IT is all important to understand aright what took place at Pentecost. There had been many Pentecosts in Israel’s history, for it was an annual feast celebrating the beginning of the harvest, but all these were types. The Pentecost of Acts 2 was the fulfillment of the type. On that day God began a new work of taking out a special people to Himself, from Jews and Gentiles, to form the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit came that day as a divine Person to indwell believers and to baptize them into one Body. He came, too, to empower them for service as a redeemed and cleansed people that the message of the gospel might be carried to the ends of the earth. Strictly speaking, there can never be another Pentecost, any more than there can be another Passover owned by God since Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. But it is necessary for each believer to recognize and yield to the Spirit who came at Pentecost if he would be a witness in power to a lost world.
Before the coming of the Spirit the apostles were so many individuals as yet unfilled for the great task allotted to them. After that momentous event they were members of the Body of Christ, endued with power from on high to go forth to proclaim the gospel message to the ends of the earth.
“The Comforter, now present.
Assures us of Thy love;
He is the blessed earnest
Of glory there above:
The river of Thy pleasure
Is what sustains us now,
Till Thy new name’s imprinted
On ev’ry sinless brow.”
—Mary Bowley.