What an event Pentecost must have been! Imagine having the whole church disturbed by Christ’s death and resurrection, then moved to the events we read of in Acts 2. It would surely have been something special to be a part of!

But what actually did happen? And why isn’t it happening now? Or is it?

Ah, we have that question thrown at us time and time again! For there are many churches – churches that use the name Pentecost in their title – who are convinced that what happened that day is, or should be, still happening. And we all know Christians of that persuasion, don’t we?

I remember arriving at the bus stop in Geelong, where I was about to start my theological studies. A local man kindly gave me a lift. A very talkative chap, he shared his testimony how he had come from being a member of the Salvation Army to an ardent Pentecostal. He was a strong proponent of all the revelatory gifts being found and used in the modern church. When he found out that I was going to study at the Reformed Theological College, his own beliefs were revealed when he exclaimed, ‘You shouldn’t be reformed – you should be revived!’

Notice what they do? They stir us up: get us thinking that we’re missing out on some­thing. Something that some of them boldly say has been missing from the Church for nearly two thousand years!

Well, let’s not leave it up in the air. Let’s not be left thinking that we are somehow lacking. Rather, let’s turn to God’s Word itself.

And which text could better open up this whole issue than Acts 2:4? And in looking at this verse, we note three things that compre­hensively answer the Pentecostal view. Three things that also clearly show the Lord is at work – and that’s what matters, isn’t it?

As we look at the three aspects, we’ll use the recurring picture of a heart. And I choose a heart, in the first place, because of what it is: the very centre of your being. Around it everything revolves and depends. So the heart is what really matters. And on Pentecost Day, the early New Testament Church received their heart! This is what we read about that day: ‘All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 2:4).

The Lord’s Work is for the Whole Church⤒🔗

The key word here is ‘all.’ All, everybody! What Luke describes here is something so big that everyone in the Church receives it. No distinctions! No different levels! Indeed, if there had been differences, Luke would have told us. He has no hesitation doing it elsewhere!

So why not here? If the Pentecostal belief that only some Christians receive the Spirit is true and so only some are able to do these amazing things, then why the whole church here?

And why the double emphasis? The repeti­tion of ‘all’ as in verse 1, which tells us that they were all together. That’s an important consideration. For what the Lord gave on Pentecost Day was to be granted to the whole Church! The text doesn’t speak about an individual’s walk with his or her Saviour and Lord. There’s no mention here about a two-stage Christianity, with only the holier ones being zapped with the Spirit. This is something much bigger. Here is the divine plan at work for us all!

A bit of background helps us here. What day did this happen? Was it when enough people had prayed hard enough? Was it then because some of them had been to ‘tongue-speaking training classes’? It was none of these reasons, actually. This happened dur­ing the Jewish ‘Feast of the Weeks’, exactly fifty days after the Resurrection, and ten days after the Ascension.

That’s not an incidental timing. Those two events – the Resurrection and the Ascen­sion – were both vitally important for the whole Church. Then – and ever since! No one argues with that, because without the Resurrection and the Ascension our faith has no basis.

Then the gift of the Holy Spirit is certainly not a matter of what level we stand within in the church: it’s not whether we’re carnal Christians or second-blessing believers! For without these two aspects of our Lord’s ex­altation, we have no Church! Pentecost is no different. It cannot be seen apart from God’s work in Jesus, for every part of His Church.

Take, for example, John 16:12-14. Here the substance of who our Lord is becomes tied in with the heart of His people.

I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He won’t speak on his own; he’ll only speak what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.

Our Lord is going. But He won’t leave us! I mean, how could He? What then would be the use of all His humiliation and exalta­tion?

How can a seed bear fruit unless it is planted? Or can a body with no heart ever survive, unless it has a transplant? We were dead! Let’s understand that fact very clearly. Before the face of Almighty God we deserved only physical and spiritual death. Yet Jesus died instead, so that we can live! And what a life He gives!

For this is no mere man, with man’s limitations. The same Word which brought creation into being can certainly also make our hearts spiritually alive!

And by no small measure, either. In fact, the outpouring of the Sprit on the Church provides us with something far greater even than the bodily presence of Jesus Christ while He lived as one of us!

Some have found it a pity that Jesus was murdered while still quite young. They feel that since He still had so much potential, it was a devastating tragedy when He died. Such thinking is a terrible trap! He had fulfilled His Father’s will perfectly. So what happened to Him was exactly what was planned! The heart of God – the Holy Spirit – was placed within. In the words of one commentator, ‘the work of Christ in its en­tirety may be said to consist in securing and communicating to the church at Pentecost the gift of the Holy Spirit.’

This can be compared with baptism, which symbolises we are washed clean in God’s sight. As water baptism shows how we are in our souls with the Lord, so too the New Testament Church received its special sign to show what was happening within.

The Lord Symbolises His Work through Speaking in Tongues←⤒🔗

We come to our second point. Speaking in tongues is the sign which shows us that this is indeed a work of the Lord. As we are baptised just once, so also this new and last age of the Church was begun with a unique sign to display what is spiritually true!

Let’s pick up that picture of the heart. For we move now to see how the Body, with its heart beating ever so strongly within, affirms its truth. Think about it. How do you know if someone’s heart is alive? How can you judge if there really is anything beating away under­neath? Why – you can see it on the outside! The skin looks healthy, the eyes are clear. Yet, above all, that person is alive!

You see living people all the time. They’re moving about. They’re talking with others. They’re writing with their hands. They’re doing lots of other things! At Pentecost the Lord breathed His life into the Church. This was the point at which He fulfilled what had been spoken about Christ’s coming. Jeremiah 31 verse 33 says,

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my law in their minds and write it in their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

And Joel showed the uniqueness of what would happen when he declared in chapter 2 verse 28,

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

These prophecies all looked forward. And, now, they were fulfilled! As Acts 2:4 says of the Church at Pentecost, ‘All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues...’ The Lord had been true to His word! No longer would He be found only in a physical tent or temple. Now He lives in the heart of His people. And unbelieving Israel would either turn and see, or be condemned in sin.

Looking even further back, we see that what happened at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 was turned right around. Then the people’s rebellion against God was punished with the confusion of different languages. Now, however, all the peoples of the world, represented by those at Pentecost, transcend the language barrier as they come together in the Lord. Later the apostle Paul refers to this. In his first letter to the Corinthians he writes, ‘In the Law it is written: ‘Through men of strange tongues and through the lip of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me,’ says the Lord. ‘Tongues, then, are a sign not for believers but for unbeliev­ers...’ (1 Cor. 14:21f.)

What we have is no new permanent gift that Christians have to experience, or else doubt their standing with God. Nor even is it an added extra with which we can ‘enhance’ our worship of the Lord.

Let’s consider the whole context of Acts 2. When is it that the entire Church is altogether in the one place, as verse 1 states? Where are the reported violent winds coming from heaven that fill modern churches today, as verse 2 says? And what about those pieces of flame that came upon each member of the whole Church at that time?

But let’s not think either that the real meaning behind Pentecost isn’t shown today! As the truth behind baptism isn’t shown only when the water is sprinkled upon the head, but actually continues to bless us always in the faith, so, too, the Spirit Who brings the sign of speaking in tongues still moves mightily!

The Lord’s Work Continues with His Spirit’s Enabling←⤒🔗

You see, that heart which is within, and which has shown itself by what has happened on the outside, keeps going within the Body as a whole. This is its strength.

So the final phrase of Acts 2:4 says still very much for us today. When it says, ‘as the Spirit enabled them,’ it’s clear God’s working through His Church has changed in a way which means it cannot ever go back to what it was before.

Throughout the two thousand years of church history since, this is made clear. Our King – the Head of the Body – is ruling over us and in us. This is His Spirit that He sent. And it’s His Word – the testimony of the Spirit – through which He makes us His subjects and rules over us.

In doing this, He makes use of people. That’s the point behind Pentecost! Each one of us is now a prophet, a priest, and a king! What a tragedy that there are those who would deny the rights of son-ship to genuine children of God. They would say there is yet another step. As if the adoption itself were not enough! Romans 8:9 is quite clear that all those believing in Christ have His Spirit. We have to fight that! We have to declare that it’s what God has done for you in His Son, Jesus Christ, once and for all!

You see, there has always been the temp­tation for the Church to hand over things to a certain few. Whether it’s because of power or talent, throughout history we find times when many in congregations have become mere spectators. And they’re told that’s all they can be! What a terrible pity. Because that denies what the Lord did at Pentecost. His Spirit is not held back from any of His people. The continuing value of the heart lies in its power to beat within a body that is working in all its parts! This is the joy of Pentecost. Not that we have anything on our own, but that God gave us everything. And what a gift it is!

When you’ve been given a present, do you leave it in its wrapping? Would you say to your family and your friends, ‘I don’t want to open it. I don’t want to see what’s inside!’

You know, I’ve yet to see a boy or girl do that! In fact, when I’ve seen boys and girls get presents, often Mum can forget about using that wrapping paper again. Because it’s ripped off! The kids can’t wait to see what is inside! That’s how it should be spiritually. This is what the apostle Paul pleads for in Galatians chapter 5. There he writes, ‘So I say, live by the Spirit, and you won’t gratify the desires of the sinful nature’ (v.16). And further on he says, ‘Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit’ (v. 25).

That heart which is inside is shown out­side. But not just the once, as a special sign. It works throughout the entire body. Just as our human hearts cannot continue unless the body works as it should. We cannot cut and divide the Lord’s work. United it stands – divided it most certainly falls! That’s as true for the Church as it is for each one of us. For while that heartbeat of faith is pumping, you cannot die. You’re too busy living and growing!

So what we have with Pentecost is both a completion and a beginning. A completion because this is a decisive part of Christ’s work. It cannot be repeated.

And yet it’s also a beginning, because from this point on the Church can only grow to become more like what her Lord has so wonderfully planned for her. For we are what we are by God’s marvellous grace. Every one of us is precious in His sight. And every one is absolutely essential for working out His plan! Whether he be tinker, tailor, soldier, or sailor.

Dear Christian friend, at Pentecost you were there. You’re in God’s big picture. He has drawn you in through His Son!