Summary
Pentecost and the Point of the Many Languages
Pentecost falls fifty days after the resurrection and ten days after the ascension. The whole church—120 disciples in all—was gathered in one place when the Holy Spirit was poured out Acts 2:1. The very name of the day means "the fiftieth," marking the ancient harvest feast celebrated fifty days after Passover, when Israel gave thanks to God for the gathering in of the crops. Now, on this same feast, a different harvest begins.
The signs that accompanied the Spirit's coming were striking: a sound like the rush of a violent wind that filled the house, and divided tongues as of fire that rested on each of them Acts 2:2-3. Fire in Scripture often signals judgment, but here it signals something else. John the Baptist had promised that the One coming after him would baptize "with the Holy Spirit and fire" Luke 3:16. This is the purifying, sanctifying work of the Spirit, set upon the church.
Then came the languages. The disciples began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance, and the crowd of devout Jews from every nation heard them, each in his own native tongue—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Rome, Crete, and Arabia Acts 2:9-11. Curiously, there was no actual language barrier in Jerusalem that day. All those gathered would have spoken Hebrew, and most also Greek and Aramaic. So why the many languages? "The Point" 5-28-23 presses this question: if the Spirit's work were only about being understood, one common tongue would have done.
The point lies elsewhere. The Jewish religious teachers of the day taught, in effect, that God loved the Jews who kept the rules. But the Apostle John writes that "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" John 3:16. If God loved only the rule-keepers, the Spirit would have spoken Hebrew on Pentecost. Instead, the Spirit spoke in every tongue under heaven. The many languages proclaim that the reconciliation won by Jesus Christ is for all people.
This matters pastorally, because we are tempted to project conditional love onto God. We have all known love that was doled out for performance and pulled back for failure—from a parent, a spouse, an employer—and it is easy to imagine God doing the same. But every one of us is a rule-breaker in thought, word, and deed. If God loved only those who kept the rules, no one would be loved. The gospel is that the spotless Lamb of God bore our sin on the cross in the great exchange, taking what was ours and giving us his perfect righteousness, so that "through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things… by making peace by the blood of his cross" Colossians 1:20.
In this sense, every Lord's Day is a little Pentecost. Each Sunday the Spirit is poured out anew through Word and Sacrament, applying that universal reconciliation personally—as it was first applied to each believer in Holy Baptism, where the victory of the cross and empty tomb was washed onto you. The many languages of Pentecost still preach the same point: Christ for all, Christ for you.
Video citations
- "The Point" 5-28-23 — Would you open your Bibles' please on this Pentacos Sunday to the second chapter of the book of Acts, if you're using a Pue edition, you're going to find that on page 103 in the New Testament Acts…