A new day-the dispensation of the Church period-was inaugurated by the sending forth of God's Holy Spirit on that ever-memorable day. Pentecost was the day of the Church's birthday, and with it went full endowment. That day could not come until our Lord had glorified God at the cross by His expiatory sacrifice, not until He was risen from the dead and ascended to glory (Heb. 1:33Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:3)). Our Lord in His last days on this earth plainly indicated this when He said to His disciples:
Another Scripture makes it plain that our Lord must be glorified before the Spirit of God could be sent. We read:
We shall see the reason for this as we proceed.
All this is beautifully foreshadowed in the order of the feasts of the Lord as given in Lev. 23. Among them we get the feast of "A sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest " (verve 10).
This was to occur on " the morrow after the sabbath." This must have been strange hearing in the ears of the pious Jew, who was taught so much about the sabbath. Was not the sabbath the day that was sanctified and set apart by God Himself in a very special way? But here it was emphasized " the morrow after the sabbath." What could it mean? It will be plainly seen that it sets forth prophetically the resurrection of our Lord. He rose from the dead on the first day of the week, " the morrow after the sabbath." He was the firstfruits of the whole harvest of grace that our God shall reap in the day of glory. We have the very word, firstfruits, applied to our Lord in that great resurrection Chapter, 1 Cor. 15
" But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept " (verse 20).
" Every man in His own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming " (verse 23).
How blessed it is to see the fulfillment of the type of the waving of the sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest in the resurrection of our Lord, the proof that not only does God accept our Lord as the One, who satisfied Him as to the question of sin at the cross, but by that act pledges Himself that the whole harvest of precious souls, every believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, shall be quickened in the day of His coming. If they fail to be accepted, it must be because He failed to be accepted. But we know He was accepted, and we, believers, are accepted in the Beloved. There can be no breakdown in this. How wonderful!
This also is carefully noted as taking place, " even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath," that makes fifty days. So we ask what great event took place fifty days after our Lord rose from the dead, and intimately connected with that resurrection. We know that our Lord was forty days on this earth after He rose from the dead, thus proving the wonderful fact of His resurrection to disciples, slow of heart to believe it. Before He ascended on high, He instructed His disciples to tarry at Jerusalem,
At last the fiftieth day arrived, a first day of the week. The record stands thus:
"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one place " (Acts 2: 1).
Evidently there was a compelling force of the Holy Spirit, gathering the disciples into one place for this wondrous event. The very word, Pentecost, comes from the Greek word, Pentecoste, meaning fiftieth. This clearly establishes the fact that the new meat offering was typical of the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended to form the Church of God on earth, and inaugurate this new dispensation.
This is further typified in the new meat offering. We are told it consisted of
The two loaves typified that Jew and Gentile would be one in Christ, and be an acceptable offering to Him. Nothing like this was ever known before. Baken with leaven is the recognition that believers were once sinful men and women, but the action of the fire would stop the working of the leaven, and the sin-offering accompanying the new meat offering sets forth how the atoning death of our Lord has met the sin question to God's glory and our eternal blessing.
Our Lord before He left this earth bade His disciples,
So the disciples gathered in an upper room, where they
How expectant they must have been. What a wonderful moment in the history of the world! At length the fiftieth day after the resurrection arrived. Pentecost was a reality. From the glory the promise of the Father was fulfilled, The risen and ascended Savior sent in the Father's name the Holy Spirit of God, inaugurating this new and wonderful dispensation, the period of the Church's sojourn on this earth. It was the Church's birthday.
It seems a mark of a fresh dispensation that it should be ushered in with impressive and outward signs. For instance the exodus from Egypt was marked by ten plagues, ending with the death of the firstborn. The giving of the law from Sinai's smoking mount, so that even Moses feared and quaked exceedingly, was accompanied by terrifying sights and sounds. Our Lord's birth, His baptism, His death, and His resurrection were all accompanied with striking signs. We shall see that the day of Pentecost was no exception to this.
The hundred and twenty disciples, more or less, were praying in expectation of this great event. It was " the morrow after the sabbath," the first day of the week, the fiftieth day after our Lord rose from the dead, when " Suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting " (Acts 2: 2).
We see again how the wind in a symbolic sense comes in as connected with the Holy Spirit, as we shall see when we take up the question of the new birth and our Lord's dealing with Nicodemus. Then an astonishing thing happened: "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them" (Acts 2: 3).
We recall when our Lord was baptized by John the Baptist, as identifying Himself with the repentant remnant that the Holy Spirit in the likeness of a dove rested upon Him. The dove symbol, the bird of peace, shows that there was nothing contrary to the Holy Spirit in our Lord, and therefore the Spirit could come upon Him in that way. In the Levitical type, the oil (symbol of the Holy Spirit) was put upon the blood. Sinful man could only receive the Holy Spirit on the ground of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord, the efficacy of the precious blood that cleanses from all sin. But in the case of our blessed Lord, the Spirit could come upon the flesh of our Lord, because His humanity was perfectly sinless and pleasing to the heart of the Father. But in the case of the believers on the day of Pentecost we read of " cloven tongues like as of fire " descending upon them.
The mark of a clean animal under the Levitical law was the combination of the characteristics of the shewing of the cud and the cloven feet. The shewing of the cud is, symbolic of meditation, a real heart appropriation of divine things, without which there would be no incentive or desire to part from worldly thoughts and ways, symbolized by the cloven feet.
God would thus teach His ancient people that they should be holy people, clean people, if they would have to do with Him. Likewise the Holy Spirit would teach this same lesson to Christians. Separation in heart and ways from the world that -rejected our Lord is inculcated throughout the New Testament. The fire speaks of the Holy Spirit not allowing what is offensive to God in the believer's walk and ways. Fire is a destructive agent. Its work is purifying by destroying that which is offensive. We read, " Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is " (1 Cor. 3:1313Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (1 Corinthians 3:13)).
The result of these tongues of fire descending on the disciples was that " They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance " (Acts 2:44And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:4)).
It seems as if one of the grand objects of the Holy Spirit's indwelling is propaganda. Overriding the limitations of the Tower of Babel when man's language was confounded, so that they could not understand each others speech, here we have the spectacle of the apostles speaking many languages, so that all heard in their own tongue the wonderful gospel of the grace of God. Strangers from many parts-Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, strangers from Rome, Jews, proselytes, Cretes and Arabians-made up a most cosmopolitan audience. Yet from the lips of Galileans, fishermen mostly, " ignorant and unlearned men," all heard the story of redeeming love in their own tongue. They were amazed and well they might be. It is no wonder that about three thousand souls were converted to God on that memorable day of Pentecost. Thus was inaugurated the descent of the Holy Spirit of God, fraught with such wonderful blessing in this world.
Hitherto the testimony had been confined to Israel. Even our Lord said, " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel " (Matt. 15:2424But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 15:24)). But now the news had to go world-wide, and the apostles received these instructions, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you " (Matt. 28:19, 2019Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:19‑20)).