Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/75

Contributor - James C. Eelman

Title - A New Look at Pentecost

Topic - Pentecost What new spiritual insights does the Church expect from its celebration of Pentecost this year? Most of us will no doubt pay our annual lip service to the great event that shook Jerusalem so many years ago. Traditional Christendom has an excellent record of celebrating anniversaries. It is a wonder that we haven't appointed a Pentecostal Program Committee in order to schedule some appropriate activities for the remembrance of the day. It is very easy to confuse activity with spirituality.

In view of such possible misunderstanding, I would like to suggest a moratorium on all programmed religion with its endless series of "workshops", "labs" (mini and otherwise), "crusades", "campaigns", and all contrived "hours of power", and simply listen to what God is trying to tell us through the Biblical account of the Pentecostal story. As Reformed churchmen we confess that we believe in the efficacy and the perspicuity of Holy Scripture, but do we ever 'take enough time to hear what it really says? How can we ever significantly celebrate Pentecost when we so seldom hear just what the Word of God seeks "to tell us about this event? The intent of this article, therefore, is to take a new look at the story of Pentecost as told to us in the book of Acts.

In the first chapter, the author Luke tells us that Jesus appeared to his disciples on several occasions "during forty days" after his resurrection, "And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father." This promise was none other than the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of this baptism was to give power (ability) to the apostles to become witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the end of the earth. Whatever other passages in the Bible may teach about the Holy Spirit, in the book of Acts it is plain that ten days before Pentecost on Ascension Day, Jesus clearly defined the purpose of a baptism with the Holy Spirit, namely, to empower the apostles to give witness to him. This purpose, in turn, unfolds itself 'further in the creation of the apostolic community of believers.

Note also that our Lord promised the gift of the Spirit but mentioned no gift of tongues. God's gift is always simply the gift of the Holy Spirit in which tongues (languages) are a manifestation for the sole purpose of communicating the good news about Jesus. Neither does Luke anywhere encourage people to seek the gift of tongues for personal gratification. At Pentecost the "other tongues" given to the apostles by the Holy Spirit were intelligently understood by the multitude gathered from every nation under heaven. We are told that they were "bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language."

According to their Master's promise, when the apostles were filled with the Spirit they were given power to witness in such a marvelous way and with such boldness, that men from many nations heard the mighty works of God, "each in his own tongue". In order to clarify this linguistic mystery, Peter explained the unusual event with a brief expository sermon in which he gave further witness to Jesus Christ. His spirited witness convinced and converted no less than three thousand souls, and they were baptized into the name of Jesus. They also received the same gift of the Holy Spirit as they joined the apostles' fellowship.

From this brief summary of the Pentecostal story the following points are important to remember:

1. The gift of the Holy Spirit was given to the apostles in order to enable them to bear witness to Jesus Christ.

2. Through the power of the Spirit, the once timid apostles spoke boldly, so that men from many nations heard the apostolic witness in their own language.

3. The apostolic witness worked repentance and faith in a great number of people and created a new fellowship of believers who also received the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that through them Christianity began to make its way into the world.

4. The community of believers remained loyal to the apostolic teaching and to each other. They also persevered in the observance of the Lord's Supper and in their prayers.

In view of this Biblical account, how do the activities in our Reformed Churches compare to that which happened at Pentecost? Is the life-giving flow of the Holy Spirit still activating the members of our churches? Some of our ministers and members have become so discouraged with the worldliness and spiritual impotence of the churches that they become easy victims of every new movement which promises them miracles and ecstatic manifestations. That Christians may experience ecstacy is not the question, but as we have seen, ecstatic experiences by themselves are not at all characteristic of the work of the Holy Spirit. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God... is still sound Biblical advice.

While some of us are tempted to look in the wrong direction for the manifestation of the Spirit, others simply secularize the Church by keeping it going with streamlined techniques and programs borrowed from a Madison Avenue public relations philosophy. Every attempt, however, to build the Church upon the wrong foundation by the use of the wrong means will ultimately fail, no matter how successful such a Church may temporarily appear. A shopping center approach which employs good business techniques for the purpose of retailing the gospel to prospective customers may succeed in enlarging the membership, and the social prestige of a church, but any service club, business, or political party is capable of doing the same thing. Do we need the Holy Spirit to effect that kind of work?

A new look at the Pentecostal story will point us to a different direction. There the Holy Spirit shows us that neither our salvation nor its effective communication is dependent upon our pitiful methods. The divine energy which kept the Pentecostal community alive, vibrant and growing, manifested itself in their obedience to the word of the Holy Spirit as spoken by the apostles, by faithfully observing the sacraments, and by dutifully keeping to their prayers.

Pentecost firmly proclaims that spiritual life and its growth are not realized by human means, no matter how well intended. The new man in Christ is a new creation, a work of the Holy Spirit. The life of the new man is a gift from the Lord himself, and is given only when we do not contrive to produce it or claim it as our due, but by humbly receiving it as evidence of God's unfathomable grace.

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