Acts 2: Invited to holiness

Captain Mhairi Smeaton reminds us that the Spirit is a gift that needs to be unwrapped.

Key texts

• Acts 2:1-18

Do you enjoy a particular way of doing things? When systems serve us, we gain from the organisation. Perhaps it’s that we’re always able to find the things we’re looking for. Perhaps it’s that we’re able to know when to buy more of something from the grocery store.

Sometimes a system allows us to give the right amount of attention to something. The things that are most important dictate our calendars and everything else is slotted in.

The Jewish people kept their priorities straight in several ways. One of them was that their calendar was centred around three annual pilgrimage festivals: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkoth.

The story of Pentecost found in Acts 2 occurs as Jews gathered in Jerusalem from all over the world to celebrate Shavuot, a harvest festival that takes place seven weeks after Passover (see Deuteronomy 16:9–12). Pentecost – meaning ‘fiftieth’ – is the Greek name for Shavuot.

Pause and reflect

• Why do we celebrate Pentecost in the Christian calendar?

Our study passage centres on an upper room, where people are gathered to engage in the traditional ceremony for Shavuot. As they are about to begin, they all hear a loud noise and experience a wind blowing through the house. This is their corporate experience and, when it all died down, they discover tongues of fire resting on the heads of all those present. This was not the plan that they had for the day.

We know that fire is a symbol of God’s presence. We see this when we read of Moses encountering the burning bush (see Exodus 3:2). Fire reflects God’s holiness and purity.

As with Moses’ experience of the burning bush, in the upper room there is no record of those present being harmed by the fire. There is, however, apparent differences in God’s involvement with his people. We see this in a number of ways.

First, God is inviting those gathered to a life of holiness and purity. While the fire that Moses observed was only in the bush – which was an individual and separate act – the action of fire in the upper room was corporate and for everyone present.

Pause and reflect

• What does the difference between these experiences of God’s presence indicate?

Second, the Holy Spirit is promised throughout Scripture to God’s people, most recently by Jesus before his ascension. Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as a gift (see Acts 1:4). He tells his disciples that they will be baptised with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:5). They will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them (see Acts 1:8).

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is not a new addition to the Godhead – the Godhead has always been complete. The gift of the Holy Spirit is inseparable from the gift of salvation and this gift-Spirit is ours to experience a relationship with.

It bears mentioning that Holy Spirit is also the person of the Godhead who makes many people feel most uncomfortable. As a result, they relegate him to the background of their faith journey. However, when Jesus promises the Holy Spirit in John 16:7, he tells the disciples, who are anxious about his imminent departure, that his leaving will be good as it will enable the Holy Spirit to come to them. The Spirit will not just be with them, but he will be in them (see John 14:17).

Pause and reflect

• If you are cautious of the Holy Spirit, does this recommendation of Jesus change your view?

At this time, God’s people will behave in a different way. They’ll be holy and pure, much like what the fire of God has come to represent. This will not be a case of a few people being moved but of all God’s people being filled with his Spirit, with a new understanding and appreciation of one another. Peter is encouraging his hearers to understand that what they are witnessing in the disciples’ new behaviour is a fulfilment of well-known prophecy, even though they try to explain it away as drunkenness (v15).

Pause and reflect

• What’s your opinion of biblical prophecy?
• To what extent do you explain it away?

In January, our corps engaged in Covenant Sunday. This year’s theme was Step Up, Stand Out. On that day, many of us committed to being more like Jesus.

A later Jewish thought is that Shavuot also commemorates God entering into covenant with Moses in the giving of the Torah. Pentecost is an opportunity for covenant renewal.

Happening halfway through the year, Pentecost is an ideal opportunity to renew the promises made on Covenant Sunday, the Soldier’s Covenant or a marriage covenant made before God.

In the song ‘To Be Like Jesus!’, General John Gowans reminds us that being Christlike is possible only with the Spirit’s guidance: 

To be like Jesus! 

This hope possesses me,

In every thought and deed, 

This is my aim, my creed; 

To be like Jesus! 

This hope possesses me,

His Spirit helping me, 

Like him I’ll be. 

                                                                                                          (SASB 328)

Becoming more like Jesus is not something we can achieve by virtue of our own abilities or in our own strength. The Spirit is a gift that needs to be unwrapped, opened and enjoyed. When we do, our plans may well have to take a back seat.