainly did the Pentecost occur on Sunday.

Why Luke uses the expression, “When the day of Pentecost was fully come,” is best explained in this way. The day began with sunset, and the first part of it was night, which was unsuited for the purpose of these events. The day was not fully come until daylight.

It is important to determine who are the parties declared by Luke to be “all with one accord in one place;” for upon this depends the question whether the whole hundred and twenty disciples, or only the twelve apostles, were filled with the Holy Spirit. The words are almost uniformly referred, by commentators, to the hundred and twenty. Any who will read the first four verses of this chapter, noticing the connection of the pronoun “they,” which occurs in each of them, will see, at a glance, that it has, throughout, the same antecedent, and, therefore, all the parties said in the first verse to be together in one place, are said in the fourth to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and to speak in other tongues. The question, then, Who were filled with the Holy Spirit? depends upon the reference of the pronoun in the statement, “They were all together in one place.” Those who suppose that the whole hundred and twenty are referred to, have to go back to the fifteenth verse of the preceding chapter to find the antecedent. But, if we obliterate the unfortunate separation between the first and second chapters, and take the last verse of the former into its connection with the latter, we will find the true and obvious antecedent much nearer at hand. It would read thus: “The lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered together with the eleven apostles. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” It is indisputable that the antecedent to they is the term apostles; and it is merely the division of the text into chapters, severing the close grammatical connection of the words, which has hid this most obvious fact from commentators and readers. The apostles alone, therefore, are said to have been filled with the Holy Spirit. This conclusion is not only evident from the context, but it is required by the very terms of the promise concerning the Holy Spirit. It was to the apostles alone, on the night of the betrayal, that Jesus had promised the miraculous aid of the Spirit, and to them alone he had said, on the day of ascension, “You shall be immersed in the Holy Spirit.” It involves both a perversion of the text, and a misconception of the design of the event, to suppose that the immersion in the Holy Spirit was shared by the whole hundred and twenty.

2. It was the apostles, then, and they alone, who were assembled together: (2) “And suddenly there came a sound out of heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” What house this was has been variously conjectured; but the supposition of Olshausen, that it was one of the thirty spacious rooms around the temple court, described by Josephus and called oikoi, houses, is most agreeable to all the facts. Wherever it was, the crowd described below gathered about them, and this required more space than any private house would afford, especially the upper room where the apostles had been lodging.

3, 4. Simultaneous with the sound, (3) “There appeared to them tongues, distributed, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them. (4) And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” This is the immersion in the Holy Spirit which had been promised by Jesus, and for which the apostles had been waiting since his ascension. It is highly important that we should understand in which it consisted, and the necessity for its occurrence.

There is not, in the New Testament, a definition of the immersion in the Holy Spirit, but we have here what is possibly better, a living instance of its occurrence. The historian gives us a distinct view of men in the act of being immersed in the Spirit, so that, in order to understand it, we have to look on, and tell what we see and hear. We see, then, flaming tongues, like flames of fire, distributed so that one rests upon each of the twelve apostles. In the clause, “it sat upon each of them,” the singular pronoun it is used after the plural tongues, to indicate that not all, but only one of the tongues sat upon each apostle, the term distributed having already suggested the contemplation of them singly. We see this, and we hear all twelve at once speaking in languages to them unknown. We see a divine power present with these men, for to no other power can we attribute these tongues. We hear the unmistakable effects of a divine power acting upon their minds; for no other power could give them an instantaneous knowledge of language which they had never studied. The immersion, therefore, consists in their being so filled with the Holy Spirit as to be attended by a miraculous physical power, and to exercise a miraculous intellectual power. If there is any other endowment conferred upon them, the historian is silent in reference to it, and we have no right to assume it. Their ability to speak in other languages is not an effect upon their tongues directly, but merely a result of the knowledge imparted to them. Neither are we to regard the nature of the sentiments uttered by them as proof of any miraculous moral endowment; for pious sentiments are the only kind which the Spirit of God would dictate, and they are such as these men, who had been for some time “continually in the temple, praising and blessing God,” and “continuing with one consent in prayer and supplication,” would be expected to utter, if they spoke in public at all.

We have already said something of the necessity of this event; but, at the risk of some repetition, we must here advert to the subject again. What the apostles needed, at this point in their history, was not moral courage, or devoutness of spirit; for they had already recovered from the alarm produced by the crucifixion, and were now boldly entering the temple together every day, and spending their whole time in devout worship. Their defects were such as no degree of courage or of piety could supply. It was power that they wanted—power to remember all that Jesus had taught them; to understand the full meaning of all his words; of his death; of his resurrection; to pierce the heavens, and declare with certainty things which had transpired there; and to know the whole truth concerning the will of God and the duty of men. There is only one source from which this power could be derived, and this the Savior had promised them, when he said, “You shall receive power (dunamin,) when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” This power they now received, and upon the exercise of it depends the entire authority of apostolic teaching.

But power to establish the kingdom and to proselyte the world involved not merely the possession of the miraculous mental power above named, but the ability to prove that they did not possess it. This could best be done by an indisputable exercise of it. To exercise it, however, by merely beginning to speak the truth infallibly, would not answer the purpose, for men would inquire, How can you assure us that this which you speak is the truth? To answer this question satisfactorily, they gave such an exhibition of the superhuman knowledge which they possessed as could be tested by their hearers. They might have done this by penetrating the minds of the auditors, and declaring to them their secret thoughts or past history; but this would have addressed itself to only one individual at a time. Or they might, like the prophets of old, have foretold some future event, the occurrence of which would prove their inspiration; but this would have required some considerable lapse of time, and would not, therefore, have answered the purpose of immediate conviction. There is, indeed, but one method conceivable, by which they could exhibit this power to the immediate conviction of a multitude, and that is the method adopted on this occasion, speaking in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. If any man doubts this, let him imagine and state, if he can, some other method. True, they might have wrought miracles of healing, but this would have been no exhibition of miraculous mental endowments. If wrought in confirmation of the claim that they were inspired, it would have proved it; still, the proof would have been indirect, requiring the minds of the audience to pass through a course of reasoning before reaching the conclusion. The proof, in this case, is direct, being an exhibition of the power which they claimed. By the only method, then, of which we can conceive, the apostles, as soon as they became possessed of the promised power, exhibited to the multitude an indisputable exercise of it.

It should be observed, that this exhibition could be available to its purpose only when individuals were present who understood the languages spoken. Otherwise, they would have no means of testing the reality of the miracle. Hence, to serve the purpose of proof where this circumstance did not exist, the apostles were supplied with the power of working physical miracles; and inasmuch as this circumstance did not often exist in the course of their ministry, they had resort almost uniformly to the indirect method of proof by a display of miraculous physical power.

5. The circumstances of the present occasion were happily suited to this wonderful display of divine power, the like of which had never been witnessed, even in the astonishing miracles of Moses and of Jesus. (5) “Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.” The native tongues of these Jews were those of the nations in which they were born, but they had also been instructed by their parents in the dialect of Judea. This enabled them to understand the tongues which were spoken by the apostles, and to test the reality of the miracle.

6–12. “And when this sword occurred, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because each one heard them speaking in his own dialect.” The historian here seems to exhaust his vocabulary of terms to express the confusion of the multitude upon witnessing the scene. Not content with saying they were confounded, he adds, (7) “And all were amazed and marveled, saying to one another, Behold, are not all these are speaking Galileans? (8) And how do we hear, each one in our own dialect in which we were born? (9) Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites; and those inhabiting Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, (10) Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene; and Roman strangers, both Jews and proselytes, (11) Cretes and Arabians; we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.“ Not yet satisfied with his attempts to express their feelings, Luke adds, (12) “And they were all amazed, and perplexed, saying one to another, What does this mean?“

13. We have in this last sentence an instance of the peculiar use of the term all in the New Testament, to signify a great mass; for after saying that “all were amazed,” etc. Luke immediately adds, (13) “But others, mocking, said, These men are full of sweet wine.” The wine was not new, as rendered in the common version; for new wine was not intoxicating; but it was old, and very intoxicating, though by a peculiar process it had been kept sweet.

In order that we may discriminate accurately concerning the effects of this phenomenon, we must observe that the only effects thus far produced upon the multitude, are perplexity and amazement among the greater part, and merriment among the few. It was impossible that any of them, without an explanation, could understand the phenomenon; and without being understood, it could have no moral or religious effect upon them. It was, indeed, quite natural, that some of the audience, to whom most of the languages spoken at first sounded like mere gibberish, and who were of too trivial a disposition to inquire further into the matter, should exclaim that the apostles were drunk. This being true of the phenomenon while unexplained, it is evident that all the moral power which it is to exert upon the multitude must reach their minds and hearts through the words in which the explanation is given. To this explanation our attention is now directed.

14, 15. “Then Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said to them, Men of Judea, and all you who dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you, and hearken to my words: (15) for these men are not drunk as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.” After all that has been said of this defense against the charge of drunkenness, it must be admitted that it is not conclusive; for men might be drunk, as they often were and are, at any hour of either day or night. Still, the fact that men are not often found drunk so early in the day, rendered the defense sufficiently plausible to ward off the present effect of a charge which had been preferred in mere levity, while Peter relies upon the speech he is about to make for a perfect refutation of the charge, and for an impression upon the multitude, of which they little dreamed. He proceeds to speak in such a way as only a sober man could speak, and this is the best way to refute a charge of drunkenness.

16–18. Peter continues: (16) “But this is that which was spoken through the prophet Joel; (17) And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: (18) And on my men-servants and on my maid-servants, in those days, I will pour out from my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.”

From this passage it is evident that the immediate effects of the outpouring of the Spirit, so far as the recipients are concerning, are mental, and not moral effects. The prophesy contemplates, not a miraculous elevation of the moral nature, but an inspiration of the mind, by which prophesy, and prophetic dreams and visions would be experienced. If the entrance of the Holy Spirit into men, to operate by an abstract exertion of divine power, which is certainly the nature of the operation here contemplated, was designed to take effect immediately upon the heart, it is certainly most unaccountable, that neither by the prophet foretelling the event, not by Luke describing it, is one word said in reference to such an effect. On the contrary, the only effects foretold by the prophet are dreams, visions, and prophesy, and the only one described by the historian is that species of prophesy which consists in speaking in unknown tongues. We desire to note such observations as this, wherever the text suggests them, in order to correct prevailing errors upon this subject. It will be found the uniform testimony of recorded facts, that the power of the Holy Spirit took immediate effect upon the intellectual faculties, leaving the moral nature of inspired men to the effect of the ideas revealed, in precisely the same manner that the hearts of their hearers were affected by the same ideas when uttered by inspired lips.

It is quite common with pedobaptist writers and speakers to make use of the expression, “I will pour out my Spirit,” to prove that pouring may be the action of baptism. The substance of the argument, as stated by Dr. Alexander, as follows: “The extraordinary influences of the Holy Spirit are repeatedly described, both in the language and the types of the Old Testament, as poured on the recipient. . . . This effusion is the very thing for which they (the apostles) are here told to wait; and therefore, when they heard it called a baptism, whatever may have been the primary usage of the word, they must have seen its Christian sense to be compatible with such an application.” That the apostles must have expected something to occur, in their reception of the Holy Spirit, to which the term baptism would properly apply, is undoubtedly true, for Jesus had promised that they should be baptized in the Holy Spirit. But, in the event itself, there are two facts clearly distinguishable, and capable of separate consideration: 1st. The coming of the Holy Spirit upon them, called an outpouring. 2d. The effect which followed this coming. It is important to inquire to which of these the term baptism is applied. Dr. Alexander, and those who argue with him, assume that it is applied to the former. He says, “This effusion is the very thing,” which they had “heard called a baptism.” If this assumption is true, then the conclusion follows, that baptism consisted in that movement of the Spirit expressed by the word pour: otherwise there would be no ground for the assumption that the word pour is used as an equivalent for the word baptize. If the act of pouring, then, was the baptism, most undoubtedly the thing poured, was the thing baptized; but it was the Holy Spirit that was poured, and not the apostles; hence, the Holy Spirit, and not the apostles, was baptized.

The absurdity of this conclusion drives us back to search for the baptism in the effect of the outpouring, rather than in the outpouring itself. This, indeed, the language of the Savior unquestionably requires; for he says, “You shall be baptized.” These words express an effect of which they were to be the subjects. This effect can not be expressed by the term pour, for the apostles were not and could not be poured. The effect was to depend upon the coming or pouring; for Jesus explains the promise, “You shall be baptized in the Spirit,” by saying, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” This is still further proof that it is an effect which the outpouring of the Spirit produced, that is called a baptism. But if it be said, that, at any rate, we have here a baptism effected by pouring, we reply that this very fact proves the baptism and the pouring to be two different things; and that an immersion may be effected by pouring.

We further remark, that there was no literal pouring in the case; for the Holy Spirit is not a liquid, that it might be literally poured. The term pour, here, is used metaphorically. In our vague conception of the nature of Spirit, there is such an analogy between it and a subtle fluid, that the action, which, in the plain style of the Savior, is called a coming of the Spirit, may, in the highly figurative style of the prophet Joel, be properly styled an outpouring of the Spirit. The analogy, therefore, which justifies the use of the word pour, is not that between baptism and the act of pouring, but that between a subtle fluid and our inadequate conceptions of spirit.

We now proceed to consider the propriety of styling the effect in question an immersion. When Jesus said, “John baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit,” his words suggested an analogy between John's baptism and that of the Spirit. But they could not have so far mistaken this analogy as to suppose that their bodies were to be subjects of the Spirit baptism, for this is forbidden by the very nature of the case. But they would naturally expect that their spirits would be the subjects of the baptism in the Spirit, as their bodies had been of the baptism in water. The event corresponded to this expectation; for they were “filled with the Holy Spirit;” he pervaded and possessed all their mental powers, so that, as Jesus had promised, it was not they that spoke, but the Spirit of their Father that spoke in them. Their spirits were as literally and completely immersed in the Holy Spirit, as their bodies had been in the waters of Jordan.

19–21. So much of Peter's quotation from Joel as we have now considered was in process of fulfillment at the time he was speaking, and is of quite easy interpretation; but not so with the remaining portion: (19) “And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky vapor. (20) The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and illustrious day of the Lord come. (21) And it shall come to pass that every one who will call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

It is quite evident that there was nothing transpiring at the time of Peter's speech to which the multitude could look as the fulfillment of these words; hence the remark with which he introduces the quotation, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,” is to be understood only of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The remainder of the prediction must have still looked to the future for its fulfillment. How far in the future is not indicated, expect that the events mentioned were to take place, “before that great and illustrious day of the Lord.” This day of the Lord is certainly spoken of as a day of terror and danger; and no doubt the salvation contemplated in the words, “every one who will call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” is salvation from the dangers of “that great and illustrious day.” The interpretation of the whole passage, therefore, depends upon determining what is meant by that day. Is it the day of destruction of Jerusalem, or of the final judgment? The best way to settle this question is to examine the use of the phrase, “day of the Lord,” in both Old Testament and New.

In the first eleven verses of the second chapter of Joel, the phrase “day of the Lord” occurs three times, and designates a time when the land should be desolated by locusts, insects, and drought. But with the passage now under consideration, in the latter part of the same chapter, the prophet begins a new theme, and therefore speaks of some other great and terrible day. Throughout the prophesies of Joel, and of all the Old Testament prophets, this phrase is used invariably to designate a day of disaster. Isaiah calls the time in which Babylon was to be destroyed, “the day of the Lord,” and says of it, “The stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof, shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” Ezekiel, in like manner, foretelling the desolation of Egypt, says, “The day of the Lord is near; a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.” Obadiah uses the same phrase in reference to the destruction of Edom; Amos, in reference to the captivity of Israel; and Zechariah, in reference to the final siege of Jerusalem. And induction of these passages establishes the conclusion that “the day of the Lord,” with the prophets, is always a day of calamity, the precise nature of which is to be determined in each case by the context. In some cases the context is so obscure as not to determine the reference with certainty. The text before us possesses some of this obscurity, yet with the aid of the above remarks, and the use made of the passage by Peter, we may determine the reference with no small degree of certainty.

It is evident from Peter's application of the first part of the quotation to the the advent of the Spirit, that the latter part, which is contemplated as still future, was to be fulfilled after the scene then transpiring. Now, if the dangers of the day, as indicated by the words employed, were such as concerned the Jews alone, there would be good ground to suppose that reference was had to the destruction of Jerusalem. But the parties contemplated in the prophesy are “all flesh;” therefore, all classes of men are embraced in the prophetic view, and the “day of the Lord” must, according to Old Testament usage, be a day of terror in which all are interested. But in the destruction of Jerusalem the Jews alone had any thing to dread; hence this can not be the reference. It must, then, be the day of judgment; for this is the only day of pre-eminent terror yet awaiting all mankind.

This conclusion is confirmed by the invariable usage of New Testament writers. The apostolic writings afford little ground indeed for the prominence that has been given to commentators to the destruction of Jerusalem, in their interpretations of prophesy. There was another and far different day, in their future, to which they gave the appellation, “the day of the Lord.” Paul says, “Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.“ “We are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.“ “Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.” “But the day of the Lord will comes as a thief in the night.” These are all the occurrences of this expression in the New Testament, and they show conclusively that “the day of the Lord,” with the apostles, was the day of judgment.