Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 2:4
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
4. This verse describes a great miracle, and its simplicity of statement marks it as the record of one who felt that no additional words could make the matter other than one which passed the human understanding.
they began to speak with other tongues ] Spoken of as new tongues (Mar 16:17). It means languages which they had not known before, and from the history it would appear that some of the company spake in one and some in another language, for the crowd of foreigners, when they come together, all find somebody among the speakers whom they are able to understand.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Were all filled with the Holy Ghost – Were entirely under his sacred influence and power. See the notes on Luk 1:41, Luk 1:67. To be filled with anything is a phrase denoting that all the faculties are pervaded by it, engaged in it, or under its influence, Act 3:10, Were filled with wonder and amazement; Act 5:17, Filled with indignation; Act 13:45, Filled with envy; Act 2:4, Filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
Began to speak with other tongues – In other languages than their native tongue. The languages which they spoke are specified in Act 2:9-11.
As the Spirit gave them utterance – As the Holy Spirit gave them power to speak. This language implies plainly that they were now endued with a faculty of speaking languages which they had not before learned. Their native tongue was that of Galilee, a somewhat barbarous dialect of the common language used in Judea – the Syro-Chaldaic. It is possible that some of them might have been partially acquainted with the Greek and Latin, as each of those languages was spoken among the Jews to some extent; but there is not the slightest evidence that they were acquainted with the languages of the different nations afterward specified. Various attempts have been made to account for this remarkable phenomenon without supposing it to be a miracle. But the natural and obvious meaning of the passage is, that they were endowed by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit with ability to speak foreign languages, and languages to them before unknown. It does not appear that each one had the power of speaking all the languages which are specified Act 2:9-11, but that this ability was among them, and that together they could speak these languages, probably some one and some another. The following remarks may perhaps throw some light on this remarkable occurrence:
(1) It was predicted in the Old Testament that what is here stated would occur in the times of the Messiah. Thus, in Isa 28:11, With …another tongue will he speak unto this people. Compare 1Co 14:21 where this passage is expressly applied to the power of speaking foreign languages under the gospel.
(2) It was promised by the Lord Jesus that they should have this power, Mar 16:17, These signs shall follow them that believe …they shall speak with new tongues.
(3) The ability to do it existed extensively and long in the church, 1Co 12:10-11, To another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit; Act 2:28, God hath set in the church …diversities of tongues. Compare also Act 2:30, and Act 14:2, Act 14:4-6, Act 14:9,Act 14:13-14; Act 14:18-19, Act 14:22-23, Act 14:27, Act 14:39. From this it appears that the power was well known in the church, and was not confined to the apostles. This also may show that in the case in the Acts , the ability to do this was conferred on other members of the church as well as the apostles.
(4) It was very important that they should be endowed with this power in their great work. They were going forth to preach to all nation; and though the Greek and Roman tongues were extensively spoken, yet their use was not universal, nor is it known that the apostles were skilled in those languages. To preach to all nations, it was indispensable that they should be able to understand their language. And in order that the gospel might be rapidly propagated through the earth, it was necessary that they should be endowed with ability to do this without the slow process of being compelled to learn them. It will contribute to illustrate this to remark that one of the principal hindrances in the spread of the gospel now arises from the inability to speak the languages of the nations of the earth, and that among missionaries of modern times a long time is necessarily spent in acquiring the language of a people before they are prepared to preach to them.
(5) One design was to establish the gospel by means of miracles. Yet no miracle could be more impressive than the power of conveying their sentiments at once in all the languages of the earth. When it is remembered what a slow and toilsome process it is to learn a foreign tongue, this would I be regarded by the pagan as one of the most striking miracles which could be performed, 1Co 14:22, 1Co 14:24-25.
(6) The reality and certainty of this miracle is strongly attested by the early triumphs of the gospel. That the gospel was early spread over all the world, and that, too, by the apostles of Jesus Christ, is the clear testimony of all history. They preached it in Arabia, Greece, Syria, Asia, Persia, Africa, and Rome. Yet how could this have been effected without a miraculous power of speaking the languages used in all those places? Now, it requires the toil of many years to speak in foreign languages; and the recorded success of the gospel is one of the most striking attestations to the fact of the miracle that could be conceived.
(7) The corruption of language was one of the most decided effects of sin, and the source of endless embarrassments and difficulties, Gen. 11: It is not to be regarded as wonderful that one of the effects of the plan of recovering people should be to show the power of God over all evil, and thus to furnish striking evidence that the gospel could meet all the crimes and calamities of people. And we may add,
(8) That from this we see the necessity now of training people who are to be missionaries to other lands. The gift of miracles is withdrawn. The apostles, by that miracle, simply were empowered to speak other languages. That power must still be had if the gospel is to be preached. But it is now to be obtained, not by miracle, but by stow and careful study and toil. If possessed, people must be taught it. And as the church is bound Mat 28:19 to send the gospel to all nations, so it is bound to provide that the teachers who shall be sent forth shall be qualified for their work. Hence, one of the reasons of the importance of training men for the holy ministry.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 2:4
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
The historic movement towards spiritually
The succession which is indicated by the words Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is neither nominal nor accidental, it is a philosophicaI progress and culmination.
1. When we go back towards the origin of things, we are dissatisfied with all mere critical terms, and yearn for something for which we cannot hit the exact word. Then is suggested the Biblical word, Father, and with it comes a promise of satisfaction in spite of all its difficulties.
2. But fatherhood is an inclusive term, suggesting the idea of childhood, and childhood is realised most impressively in the sonship of Christ; but sonship such as this, involving visible expression, is beset with peculiar risks. So He withdrew Himself immediately that He had secured for His personality an unquestioned place in history, as there was nothing more to be gained by His visible continuance on earth.
3. But what of the future of His work? Then, according to Christian teaching, was to come manifestation without visibility; instead of bodily presence, there was to be a new experience of life and spirituality. In one word, the holy Man was to be followed by the Holy Ghost. This idea of a philosophical rather than a merely arbitrary succession is strictly consistent with the fact that the whole movement of history, in all that is vital and permanent, is a movement from the outward and visible to the inward and spiritual.
I. The order of creation. The succession runs thus: Light, firmament, dry land, seas, the fruit-tree yielding fruit, sun, moon, and stars, the moving creature that hath life, and fowl flying in the open firmament of heaven, cattle, creeping thing, and beast of the earth; if we pause here we shall be dissatisfied, because of a sense of incompleteness; but to crown the whole God said, Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.
II. The order of human recovery. Beginning with the Levitical ritual, what could be more objective? The sin-offering, the trespass-offering, the incenses, etc., represent the most sensuous and exhausting system of mediation? Could aught be farther from the point of spirituality? In moving forward to the incarnation, we take an immense step along the line whose final point is spirituality, yet even there we are still distinctly upon the carnal line. The final representative of sensuous worship must Himself be the revealer of spiritual life. Jesus Christ ascended, and henceforth we know not even Him after the flesh, for the fleshly Christ has Himself placed mankind under the tuition of a spiritual monitor.
III. The order of written testimony. From picture and symbol we pass to spiritual meanings; through the noise and fury of war we pass into the quietness and security of moral civilisation; through the porch of miracles and mighty signs and wonders we enter the holy place of truth and love. The quality of Johns Gospel requires the very place that has been assigned to it in the New Testament. John seems to say, You have heard what the Evangelists have had to tell, and have seen the wonderful things of their Masters ministry; now let me explain the deep meaning of the whole. From Malachi to Matthew is but a step; but to get from Malachi to John, you have to cross the universe. Matthew shows the fact; John reveals the truth; Matthew pourtrays on canvas; John puts his word into the heart.
IV. The whole law. From the minuteness of microscopic bye-laws men have passed to a spiritual sense of moral distinctions. Every moment of the Jews time, and every act of his life, was guarded by a regulation. Amidst our spiritual light, such regulations could not be re-established without awakening the keenest resentment. The great tables of bye-laws have been taken down, because the spirit of order and of truth has been given. What is true of law is equally true of all institutionalism.
V. Precisely the same movement takes place in the experience of every progressive life. Every man can test this doctrine for himself–the doctrine, namely, that the growth of manhood is towards spirituality. The child grows towards contempt of its first toys; the youth reviews the narrow satisfactions of his childhood with pity; the middle-aged man smiles, half-sneeringly, as he recalls the conceits of his youth; and the hoary-haired thinker lives already amid the peace and joy of invisible scenes, or if he go back, living in memory rather than in expectation, it is so ideally as to divest his recollections of all that was transient and unlovely. The spiritual world of the wise man increases every day. These suggestions point to the conclusion that the Holy Ghost is the reasonable completion of revelation, and as such His ministry is an impregnable proof of the reasonableness of Christianity. In the person of Jesus Christ truth was outward, visible, and most beautiful; in the person of the Holy Ghost truth is inward, spiritual, all-transfiguring. By the very necessity of the case the bodily Christ could be but a passing figure; but by a gracious mystery He caused Himself to be succeeded by an eternal Presence, even the Spirit of Truth, which abideth for ever. It is claimed, then, on behalf of Christianity, that there is a Holy Ghost, and to this doctrine is invited not only the homage of the heart but the full assent of the most robust and dispassionate understanding. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Filled with the Spirit
I. They were filled with the spirit.
1. Men may be filled but not with the Spirit (verse 13). The audience confessed they were full, but with wine, a liquor though full of spirit, yet no spirit. It was false, yet if the Spirit may be taken for a humour, why not a humour for a spirit. Isaiah says (Isa 29:9) that men may be drunk but not with wine. A hot humour is taken for this fire and termed, though untruly, a spirit of zeal, and men imbued with it are ever mending churches, states, superiors, and all save themselves.
2. Not every spirit. There is a spirit in man, i.e. our own spirit, and many there be who follow their own ghost, and not the Holy Ghost; for even that ghost taketh upon it to inspire, and we know its revelations (Mat 16:17).
3. blot the worlds spirit (1Co 2:12).
4. But the Holy Spirit, i.e. His gifts and graces. And because these be of many points they are all included under these two–
(l) Under the wind is represented saving graces; as necessary to our spiritual life as breath is to our natural. This is meant for us personally. Of this Spirit there are nine points (Gal 5:22).
(2) Under the tongues are set forth the grace meant for the benefit of others. Tongues serve to teach and fire to warm; and of this spirit the points are reckoned up in 1Co 12:7, etc.
II. They were filled with the Spirit.
1. It was not a wind that blew through them, as it does through many of us, but that filled them.
2. Not that they were devoid of the Spirit before. Christ had not breathed upon them (Joh 20:22) in vain. This shows us that there are diverse measures of the Spirit, some single, some double portions (1Ki 2:9). As there are degrees in the wind–a breath, a blast, a gale, so there are in the Spirit. It is one thing to receive the Spirit as at Easter and to be filled with Him as at Whitsuntide. Then but a breath; now a mighty wind; then but sprinkled as with a few drops (Eze 20:46), now baptized with that which was plenteously poured out (Joe 2:20).
III. In sign that they were filled they ran over. The fire was kindled in them by this wind, and in sign thereof they spoke with their tongue (Psa 39:3). The wind would have served them as Christians, but as apostles, i.e. ambassadors, they must have tongues.
1. They were filled and then they began to speak. Some speak, I will not say before they are full, or half full, but while they are little better than empty, if not empty quite.
2. This beginning to speak argues courage. Any man might see that there was a new spirit come into them. Before they were tongue-tied. A damsel did but ask Peter a question, and he faltered. But after this mighty wind blew up the fire, and they were warmed with it, then they were not afraid to testify before magistrates and kings. (Bp. Andrewes.)
Filled with the Spirit
The new era opened at Pentecost was one in which all Gods people were to have God abiding in them always, the Guest, Comforter and Friend of every Christian heart. It must be admitted, however, that this Divine ideal has been very inadequately realised. Let us consider some of the results which may be expected to flow from a fuller baptism of the Spirit.
I. Spiritual mindedness.
1. This does not mean that our thoughts should be perpetually running on the future, that we should ever be debating theological questions, but that we shall have the power to appreciate those great and eternal realities that are about us.
2. This spiritual mindedness will reveal itself–
(1) In the estimate we form of our fellow men.
(2) In our appreciation of the great spiritual end we ought ever to be seeking in order to do Christian work.
(3) In our appreciation of Christian doctrine caring more about the spiritual substance than the particular form or fashion by which the truth may have been expressed. For instance–
(a) In all our thought about the death and atonement of Christ, the imagination will not dwell on the physical blood that was shed, or upon the physical agony that was endured, but upon the majesty of Gods righteousness, the wonder of Gods love, the mystery of that great sacrifice on the Cross, and the awfulness of the sin which made that sacrifice necessary.
(b) When we think about the second coming of Christ, our thoughts will not be taken up with the external circumstances of pomp and splendour, but rather with the triumph of good over evil, and truth over falsehood, which is the consummation to which all devout souls must ever be looking.
(c) In thinking about inspiration we shall not trouble ourselves about theories of it, or about the mere letter, but our care will be mostly for the Divine truth itself, which will lift us up in our despondency, and guide us in our perplexity when we come to the sacred page.
II. An access of power by which the naturally timid will be enabled to do things which would be otherwise impossible to the strongest; in regard to–
1. Testimony for Christ.
2. Endurance of suffering.
3. Philanthropic work.
III. A change of disposition.
1. The cessation of jealousies, strifes, and divisions, which Paul includes amongst the works of the flesh.
2. The prevalence of a spirit of mercy and kindness towards others.
(1) To those who in our midst are compelled to live very hard lives.
(2) For those multitudes all over the world who are without the knowledge of God as revealed in Christ.
IV. An enthusiasm of holy fervour in all work.
1. In worship.
2. In Church life.
3. In evangelism. (H. Arnold Thomas, M. A.)
Filled with the Spirit
I. The fulness. There was no part of the complex nature of man that was not pervaded by the Spirit.
1. The intellect was illumined to know the truths of the Spirit.
2. The affections were purified and inflamed with desires after heavenly things.
3. The will was strengthened to obey the motions of the Spirit.
II. Its manifestation. Those who are so filled give out only the language of the life-giving Spirit. Even when they speak of earthly things it is with a tongue reminding men of the wisdom and simplicity of the children of God. When they do aught in the common business of life, their example recalls the thought of a higher life. All they say or do is to edifying. (Cornelius a Lapide.)
Filled with the Spirit and receiving the Spirit
The difference is not of kind, but of degree. In the one case, the light of heaven has reached the dark chamber, dispelling night, but leaving some obscurity and some deep shadows. In the other, that light has filled the whole chamber, and made every corner bright. This state of the soul–being filled with the Holy Ghost–is the normal antecedent of true prophetic or miraculous power, but may exist without it; without it, in individuals who are never endowed with the gift either of prophecy or of miracles; without it, in individuals who have such powers, but in whom they are not in action, as in John the Baptist, before his ministry commenced. (W. Arthur, M. A.)
Fulness of the Spirit not necessarily miraculous
Eyesight is the necessary basis of what is called a painters or a poets eye; the sense of hearing, the necessary basis of what is called a musical ear, yet eyesight may exist where there is no poets or painters eye, and hearing where there is no musical ear. So may the human soul be filled with the Holy Ghost, having every faculty illuminated, and every affection purified, without any miraculous gift. On the other hand, the miraculous power does not necessarily imply the spiritual fulness: for Paul puts the supposition of speaking with tongues, prophesying, removing mountains, and yet lacking charity, that love which must be shed abroad in every heart that is full of the Holy Ghost. (W. Arthur, M. A.)
The fulness of the Spirit the need of the Church
I. We are apt to fix our thoughts and desires on subordinate instrumentalities.
1. Good organisation. Many are chiefly anxious to perfect the ecclesiastical apparatus of the Church; but without speaking disparagingly of this, yet perfect machinery is useless without motive power, a Church may be organised to death, and may be only like a stately tomb. The Churchs finest triumphs were gained in days when it had no elaborate organisation.
2. Orthodoxy. Many are distressed by the present unsettlement of theological opinion, and regard uniformity of belief as the great desideratum. Correct thinking is much to be desired, and in proportion as any Church departs from fundamental Christian truth it emasculates its moral force. But an orthodox Church may be a scene of mental and spiritual stagnation. It may have a perfect creed and yet be loveless, lifeless, helpless.
3. Intellectual equipment. Of scholarship and disciplined thought it is impossible for a Church to have too much, but a Church that prides itself on its culture may be as cold as an iceberg and exclusive as a coterie. It may virtually say to any candidate who cannot be classed among its thoughtful, or who does not rise to a certain standard of wealth and social status, what a deacon is reported to have said to an unwelcome applicant, There is no vacancy in our church just now.
4. Liberty, fearless independence of thought and expression. But liberty may degenerate into license quite as easily as zeal for truth may pass into bigotry, and in its sacred name deadly errors and worthless speculations and conceits may be passed off as current coin of the realm of truth.
II. What we want supremely is the fulness of the Spirit.
1. Organisation, etc., are good things, but there is something more essential. Might not the Master say to-day as He did of old, Ye are careful about many things, but one thing is needful. With the fulness of the Spirit our organisation will be filled with power, our orthodoxy pulsate with love, our culture have in it no Phariseeism, and our liberty always serve the interests of truth and godliness.
2. Filled with the Spirit.
(1) The Church will be guided into all truth, for a fuller tide of the Spirit means finer spiritual discernment and discrimination, and deeper insight into eternal verities.
(2) The Church will be glorious in holiness, for wherever the Spirit of God dwells He is as the refiners fire.
(3) The peace and harmony of the Church will be insured, for brotherly love will reign supreme, and fidelity to truth will carry no bitterness with it.
(4) The Church will be preserved from selfishness, and made missionary and philanthropic.
(5) The Church will not descend to carnal and unworthy methods of spreading the kingdom of God. It will cease to bow at the shrine of mammon, disdain the expedients of worldly wisdom, and not measure its success by statistical tables or worldly standards.
(6) The Church will have an attractive power. We look too much to the mere accessories of religion–to music and ritual, intellectual brilliance and sensational services, forgetful of the fact that the magnetic spell of the Church is the beauty, intensity, and fulness of its spiritual life. When the fruits of the Spirit abound men will be drawn as bees to the apple blossom, or steel filings to the magnet.
(7) The Church will exert a mighty power to perform greater miracles than those of Christ, and in their presence the voice of the caviller will be silenced. Preaching will be in the demonstration of the Spirit and power, and we shall rejoice in constant accessions.
III. How shall we obtain this fulness of the spirit? There have been seasons when the Spirit has swept in mighty tides, and we are tempted to think that the supply of the Spirit is according to some capricious or arbitrary arrangement. But the supernatural has its laws as well as the natural.
1. Everything that grieves the Spirit must be put away, all malice and all guile and hypocrisies, etc., and all unbelief, worldly-mindedness, pride, selfishness; everything opposed to the simplicity, the charity and purity of Christ, or there will be fatal hindrances.
2. Earnest, importunate prayer–prayer that is not a mere repetition of conventional phrases, that has in it the utmost intensity of desire, that links together the whole communion of the faithful, and knows no cessation till the answer comes. The experience of the disciples before Pentecost, and in Act 4:31, is a lesson for all ages.
3. There must be avenues for the Spirits entrance, a large measure of receptivity, sensitiveness to His influence, fidelity to the truth. He requires cheerful response as He calls to duty or sacrifice, and an implicit obedience to His commands. Luther once said that people cried, Spirit, Spirit, Spirit! and then struck down all the bridges by which the Spirit might enter. At the moment of his ordination Whitefield says, I offered up my whole spirit, soul and body, to the service of Gods sanctuary, and the result we know. If the sacrifice be upon the altar, the fire from heaven will come down. (T. G. Tarn.)
The soul filled with the Holy Ghost
A piece of iron is dark and cold; imbued with a certain degree of heat, it becomes almost burning without any change of appearance; imbued with a still greater degree, its very appearance changes to that of solid fire, and it sets fire to whatever it touches. A piece of water without heat is solid and brittle; gently warmed, it flows; further heated, it mounts to the sky. An organ filled with the ordinary degree of air which exists everywhere is dumb; the touch of the player can elicit but a clicking of the keys. Throw in not other air, but an unsteady current of the same air, and sweet, but imperfect and uncertain, notes immediately respond to the players touch: increase the current to a full supply, and every pipe swells with music. Such is the soul without the Holy Ghost, and such are the changes which pass upon it when it receives the Holy Ghost, and when it is filled with the Holy Ghost. In the latter state only is it fully imbued with the Divine nature, bearing in all its manifestations some plain resemblance to its God, conveying to all on whom it acts some impression of Him, mounting heavenward in all its movements, and harmoniously pouring forth, from all its faculties, the praises of the Lord. (W. Arthur, M. A.)
Power of a man when God works by him
Look at the artists chisel; the artist cannot carve without it. Yet imagine the chisel, conscious that it was made to carve, and that it is its function, trying to carve alone. It lays itself against the hard marble, but it has neither strength nor skill. Then we can imagine the chisel full of disappointment. Why cannot I carve? it cries. Then the artist comes and seizes it. The chisel lays itself into his hand, and is obedient to him. Thought, feeling, imagination, skill, flow down from the deep chambers of the artists soul to the chisels edge. The sculptor and the chisel are not two, but one; it is the unit which they make that carves the stone. We are but the chisel to carve Gods statues in this world. Unquestionably we must do the work. But the human worker is only the chisel of the great Artist. The artist needs his chisel; but the chisel can do nothing, produce no beauty of itself. The artist must seize it, and the chisel lay itself into his hand and be obedient to him. We must yield ourselves altogether to Christ, and let Him use us. Then His power, His wisdom, His skill, His thought, His love, shall flow through our soul, our brain, our heart, our fingers. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)
And began to speak with other tongues.—
The new tongue which ought to fall to our lot by the Spirit of Pentecost
I. Wherein it consists.
1. Not in a miraculous gift of languages.
2. Nor in a formal repetition of pious expressions.
3. But in a heart and mouth opened to thankful praise of Divine grace and joyful confession of the Lord.
II. Whence it proceeds.
1. Not from our natural state.
2. Nor from the arts and sciences.
3. But from above, from the Spirit of God, who touches heart and lips with fire from heaven.
III. What purpose it serves. Not to vain self-glorification or worldly delectation, but to the praise of God and to the message of salvation to the world. (Gerok.)
As the Spirit gave them utterance.—
Characteristics of Spirit-inspired speech
They spoke–
I. Wisely, as the Spirit of wisdom moved them.
II. Powerfully, as the Spirit of power strengthened them.
III. Purely, as the Spirit of holiness sanctified them. (Cornelius a Lapide.)
The gospel for all nations
The apostles speaking on the day of Pentecost to the people in their respective languages, was to us a plain intimation of the mind and will of God, that the sacred records should be preserved by all nations in their own tongue; that the Scriptures should be read, and public worship be performed, in the vulgar language of the nations. (M. Henry.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. To speak with other tongues] At the building of Babel the language of the people was confounded; and, in consequence of this, they became scattered over the face of the earth: at this foundation of the Christian Church, the gift of various languages was given to the apostles, that the scattered nations might be gathered; and united under one shepherd and superintendent () of all souls.
As the Spirit gave them utterance.] The word seems to imply such utterance as proceeded from immediate inspiration, and included oracular communications.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Filled with the Holy Ghost; those gifts and graces which proceeded from him; the apostles having them all in a more excellent manner than formerly, and the gift of tongues superadded.
With other tongues, than what were vernacular or natural to them.
As the Spirit gave them utterance; apofyeggesyai, signifies more than barely to speak, implying they speak each language in its perfection, after an excellent, eloquent, and powerful manner, as from the Holy Ghost, whose works are perfect; non vox hominem sonat.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. they . . . began to speak with .. . tongues, c.real, living languages, as is plain from whatfollows. The thing uttered, probably the same by all, was “thewonderful works of God,” perhaps in the inspired words of theOld Testament evangelical hymns though it is next to certain that thespeakers themselves understood nothing of what they uttered (see on1Co 14:1-25).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,…. With the gifts of the Holy Spirit; they had received the Spirit before, as a Spirit of grace, and were endowed with great gifts; but now they had great plenty of them, a large abundance; they were like vessels filled to the brim; they were as it were covered with them; there was an overflow of them upon them; and now it was, that they were baptized with him; [See comments on Ac 1:5]. Not only the twelve apostles, but the seventy disciples; and it may be all the hundred and twenty, that were together, even women as well as men: Ac 2:17.
And began to speak with other tongues; besides, and different from that in which they were born and brought up, and usually spake; they spake divers languages, one spoke one language, and another, another; and the same person spoke with various tongues, sometimes one language, and sometimes another. These are the new tongues, Christ told them they should speak with, Mr 16:17 such as they had never heard, learned, nor known before:
as the Spirit gave them utterance; they did not utter anything of themselves, and what came into their minds, things of little or no importance; nor in a confused and disorderly manner; but they were wise and weighty sentences they delivered, as the word signifies; even the wonderful works of God, Ac 2:11 the great doctrines of the Gospel; and though in different languages, yet in a very orderly and distinct manner, so as to be heard and understood by the people. The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read, “as the Holy Spirit”, &c.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
With other tongues ( ). Other than their native tongues. Each one began to speak in a language that he had not acquired and yet it was a real language and understood by those from various lands familiar with them. It was not jargon, but intelligible language. Jesus had said that the gospel was to go to all the nations and here the various tongues of earth were spoken. One might conclude that this was the way in which the message was to be carried to the nations, but future developments disprove it. This is a third miracle (the sound, the tongues like fire, the untaught languages). There is no blinking the fact that Luke so pictures them. One need not be surprised if this occasion marks the fulfilment of the Promise of the Father. But one is not to confound these miraculous signs with the Holy Spirit. They are merely proof that he has come to carry on the work of his dispensation. The gift of tongues came also on the house of Cornelius at Caesarea (Acts 10:44-47; Acts 11:15-17), the disciples of John at Ephesus (Ac 19:6), the disciples at Corinth (1Co 14:1-33). It is possible that the gift appeared also at Samaria (Ac 8:18). But it was not a general or a permanent gift. Paul explains in 1Co 14:22 that “tongues” were a sign to unbelievers and were not to be exercised unless one was present who understood them and could translate them. This restriction disposes at once of the modern so-called tongues which are nothing but jargon and hysteria. It so happened that here on this occasion at Pentecost there were Jews from all parts of the world, so that some one would understand one tongue and some another without an interpreter such as was needed at Corinth. The experience is identical in all four instances and they are not for edification or instruction, but for adoration and wonder and worship.
As the Spirit gave them utterance ( ). This is precisely what Paul claims in 1Cor 12:10; 1Cor 12:28, but all the same without an interpreter the gift was not to be exercised (1Co 14:6-19). Paul had the gift of tongues, but refused to exercise it except as it would be understood. Note the imperfect tense here (). Perhaps they did not all speak at once, but one after another. is a late verb (LXX of prophesying, papyri). Lucian uses it of the ring of a vessel when it strikes a reef. It is used of eager, elevated, impassioned utterance. In the N.T. only here, verse Acts 2:14; Acts 26:25. is from this verb.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Began. Bringing into prominence the first impulse of the act. See on began, ch. 1 1.
With other tongues [ ] . Strictly different, from their native tongues, and also different tongues spoken by the different apostles. See on Mt 6:24.
Gave [] . A graphic imperfect; kept giving them the language and the appropriate words as the case required from time to time. It would seem that each apostle was speaking to a group, or to individuals. The general address to the multitude followed from the lips of Peter.
Utterance [] . Used only by Luke and in the Acts. Lit., to utter. A peculiar word, and purposely chosen to denote the clear, loud utterance under the miraculous impulse. It is used by later Greek writers of the utterances of oracles or seers. So in the Septuagint, of prophesying. See 1Ch 25:1; Deu 32:2; Zec 10:2; Eze 13:19.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,” (kai eplesthesan pantes pneumatos hagiou) “And they were all filled, completed, or controlled of the Holy Spirit,” which came upon and over and within them with enduing power, Luk 24:49. They received the “in-filling” promised, Joh 14:16-17.
2) “And began to speak with other tongues,” (kai erksanto heterais lalein glossais) “And they (all) began to speak repeatedly in other language-tongues,” in tongues, other than their native language-tongue, other than any they had themselves learned. Four times, to four classes of people the Holy Spirit manifested himself in the book of Acts in conferring the gift of tongues:
1) To the Jews on Pentecost, Act 2:1-13; 1Co 14:21-22; 1 Corinthians
2) To the Samaritans, Act 8:5-25; Acts 3) To the Gentiles
3) To Old Testament Saints, Act 19:17.
4) “As the Spirit gave them utterance,” (kathos to pneuma edidou apophthengesthai autois) “Even as the Holy Spirit gave (doled out to them) to be speaking out.” As the Holy Spirit gave them both power and knowledge to speak out in other languages, the enduing promised, Luk 24:49. This was a special unction, for a special purpose, given for a limited, special time, to and for the benefit of special peoples, as cited above, 1Co 14:21-22. The three Supernatural phenomena that came to the church, with the Holy Spirit, on Pentecost were:
a) The sound of a mighty rushing wind.
b) The fiery cloven tongues.
c) The speaking with tongues and dialects, Act 1:6; Act 1:8.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
4. They began to speak He showeth that the effect did appear presently, and also to what use their tongues were to be framed and applied, But because Luke setteth down shortly after, that strangers out of divers countries did marvel, because that every one of them did hear the apostles speaking in their own tongue, some think that they spoke not in divers tongues, but that they did all understand that which was spoken in one tongue, as well as if they should hear their natural tongue. (81) Therefore, they think that one and the same sound of the voice was diversely distributed amongst the hearers. Another conjecture they have, because Peter made one sermon in the audience of many gathered together out of divers countries, who could not understand his speech (and language,) unless another voice should come unto their ears than that which proceeded out of his mouth. But we must first note that the disciples spoke indeed with strange tongues; otherwise the miracle had not been wrought in them, but in the hearers. So that the similitude should have been false whereof he made mention before; neither should the Spirit have been given so much to them as to others. Again, we hear how Paul giveth thanks to God, that he speaketh with divers tongues, (1Co 14:18.) Truly he challengeth to himself both the understanding, and also the use thereof. Neither did he attain to this skill by his own study and industry, but he had it by the gift of the Spirit. In the same place he affirmeth that it is an especial gift, wherewith all men are not endued. I suppose that it doth manifestly appear hereby that the apostles had the variety and understanding of tongues given them, that they might speak unto the Greeks in Greek, unto the Italians in the Italian tongue, (82) and that they might have true communication (and conference) with their hearers. Notwithstanding, I leave it indifference whether there was any second miracle wrought or no, so that the Egyptians and Elamites did understand Peter speaking in the Chaldean tongue, as if he did utter divers voices. For there be some conjectures which persuade me thus to think, and yet not so firm but that they may be refuted. For it may be that they spoke with divers tongues, as they light upon this man or that, and as occasion was offered, and as their languages were diverse. Therefore, it was a manifest miracle, when they saw them ready to speak divers languages. As touching Peter’s sermon, it might be understood of the greater part of men wheresoever they were born; for it is to be thought that many of those which came to Jerusalem were skillful in the Chaldean tongue. Again, it shall be nothing inconvenient if we say that he spoke also in other tongues. Although I will not much stand about this matter; so that this be out of doubt, that the apostles changed their speech. (83)
(81) “ Nativum,” native.
(82) “ Latine,” in Latin.
(83) “ Vere mutasse,” truly changed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.The outward portent was but the sign of a greater spiritual wonder. As yet, though they had been taught to pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit (Luk. 11:13), and, we must believe, had found the answer to their prayer in secret and sacred influences and gradual growth in wisdom, they had never been conscious of its power as filling thempervading the inner depths of personality, stimulating every faculty and feeling to a new intensity of life. Now they felt, in St. Peters words, as borne onward (2Pe. 1:21), thinking thoughts and speaking words which were not their own, and which they could hardly even control. They had passed into a state which was one of rapturous ecstasy and joy. We must not think of the gift as confined to the Apostles. The context shows that the writer speaks of all who were assembled, not excepting the women, as sharers in it. (Comp. Act. 2:17-18.)
And began to speak with other tongues.Two facts have to be remembered as we enter upon the discussion of a question which is, beyond all doubt, difficult and mysterious. (1) If we receive Mar. 16:9-20 as a true record of our Lords words, the disciples had, a few days or weeks before the Day of Pentecost, heard the promise that they that believed should speak with new tongues (see Note on Mar. 16:17), i.e., with new powers of utterance. (2) When St. Luke wrote his account of the Day of Pentecost, he must have hadpartly through his companionship with St. Paul, partly from personal observationa wide knowledge of the phenomena described as connected with the tongues in 1 Corinthians 14. He uses the term in the sense in which St. Paul had used it. We have to read the narrative of the Acts in the light thrown upon it by the treatment in that chapter of the phenomena described by the self-same words as the Pentecost wonder. What, then, are those phenomena? Does the narrative of this chapter bring before us any in addition? (1) The utterance of the tongue is presented to us as entirely unconnected with the work of teaching. It is not a means of instruction. It does not edify any beyond the man who speaks (1Co. 14:4). It is, in this respect, the very antithesis of prophecy. Men do not, as a rule, understand it, though God does (1Co. 14:2). Here and there, some mind with a special gift of insight may be able to interpret with clear articulate speech what had been mysterious and dark (1Co. 14:13). St. Paul desires to subject the exercise of the gift to the condition of the presence of such an interpreter (1Co. 14:5; 1Co. 14:27). (2) The free use of the gift makes him who uses it almost as a barbarian or foreigner to those who listen to him. He may utter prayers, or praises, or benedictions, but what he speaks is as the sound of a trumpet blown uncertainly, of flute or lyre played with unskilled hand, almost, we might say, in the words of our own poet, like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh (1Co. 14:7-9). (3) Those who speak with tongues do well, for the most part, to confine their utterance to the solitude of their own chamber, or to the presence of friends who can share their rapture When they make a more public display of it, it produces results that stand in singular contrast with each other. It is a sign to them that believe not, i.e., it startles them, attracts their notice, impresses them with the thought that they stand face to face with a superhuman power. On the other hand, the outside world of listeners, common men, or unbelievers, are likely to look on it as indicating madness (1Co. 14:23). If it was not right or expedient to check the utterance of the tongues altogether, St. Paul at least thought it necessary to prescribe rules for its exercise which naturally tended to throw it into the background as compared with prophecy (1Co. 14:27-28). The conclusion from the whole chapter is, accordingly, that the tongues were not the power of speaking in a language which had not been learnt by the common ways of learning, but the ecstatic utterance of rapturous devotion. As regards the terms which are used to describe the gift, the English reader must be reminded that the word unknown is an interpolation which appears for the first time in the version of 1611. Wiclif, Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Rhemish give no adjective, and the Geneva inserts strange. It may be noted further that the Greek word for tongue had come to be used by Greek writers on Rhetoric for bold, poetic, unusual terms, such as belonged to epic poetry (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 3), not for those which belonged to a foreign language. If they were, as Aristotle calls them, unknown, it was because they were used in a startlingly figurative sense, so that men were sometimes puzzled by them (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 10). We have this sense of the old word (glossa) surviving in our glossary, a collection of such terms. It is clear (1) that such an use of the word would be natural in writers trained as St. Paul and St. Luke had been in the language of Greek schools; and (2) that it exactly falls in with the conclusion to which the phenomena of the case leads us, apart from the word.
We turn to the history that follows in this chapter, and we find almost identical phenomena. (1) The work of teaching is not done by the gift of tongues, but by the speech of Peter, and that was delivered either in the Aramaic of Palestine, or, more probably, in the Greek, which was the common medium of intercourse for all the Eastern subjects of the Roman empire. In that speech we find the exercise of the higher gift of prophecy, with precisely the same results as those described by St. Paul as following on the use of that gift. (Comp. Act. 2:37 with 1Co. 14:24-25.) (2) The utterances of the disciples are described in words which convey the idea of rapturous praise. They speak the mighty works, or better, as in Luk. 1:49, the great things of God. Doxologies, benedictions, adoration, in forms that transcended the common level of speech, and rose, like the Magnificat, into the region of poetry: this is what the word suggests to us. In the wild, half dithyrambic hymn of Clement of Alexandriathe earliest extant Christian hymn outside the New Testamentin part, perhaps, in that of Act. 4:24-30, and the Apocalyptic hymns (Rev. 4:8; Rev. 4:11; Rev. 5:13; Rev. 7:10), we have the nearest approach to what then came, in the fiery glow of its first utterance, as with the tongues of men and of angels, from the lips of the disciples. (3) We cannot fail to be struck with the parallelism between the cry of the scoffers here, These men are full of new wine (Act. 2:13), and the words, Will they not say that ye are mad? which St. Paul puts into the mouth of those who heard the tongues (1Co. 14:23). In both cases there is an intensity of stimulated life, which finds relief in the forms of poetry and in the tones of song, and which to those who listened was as the poets frenzy. It is not without significance that St. Paul elsewhere contrasts the being drunk with wine with being filled with the Spirit, and immediately passes on, as though that were the natural result, to add speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:18-19). If we find the old Jewish psalms in the first of these three words, and hymns known and remembered in the second, the natural explanation of the adjective specially alluded to in the third is that the songs or odes are such as were not merely spiritual in the later sense of the word, but were the immediate outflow of the Spirits working. Every analogy, it will be noticed, by which St. Paul illustrates his meaning in 1Co. 13:1; 1Co. 14:7-8, implies musical intonation. We have the sounding brass and the tinkling (or clanging) cymbal, the pipe, the harp, the trumpet giving an uncertain sound. It falls in with this view that our Lord Himself compares the new energy of spiritual life which He was about to impart to new wine (Mat. 9:17), and that the same comparison meets us in the Old Testament in the words in which Elihu describes his inspiration (Job. 32:19). The accounts of prophecy in its wider sense, as including song and praise, as well as a direct message to the minds and hearts of men, in the life of Saul, present Phenomena that are obviously analogous (1Sa. 10:10-11; 1Sa. 19:20; 1Sa. 19:24). The brief accounts in Act. 10:46, speaking with tongues and magnifying God, and Act. 19:6, where tongues are distinguished from prophecy, present nothing that is not in harmony with this explanation.
In the present case, however, there are exceptional phenomena. We cannot honestly interpret St. Lukes record without assuming either that the disciples spoke in the languages which are named in Act. 2:9-11, or that, speaking in their own Galilean tongue, their words came to the ears of those who listened as spoken in the language with which each was familiar. The first is at once the more natural interpretation of the language used by the historian, and, if we may use such a word of what is in itself supernatural and mysterious, the more conceivable of the two. And it is clear that there was an end to be attained by such an extension of the in this case which could not be attained otherwise. The disciples had been present in Jerusalem at many feasts before, at which they had found themselves, as now, surrounded by pilgrims from many distant lands. Then they had worshipped apart by themselves, with no outward means of fellowship with these strangers, and had poured out their praises and blessings in their own Galilean speech, as each group of those pilgrims had done in theirs. Now they found themselves able to burst through the bounds that had thus divided them, and to claim a fellowship with all true worshippers from whatever lands they came. But there is no evidence that that power was permanent. It came and went with the special outpouring of the Spirit, and lasted only while that lasted in its full intensity. (Comp. Notes on Act. 10:46; Act. 19:6.) There are no traces of its exercise in any narrative of the work of apostles and evangelists. They did their work in countries where Greek was spoken, even where it was not the native speech of the inhabitants, and so would not need that special knowledge. In the history of Act. 14:11, it is at least implied that Paul and Barnabas did not understand the speech of Lycaonia.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Filled with the Holy Ghost This was the great fact of the Pentecost, the great fact of the New Testament dispensation the ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT.
Of this pentecostal sanctification we may remark: 1. It was a higher and purer endowment than the working of supernaturalisms, inasmuch as the latter does not necessarily imply even a regenerate character, and was mainly a transient and special provision for the establishment of the Church; while the former presumes a proximate conformity to the heavenly image, and is the normal privilege of the truly faithful for all ages. Even in the divine nature, though every attribute be perfect, yet holiness is pre-eminent over mere physical omnipotence. 2. Though the apostles before the Pentecost were holy after the less perfect dispensation of Moses, and so heirs of heaven, it was by this outpouring that they were wrought to the higher, and doubtless highest, sanctity of the new dispensation of the Spirit. 3. This sanctification was not merely sovereign or arbitrary from God, but consequent upon the entire self-consecration intimated in our note on Act 2:14. The freedom of man and of God co-operated in the same blessed work. Man’s self-consecration is the condition, God’s sanctifying gift is the consummation. This sanctification is a source of spiritual power higher, because holier, than even miraculous power. (See our notes on Mat 5:8; Mat 5:48.) A fuller discussion would belong to note on 1Th 5:23.
Speak with other tongues In other languages than their native.
Spirit gave them utterance The miraculous Spirit shaped their articulations.
In regard to the nature of this miraculous gift, we dismiss at once the rationalistic solutions that deny the miracle. Such are the hypotheses that it was simply a more fluent and ecstatic style of utterance; or, with Baumgarten, that it merely implied that their tongues, formerly instruments of the flesh, were now organs of the Holy Ghost. Still worse is the assumption of others, that the Christians who spoke were really Persian and other foreign Jews, and that a storm just then happening brought strangers to the place, who took the speakers to be mere Galileans miraculously speaking in foreign languages! On the other hand, we may dismiss the ultra-miraculous view that the apostles were at this time endowed with the permanent power of speaking in a variety of languages to enable them to preach the Gospel to the different nations of the earth. Of such a permanent gift there is no valid proof either in the New Testament or in early Church history. And for most of the nations of the Roman world the Latin, the Greek, and the Hebraic were a sufficient supply of dialects.
The ordinary supernaturalistic interpretation among commentators is, that each one of the disciples in turn spoke a single foreign language; so that the various foreigners were successively addressed, each in his own language. Our readers may still prefer that view, as it is maintained with great unanimity by all modern scholars; but to our own mind, we are obliged to confess, it is beset with difficulty. By most audiences such a miracle would be considered very equivocal, if not complete counterfeit. How could foreigners and strangers be absolutely sure that the speakers were genuine Galileans? How be convinced that each man had not learned his part and so was a deceiver? We can scarce consent that this great primordial event should receive so inadequate an explanation.
Now it is remarkable that a form of expression is thrice used which emphasises the marvel upon the hearing rather than the speaking. Act 2:3. They “were confounded because every man heard them speak in his own language.” As if the hearing by every man in his own language was simultaneous, and produced by the same speaking and speaker. Act 2:8. “How hear we every man in our own tongue ?’ The we and the every man simultaneously hear their native language uttered. Act 2:11. “ We do hear them speak in our tongues.” The marvel plainly is that each Galilean speaker is simultaneously heard by each auditor in his own native-born dialect. The speaker’s organs furnished the vocality, which the Spirit shaped, and, as it were, translated into each hearer’s native tongue.
And this conception was by no means unknown to the Jewish Church. Tradition held that by such a polyglottal miracle the self-same vocality at Sinai was so divided and articulated as to be audible and intelligible to every man of all the seventy dialects of the world. (See our note, vol. ii, p. 105 . ) So Wetstein quotes Rabbi Jochanan as saying, “Whatever word goes forth from the mouth of God is divided into seventy languages.” And Mechilta, commenting on the word “voices” in Exo 20:18, says, “How many were the voices? They heard each according to his own capacity.” Jochanan also says, “There went forth an utterance, and it was divided into seventy words in seventy languages; since all the nations heard, each hearing the word in the language of his own nation;” words singularly identical with Luke’s! Rabbi Tanchuma says upon Deu 5:23, “Said Moses, Thou hast heard how the utterance went forth to all Israel, to each one according to his own ability, old men, youths, boys, sucklings, women.”
That this polyglottal miracle actually took place at Sinai we have no Scripture proof; nor, perhaps, as a literal historical fact, did the Jewish doctors affirm it. They simply clothed in physical form the sublime conception that God’s law speaks, irrespective of national or racial boundary lines, to every human intelligence. Yet, as Christian baptism recognises and perpetuates in the new dispensation a later institute of the Jewish Church, being a physical form of the conception of sanctification, so the Pentecostal miracle was an appropriation of one of the divine thoughts of that same Jewish Church. The Divine Spirit here, as in many other cases, appropriates existing conceptions to valid and permanent uses.
This, it may be said, not wisely, would be, not a miracle of tongues, but a miracle of ears. But the miracle, as we understand it, and as the Jewish Church conceived and described it, interposed at the initial point, namely, at the tongue; it truly articulated the vocality, and its result only reached the ear with its marvellous effect. Just as the fiery tongue, a unit at the root, is divided off into a variety of terminal points, so does the vocality, which is one and simple at the start, divide off into a variety of articulations. It is as if the Spirit tongue impregnated the fleshly tongue, like a soul, and flung off the various dialects from its flaring points. And that surely was not a miracle of ears, but a miracle of tongues.
The miracle did not certainly consist in putting into the brain of each speaker a complete miraculous knowledge of a new language, so that he could select from its entire vocabulary the term fitted to the thought. That, Alford says, not much too strongly, would be an inconceivable and monstrous violation of man’s cerebral and mental nature. When God made the dumb brute reprove the prophet Balaam, he did not bestow upon the animal the soul of a man to understand human language. He simply shaped the words in the mouth of the brute, so that, phenomenally, “the dumb ass spake.” And this the divine power could as easily do as shape the name of “Samuel” in the air for the hearing of the boy prophet. Nor in either case does it follow that the miracle was solely upon the ears, but a miracle in the utterance, reaching the ears in its realization. Nor in either case was there a “mistake.” (as Lechler in Dr. Schaff’s Lange says,) nor a “mere thinking that they heard,” but a reality, and a true hearing of a true utterance.
By this view of the case, 1. We have no equivocal miracle which a combination of impostors might simulate. 2. We have a miracle pregnant with a divine idea, symbolizing the power with which God’s voice finds an auditory in every human conscience. 3. We have confirmed the parallelism of the inauguration of the Pentecostal Gospel and the Sinaitic Law. 4. We have a clear symbol of the universal diffusion of the one true religion. 5. We have a type not only of the reparation of the confusion of Babel by the bringing the intelligence of all nations into the reception of one utterance, but a type of Edenic unity in the bringing all back to the one primitive God-formed language of created Adam, in whom all the race was embodied.
What is here said refers, of course, to the Pentecostal miracle alone. The power of that primordial miracle was never fully repeated. Secondary Pentecosts occurred at Samaria, (Act 8:14-17,) at Cesarea, (Act 10:44-48,) and at Ephesus, (Act 19:2-7😉 but the first power grew fainter and fainter, and the gift of tongues became less and less marked, as at Corinth, by its original attributes.
Since our writing of the above the following paragraph has appeared in the (London) Quarterly Review, commencing an article on Islam, by Immanuel Deutsch:
“The Sinaitic Manifestation, as recorded in the Pentateuch, has become the theme of a thousand reflections in the Talmud, and the Haggadah generally. Yet, however varied their nature, one supreme thought runs through them all, the catholicity of Monotheism in its mission to all mankind. Addressed, apparently, to a small horde of runaway slaves, the ‘Law’ was intended, the Doctors say, for all the children of men. ‘Why,’ they ask, ‘was it given in the desert and not in any king’s land?’ To show, it is answered, that even as the desert, God’s own highway, is free, wide open to all, so are his words a free gift to all. The ‘Law’ was not given in the stillness and darkness of night, but in plain day, amid thunders and lightnings. Indeed, the Law itself had been offered to all nations of the world before it came to [Israel] the ‘chosen’ one. But the other nations, one and all, had turned to some one special national bent, or mission, with which one or the other of these commandments would have interfered, and so they declined them all. As for trembling Israel, had they not accepted the ‘Law’ that self-same mountain would have covered them up, and that desert would have become their grave. But, the legend continues, when this Law came to be revealed to them in the fulness of time, it was not revealed in their tongue alone, but in seventy: as many as there were nations counted on earth, even as many fiery tongues leap forth from the iron upon the anvil. And as the voice of the ‘Law’ went and came, echoing from Orient to Occident, from heaven to earth, ‘all men heard and saw.’ They heard the voice, and to each it bore a different sound: to the men and the women, the young and the old, the strong and the weak. In that self-same hour God’s majesty revealed itself in its manifold words and aspects: as Mercy and as Severity, as Justice and as Forgiveness, as Grace and Peace and Redemption. And through the midst of all these ever-varying sounds and visions there rolled forth the Divine word, ‘I am the everlasting Jehovah, thy God, one God!’”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’
This verse is very often the one emphasised when looking at Pentecost, and for the wrong reason. For the emphasis is then placed on ‘being filled with the Holy Spirit’, (simply because it is the only place where the Holy Spirit is actually mentioned), as though it was the major event. But it should not be so. For this filling (pimplemi) of the Spirit spoken of here is not descriptive of a permanent all embracing enduement like that in Act 2:3, nor is it central to the idea of the giving of the Spirit. It is rather describing the resultant action of the Spirit whereby He, having entered the disciples permanently in the breath and fire of God, gave an extra powerful but temporary filling so as to produce the sign that would follow, the speaking in other tongues. (They will need to be filled again in Act 4:31 so that they can speak with boldness). This is evidenced by its use elsewhere.
The only cases where being ‘filled’ (pimplemi) with the Holy Spirit is a permanent experience, and not a temporary one immediately followed by a description of the resulting activity, is in the cases of John the Baptiser and Paul (Luk 1:25; Act 9:17). For others it is always a real, but temporary, source of inspiration which results in inspired words as elsewhere in Acts (Act 4:8; Act 4:31; Act 13:9; compare Luk 1:40; Luk 1:67). Here in Acts 2 it is mentioned as the source of the speaking with other tongues. The permanent enduement had already been denoted through the sound of the wind and the manifestation of the fire, which must not be seen as just symbols, but as manifesting the presence of God Himself, personally and powerfully. The prime emphasis of Act 2:4 is not on being filled with the Spirit but on the Spirit filling them so as to produce the ‘other tongues’ which are thereby seen to have been God produced, and so to be manifestations of the presence of the same Spirit as is present in wind and fire.
We can compare how in Luke’s Gospel the phrase being “filled with the Holy Spirit” occurs at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel explaining the prophesying of Elizabeth (Luk 1:40) and Zacharias (Luk 1:67), and the continuing power behind John the Baptiser’s ministry (Luk 1:15), (where it is likened to the spirit and power of Elijah (Luk 1:17)). In all cases it resulted in inspired words. Another and very different phrase “full (pleres) of the Holy Spirit” is referred to the ministry of Jesus (Luk 4:1). He did not require special fillings for He was always full of the Spirit. ‘Filled (pimplemi) with the Holy Spirit’ also occurs elsewhere in Acts where it causes Peter to speak inspired words (Act 4:8), and where it causes the same disciples of Jesus to “speak the word of God boldly” (Act 4:31). In Act 13:9 Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks wonder working words which render Elymas blind. It is used therefore in the main to explain particular, but temporary, supernatural phenomena.
It is true that in Act 9:17 it is used, as with John the Baptiser, for the preparation of Paul for his unique teaching and preaching ministry, but then it is not followed by any phenomenon that needed explanation. Being ‘filled (pleroo) with the Spirit’, and therefore full (pleres) of the Spirit is what we usually think if as being filled with the Spirit and is an experience that Christians should enjoy continually (Act 13:52; Eph 5:18; Act 6:3; Act 6:5; Act 7:55; Act 11:24) as they walk in fellowship with Him (Gal 5:16; Gal 5:25).
So in the case of John the Baptiser and Paul (Act 9:17) the experience (with pimplemi) was permanent and explained their powerful and continual preaching and teaching ministry, while with Elizabeth and Zacharias and in all other cases, including here, it was a temporary phenomenon, explaining their prophesying and powerful words. This compares with the phrase “the Spirit of the Lord came upon —” in the Old Testament where it was often for a specific task, but permanent for Saul, while he was obedient, and for David. Here in Acts 2 then it would seem to suggest that this filling is the cause of the temporary experience of speaking in other tongues. Thus here speaking in other tongues is not to be seen as a sign of being filled with the Spirit, but results from such a filling. The other tongues are the consequence of the Spirit’s temporary filling, the reason why the Spirit filled them. The more permanent experience of the indwelling of the Spirit is revealed in the divine breath and the tongues of fire.
For the sake of completeness and in order to demonstrate this let us see all the verses which speak of being ‘filled (pimplemi) with the Holy Spirit’ side by side:
And he (John) will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb, and many of the children of Israel will he turn to the Lord their God (Luk 1:15).
And Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and she said — (Luk 1:41-42).
And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying — (Luk 1:67).
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance (Act 2:4).
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, — (Act 4:8).
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness (Act 4:31).
And Ananias — putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared to you in the way as you came, has sent me, that you might receive your sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit (Act 9:17).
Then Saul, (who also is called Paul) filled with the Holy Spirit, fastened his eyes on him, and said — – (Act 13:9).
It will be seen at once that the references to John the Baptiser and Paul in Act 9:7 are distinctive in that nothing is said of words following. In all the other cases the words that result are clearly stated. Thus in those two cases the filling with the Holy Spirit is said to be absolute. These were men who for the remainder of their lives would have specially empowered ministries of the word. In all the other cases the phrase explains a phenomenon connected with ‘inspired’ speaking at a particular time.
This can be contrasted with the use of ‘filled (pleroo) with the Holy Spirit’ and ‘full (pleres) of the Holy Spirit’.
And Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness (Luk 4:1).
Look you out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom (Act 6:3).
And the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit — (Act 6:5).
But he (Stephen), being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God (Act 7:55).
For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and much people were added to the Lord (Act 11:24).
And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Spirit (Act 13:52).
And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, and making melody with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things (Eph 5:18).
It will be noticed immediately that no examples in this list result in inspired words and in most cases they refer to a continuous experience which explains some particular attribute enjoyed by those filled, such as wisdom, faith, and joy (although loseable for a time when we are filled with doubts or fears or anxieties). The one that refers to Jesus is clearly unique and refers to the whole of His life although having specific reference to the commencement of His wonder working ministry in Luke 4. The reference to Stephen in Act 7:55 explains why he saw heavenly things which no other saw. The reference in Ephesians refers to a continual experience which results in singing and praise and is a practical way of saying ‘be filled with faith and joy in the Holy Spirit’. These last examples in fact describe what we usually think of when we think of ‘being filled with the Holy Spirit’.
But having said that, while in Act 2:4 the phrase being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ is the explanation for the phenomenon of speaking in tongues, and to that extent temporary, there can be no doubt that Act 2:1-4 as a whole is describing the “drenching (baptizo) in the Holy Spirit” of Act 1:5, with which Act 2:4 connects. The coming of the Holy Spirit here is in this case more than just a “filling”. It is a permanent indwelling. It is the arrival of God by His Spirit in His permanent power and distinctive presence in His people, never to leave them. It is so huge an experience that it is almost impossible to put it into words. The temporary “filling” in order to enable the speaking in other tongues is only a small though significant part of it. We must therefore beware of applying Act 2:1-4 to some sort of ‘special experience’ available to all. Christians do, of course, experience this. ‘If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His’ (Rom 8:9). And Christians can, of course, all enjoy what lies behind the experience here, experiencing the indwelling and life-giving power of the Spirit, receiving the enduement with power of the Spirit and taking part in the furthering of the work of the Spirit in this new age, but when we experience this it is the fruition of this event not a repeating of it. Many may also experience being “filled with the Holy Spirit” when God has a task for them to do. This is something that has happened through the ages, and will continue to happen. But it is interesting in this context that no one is ever told to seek the Holy Spirit. We are told to seek God, and as we seek God He will come, as He did here.
We would therefore suggest that the threefold emphasis of these verses is that:
There came the sound of a rushing mighty wind/breath, ever the symbol of power (compareEze 37:5; Eze 37:9; Isa 11:15; Isa 17:13; Isa 41:16; Isa 59:19 RV RSV; Exo 15:10; 2Sa 5:24). God was revealing that He had given life and power to and through His people.
There came the cloven tongues of fire, ever the symbol of God’s purity, and glory, and consuming power and the sign of His indwelling (Exo 19:18; Exo 24:17; Exo 40:34-35; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:24; Isa 4:5; Eze 1:27; Mal 3:2). His people were now to be seen as, and would in fact be, God’s new Temple, His new Dwellingplace on earth.
There came ‘speaking with other tongues’, resulting from the Spirit filling them for the purpose, which expressed the fact that God was seeking men and women out in His love and speaking personally to those whose individual tongues they were (Isa 28:11), because He knows and is aware of the tongues of all men.
‘And began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ These are the words that are central to the verse, and are clearly important for the significance of Pentecost. Having clarified their importance we must now consider what they tell us.
The first aspect of tongues or languages as stressed in Scripture is that they are the method by which God speaks, whether men hear or not (Isa 28:11-12). God speaks to men through languages, through words. If people are to hear God they must understand the tongue with which He speaks and listen to it. When His people gathered before the Mount they were made conscious of His wind, they saw His fire and they heard His words from the midst of the fire. This is especially brought out in Deuteronomy 4 where a great emphasis is placed by Moses on the fact that they saw His fire, and that from it they heard His voice speaking His words to them (Deu 4:10-12; Deu 4:33; Deu 4:36). From the fire of God came the words of God. Here at Pentecost we have the same picture, the ‘tongues’ of fire sat on each of them, and then the other ‘tongues’ came as a result of the fire, so that the watchers could see the fire and hear His words. God was speaking from the fire of His presence as He had at Sinai.
In this way those who heard the other tongues were made conscious, except in the case of the scoffers, that this was God present among them to speak to them His words in their own native languages. While all spoke either Aramaic or Greek, or both, most of them would be familiar with their own native languages, the languages of the region in which they were born, which were treasured as evidence of their ancestry and of their forebears, and of their own distinctive culture. But they would not expect to hear them so far from home. Yet here now they were made aware that God had sought them out through these Galileans and was speaking to them in the language of home. So those who were receptive, when they heard those native languages on the mouths of the Galileans, recognised that this was a place and an atmosphere in which God was speaking to them in the most personal and loving way. They were made to recognise that the God of Pentecost knew who they were. That God loved them for what they were. And by this their hearts were being opened and prepared for the Spirit inspired words of Peter. Nothing stirs a man like hearing the language of the country of his birth. No wonder that so many then responded. No other sign could quite have opened their hearts to the voice of God in the way that this one did. God had by it demonstrated to them His personal interest in them. This was the first significance of the ‘other tongues’.
The second significance of these ‘other tongues’ was that they were clearly miraculous and declared the wonderful works of God. The Jews believed that the days of prophecy had ceased and would not be renewed until the day of consummation when God again began to work powerfully on behalf of His people. But now here it was apparent that a new day of prophecy had come. This therefore identified these Galileans directly with the outpouring of the Spirit as promised by Joel. This is why Peter will be able to say, ‘This is that’ (Act 2:16) and be believed. The new day of prophecy has dawned! And God is prophesying to His people through these men, and to each in his own tongue.
And thirdly a further aspect of this speaking in ‘other tongues’ is that it was also a declaration that the judgment of the world resulting from the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 was now over. At Babel had begun the process that led to men being divided through their different languages because they did not want to listen to the voice of God, here was beginning the process of unifying men, of bringing men of different languages together as one, so that they could hear the voice of God together.
So these manifestations of the Spirit’s activity had a crucial part to play in an understanding of what was now happening. They declared that God was speaking to them personally, that the new day of the Spirit and of prophecy had come, and that God was now seeking to unite a world divided at Babel.
In Act 10:44-46 the same sign would bring home to Peter that Gentiles as well as Jews could enjoy the full privileges of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and be united with the Jews in one whole (compare Eph 2:11-22), because the time of separation was over. No longer, Peter informed his critics, could they be justified in not accepting Gentiles on the same basis as Jews, for they too had spoken in the other tongues that indicated the Spirit speaking through them. Whether the tongues were understood there we are not specifically told, but we are told that they were aware that they were ‘magnifying God’ which does suggest that they were understood, and as a Roman centurion Cornelius’ household would be multinational so that they could speak in each other’s tongues. Both this example and Acts 2 can be compared with the Spirit coming on the seventy elders so that they ‘prophesied’, and from then on knew that they possessed the Spirit (Num 11:25-26). There could be no ‘other tongues’ in Numbers because they were all of one tongue, so they prophesied in that tongue. But the significance was similar. God was giving them understanding and a mouth with which to speak.
In Act 19:6 the sign was in order to indicate to the influential followers of John the Baptiser that they also needed to participate in the new age of the Spirit, and be united with the followers of Christ. If they wished to continue to speak for God they must yield to Christ and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. As a result when they were baptised in the name of the Lord, of Jesus, they too spoke in tongues or prophesied in order to indicate that God was now speaking through them as well. They were now incorporated into what had happened at Pentecost. From now on God’s voice to the world would come forth from them also by His Spirit. It made them recognise that all must therefore become one in Christ and cease to be separated by response to Jesus Christ. In this case there is no indication as to whether the tongues were understood. It was not important here. What mattered was that they too had become genuine ‘God-speakers’. These are the only cases in Acts where men are said to have spoken with tongues so that we have no reason to see it as a common sign required of all. It occurred because of two unusual situations, the first the official inaugural welcome of uncircumcised Gentiles as full Christians, and the second, the welcoming in and embracing of a unique ‘sect’ which had resulted from the Spirit at work through John, which had necessarily to be incorporated into the Christian church..
But here in Acts 2 it is specifically the understanding of the other tongues that is emphasised. It was precisely because they were understood that they were effective. All men from ‘all over the world’ heard the Christians speaking in their own languages ‘the mighty works of God’. It was not preaching. The preaching was done by Peter, probably in Aramaic which all would understand (they were all Jews), or possibly in Greek. It was rather a manifestation of the fact that this little band of disciples of Christ had a message for the whole world which came directly from God, and resulted from the pouring out of the Spirit promised by Joel. It was to make them recognise that in this incident and atmosphere it was the very voice of God that was speaking, and speaking directly and personally to each of them. To see it as simply a grounds for arguing about the gift of tongues is to miss the whole point.
Furthermore as we have already suggested, we must surely connect these ‘tongues’ with the ‘tongues’ of fire in Act 2:3. The tongues produced tongues. They were manifestations of the fire of God’s presence which had entered them, and were demonstrating that the indwelling was available for all the hearers, and indeed for all men who would respond to Him through Christ. The listeners therefore had both a visible and aural evidence that God was here speaking to them, in exactly the same way as the people of Israel had had at Sinai (Deu 4:33). They saw the Fire, they heard the Voice.
What happened here at Pentecost is the manifestation of Christ as King over the Kingly Rule of God (Act 2:33; Act 2:36), a Kingly Rule which was to spread worldwide, manifested by the indwelling of God and the sending down of His own Representative to act through those whom He had appointed to his service. It was also the outward revelation of the new age of the Spirit, in which men can respond to His new covenant, and will then be indwelt by God through His Spirit, and will enjoy at various levels the power of His Spirit, and will be able to speak as from God. They will be, and will be able to see themselves as, the Tabernacle and Temple of God (1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16-18). They will thus as a result enjoying all the blessings that the Spirit brings as described elsewhere, sonship (Rom 8:15-16; Gal 4:4-6), sealing (Eph 1:13-14; Eph 4:30), and setting apart for God (1Co 1:2 with Act 6:11; 2Th 2:13). They are then to allow the Spirit to fill (pleroo) them on a continual basis (Eph 5:18, which while sampled here was not said to be permanently experienced here in Acts 2), an experience different from being “filled (pimplemi) with the Spirit” for a particular inspirational task. This will then result in their rejoicing and being filled with worship and praise, the result of continually seeking God and being obedient to Him. Thus will they enjoy the full benefits of the age of the Spirit.
Some, however, see the reference to ‘other tongues’ here as meaning ‘other than the language normally used in Temple worship’, that is, other than the sacred Hebrew language, the other tongues being therefore mainly Greek and Aramaic. The surprise is then seen as occasioned to the listeners by the fact that while they were wedded to the fact that all worship in the Temple should be in Hebrew, here worship was taking place other than in Hebrew. But this does not explain why Luke then lists such a diversity of peoples, or how it could be such a clear sign to Jewish Christians of God’s acceptance of the Gentiles as in Act 10:44-46; Act 11:15. Nor can it be seriously be thought that no one had ever prayed in the Temple area in a foreign tongue before. (It might be different if it had taken place in the more inner areas of the Temple).
Excursus on the Speaking With Other Tongues.
It almost seems like a coming down from the mountain to divert from the significance of these other tongues at this huge moment in the birth of the church in order to look at the wider subject of the connection of this with the speaking in tongues (glossolalia) described elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 12-14. I say almost because the subject is clearly of great importance, and it is without question that the gift of tongues itself continued elsewhere, to a lesser extent to stress, the unity of all believers in the Spirit and the fact that God’s truth was for the whole world (even though like all gifts it could be wrongly used and spoken about in order to bring about the opposite). For while the wording is the same the emphasis is totally different.
Here in Act 2:4 they are described as ‘speaking with other tongues’ (lalein heterais glowssais) and it is stressed that the hearers each heard them speaking ‘his own language’ (te idia dialekto lalountown- Act 2:6; Act 2:8). Indeed they declared that they heard them ‘speaking in our own tongues’ (lalountown — tais hemeterais glowssais) the wonderful works of God (Act 2:11). This may similarly be understood in Act 10:44-46, for ‘they heard them speak with tongues (lalountown glowssais) and magnify God’, the latter words ‘and magnify God’ probably signifying that the tongues were understood. It is noteworthy otherwise that nowhere else are such things (that they spoke tongues which were understood) said about ‘tongues’, even though it be granted that the tongues in Act 19:6 had the same purpose. Thus Act 2:4; Act 10:44-46 have the appearance of being unique phenomena intended for a unique purpose, to bring home that the message of Good News is now for people of all tongues, and that God is now speaking to such through His Apostles. This specific idea is not obvious in other references to tongues.
However, in Act 10:44-46 and Act 19:6 (where some spoke with tongues (elaloun te glowsais), while others prophesied) the tongues were seen as a sign of the presence of the same Holy Spirit as at Pentecost, and confirmed that these believers had been accepted into God’s Temple on the same terms as the original believers. They were thus of considerable importance in these cases as evidencing the acceptability of uncircumcised Gentiles into the church on equal terms, and the need for the then current disciples of John the Baptiser to become Christians in order to enjoy full blessing.
There are two other places where tongues are mentioned. The reference in Mar 16:17-18 is important. Being on the lips of the resurrected Jesus it is presented as the first ever reference to ‘tongues’ that we are informed of in the New Testament. Here, with no background given, we are told concerning His future disciples that ‘they will speak with “new tongues”’ (glowssais lalesousin kainais). Given the context of going into all the world and proclaiming the Gospel, and no parallel elsewhere to the expression ‘new tongues’ (languages), we may well see it as an indication of the widespread nature of their future witness. They will go among foreign peoples outside the range of Greek and Aramaic where they will have to speak with ‘new tongues’.
It is, of course, true that this is seemingly cited in the midst of examples of the miraculous. It is paralleled with the casting out of devils, the safe taking up of poisonous snakes and the laying on of hands on the sick that they might be healed. Even here, however, we should note that the casting out of evil spirits was not so much a miracle as a sign of God’s supreme authority over the powers of evil, and that the refraining from biting of the snakes was rather an indication that God was in control of creation and that His disciples had in some way entered into the new age which was coming (see Isa 11:8-9). Examples of both will be cited in Acts (Act 8:7; Act 16:18; Act 19:12; Act 28:3-6). Nor then necessarily were the ‘new tongues’ miraculous.
What the signs in Mark taught men was:
That God was all powerful over the spiritual world, revealed in the fact that evil spirits were cast out.
That God would enable His people to speak to all the world in all tongues, that is, in ‘new’ languages.
That God was in control of all natural forces that could hurt them, even of the creature that had first been the cause of all men’s problems, because snakes were controlled.
That God could heal all and could keep His people whole as they went out in His service, and could heal men so as to demonstrate that the Kingly Rule of God was here. .
With regard to not seeing ‘new tongues’ as necessarily a miraculous gift, we should note that among the gifts described in 1Co 12:28-31 are gifts like ‘administration’ and ‘helps’ which are mentioned alongside ‘miracles’ and ‘prophecy’. Thus the gifts of the Holy Spirit were there clearly seen as equally evidenced in the sphere of what might be seen as ‘ordinary’ activities. Furthermore while today we might see learning ‘new tongues’ as nothing unusual, it was certainly unusual for the types of people Jesus was talking about, and would include more exotic languages not known in their world. They would have been filled with trepidation at the thought of having to do so. It would therefore be a huge relief to them to know that God would give them enablement in the process. There would seem in view of this no reason for doubting that this promise in Mark refers to God’s powerful enabling in giving His disciples the ability quickly to absorb and preach in new languages, in ‘new tongues’ which would be necessary because of the places to which they would have to go.
It is, of course, always possible that this could be seen as a preparation for Pentecost itself where the ‘other tongues’ will be spoken, for it should be noted that all these references up to now have been in the context of Judaism where as far as we know speaking in tongues was not a normal experience either before or after Pentecost. These tongues would not at this stage be compared with such phenomena as evidenced in the more extravagant Gentile religions. Taken in this way it would have helped Peter to recognise in the ‘other tongues’ at Pentecost a fulfilment of the promise that Jesus had made concerning ‘new tongues’. But why then the different wording in describing the activity?
(It is interesting how those who argue that Acts and 1 Corinthians refer to the same thing because they use the same phraseology, then argue that the lack of the same phraseology does not matter here).
There may also be included in the idea in Mark, especially after Pentecost had made it plain, that their ability to praise God in new tongues in the same way as at Pentecost would soften up men’s hearts so that even the barbarians would recognise that they came with a message from God. But if this be so we are never given any examples of it, although it must be admitted that we do not know much about the later witness to such Barbarians nor of the activities of most of the Apostles so that this is not conclusive. But the new tongues in the context of a going out into all the world does suggest rather that they would have to speak in these new tongues (or languages) because they were going to new places. The promise is then that God will give them enablement in doing so, being Spirit-enabled without being miraculous (if such a distinction is possible). We are wise then to leave the reference in Mark out when looking at the phenomenon of ‘tongues’.
The only other place where the question of ‘tongues’ arises is in 1 Corinthians 12-14. But significantly these are never described as ‘new tongues’, and apart from in an Old Testament quotation are not even referred to as ‘other tongues’. Regardless, however, of the nomenclature we are certainly not in this case dealing with quite the same phenomenon as at Pentecost, for Paul clearly states that these tongues will not be understood and that outsiders will come in and hear them speaking in tongues (lalowsin glowssais) and will consider them mad (1Co 14:23). It is not so much a question of different terminology between Acts and Corinthians (as it is with Mark 16), for in 1 Corinthians there is a general similarity to Acts, but what stands out is that in addressing the Corinthians Paul nowhere seems to consider even the possibility of the tongues being recognised. It seems reasonably fair to conclude that had the speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians been seen by Paul as exactly the same as here in Acts 2 he would have assumed that they were in recognisable languages. They would not therefore have produced the reaction that they did, and Paul would then have been open to the charge that he was misrepresenting the case. He would have had to answer the claim that some present did actually understand them, as they did at Pentecost. But on the face of it he was never required to answer such a claim. It would seem that both parties recognised that at Corinth the tongues were unrecognisable, and the difference therefore lay in the question as to how they should be used.
Paul is quite clear on this. He specifically states that the tongues being manifested in Corinth should not be spoken aloud, except privately in private prayer, unless they were translated (1Co 14:27-28), and then never more than three times in a public meeting which probably lasted for some hours. His decision was based on his view that no gifts should be used publicly in church unless they benefited all (Act 2:26). However that was not to denigrate the gift, only to control its use, for Paul does seem to have valued the gift greatly in his own private prayer life. What he opposed was an excessive and/or untranslated use in public.
It is difficult therefore to argue that these tongues were being used in the same way as at Pentecost. Had they been so surely the Holy Spirit would have ensured that they were understandable to at least some of those present, as He did at Pentecost. The fact that He did not do so demonstrates that we are dealing in 1 Corinthians with a different, if parallel, phenomenon which was intended mainly for personal blessing, and that like all the gifts it was only granted to some.
For further detail with regard to this we would refer to our commentary on 1 Corinthians 14.
End of Excursus.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Act 2:4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, That is, “all the hundred and twenty.” See on Act 2:1. This effusion of the Spirit, particularlydemonstrated in the gift of tongues, was intended not only as a sign of the apostles’ inspiration at this period, but likewise designed for the use of the apostolic mission. Jesus himself expressly tells us so; for, on his leaving the world, he comforts his disciples with this promise: But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me,unto the uttermost parts of the earth. This is recorded, ch. Act 1:8 by the evangelic writer, as an introduction to his narrative of the miraculous gift of tongues, which heconsiders as the completion of this promise; and that the power to be received was the power then given; the use of which, as we see, was to enable the disciples to become witnesses unto him, unto the uttermost parts of the earth. We find St. Paul had this power, not only in the fullest measure, but in a proportionable duration; for, endeavouring to moderate the excessive value which the Corinthians set upon spiritual gifts, he observes, that, with regard to the most splendid of them, the gift of tongues, he himself had the advantage of them all.I thank my God, says he, that I speak with tongues more than you all. The occasion shews, that he considered this his acquirement as a spiritual gift; and his using the present time shews, that he spoke of it as then in his possession. But why did he speak with more tongues than all of them? For a good reason: he was to be the peculiar apostle of the Gentiles, and was to preach the gospel among remote and barbarousnations;whichverycircumstancerenderedthisendowmentmorenecessary to him than the rest of the apostles, whose ministry was circumscribed within more narrow bounds.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 2:4 . After this external phenomenon, there now ensued the internal filling of all who were assembled, [114] without exception ( . , comp. Act 2:1 ), with the Holy Spirit, of which the immediate result was, that they, and, indeed, these same (comp. Act 4:31 ) accordingly not excluding the apostles (in opposition to van Hengel)
. Earlier cases of being filled with the Spirit (Luk 1:41 ; Luk 1:47 ; Joh 20:22 ; comp. also Luk 9:55 ) are related to the present as the momentary, partial, and typical, to the permanent, complete, and antitypical, such as could only occur after the glorifying of Jesus (see Act 2:33 ; Joh 16:7 ; Joh 7:39 ).
] brings into prominence the primus impetus of the act as its most remarkable element.
] For the sure determination of what Luke meant by this, it is decisive that on the part of the speakers was, in point of fact, the same thing which the congregated Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., designated as (comp. Act 2:8 : ). The therefore are, according to the text, to be considered as absolutely nothing else than languages, which were different from the native language of the speakers . They, the Galileans, spoke, one Parthian, another Median, etc., consequently languages of another sort (Luk 9:29 ; Mar 16:13 ; Gal 1:6 ), i.e. foreign (1Co 14:21 ); and these indeed the point wherein precisely appeared the miraculous operation of the Spirit not acquired by study ( , Mar 16:17 ). Accordingly the text itself determines the meaning of as languages , not: tongues (as van Hengel again assumes on the basis of Act 2:3 , where, however, the tongues have only the symbolic destination of a divine [115] ); and thereby excludes the various other explanations, and in particular those which start from the meaning verba obsoleta et poetica (Galen, exeg. glossar. Hippocr. Prooem. ; Aristot. Ars poet . 21. 4 ff., 22. 3 f.; Quinctil. 1. 8; Pollux. 2. 4; Plut. Pyth. Orac. 24; and see Giese, Aeol. Dial. p. 42 ff.). This remark holds good (1) of the interpretation of Herder ( von d. Gabe der Sprachen am ersten christl. Pfingstf. , Riga, 1794), that new modes of interpreting the ancient prophets were meant; (2) against Heinrichs, who (after A. G. Meyer, de charismate , etc., Hannov. 1797) founds on that assumed meaning of his explanation of enthusiastic speaking in languages which were foreign indeed, different from the sacred language, but were the native languages of the speakers; (3) against Bleek in the Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 33 ff., 1830, p. 45 ff. The latter explains as glosses, i.e. unusual, antiquated poetical and provincial expressions. According to him, we are not to think of a connected speaking in foreign languages, but of a speaking in expressions which were foreign to the language of common life, and in which there was an approximation to a highly poetical phraseology, yet so that these glosses were borrowed from different dialects and languages (therefore ). Against this explanation of the , which is supported by Bleek with much erudition, the usus loquendi is already decisive. For in that sense is a grammatico-technical expression, or at least an expression borrowed from grammarians, which is only as such philologically beyond dispute (see all the passages in Bleek, p. 33 ff., and already in A. G. Meyer, l.c. ; Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 741). But this meaning is entirely unknown to ordinary linguistic usage, and particularly to that of the O. and N. T. How should Luke have hit upon the use of such a singular expression for a thing, which he could easily designate by words universally intelligible? How could he put this expression even into the mouths of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc.? For , Act 2:11 , must be explained in a manner entirely corresponding to this. Further, there would result for a wholly absurd meaning. , forsooth, would be nothing else than glosses, obsolete expressions, which are peculiar only to the Parthians, or to the Medes, or to the Elamites, etc., just as the of Theodorus (in Athen. xiv. p. 646 c, p. 1437, ed. Dindorf) are provincialisms of Attica , which were not current among the rest of the Greeks. Finally, it is further decisive against Bleek that, according to his explanation of transferred also to 1Co 12:14 , no sense is left for the singular term ; for could not denote genus locutionis glossematicum ( , Dionys. Hal. de Thuc. 24), but simply a single gloss . As Bleek’s explanation falls to the ground, so must every other which takes in any other sense than languages , which it must mean according to Act 2:6 ; Act 2:8 ; Act 2:11 . This remark holds particularly (4) against the understanding of the matter by van Hengel, according to whom the assembled followers of Jesus spoke with other tongues than those with which they formerly spoke, namely, in the excitement of a fiery inspiration, but still all of them in Aramaic , so that each of those who came together heard the language of his own ancestral worship from the mouth of these Galileans, Act 2:6 .
[114] Chrysostom well remarks: , , . See also van Hengel, p. 54 ff.
[115] Van Hengel understands, according to ver. 3, by ., “tongues of fire, which the believers in Jesus have obtained through their communion with the Holy Spirit.” That is, “an open-hearted and loud speaking to the glorifying of God in Christ,” such as had not been done before. Previously their tongues had been without fire .
From what has been already said, and at the same time from the express contrast in which the list of nations (Act 2:9-11 ) stands with the question (Act 2:7 ), it results beyond all doubt that Luke intended to narrate nothing else than this: the persons possessed by the Spirit began to speak in languages which were foreign to their nationality instead of their mother-tongue, namely, in the languages of other nations , [116] the knowledge and use of which were previously wanting to them, and were only now communicated in and with the . Comp. Storr, Opusc. II. p. 290 ff., III. p. 277 ff.; Milville, Obss. theol. exeg. de dono linguar. Basil. 1816. See also Schaff, Gesch. d. apost. K. p. 201 ff., Exo 2 ; Ch. F. Fritzsche, Nova opusc. p. 304 f. The author of Mar 16:17 has correctly understood the expression of Luke, when, in reference to our narrative, he wrote instead of . The explanation of foreign languages has been since the days of Origen that of most of the Church Fathers and expositors; but the monstrous extension of this view formerly prevalent, to the effect that the inspired received the gift of speaking all the languages of the earth (Augustin.: “coeperunt loqui linguis omnium gentium ”), and that for the purpose of enabling them to proclaim the gospel to all nations, is unwarranted. “Poena linguarum dispersit homines: donum linguarum dispersos in unum populum collegit,” Grotius. Of this the text knows nothing; it leaves it, on the contrary, entirely undetermined whether, over and above the languages specially mentioned in Act 2:9-11 , any others were spoken. For the preaching of the gospel in the apostolic age this alleged gift of languages was partly unnecessary , as the preachers needed only to be able to speak Hebrew and Greek (comp. Schneckenb. neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 17 ff.), and partly too general , as among the assembled there were certainly very many who did not enter upon the vocation of teacher. And, on the other hand, such a gift would also have been premature , since Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, would, above all, have needed it; and yet in his case there is no trace of its subsequent reception, just as there is no evidence of his having preached in any other language than Hebrew and Greek.
[116] Comp., besides 1Co 14:21 , Ecclus. praef .: (the Hebrew) (Leo, Tact. 4. 49: ); also Aesch. Sept. 171: . Not different is Pind. Pyth. xi. 43: .
But how is the occurrence to be judged of historically? On this the following points are to be observed: (1) Since the sudden communication of a facility of speaking foreign languages is neither logically possible nor psychologically and morally conceivable, and since in the case of the apostles not the slightest indication of it is perceptible in their letters or otherwise (comp., on the contrary, Act 14:11 ); since further, if it is to be assumed as having been only momentary, the impossibility is even increased, and since Peter himself in his address makes not even the slightest allusion to the foreign languages, the event, as Luke narrates it, cannot be presented in the actual form of its historical occurrence, whether we regard that Pentecostal assembly (without any indication to that effect in the text) as a representation of the entire future Christian body (Baumgarten) or not. (2) The analogy of magnetism (adduced especially by Olshausen, and by Baeumlein in the Wrtemb. Stud. VI. 2, p. 118) is entirely foreign to the point, especially as those possessed by the Spirit were already speaking in foreign languages, when the Parthians, Medes, etc., came up, so that anything corresponding to the magnetic “rapport” is not conceivable. (3) If the event is alleged to have taken place, as it is narrated, with a view to the representation of an idea , [117] and that, indeed, only at the time and without leaving behind a permanent facility of speaking languages (Rossteuscher, Gabe der Sprachen , Marb. 1850, p. 97: “in order to represent and to attest, in germ and symbol, the future gathering of the elect out of all nations, the consecration of their languages in the church, and again the holiness of the church in the use of these profane idioms, as also of what is natural generally”), such a view is nothing else than a gratuitously-imported subjective abstraction of fancy, which leaves the point of the impossibility and the non-historical character of the occurrence entirely unsettled, although it arbitrarily falls back upon the Babylonian confusion of tongues as its corresponding historical type. This remark also applies against Lange, Apost. Zeitalt. II. p. 22 ff., according to whose fanciful notion the original language of the inner life by which men’s minds are united has here reached its fairest manifestation. This Pentecostal language, he holds, still pervades the church as the language of the inmost life in God, as the language of the Bible, glorified by the gospel, and as the leaven of all languages, which effects their regeneration into the language of the Spirit. (4) Nevertheless, the state of the fact can in nowise be reduced to a speaking of the persons assembled in their mother tongues , so that the speakers would have been no native Galileans (Paulus, Eichhorn, Schulthess, de charismatib. sp. s. , Lips. 1818, Kuinoel, Heinrichs, Fritzsche, Schrader, and others); along with which David Schulz ( d. Geistesgaben d. ersten Christen , Breslau, 1836) explains even of other kinds of singing praise , which found utterance in the provincial dialects contrary to their custom and ability at other times. Thus the very essence of the narrative, the miraculous nature of the phenomenon, is swept away, and there is not even left matter of surprise fitted to give sufficient occasion for the astonishment and its expressions, if we do not, with Thiess, resort even to the hypothesis that the speakers had only used the Aramaic dialects instead of the Galilean. Every resolution of the matter into a speaking of native languages is directly against the nature and the words of the narrative, and therefore unwarranted. (5) Equally unwarranted, moreover, is the conversion, utterly in the face of the narrative, of the miracle of tongues into a miracle of hearing , so that those assembled did not, indeed, speak in any foreign tongue, but the foreigners listening believed that they heard their own native languages. See against this view, Castalio in loc. , and Beza on x. 46. This opinion (which Billroth on 1 Cor. strangely outbids by his fancy of a primeval language which had been spoken) is already represented by Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 41, as allowable by the punctuation of Act 2:6 ; is found thereafter in the Pseudo-Cyprian (Arnold), in the appendix to the Opp. Cypr. p. 60, ed. Brem. (p. 475, ed. Basil. 1530), in Beda, Erasmus, and others; and has recently been advocated especially by Schnecken-burger, Beitr. p. 84; comp. b. den Zweck d. Apostelgesch. p. 202 ff.: [118] legend also presents later analogous phenomena (in the life of Francis Xavier and others). (6) The miraculous gift of languages remains the centre of the entire narrative (see Ch. F. Fritzsche, nova opusc. p. 309 ff.; Zeller, p. 104 ff.; Hilgenf. d. Glossolalie , p. 87 ff.), and may in nowise be put aside or placed in the background, if the state of the fact is to be derived entirely from this narrative . If we further compare Act 10:46-47 , the in that passage shows that the , which there occurred at the descent of the Spirit on those assembled, cannot have been anything essentially different from the event in Act 2 . A corresponding judgment must in that case be formed as to Act 19:6 . But we have to take our views of what the really was, not from our passage, but from the older and absolutely authentic account of Paul in 1Co 12:14 ; according to which it (see comm. on 1Co 12:10 ) was a speaking in the form of prayer which took place in the highest ecstasy, and required an interpretation for its understanding and not a speaking in foreign languages. The occurrence in Act 2 . is therefore to be recognised, according to its historical import, as the phenomenon of the glossolalia (not as a higher stage of it, in which the foreign languages supervened, Olshausen), which emerged for the first time in the Christian church , and that immediately on the effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost, a phenomenon which, in the sphere of the marvellous to which it belongs, was elaborated and embellished by legend into a speaking in foreign languages, and accordingly into an occurrence quite unique , not indeed as to substance, but as to mode (comp. Hilgenfeld, p. 146), and far surpassing the subsequently frequent and well-known glossolalia , having in fact no parallel in the further history of the church. [119] How this transformation the supposition of which is by no means to be treated with suspicion as the dogmatic caprice of unbelief (in opposition to Rossteuscher, p. 125) took place, cannot be ascertained. But the supposition very naturally suggests itself, that among the persons possessed by the Spirit, who were for the most part Galileans (in the elaborated legend; all of them Galileans), there were also some foreigners , and that among these very naturally the utterances of the Spirit in the glossolalia found vent in expressions of their different national languages, and not in the Aramaic dialect, which was to them by nature a foreign language, and therefore not natural or suitable for the outburst of inspired ecstasy. If this first glossolalia actually took place in different languages , we can explain how the legend gradually gave to the occurrence the form which it has in Luke, even with the list of nations, which specifies more particularly the languages spoken. That a symbolical view of the phenomenon has occasioned the formation of the legend, namely, the idea of doing away with the diversity of languages which arose, Gen 11 , by way of punishment, according to which idea there was to be again in the Messianic time ( Test . XII. Patr. p. 618), is not to be assumed (Schneckenburger, Rossteuscher, de Wette), since this idea as respects the is not a N. T. one, and it would suit not the miracle of speaking , such as the matter appears in our narrative, but a miracle of hearing , such as it has been interpreted to mean. The general idea of the universal destination of Christianity (comp. Zeller, Hilgenfeld) cannot but have been favourable to the shaping of the occurrence in the form in which it appears in our passage.
[117] Comp. Augustine, serm. 9 : Loquebatur enim tunc unus homo omnibus linguis, quia locutura erat unitas ecclesiae in omnibus linguis.
[118] Svenson also, in the Zeitschr. f. Luth. Th. u. K. 1859, p. 1 ff., arrives at the result of a miracle of hearing .
[119] The conclusion of Wieseler ( Stud. u. Krit. 1869, p. 118), that Luke, who, as a companion of Paul, must have been well acquainted with the glossolalia , could not have represented it as a speaking in foreign languages, is incorrect. Luke, in fact, conceives and describes the Pentecostal miracle not as the glossolalia , which was certainly well known to him, as it was a frequent gift in the apostolic age, but as a quite extraordinary occurrence, such as it had been presented to him by tradition; and in doing so, he is perfectly conscious of the distinction between it and the speaking with tongues, which he knew by experience. With justice Holtzmann also (in Herzog’s Encykl. XVIII. p. 689) sees in our narrative a later legendary formation, but from a time which was no longer familiar with the nature of the glossolalia . This latter statement is not to be conceded, partly because Luke wrote soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the source which he here made use of must have been still older; and partly because he was a friend of Paul, and as such could not have been otherwise than familiar with the nature of that , which the apostle himself richly possessed.
The view which regards our event as essentially identical with the glossolalia , but does not conceive the latter as a speaking in foreign languages, has been adopted by Bleek in the Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 50 ff., whose explanation, however, of highly poetical discourse , combined with foreign expressions, agrees neither with the . . generally nor with Act 2:8 ; Act 2:11 ; by Baur in the Tb. Zeitschr. 1830, 2, p. 101 ff., who, however, explains on this account . . as new spirit-tongues , [120] and regarded this expression as the original one, but subsequently in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 618 ff., amidst a mixing up of different opinions, has acceded to the view of Bleek; by Steudel in the Tb. Zeitschr. 1830, 2, p. 133 ff., 1831, 2, p. 128 ff., who explains the Pentecostal event from the corresponding tone of feeling which the inspired address encountered in others , a view which does not at all suit the concourse of foreign unbelievers in our passage; by Neander, who, however (4th edition, p. 28), idealizes the speaking of inspiration in our passage too indefinitely and indistinctly; by Wieseler in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 743 ff., 1860, p. 117, who makes the be described according to the impression made upon the assembled Jews, an idea irreconcilable with our text (Act 2:6-12 ); by de Wette, who ascribes the transformation of the glossolalia in our passage to a reporter, who, from want of knowledge, imported into the traditional facts a symbolical meaning; by Hilgenfeld, according to whom the author conceived the gift of languages as a special of speaking with tongues; by van Hengel, who sees in the Corinthian glossolalia a degenerating of the original fact in our passage; and by Ewald ( Gesch. d. apost. Zeitalt. p. 123 ff., comp. Jahrb. III. p. 269 ff.), who represents the matter as the first outburst of the infinite vigour of life and pleasure in life of the new-born Christianity, which took place not in words, songs, and prayers previously used, nor generally in previous human speech and language, but, as it were, in a sudden conflux and moulding-anew of all previous languages, amidst which the synonymous expressions of different languages were, in the surging of excitement, crowded and conglomerated, etc., a view in which the appeal to the and is much too weak to do justice to the as the proper point of the narrative. On the other hand, the view of the Pentecostal miracle as an actual though only temporary speaking in unacquired foreign languages, such as Luke represents it, has been maintained down to the most recent times (Baeumlein in the Wrtemb. Stud. 1834, 2, p. 40 ff.; Bauer in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 658 ff., 1844, p. 708 ff.; Zinsler, de charism. . . 1847; Englmann, v. d. Charismen , 1850; Maier, d. Glossalie d. apost. Zeitalt. 1855; Thiersch, Kirche im apost. Zeitalt. p. 67; Rossteuscher, Baumgarten, Lechler; comp. also Kahnis, vom heil. Geiste , p. 61 ff., Dogmat. I. p. 517, Schaff, and others), a conception which Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. II. p. 206 ff., supports by the significance of Pentecost as the feast of the first fruits, and Baumgarten, at the same time, by its reference to the giving of the law. But by its side the procedure of the other extreme, by which the Pentecostal occurrence is entirely banished from history, [121] has been carried out in the boldest and most decided manner by Zeller (p. 104 ff.), to whom the origin of the narrative appears quite capable of explanation from dogmatic motives (according to the idea of the destination of Christianity for all nations) and typical views. [122]
, as, in which manner, i.e. according to the context: in which foreign language.
] eloqui (Lucian. Zeux. 1, Paras . 4, Plut. Mor. p. 405 E, Diog. L. i. 63), a purposely chosen word (comp. Act 2:14 , Act 26:25 ) for loud utterance in the elevated state of spiritual gifts (1Ch 25:1 ; Ecclus. Prolog. ii.; comp. , Deu 32:2 , also Zec 10:2 ), also of false prophets, Eze 13:19 ; Mich. Act 5:12 . See, generally, Schleusner, Thes. I. p. 417; also Valckenaer, p. 344; and van Hengel, p. 40.
[120] Which the Spirit has created for Himself as His organs, different from the usual human tongues. See also in his neutest. Theol. p. 323 f.
[121] Weisse, evang. Gesch. II. p. 417 ff., identifies the matter even with the appearance of the risen Christ to more than 500 brethren, recorded in 1Co 15:6 ! Gfrrer, Gesch. d. Urchr. I. 2, p. 397 f., derives the origin of the Pentecostal history in our passage from the Jewish tradition of the feast of Pentecost as the festival of the law, urging the mythical miracle of tongues on Sinai (comp. also Schneckenburger, p. 202 ff.).
[122] Comp. also Baur, who finds here Paul’s idea of the , 1Co 13:1 , converted into reality. According to Baur, neutest. Theol. p. 322, there remains to us as the proper nucleus of the matter only the conviction, which became to the disciples and first Christians a fact of their consciousness, that the same Spirit by whom Jesus was qualified to be the Messiah had also been imparted to them, and was the specific principle determining the Christian consciousness of their fellowship . This communication of the Spirit did not, in his view, even occur at a definite point of time.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
I beg the Reader, while attending to what is here said of the disciples being filled with the Holy Ghost, to observe, that it doth not mean to imply they had not been in a state of regeneration before. Very evident it is, that the Apostles to whom Jesus addressed himself in his farewell Sermon, were at that time acquainted with the gracious influences of the Spirit, and consequently regenerated. It the Reader will consult what the Lord then said respecting the Holy Ghost, in their knowledge of Him, and of his dwelling with them, and being in them, he will perceive that these things implied a state of grace different from the world, Joh 14:16-17 . But the being filled with the Holy Ghost, as is here spoken of, meant (what the Lord Jesus had taught them to expect, and to wait for at Jerusalem,) their ordination to the ministry. This was the blessed work wrought at Pentecost. And now, ordained by God the Holy Ghost, their mouths were opened to declare among the people the unsearchable riches of Christ. If the Reader would wish to see similar instances of this holy ordination, he may behold them in the case of several of the Lord’s servants, Isa 6:7-10 ; Jer 1 throughout; Eze 2 ; Act 13:2-4 . See the Commentary on this last scripture.
I take occasion from hence to observe the difference between regeneration, which is essential to every child of God for his personal enjoyment of an union and interest with Christ, and the unction of the Holy Ghost, when calling his sent servants to the ministry. For, though the Lord calls none to the ministry but whom he hath first called by grace, as is evident in the instance of the Apostles, yet multitudes are savingly called by regeneration for their own personal happiness in Christ, whom God the Holy Ghost never sends forth as his ministers. A man being regenerated is no authority for ministering in the word and doctrine. And to run unsent, is a solemn thing, Jer 23:20 ; Heb 5:4 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Ver. 4. As the Spirit gave them utterance ] , to utter divine apothegms, grave and gracious sentences, or rather oracles; those Magnalia Dei, great things of God, Act 2:11 ; Mirabilia legis, Great things of the law, Psa 119:18 . 2Pe 1:21 Cedro digna et Cerite cera. Horat.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost ] And so gifted for their offices and employments in the Church. The heathens tell us that Hesiod, being filled with a sudden inspiration by the Muses, became of a sordid neatherd a most skilful poet. And Cicero saith, no man ever grew famous sine aliquo afflatu divino, without some inbreathing from on high.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
4. ] On , Chrys. says, , , .
] There can be no question in any unprejudiced mind, that the fact which this narrative sets before us is, that the disciples began to speak in VARIOUS LANGUAGES, viz. the languages of the nations below enumerated, and perhaps others . All attempts to evade this are connected with some forcing of the text, or some far-fetched and indefensible exegesis. This then being laid down, several important questions arise, and we are surrounded by various difficulties. (1) Was this speaking in various languages a gift bestowed on the disciples for their use afterwards , or was it a mere sign , their utterance being only as they were mouth-pieces of the Holy Spirit? The latter seems certainly to have been the case . It appears on our narrative, , as the Spirit gave them utterance . But, it may be objected, in that case they would not themselves understand what they said. I answer, that we infer this very fact from 1Co 14 ; that the speaking with tongues was often found, where none could interpret what was said . And besides, it would appear from Peter’s speech, that such, or something approaching to it, was the case in this instance. He makes no allusion to the things said by those who spoke with tongues; the hearers alone speak of their declaring . So that it would seem that here, as on other occasions ( 1Co 14:22 ), tongues were for a sign, not to those that believe, but to those that believe not. If the first supposition be made, that the gift of speaking in various languages was bestowed on the disciples for their after use in preaching the Gospel , we are, I think, running counter to the whole course of Scripture and early patristic evidence on the subject. There is no trace whatever of such a power being possessed or exercised by the Apostles, or by those who followed them. (Compare ch. Act 14:11 ; Act 14:14 ; Euseb. iii. 39; Iren [13] iii. 1, p. 174.) The passage cited triumphantly by Wordsw. from Iren [14] iii. 17, p. 208, to shew that Irenus understood the gift to be that of permanent preaching in many languages, entirely fails of its point: “Quem et descendisse Lucas ait post ascensum Domini super discipulos in Pentecoste, habentem potestatem omnium gentium ad introitum vit (which Wordsw. renders “in order that all nations might be enabled to enter into life,” suitably to his purpose, but not to the original) et ad assertionem novi Testamenti: unde et omnibus linguis conspirantes hymnum dicebant Deo, Spiritu ad unitatem redigente distantes tribus, et primitias omnium gentium offerente Patri.” Here it will be observed is not a word about future preaching; but simply this event itself is treated of, as a symbolic one, a first fruit of the future Gentile harvest. The other passage, id. Act 2:6 , p. 299, shews nothing but that the gift of tongues was not extinct in Irenus’s time: there is in it not a word of preaching in various languages. I believe, therefore, the event related in our text to have been a sudden and powerful inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by which the disciples uttered, not of their own minds, but as mouth-pieces of the Spirit, the praises of God in various languages, hitherto, and possibly at the time itself, unknown to them . (2) How is this related to the afterwards spoken of by St. Paul? I answer, that they are one and the same thing . . is to speak in a language, as above explained; ( , or , Mar 16:17 ) ., to speak in languages , under the same circumstances. See this further proved in notes on 1Co 14 . Meantime I may remark, that the two are inseparably connected by the following links, ch. Act 10:46 , Act 11:15 to Act 19:6 , in which last we have the same juxtaposition of and , as afterwards in 1Co 14:1-5 ff. (3) Who were those that partook of this gift ? I answer, the whole assembly of believers, from Peter’s application of the prophecy, Act 2:16 ff. It was precisely the case supposed in 1Co 14:23 , , , ; These and were represented by the of our Act 2:13 , who pronounced them to be drunken. (4) I would not conceal the difficulty which our minds find in conceiving a person supernaturally endowed with the power of speaking, ordinarily and consciously , a language which he has never learned. I believe that difficulty to be insuperable. Such an endowment would not only be contrary to the analogy of God’s dealings, but, as far as I can see into the matter, self-contradictory, and therefore impossible. But there is no such contradiction , and to my mind no such difficulty , in conceiving a man to be moved to utterance of sounds dictated by the Holy Spirit . And the fact is clearly laid down by Paul, that the gift of speaking in tongues, and that of interpreting , were wholly distinct . So that the above difficulty finds no place here, nor even in the case of a person both speaking and interpreting : see 1Co 14:13 .
[13] Irenus, Bp. of Lyons, 178 (Iren-int as represented by his interpreter; Iren-gr, when his own words are preserved)
[14] Irenus, Bp. of Lyons, 178 (Iren-int as represented by his interpreter; Iren-gr, when his own words are preserved)
On the question whether the speaking was necessarily always in a foreign tongue, we have no data to guide us: it would seem that it was ; but the conditions would not absolutely exclude rhapsodical and unintelligible utterance. Only there is this objection to it: clearly, languages were spoken on this occasion, and we have no reason to believe that there were two distinct kinds of the gift. (5) It would be quite beyond the limits of a note to give any adequate history of the exegesis of the passage. A very short summary must suffice. ( ) The idea of a gift of speaking in various languages having been conferred for the dissemination of the Gospel , appears not to have originated until the gift of tongues itself had some time disappeared from the Church. Chrysostom adopts it, and the great majority of the Fathers and expositors. ( ) Gregory Nyss. (see Suicer. Thes., ), Cyprian, and in modern times Erasmus and Schneckenburger, suppose that the miracle consisted in the multitude hearing in various languages that which the believers spoke in their native tongue: , . This view Greg. Naz [15] mentions, but not as his own, and refutes it (Orat. xli. 15, p. 743), saying, . This view, besides, would make a distinction between this instance of the gift and those subsequently related, which we have seen does not exist. ( ) The course of the modern German expositors has been, (1) to explain the facts related, by some assumption inconsistent with the text , as e.g. Olshausen, by a magnetic ‘rapport’ between the speakers and hearers, whereas the speaking took place first , independently of the hearers; Eichhorn, Wieseler, and others, by supposing to mean speaking with the tongue only , i.e. inarticulately in ejaculations of praise, which will not suit .; Bleek, by interpreting = glossema, and supposing that they spoke in unusual, enthusiastic, or poetical phraseology, which will not suit .; Meyer (and De Wette nearly the same), by supposing that they spoke in an entirely new spiritual language (of which the were merely the individual varieties), as was the case during the Irvingite delusion in this country, contrary to the plain assertion of Act 2:6-8 , that they spoke , and the hearers heard , in the dialects or tongues of the various peoples specified; Paulus, Schulthess, Kuinoel, &c. by supposing that the assembly of believers was composed of Jews of various nations, who spoke as moved by the Spirit, but in their own mother tongues , which is clearly inconsistent with Act 2:4 and the other passages, ch. 10 and 19, and 1Co 14 , above cited: (2) to take the whole of this narrative in its literal sense, but cast doubts on its historical accuracy , and on Luke’s proper understanding of what really did take place. This is more or less done by several of the above mentioned, as a means of escape from the inconsistency of their hypotheses with Luke’s narrative. But, to set aside , argumenti grati, higher considerations , is it at all probable that Luke, who must have conversed with many eye and ear-witnesses of this day’s events , would have been misinformed about them in so vital a point as the very nature of the gift by which the descent of the Spirit was accompanied? There is every mark, as I hope I have shewn abundantly in the prolegomena, of the Acts having been written in the company and with the co-operation of St. Paul : can we suppose that he, who treats so largely of this very gift elsewhere, would have allowed such an inaccuracy to remain uncorrected, if it had existed? On the contrary, I believe this narrative to furnish the key to the right understanding of 1Co 14 and other such passages, as I there hope more fully to prove.
[15] Nazianzenus, Gregory, fl. 370 389
. . .] according as (i.e. ‘ in such measure and manner in each case as ’) the Spirit granted to them to speak (bestowed on them utterance). There is no emphasis, as Wordsw., on , but rather the contrary: placed thus behind the verb, it becomes insignificant in comparison with the fact announced, and with the subject of the sentence.
The word has been supposed here to imply that they uttered short ejaculatory sentences of praise: so Chrys., : c [16] , Bloomf., and Wordsw. But in neither of the two other places in St. Luke (see reff.) will it bear this meaning, nor in any of the six where it occurs in the LXX: though in two of those (Mic. and Zech.) it has the peculiar sense of speaking oracularly. and in Eze 13:19 it represents , mentior . Our word to utter , to speak out , seems exactly to render it. It is never desirable to press a specific sense, where the more general one seems to have become the accepted meaning of a word. And this is especially so here, where, had any peculiar sense been intended, the verb would surely have held a more prominent position. Their utterance was none of their own, but the simple gift and inspiration of the Holy Spirit: see above.
[16] cumenius of Tricca in Thrace, Cent y . XI.?
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 2:4 . a word peculiar to Acts, cf. Act 5:14 and Act 26:25 ; in the LXX used not of ordinary conversation, but of the utterances of prophets; cf. Eze 13:9 , Mic 5:12 , 1Ch 25:1 , so fitly here: ( cf. , used by the Greeks of the sayings of the wise and philosophers, and see also references in Wendt). , see additional note.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Acts
THE ABIDING GIFT AND ITS TRANSITORY ACCOMPANIMENTS
Act 2:1 – Act 2:13
Only ten days elapsed between the Ascension and Pentecost. The attitude of the Church during that time should be carefully noted. They obeyed implicitly Christ’s command to wait for the ‘power from on high.’ The only act recorded is the election of Matthias to fill Judas’s place, and it is at least questionable whether that was not a mistake, and shown to be such by Christ’s subsequent choice of Paul as an Apostle. But, with the exception of that one flash of doubtful activity, prayer, supplication, patient waiting, and clinging together in harmonious expectancy, characterised the hundred and twenty brethren.
They must have been wrought to an intense pitch of anticipation, for they knew that their waiting was to be short, and they knew, at least partially, what they were to receive, namely, ‘power from on high,’ or ‘the promise of the Father.’ Probably, too, the great Feast, so near at hand, would appear to them a likely time for the fulfilment of the promise.
So, very early on that day of Pentecost, they betook themselves to their usual place of assembling, probably the ‘large upper room,’ already hallowed to their memories; and in each heart the eager question would spring, ‘Will it be to-day?’ It is as true now as it was then, that the spirits into whom the Holy Spirit breathes His power must keep themselves still, expectant, prayerful. Perpetual occupation may be more loss of time than devout waiting, with hands folded, because the heart is wide open to receive the power which will fit the hands for better work.
It was but ‘the third hour of the day’ when Peter stood up to speak; it must have been little after dawn when the brethren came together. How long they had been assembled we do not know, but we cannot doubt how they had been occupied. Many a prayer had gone up through the morning air, and, no doubt, some voice was breathing the united desires, when a deep, strange sound was heard at a distance, and rapidly gained volume, and was heard to draw near. Like the roaring of a tempest hurrying towards them, it hushed human voices, and each man would feel, ‘Surely now the Gift comes!’ Nearer and nearer it approached, and at last burst into the chamber where they sat silent and unmoving.
But if we look carefully at Luke’s words, we see that what filled the house was not agitated air, or wind, but ‘a sound as of wind.’ The language implies that there was no rush of atmosphere that lifted a hair on any cheek, or blew on any face, but only such a sound as is made by tempest. It suggested wind, but it was not wind. By that first symbolic preparation for the communication of the promised gift, the old symbolism which lies in the very word ‘Spirit,’ and had been brought anew to the disciples’ remembrance by Christ’s words to Nicodemus, and by His breathing on them when He gave them an anticipatory and partial bestowment of the Spirit, is brought to view, with its associations of life-giving power and liberty. ‘Thou hearest the sound thereof,’ could scarcely fail to be remembered by some in that chamber.
But it is not to be supposed that the audible symbol continued when the second preparatory one, addressed to the eye, appeared. As the former had been not wind, but like it, the latter was not fire, but ‘as of fire.’ The language does not answer the question whether what was seen was a mass from which the tongues detached themselves, or whether only the separate tongues were visible as they moved overhead. But the final result was that ‘it sat on each.’ The verb has no expressed subject, and ‘fire’ cannot be the subject, for it is only introduced as a comparison. Probably, therefore, we are to understand ‘a tongue’ as the unexpressed subject of the verb.
Clearly, the point of the symbol is the same as that presented in the Baptist’s promise of a baptism ‘with the Holy Ghost and fire.’ The Spirit was to be in them as a Spirit of burning, thawing natural coldness and melting hearts with a genial warmth, which should beget flaming enthusiasm, fervent love, burning zeal, and should work transformation into its own fiery substance. The rejoicing power, the quick energy, the consuming force, the assimilating action of fire, are all included in the symbol, and should all be possessed by Christ’s disciples.
But were the tongue-like shapes of the flames significant too? It is doubtful, for, natural as is the supposition that they were, it is to be remembered that ‘tongues of fire’ is a usual expression, and may mean nothing more than the flickering shoots of flame into which a fire necessarily parts.
But these two symbols are only symbols. The true fulfilment of the great promise follows. Mark the brief simplicity of the quiet words in which the greatest bestowment ever made on humanity, the beginning of an altogether new era, the equipment of the Church for her age-long conflict, is told. There was an actual impartation to men of a divine life, to dwell in them and actuate them; to bring all good to victory in them; to illuminate, sustain, direct, and elevate; to cleanse and quicken. The gift was complete. They were ‘filled.’ No doubt they had much more to receive, and they received it, as their natures became, by faithful obedience to the indwelling Spirit, capable of more. But up to the measure of their then capacities they were filled; and, since their spirits were expansible, and the gift was infinite, they were in a position to grow steadily in possession of it, till they were ‘filled with all the fulness of God.’
Further, ‘they were all filled,’-not the Apostles only, but the whole hundred and twenty. Peter’s quotation from Joel distinctly implies the universality of the gift, which the ‘servants and handmaidens,’ the brethren and the women, now received. Herein is the true democracy of Christianity. There are still diversities of operations and degrees of possession, but all Christians have the Spirit. All ‘they that believe on Him,’ and only they, have received it. Of old the light shone only on the highest peaks,-prophets, and kings, and psalmists; now the lowest depths of the valleys are flooded with it. Would that Christians generally believed more fully in, and set more store by, that great gift!
As symbols preceded, tokens followed. The essential fact of Pentecost is neither the sound and fire, nor the speaking with other tongues, but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The sign and result of that was the gift of utterance in various languages, not their own, nor learned by ordinary ways. No twisting of the narrative can weaken the plain meaning of it, that these unlearned Galileans spake in tongues which their users recognised to be their own. The significance of the fact will appear presently, but first note the attestation of it by the multitude.
Of course, the foreign-born Jews, who, from motives of piety, however mistaken, had come to dwell in Jerusalem, are said to have been ‘from every nation under heaven,’ by an obvious and ordinary license. It is enough that, as the subsequent catalogue shows, they came from all corners of the then known world, though the extremes of territory mentioned cover but a small space on a terrestrial globe.
The ‘sound’ of the rushing wind had been heard hurtling through the city in the early morning hours, and had served as guide to the spot. A curious crowd came hurrying to ascertain what this noise of tempest in a calm meant, and they were met by something more extraordinary still. Try to imagine the spectacle. As would appear from Act 2:33 , the tongues of fire remained lambently glowing on each head ‘which ye see’, and the whole hundred and twenty, thus strangely crowned, were pouring out rapturous praises, each in some strange tongue. When the astonished ears had become accustomed to the apparent tumult, every man in the crowd heard some one or more speaking in his own tongue, language, or dialect, and all were declaring the mighty works of God; that is, probably, the story of the crucified, ascended Jesus.
We need not dwell on subordinate questions, as to the number of languages represented there, or as to the catalogue in Act 2:9 – Act 2:10 . But we would emphasise two thoughts. First, the natural result of being filled with God’s Spirit is utterance of the great truths of Christ’s Gospel. As surely as light radiates, as surely as any deep emotion demands expression, so certainly will a soul filled with the Spirit be forced to break into speech. If professing Christians have never known the impulse to tell of the Christ whom they have found, their religion must be very shallow and imperfect. If their spirits are full, they will overflow in speech.
Second, Pentecost is a prophecy of the universal proclamation of the Gospel, and of the universal praise which shall one day rise to Him that was slain. ‘This company of brethren praising God in the tongues of the whole world represented the whole world which shall one day praise God in its various tongues’ Bengel. Pentecost reversed Babel, not by bringing about a featureless monopoly, but by consecrating diversity, and showing that each language could be hallowed, and that each lent some new strain of music to the chorus.
It prophesied of the time when ‘men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation’ should lift up their voices to Him who has purchased them unto God with His blood. It began a communication of the Spirit to all believers which is never to cease while the world stands. The mighty rushing sound has died into silence, the fiery tongues rest on no heads now, the miraculous results of the gifts of the Spirit have passed away also, but the gift remains, and the Spirit of God abides for ever with the Church of Christ.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
the Holy Ghost = Holy Spirit. App-101.
speak. Greek. laleo. App-121.
other. Greek. heteros. App-124.
as = even as.
the Spirit. App-101.
gave = was giving.
utterance = to utter or speak forth. Greek. apophthengomai, here, Act 2:14, and Act 26:25.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
4.] On , Chrys. says, , , .
] There can be no question in any unprejudiced mind, that the fact which this narrative sets before us is, that the disciples began to speak in VARIOUS LANGUAGES, viz. the languages of the nations below enumerated, and perhaps others. All attempts to evade this are connected with some forcing of the text, or some far-fetched and indefensible exegesis. This then being laid down, several important questions arise, and we are surrounded by various difficulties. (1) Was this speaking in various languages a gift bestowed on the disciples for their use afterwards, or was it a mere sign, their utterance being only as they were mouth-pieces of the Holy Spirit? The latter seems certainly to have been the case. It appears on our narrative, , as the Spirit gave them utterance. But, it may be objected, in that case they would not themselves understand what they said. I answer, that we infer this very fact from 1 Corinthians 14; that the speaking with tongues was often found, where none could interpret what was said. And besides, it would appear from Peters speech, that such, or something approaching to it, was the case in this instance. He makes no allusion to the things said by those who spoke with tongues; the hearers alone speak of their declaring . So that it would seem that here, as on other occasions (1Co 14:22), tongues were for a sign, not to those that believe, but to those that believe not. If the first supposition be made, that the gift of speaking in various languages was bestowed on the disciples for their after use in preaching the Gospel, we are, I think, running counter to the whole course of Scripture and early patristic evidence on the subject. There is no trace whatever of such a power being possessed or exercised by the Apostles, or by those who followed them. (Compare ch. Act 14:11; Act 14:14; Euseb. iii. 39; Iren[13] iii. 1, p. 174.) The passage cited triumphantly by Wordsw. from Iren[14] iii. 17, p. 208, to shew that Irenus understood the gift to be that of permanent preaching in many languages, entirely fails of its point:-Quem et descendisse Lucas ait post ascensum Domini super discipulos in Pentecoste, habentem potestatem omnium gentium ad introitum vit (which Wordsw. renders in order that all nations might be enabled to enter into life, suitably to his purpose, but not to the original) et ad assertionem novi Testamenti: unde et omnibus linguis conspirantes hymnum dicebant Deo, Spiritu ad unitatem redigente distantes tribus, et primitias omnium gentium offerente Patri. Here it will be observed is not a word about future preaching; but simply this event itself is treated of, as a symbolic one, a first fruit of the future Gentile harvest. The other passage, id. Act 2:6, p. 299, shews nothing but that the gift of tongues was not extinct in Irenuss time: there is in it not a word of preaching in various languages. I believe, therefore, the event related in our text to have been a sudden and powerful inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by which the disciples uttered, not of their own minds, but as mouth-pieces of the Spirit, the praises of God in various languages, hitherto, and possibly at the time itself, unknown to them. (2) How is this related to the afterwards spoken of by St. Paul? I answer, that they are one and the same thing. . is to speak in a language, as above explained; (, or , Mar 16:17) ., to speak in languages, under the same circumstances. See this further proved in notes on 1 Corinthians 14. Meantime I may remark, that the two are inseparably connected by the following links,-ch. Act 10:46, Act 11:15 to Act 19:6,-in which last we have the same juxtaposition of and , as afterwards in 1Co 14:1-5 ff. (3) Who were those that partook of this gift? I answer, the whole assembly of believers, from Peters application of the prophecy, Act 2:16 ff. It was precisely the case supposed in 1Co 14:23, , , ; These and were represented by the of our Act 2:13, who pronounced them to be drunken. (4) I would not conceal the difficulty which our minds find in conceiving a person supernaturally endowed with the power of speaking, ordinarily and consciously, a language which he has never learned. I believe that difficulty to be insuperable. Such an endowment would not only be contrary to the analogy of Gods dealings, but, as far as I can see into the matter, self-contradictory, and therefore impossible. But there is no such contradiction, and to my mind no such difficulty, in conceiving a man to be moved to utterance of sounds dictated by the Holy Spirit. And the fact is clearly laid down by Paul, that the gift of speaking in tongues, and that of interpreting, were wholly distinct. So that the above difficulty finds no place here, nor even in the case of a person both speaking and interpreting: see 1Co 14:13.
[13] Irenus, Bp. of Lyons, 178 (Iren-int as represented by his interpreter; Iren-gr, when his own words are preserved)
[14] Irenus, Bp. of Lyons, 178 (Iren-int as represented by his interpreter; Iren-gr, when his own words are preserved)
On the question whether the speaking was necessarily always in a foreign tongue, we have no data to guide us: it would seem that it was; but the conditions would not absolutely exclude rhapsodical and unintelligible utterance. Only there is this objection to it: clearly, languages were spoken on this occasion,-and we have no reason to believe that there were two distinct kinds of the gift. (5) It would be quite beyond the limits of a note to give any adequate history of the exegesis of the passage. A very short summary must suffice. () The idea of a gift of speaking in various languages having been conferred for the dissemination of the Gospel, appears not to have originated until the gift of tongues itself had some time disappeared from the Church. Chrysostom adopts it, and the great majority of the Fathers and expositors. () Gregory Nyss. (see Suicer. Thes., ), Cyprian, and in modern times Erasmus and Schneckenburger, suppose that the miracle consisted in the multitude hearing in various languages that which the believers spoke in their native tongue: , . This view Greg. Naz[15] mentions, but not as his own, and refutes it (Orat. xli. 15, p. 743), saying, . This view, besides, would make a distinction between this instance of the gift and those subsequently related, which we have seen does not exist. () The course of the modern German expositors has been, (1) to explain the facts related, by some assumption inconsistent with the text, as e.g. Olshausen, by a magnetic rapport between the speakers and hearers,-whereas the speaking took place first, independently of the hearers;-Eichhorn, Wieseler, and others, by supposing to mean speaking with the tongue only, i.e. inarticulately in ejaculations of praise, which will not suit .;-Bleek, by interpreting = glossema, and supposing that they spoke in unusual, enthusiastic, or poetical phraseology,-which will not suit .;-Meyer (and De Wette nearly the same), by supposing that they spoke in an entirely new spiritual language (of which the were merely the individual varieties), as was the case during the Irvingite delusion in this country,-contrary to the plain assertion of Act 2:6-8, that they spoke, and the hearers heard, in the dialects or tongues of the various peoples specified;-Paulus, Schulthess, Kuinoel, &c. by supposing that the assembly of believers was composed of Jews of various nations, who spoke as moved by the Spirit, but in their own mother tongues,-which is clearly inconsistent with Act 2:4 and the other passages, ch. 10 and 19, and 1 Corinthians 14, above cited:-(2) to take the whole of this narrative in its literal sense, but cast doubts on its historical accuracy, and on Lukes proper understanding of what really did take place. This is more or less done by several of the above mentioned, as a means of escape from the inconsistency of their hypotheses with Lukes narrative. But, to set aside, argumenti grati, higher considerations,-is it at all probable that Luke, who must have conversed with many eye and ear-witnesses of this days events, would have been misinformed about them in so vital a point as the very nature of the gift by which the descent of the Spirit was accompanied? There is every mark, as I hope I have shewn abundantly in the prolegomena, of the Acts having been written in the company and with the co-operation of St. Paul: can we suppose that he, who treats so largely of this very gift elsewhere, would have allowed such an inaccuracy to remain uncorrected, if it had existed? On the contrary, I believe this narrative to furnish the key to the right understanding of 1 Corinthians 14 and other such passages, as I there hope more fully to prove.
[15] Nazianzenus, Gregory, fl. 370-389
…] according as (i.e. in such measure and manner in each case as) the Spirit granted to them to speak (bestowed on them utterance). There is no emphasis, as Wordsw., on , but rather the contrary: placed thus behind the verb, it becomes insignificant in comparison with the fact announced, and with the subject of the sentence.
The word has been supposed here to imply that they uttered short ejaculatory sentences of praise: so Chrys., : c[16], Bloomf., and Wordsw. But in neither of the two other places in St. Luke (see reff.) will it bear this meaning, nor in any of the six where it occurs in the LXX: though in two of those (Mic. and Zech.) it has the peculiar sense of speaking oracularly. and in Eze 13:19 it represents , mentior. Our word to utter, to speak out, seems exactly to render it. It is never desirable to press a specific sense, where the more general one seems to have become the accepted meaning of a word. And this is especially so here, where, had any peculiar sense been intended, the verb would surely have held a more prominent position. Their utterance was none of their own, but the simple gift and inspiration of the Holy Spirit: see above.
[16] cumenius of Tricca in Thrace, Centy. XI.?
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 2:4. , and) The internal operations are here described, along with their effect, as in Act 2:3 the external symbol is described.-, they all) all those of whom Act 2:1; Act 2:14-15, ch. Act 1:14, etc. treat, of various age, sex, and condition; see below, Act 2:17-18.-, they began) This was a thing which never before had occurred.-, to speak) without difficulty, with readiness.-, with tongues) The miraculous variety was not in the ears of the hearers, but in the mouth of the speakers: ch. Act 10:46, Act 19:6; Mar 16:17; 1Co 12:10. This family, which was thus celebrating the praises of God in the tongues of the whole world, was an equivalent representative of the whole world, which is about to praise God with the tongues of its inhabitants.-, even as) 1Co 12:11, All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.-) was giving, gave, so as that they might speak without difficulty, and yet freely.[8]-) the power to speak forth, with soberness, and at the same time power; Act 2:14, Peter lifted up his voice; ch. Act 26:25, Paul, I am not mad, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. Justus Jonas observes, Moses, who is the typical representative of the law, had a tongue slow of speech (Exo 4:10):-but the Gospel speaks with a tongue set on fire and flaming with ardour.
[8] i.e. Though they were dependent on the Spirit, they were not divested of their individual freedom.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Holy Ghost
The Holy Spirit, N.T. Summary (see Mal 2:15, note): (See Scofield “Mal 2:15”).
(1) The Holy Spirit is revealed as a divine Person. This is expressly declared (e.g.) Joh 14:16; Joh 14:17; Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:7-15; Mat 28:19 and everywhere implied.
(2) The revelation concerning Him is progressive
(a) In the O.T. (See Scofield “Mal 2:15”). He comes upon whom He will, apparently without reference to conditions in them
(b) During His earth-life, Christ taught His disciples Luk 11:13 that they might receive the Spirit through prayer to the Father.
(c) At the close of His ministry He promised that He would Himself pray the Father, and that in answer to prayer the Comforter would come to abide Joh 14:16; Joh 14:17.
(d) On the evening of His resurrection He came to the disciples in the upper room, and breathed on them saying, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” Joh 20:22 but instructed them to wait before beginning their ministry till the Spirit should come upon them; Luk 24:49; Act 1:8.
(e) On the day of Pentecost the Spirit came upon the whole body of believers Act 2:1-4
(f) After Pentecost, so long as the Gospel was preached to Jews only, the Spirit was imparted to such as believed by the laying on of hands Act 8:17; Act 9:17.
(g) When Peter opened the door of the kingdom to the Gentiles (Acts 10.), the Holy Spirit, without delay, or other condition than faith, was given to those who believed. Act 10:44; Act 11:15-18. This is the permanent fact for the entire church age. Every believer is born of the Spirit; Joh 3:3; Joh 3:6; 1Jn 5:1 indwelt by the Spirit, whose presence makes the believer’s body a temple; 1Co 6:19; Rom 8:9-15; 1Jn 2:27; Gal 4:6 and baptized by the Spirit; 1Co 12:12; 1Co 12:13; 1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27 thus sealing him for God; Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30.
(3) The N.T. distinguishes between having the Spirit, which is true of all believers, and being filled with the Spirit, which is the believer’s privilege and duty (cf) Act 2:4 with; Act 4:29-31; Eph 1:13; Eph 1:14 with Eph 5:18. –“One baptism, many fillings.”
(4) The Holy Spirit is related to Christ in His Conception Mat 1:18-20; Luk 1:35 baptism; Mat 3:16; Mar 1:10; Luk 3:22; Joh 1:32; Joh 1:33 walk and service Luk 4:1; Luk 4:14 resurrection Rom 8:11, and as His witness throughout this age; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:8-11; Joh 16:13; Joh 16:14.
(5) The Spirit forms the church Mat 16:18 (See Scofield “Heb 12:23”) by baptizing all believers into the body of Christ 1Co 12:12; 1Co 12:13 imparts gifts for service to every member of that body 1Co 12:7-11; 1Co 12:27; 1Co 12:30 guide the members in their service; Luk 2:27; Luk 4:1; Act 16:6; Act 16:7 and is Himself the power of that service; Act 1:8; Act 2:4; 1Co 2:4.
(6) The Spirit abides in the company of believers who constitute a local church, making of them, corporately, a temple 1Co 3:16; 1Co 3:17.
(7) Christ indicates a threefold personal relationship of the Spirit to the believer: “With”, “In”, “upon” Joh 14:17; Luk 24:49; Act 1:8. “With” indicates the approach of God to the soul, convicting of sin Joh 16:9 presenting Christ as the object of faith Joh 16:14 imparting faith Eph 2:8 and regenerating Joh 3:3-16. “In” describes the abiding presence of the Spirit in the believer’s body 1Co 6:19 to give victory over the flesh; Rom 8:2-4; Gal 5:16; Gal 5:17 to create the Christian character Gal 5:22; Gal 5:23 to help infirmities Rom 8:26 to inspire prayer Eph 6:18 to give conscious access to God Eph 2:18 to actualize to the believer his sonship Gal 4:6 to apply the Scripture in cleansing and sanctification; Eph 5:26; 2Th 2:13; 1Pe 1:2 to comfort and intercede; Act 9:31; Rom 8:26 and to reveal Christ Joh 16:14.
(8) Sins against the Spirit committed by unbelievers are: To blaspheme Mat 12:31, resist Act 7:51, insult Heb 10:29, “despite,” lit. insult). Believers’ sins against the Spirit are: To grieve Him by allowing evil in heart or life Eph 4:30; Eph 4:31 and to quench Him by disobedience 1Th 5:19.
The right attitude toward the Spirit is yieldedness to His sway in walk and service, and in constant willingness that He shall “put away” whatever grieves Him or hinders His power Eph 4:31.
(9) The symbols of the Spirit are: (a) oil Joh 3:34; Heb 1:9 (b) water, Joh 7:38; Joh 7:39 (c) wind; Act 2:2; Joh 3:8, (d) fire Act 2:3, (e) a dove Mat 3:16, (f) a seal; Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30, (g) an earnest or pledge Eph 1:14.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Whitsun Day
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.Act 2:4.
1. The Day of Pentecost, or Whitsun Day, is the birthday of the Christian Church. On that day the Divine society was constituted. Not till Pentecost were Christians a distinct corporate body. On that day the Divine life, the life of the Holy Spirit of God, was infused into its members, and the first cry of the newborn Divine society was praiseThey spake in other tongues the wonderful works of God.
The day chosen was striking and suggestive. Proselytes from various countries were all gathered together with the Jews of Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Weeks. It was Pentecost, the fiftieth daya week of weekssince Passover. At Passover a sheaf of ripe barley had been waved in the Temple; at Pentecost the two loaves of fine flour made from the newly gathered wheat were now being waved in the Holy Place. And it was harvest. What better occasion for the outpouring of the Spirit, the Giver of life, than this feast of Pentecost, when the first-fruits of the great Spiritual harvest of both Jews and Gentiles were offered unto the Lord who had redeemed them?
Moreover, Pentecost was celebrated as the anniversary of the giving of the law from Sinai, after the wanderings of the children of Israel for seven weeks from the first Passover in Egypt. How fitting a festival for the first outpouring of the Spirit, whereby that law might be observed in its fullest meaning, not as uttered amid the terrors of Sinai, but as revealed in Him who fulfilled the law and the prophets to the uttermost.
2. On this great festival the apostles and disciples were assembled together in Jerusalem. They were praying. They were waiting for the promise of the Spirit. Suddenly the whole place was shaken as with a tempest, and bright flames, like tongues of fire, flickered for a moment over every head. These were, indeed, wonderful outward signs; but we must not think of this rush of tempest, and this shower of flaming tongues, as the most wonderful thing that happened. They were but the outward signs of something more wonderful still. The Holy Ghost filled the hearts of all that were presentnot only the apostles, but also the men and women who were with them; and they burst out into loud shouts of praise and thanksgiving to God.
3.They were all with one accord in one place. There is no absolute certainty what that place was or who were the recipients of the gift there bestowed. Some have thought that it was within the precincts of the Temple, and the early testimony of Josephus (Antiq. 3. 2) is appealed to in support of this. He says the term here used () was applied to describe the thirty Chambers which ran round the Temple of Solomon; but though open and easily accessible, none of them could have held so large a multitude; and it is extremely difficult to believe that the Priests and Pharisees would have allowed such a gathering of the despised followers of One whom they had crucified but a few weeks before. Although, then, it would have been intensely significant had the New Covenant been inaugurated within the very shrine of the Old, we are compelled to look for some other scene. Tradition has placed it in that Upper Chamber, in which we know that the first Christians were wont to hold their religious meetings.
4. On whom was the gift bestowed? It is impossible to say whom St. Luke intended when he spoke of all. Perhaps the more general belief has limited it to the Apostles, as the Whitsuntide preface in the Book of Common Prayer unhesitatingly teaches; there is ancient testimony, however, to the inclusion of the one hundred and twenty, and some extension beyond the Twelve is almost necessitated by the language of Joels prophecy, which, St. Peter says, was fulfilled on this occasion. The expression was perhaps intended to embrace all the believers in Christ then congregated in Jerusalem.
Can it surprise us that the world, which has no eyes and no heart for spiritual things, usually appreciates this feast least of all, and rather seeks its satisfaction in the enjoyment of nature than in gratitude for the copious outpouring of the Spirit? Men must in some degree be filled with the Holy Ghost in order to value aright the blessing of this day; they must with the eye of the Spirit have seen something of the glory of the New Dispensation, in order to know fully the value of the declaration: The promise is to you and to your children, and to as many as the Lord our God shall call. Just this is the glory of the feast of Pentecost, that it not merely renews the remembrance of a most interesting event in the past, but, moreover, points us to the source of richest blessing for the present, and opens to us the brightest prospect for the so frequently beclouded future.1 [Note: J. J. van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, i. 475.]
I
The Coming of the Holy Spirit
The words of Jesus concerning the Holy Spirit seem to have made but little immediate impression upon His sorrowing disciples. Probably they were too full of trouble to comprehend their meaning, and too indifferent to consolation to care to understand. Love in tears is apt to be petulant. The suggestion of any possibility of compensation for impending loss is resented as an insult and a reproach. The promise that Another should fill His place brought no comfort. They did not want Another. To speak of a successor was a reflection upon their devotion, and to say the exchange would be to their advantage could be nothing but the exaggeration of compassion. Grief for impending loss refuses to be comforted. So the promise of the Paraclete brought little light to their understanding, and apparently less comfort to their hearts. It was not until the Ascension that their eyes were opened. The Resurrection filled them with a great joy, but not until they witnessed His return to the Father did they realize the true greatness of their Lord and the meaning of His Mission in the world. As they beheld Him rise, the mists lifted from their understanding, and they returned to Jerusalem, not like bereaved and broken men, but rejoicing and praising God. The vision of the opened heavens had given them a new conception of all things in heaven and on earth. Infinity had received a new centre, for the eternal glory was embodied in a Person they knew; prayer had a new meaning, for it was through a Name they uttered with familiar affection; faith had received a new basis, for it was in the Christ they had loved and proved. For ten days they waited with their eyes set upon the heavens where they had seen Him disappear from their sight. With Pentecost came the fulfilment of His word, and the gift in which they found the complete realization of all that He had said.
1. Let us first see how the disciples were prepared to receive the Gift.
The coming of the Holy Spirit involved the preparation of a people to receive Him. There was an extended and an immediate preparation. The extended preparation of the disciples covered the whole course of Christs ministry and fellowship. Unconsciously, they had come to know the Spirit in Christ. Everything in the life, teaching, and work of Jesus was a manifestation of the power and method of the Spirit. As the end approached, He prepared their minds for His coming by definite instruction and promise. He talked with a glow and enthusiasm of the Spirit calculated to kindle their desire and expectation. They were told of His wisdom and power, and the wonders He would do for them, exceeding all they had seen in their Lord. Faith cometh by hearing; after the Resurrection they seem to have heard of little else but the wonders of the Coming One; and the last words of the ascending Lord were words of promise concerning Him. Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you. If they had not heard they would not have expected, and could not have received.
The final stage of their preparation was in united and believing prayer. The baptism came to the prepared. For ten consecutive days they remained in prayer. They were of one accord and in one place. A common object drew them together, a common expectation focused their faith, and focused faith always prevails. The fact that they continued for ten days proves both their earnestness and their faith. They waited earnestly for God, pleaded the promise of Christ, and had faith in His word.
2. The coming of the Holy Spirit is symbolized in the elements of wind and fire. Let us then consider the meaning which underlies these Symbols.
Wind
What a gentle thing wind is! What a powerful thing wind is! You hear of an evening the gentle breeze whispering so sweetly through the trees; you turn your face to it, and the wind falls so softly on your opened eye, that even that eye, which the smallest speck of dust can injure, is unhurt by it. The bubble which a touch of your finger will destroy floats unharmed in it; the thistledown is borne unbroken for miles by it; and, even in winter, the snowflakes, so fragile that your touch is destruction to them, are whirled round and round uninjured in their purity and beauty. How gentle the wind is, but how strong! Those great trees of the forest that have stood for ages, and clutched the earth far and wide with their spreading roots, fall before the storm; and the mighty ships, that seem so majestic in their power, are driven to destruction before the tempest, and cast in splintered wreckage on our shores. Even so is the Spirit of God: speaking so tenderly to the heart of some little child; filling young souls with every true, and beautiful, and loving thought that they have, and moving the strongest men to penitence and faith. The Spirit of God is gentle as the breeze, strong as the storm.
The wind is a favourite Biblical image for the movements and goings of Gods Spirit. Prophet and psalmist alike speak of the wind as symbolizing Gods power. Come from the four winds, O breath, cried Ezekiel, in the vision of the dry bones. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet, says the prophet Nahum. In the Book of Job the poet represents God as speaking in the wind. And so, too, Jesus, who came to fulfil the sayings of the prophets, said: The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.1 [Note: D. L. Ritchie.]
(1) One of the psalmists speaks about God bringing the wind out of His treasuries. That must be the wind that blows healthily to heal our sicknesses; whose every kiss is tonic, whose rude and wild embrace is strength. Whether it comes rushing over the mountains, or tearing down the gullies, or skipping over the summer sea as a gentle breeze to cool the fevered brow, it comes as a cleanser, as life-giver, as health-bringer. Its very buffetings are health. Now that is what Gods Spirit is to the spirit of a man. It is life and health and peace. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about birth by the Spirit and compared it to the wind, the reference was to the evening breeze just whispering among the olive groves. A ripple and a rustle and it is gone, and thou canst not the whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
It is an old Jewish saying that Moses died from the kiss of God. How true it is to say that many people, especially young people, live because of the kiss of the Spirit. One imprint on their young hearts and they give themselves in love to the great God and His Christ. Yes, Gods Spirit still comes like the zephyr, wooing and winning, like the breeze which you can scarcely feel upon your hand, though you know it on your more delicate brow. So He comes to many hearts in pensive hours, in times and seasons of holy quiet and blessed meditation; so He comes, too, in lifes morning to young souls.1 [Note: D. L. Ritchie.]
The Lord of brightness and of warmth,
Of fragrance and of dew,
Who having joy in life and growth,
Finds pleasures ever new;
To herbs the earth, and trees the heaven caressing,
Alike He gives His soft and sunny blessing.2 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 149.]
(2) But the Holy Spirit also comes as a mighty rushing wind, as He came of old, and then He comes with great and stirring power; and the Church has so known the Holy Spirits coming in the times of great revival. He comes to spirits, invigorating and renewing them until they have a new life, as if it were life from the dead.
And every virtue we possess,
And every conflict won,
And every thought of holiness
Are His alone.
Oh! that Gods Spirit would come in both ways to the Church to-day, kissing spirits until they live, moving and thrilling the heart of the Church until there is a great revival of spiritual religion, and a quickening and bracing of all the powers of righteousness in our beloved land.
Hail, mightiest and bounteous wind,
Distributor of wealth,
Who giving, comest to confirm
Or to restore our health;
A blessing thou, bright energy diffusing,
For every other blessings happiest using.1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 149.]
(3) And there is another function of the wind. It is sometimes a winnowing wind, separating chaff from grain, the false from the true; or it sometimes comes as a blight. There is, for example, the sirocco that starts in the heart of Africa, and, with its blighting breath, passes over whole tracts of country, leaving nothing but destruction in its train. Yes! the wind blights as well as gives health and strength; and so does Gods Spirit. Gods Spirit gives health and vigour to every virtue we possess, and it seeks to blight for ever every sin that besets our nature or reigns in our life.
A rushing, mighty wind across the sky,
A swirling, swinging, roaring, ringing breath
Which seems to fill the world, as, flying by,
It sweeps the pathway both of life and death.
Into our hearts it blows, and bears away
All evil thoughts, all hate, and strife, and sin,
All dust of hopes and fears and sorrows grey,
To let the light of love and truth within.
So Charity shall come, a living flame,
A fire divine, a firm and steady glow,
The pulsing light of life, for aye the same,
To make us tender kindly words to know.
Thus, year by year, the nodding, bending trees,
Whose sentient branches swiftly bear along
The cleansing, rushing, purifying breeze,
Shall sing Earths mighty Pentecostal Song of Solomon 2 [Note: M. A. B. Evans, The Moonlight Sonata, 118.]
Fire
Fire has three usesit gives light, it gives heat, and it purifies.
(1) The Spirit of God comes to us as light. It comes to enlighten us, to show us the meaning of Gods blessed Word, to explain to us what God is, and what our blessed Saviours life and death meant for us; and so to teach us many things which we cannot know without Him. So we say in the Collect for this day that God did teach the hearts of His faithful people, by sending to them the Light of His Holy Spirit. And so, according to one interpretation, the Day of Pentecost is called Whitsun Day because God gave to His disciples wit, i.e. wisdom, as the word wit used to mean.1 [Note: T. Teignmouth Shore.]
It is with mans Soul, says Carlyle, as it was with Nature: the beginning of Creation isLight. And of Conversion he says: Blame not the word, rejoice rather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in our modern Era, though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World knew nothing of Conversion; instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only some Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress in the Moral Development of man: hereby has the Highest come home to the bosoms of the most Limited; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and to Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists.2 [Note: Sartor Resartus, Bk. ii.]
Spirit, guiding us aright,
Spirit, making darkness light,
Spirit of resistless might,
Hear us, Holy Spirit.
(2) Fire gives heat as well as light. The Holy Spirit not only teaches us about God and about Christ, but He makes our hearts flame up in love to Him.
With feet of burning brass,
When times are dark as night,
Thou through the world dost pass,
Consuming in our sight
Dry trees and withering grass,
With dreadful, happy light.
O thou consuming fire,
Why should I fear thy flame,
Who purpose and desire
To burn what Thou shalt blame,
Ill weeds, and every brier
Of folly and of shame?
With shining beams that smite
The chains of darkness through,
Thou smilest in the height,
And all things smile anew;
Thy heat, in subtle might,
Works with the gentle dew.
O Thou creating fire,
I feel thy warmth benign;
My hopes a flowering spire
Arise, unfold, and shine;
And fruits that I desire
Shall soon be mine and Thine.1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 121.]
(3) And fire is used to purify. Have you ever seen a piece of ore? It looks like a bit of common, hard, dirty rock, with just here and there a little, tiny, bright spot. You might hammer away at it for a long time trying to get those little pieces of metal out of it, and you would splinter it all about, and not succeed in getting the metal after all. But take it to a furnace, and there the fierce red and white heat will burn up all the dross, and the pure metal streams forth. A great deal of what is earthy is mixed up in our natures with a little that is pure; then the Spirit of God descends like illuminating and purifying fire. By all our trials and discipline, that Spirit purges out of us all that is base, and false, and earthy. Our God is a consuming fire, but He will consume only the dross, and will set free the true gold of our nature, so that it may be one day pure enough to be formed into part of the Crown of the King, and to flash in its loveliness and beauty in the eternal glory of the Fathers presence.
Those delicate wanderers,
The wind, the star, the cloud,
Ever before mine eyes
As to an altar bowed,
Sighs and dew-laden airs
Offer in sacrifice.
The offerings arise:
Hazes of rainbow light,
Pure crystal, blue, and gold,
Through dreamland take their flight;
And mid the sacrifice
God moveth as of old.
In miracles of fire
He symbols forth His days;
In gleams of crystal light
Reveals what pure pathways
Lead to the souls desire,
The silence of the height.1 [Note: A. E.]
II
Filled with the Holy Spirit
Let us now inquire what is meant by the words filled with the Holy Spirit. Very many people have had their minds more or less exercised touching the blessing of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as it is often termed. Not a few have been hindered, if not actually thrown back, in their spiritual course, simply for lack of a little instruction in the very first principles of the doctrine concerning the Person, offices, and work of the Holy Spirit.
1. The first point to be recognized, as clearly set forth in the Scriptures, is the fact, that all Christians have the Holy Spirit. They have not only been brought under His influence, but they have received the Holy Spirit Himself. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Rom 8:9).
2. At the same time we must recognize the fact that to have the Spirit is one thing, but to be filled with the Spirit is quite another thing. We know from what is recorded in St. Johns Gospel that even before the Ascension the Holy Ghost had actually been given to the disciples, that Christ breathed upon them the Holy Ghost. But on the Day of Pentecost they were filled with the Holy Ghost.
There are upon the whole two main aspects or phases of the fulness of the Spirit. There is a special, critical phase, in which at a great crisis it comes out in marked, and perhaps wholly abnormal, manifestation, as when it enables the man or woman to utter supernatural prediction or proclamation. And there is also what we may call the habitual phase, where it is used to describe the condition of this or that believers life day by day and in its normal course. Thus the Seven were not so much specially filled as known to be full; and so was Barnabas. Into this holy habitual fulness Paul entered, it appears, at his baptism. On the other hand, the same Paul experienced from time to time the other and abnormal sort of filling; and it thus results that the same man might in one respect be full while in another he needed to be filled.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, Veni Creator, 211.]
3. What, then, have we to do in order to be filled with the Spirit? The answer to this question is not far to seek, for Christ has said, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For if ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? (Luk 11:9-13). If, therefore, we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then indeed we are not far from receiving the rich blessings of the gift, but we must want the blessing and want it earnestly, for the Holy Spirit will not fill unwilling hearts. But we have great encouragement to ask. He has promised, and He has repeatedly fulfilled His promise. We cannot ask more than He has already given in many lives.
Did we dare
In our agony of prayer,
Ask for more than He has done?
When was ever His right hand
Over any time or land
Stretched as now beneath the sun?
III
Transformed by the Holy Spirit
They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
The words of the text are significant, and not the less so because, in some measure, symbolic. We must find the meaning which the symbolism contains. We have already been thinking of the symbols under which the Holy Spirit camewind and fire, and how these Symbols characterise the work of the Holy Spirit in us; we shall now see how the same symbols are connected with the gift of speaking with tongues. Wind is symbolic of power; fiery tongues are symbolic of inspired speechthey spake as the Spirit gave them utterance.
i. The Immediate Results
1. Speaking with tongues. The Authorized Version by speaking of cloven tongues, and Christian painters by their pictorial representations, have imported into the scene an unauthorized feature. It has been supposed that a bishops mitre, with its divided crest, was first suggested by this erroneous idea of the shape of the tongues which rested upon the heads of the Apostles. The word translated cloven should be rendered dividing or distributing themselves. The flame-like forms descended into the Upper Chamber in a body or compact mass, and then at once scattered themselves over the assembled company, one lighting upon the head of each. The original language seems to imply that it rested there for a moment only, and then suddenly vanished, symbolizing perhaps its transitory nature as a gift of tongues.
Now in histories of this kind we are always under a temptation to seize upon the most extraordinary feature of the story, and to take that as the essence of the whole. Thus one of the popular ideas of Whitsun Day has been that it commemorates the gift of languages to the Apostles, by which, though uneducated men, they were qualified in a moment of time to preach the Gospel to every nation under heaven. But, indeed, this gift of tongues (even if it were what is here supposed) is but a small part of the matter. The gift of tongues concerned only one generation, at any rate, and a very few individuals.
2. The greatest miracle of that day was the transformation wrought in the waiting disciples. Their fire-baptism transfigured them. Every part of their nature was vitalized, invigorated, and transformed in fire. Its effect upon their knowledge was all that Christ had promised it should be. Their eyes were opened, their memories quickened, and their minds inspired. How clear all things appeared now that the Spirit shone upon them! The Cross, the Resurrection, and the Kingdom were all seen in their true meaning. Peters address reveals an illumined intelligence, an apt and accurate interpreter, an Apostle on fire. The coming of the Spirit had turned the fisherman into a teacher, orator, and evangelist. The tongue of fire gave forth the word of wisdom and of power. As men listened they found their minds informed, their reasons convinced, their souls convicted, and their wills persuaded. The Apostles themselves became new men. They now no longer coveted wealth or power, or the honour of this world; they no longer desired to have again the kingdom restored to Israel, so that the Jewish dream of earthly dominion should be theirs, one of them sitting on the right hand of the King, and one on the left, each and all anxious to be first and highest. No, the unseen and everlasting world had been opened to their gaze, and they now saw all earthly things in their true light. The only real wealth was wealth within, purified and loving hearts. The only real honour was the honour that comes from God, the honour of Gods likeness; above all, the honour of bringing many sons to God, multitudes of men and women delivered from evil and saved eternally. So they now preached with power; even the power of the Holy Ghost Himself; and this very day of Pentecost three thousand were added to their number, three thousand who the other day might have been among those that cried, Crucify him, crucify him.
The moral change wrought in the disciples, by the new baptism of the Spirit, is strikingly displayed in the case of one man. A difficult service was to be performed in Jerusalem that day. Had it been desired to find a man in London who would have gone down to Whitehall a few weeks after Charles was beheaded, and, addressing Cromwells soldiers, have endeavoured to persuade them that he whom they had executed was not only a King and a good one, but a Prophet of God, and that, therefore, they had been guilty of more than regicide, of sacrilege; although England had brave men then, it may be questioned whether any one could have been found to bear such a message to that audience.
The service which had then to be performed in Jerusalem was similar to this. It was needful that some one should stand up under the shadow of the temple, and, braving chief priests and mob alike, assert that He whom they had shamefully executed seven weeks ago was Israels long-looked-for Messiah; that they had been guilty of a sin which had no name; had raised their hands against God manifest in the flesh; had, in words strange to human ears, killed the Prince of Life. Who was thus to confront the rage of the mob, and the malice of the Priests? We see a man rising, filled with a holy fire, so that he totally forgets his danger, and seems not even conscious that he is doing an heroic act. He casts back upon the mockers their charge, and proceeds to open and to press home his tremendous accusation, as if he were a king upon a throne, and each man before him a lonely and defenceless culprit.
Who is this man? Have we not seen him before? Is it possible that it can be Peter? We know him of old: he has a good deal of zeal, but little steadiness; he means well, and, when matters are smooth, can serve well; but when difficulties and adversaries rise before him, his moral courage fails. How short a time is it ago since we saw him tried! He had been resolving that, come what might, he would stand by his Master to the last. Others might flinch, he would stand. Soon the Master was in the hands of enemies. Yet His case was by no means lost. The Governor was on His side; many of the people were secretly for Him; nothing could be proved against Him; and, above all, He who had saved others could save Himself. Yet, as Peter saw scowling faces, his courage failed. A servant-maid looked into his eye, and his eye fell. She said she thought he belonged to Jesus of Nazareth: his heart sank, and he said, No. Then another looked in his face, and repeated the same suspicion. Now, of course, he was more cowardly, and repeated his No. A third looked upon him, and insisted that he belonged to the accused Prophet. Now his poor heart was all fluttering; and, to make it plain that he had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth, he began to curse and swear.
Is it within the same breast where this pale and tremulous heart quaked that we see glowing a brave heart which dreads neither the power of the authorities nor the violence of the populace; which faces every prejudice and every vice of Jerusalem, every bitter Pharisee and every street brawler, as if they were no more than straying and troublesome sheep? Is the Peter of Pilates hall the Peter of Pentecost, with the same natural powers, the same natural force of character, the same training, and the same resolutions? If so, what a difference is made in a man by the one circumstance of being filled with the Holy Ghost!1 [Note: W. Arthur, The Tongue of Fire, 63.]
ii. The Permanent Results
1. The descent of the Holy Ghost was preceded by a rushing mighty wind which filled all the house where they were sitting. It bespeaks the irresistible force of the Spirit, and the fact that it filled the whole chamber would seem to be emblematical of the universality of its influence. Apart, then, from its immediate effect upon the assemblage there gathered together, it was the first-fruits of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the whole mystical Body of Christs Church in all places and through all time. It is this that marks off the Dispensation of the Spirit from those Dispensations which had preceded it. God had deigned to be present with special people, and at special times; He had even caused an embodiment of His presence to be manifested in a special place, resting like a cloud of glory above the mercy-seat. And again, God had been present in the Person of His Incarnate Son among the inhabitants of Palestine, but in both cases the Divine Presence had been circumscribed and local only; but from that first Whitsuntide and onwards God has enabled men, through the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, to realise His Presence everywhere, and what before seemed to men to be local only has become universal.
2. To the Jews in the wilderness and to the people in Palestine, the Presence of God was wholly external, outside of themselves, but now it is within; Know ye not, says St. Paul, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? He meant to remind us of the inspiring thought that as the indwelling Spirit is felt to be ever prompting us to do what is right, so it should act as a deterrent from doing what is wrong. He meant us to realize that every time we yield to temptation, we sin not only against a God above and about us, but also against a God within us.
3. The life so filled is transformed. There may be some who will ask, Does the Holy Spirit still fill the hearts of men and transform their lives, as we read that He did in the days of the Apostles? The answer to the question is one which rests on experience; it is not a matter of correct interpretation of symbols. We may easily go astray in interpreting symbols, and we need the valuable reminder which Dr. Swete gives us that when we have translated the words of the Bible into the terms of modern philosophy we have only substituted one set of symbols for another. The modern symbols may be more intelligible and less likely to be misunderstood than the old ones; but the ultimate truths will not be reached until we have passed, in the words which Cardinal Newman chose for his own epitaph, ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.1 [Note: The Guardian, 3rd February 1911.] Let us quote the words of Dr. Swete in answer to this question: Communion with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit is not a theory or a dogma, but a fact of personal knowledge to which tens of thousands of living Christians can testify as the most certain of actualities.2 [Note: Swete, The Ascended Christ.]
Let us go back a century and a half ago, and compare the condition of things then with the condition of things to-day. In the year 1724 gin-drinking infected the mass of the population with the violence of an epidemic. It is said that every sixth house in London was a gin-palace. Hogarths cartoon retains the sign which stood outside the doors of these drinking densHere you may get drunk for a penny; dead drunk for twopencestraw provided. The public-houses were open all night. Public opinion did not hold the character of any man to suffer through drunkenness. Dr. Johnson says to Boswell: I remember, sir, when every decent person in Lichfield got drunk every night and nobody thought the worse of them. It was the mark of a gentleman to get drunk, and the standard of comparison was as drunk as a lord. Again, in the social habits of the upper classes profane swearing was held to be a mark of good breeding, and to take the name of God in vain in almost every sentence was the mark of a gentleman and even of a lady. Look again at the sports of the people, perhaps the truest index to their character. On the Sunday the people gathered for cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and other cruel sports. If we could have stepped into the midst of the eager and excited crowd we might have cried indignantlyThis ought to be put down by law. But how impossible it would have seemed. How indignantly it would have been scouted. The members of Parliament were the ringleaders of the sport. The clergy thought themselves fortunate to own a winning bird. Now where is all that gone? What has made drunkenness a low and beastly habit? What has made swearing an utterly vulgar thing? Why has the law stepped in and put down cruel sports? Do you say that education has become more general, and that culture has brought in other and more refined tastes? No; it was the educated and cultured classes who led the fashion in these things. There is but one explanation. Wesley and Whitefield were filled with the Holy Ghost, and as they preached here and there a little company of men and women were convertednot many in comparison with the masses of the nation. And these converted men and women went forth amongst the neighbours and began to live a Christlike life. Each became a new moral standard amongst them. Each was a skylight through which the heavens shone down into the midst of the little community. Each of them witnessed that there was another life than that to which they had been accustomed, and that in every way a better and happier life. Each became a living conscience in which things were so much more definitely black or white than they used to beblessedly good or uncomfortably bad. Each was a window through which men and women saw beyond the little present out into the eternities and the infinities. That wrought the reformationwitnesses unto Me.1 [Note: M. G. Pearse.]
Oh, turn me, mould me, mellow me for use.
Pervade my being with thy vital force,
That this else inexpressive life of mine
May become eloquent and full of power,
Impregnated with life and strength divine.
Put the bright torch of heaven into my hand,
That I may carry it aloft
And win the eye of weary wanderers here below
To guide their feet into the paths of peace.
I cannot raise the dead,
Nor from this soil pluck precious dust,
Nor bid the sleeper wake,
Nor still the storm, nor bend the lightning back,
Nor muffle up the thunder,
Nor bid the chains fall from off creations long enfettered limbs.
But I can live a life that tells on other lives,
And makes this world less full of anguish and of pain;
A life that like the pebble dropped upon the sea
Sends its wide circles to a hundred shores.
May such a life be mine.
Creator of true life, Thyself the life Thou givest,
Give Thyself, that Thou mayest dwell in me, and I in Thee.2 [Note: Horatius Bonar.]
Whitsun Day
Literature
Adamson (T.), The Spirit of Power, 1.
Benson (R. M.), The Final Passover, iv. 628.
Chadwick (S.), Humanity and God, 205.
Church (R. W.), Pascal and other Sermons, 336.
Fuller (M.), The Lords Day, 303.
Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 203.
Jowett (J. H.), The Transfigured Church, 9.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, 269.
Luckock (H. M.), Footprints of the Apostles, 54.
Macmillan (H.), The Garden and the City, 326.
Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, 1st Ser., 259.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, i. 475.
Ritchie (D. L.), Peace the Umpire, 123.
Robertson (A.), Venetian Sermons, 247.
Shore (T. T.), Saint George for England, 109.
Westcott (B. F.), Village Sermons, 213.
Wheeler (W. C.), Sermons and Addresses, 188.
Woodford (J. R.), Sermons, ii. 67.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
filled: Act 1:5, Act 4:8, Act 4:31, Act 6:3, Act 6:5, Act 6:8, Act 7:55, Act 9:17, Act 11:24, Act 13:9, Act 13:52, Luk 1:15, Luk 1:41, Luk 1:67, Luk 4:1, Joh 14:26, Joh 20:22, Rom 15:13, Eph 3:19, Eph 5:18
began: Act 2:11, Act 10:46, Act 19:6, Isa 28:11, Mar 16:17, 1Co 12:10, 1Co 12:28-30, 1Co 13:1, 1Co 13:8, 1Co 14:5, 1Co 14:18, 1Co 14:21-23, 1Co 14:29
as: Exo 4:11, Exo 4:12, Num 11:25-29, 1Sa 10:10, 2Sa 23:2, Isa 59:21, Jer 1:7-9, Jer 6:11, Eze 3:11, Mic 3:8, Mat 10:19, Luk 12:12, Luk 21:15, 1Co 14:26-32, Eph 6:18, 1Pe 1:12, 2Pe 1:21
Reciprocal: Gen 11:7 – confound Psa 68:18 – received Isa 32:4 – the tongue Isa 45:19 – spoken Eze 47:3 – waters were to the ankles Zep 3:9 – that Mat 10:20 – but Mar 1:8 – he shall Mar 13:11 – take Luk 3:16 – and with Luk 5:10 – from Joh 1:33 – the same Joh 7:4 – show Joh 7:39 – this spake Joh 14:12 – greater Act 2:3 – cloven Act 4:20 – we cannot Act 5:32 – whom Act 13:15 – if Act 15:8 – giving 1Co 1:5 – in all 1Co 2:13 – but Eph 6:19 – utterance
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT
They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
Act 2:4
When our Lord manifested Himself to His disciples for the last time before His Ascension into heaven, He reminded them that He had promised to send the Holy Spirit to take His place as their Guide and their Strengthener, and to abide perpetually in their midst. By three symbols, by wind, by fire, by voice, the Spirit declared His Presence.
I. The manifestation by wind.First of all by wind: There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. The stirring power of the Spirit was thus symbolised. Wind is a mysterious force, invisible to men and beyond their control, discoverable only by its results, and so a sudden rush of strong wind might fitly symbolise that a Power more than human was moving men in spite of themselves.
II. The manifestation by fire.Then, secondly, There appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire. Fire is another of the forces of nature, full of significance. Inanimate though it be, it seems mysteriously endowed with a kind of living force, and in Holy Scripture fire is specially spoken of as an agent of cleansing and purification. The fire which appeared to rest on the heads of the disciples indicated the purifying power of the Spirits Presence. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, was the promise and the warning which summed up the Baptists message. Not actual fire again, but tongues like as it were of fire, was the symbol which emphasised the purifying power of the Holy Ghost.
III. The manifestation by voice.And then, once more, They began to speak with tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. The second symbol leads fitly into the third, and by this the unifying power of the Spirits Presence was signified, for differences of language form the strongest barriers which separate men from each other. The mysterious utterances of the gift of tongues have been, indeed, commonly interpreted in the past as having been made in many foreign languages, but as we read the record again with care we are not led to suppose that this was the case. From St. Pauls account of the gift of tongues in the Corinthian Church, we are led rather to suppose that these were ecstatic utterances which could only be understood by those who were in spiritual sympathy with the speaker. By all such, whatever their nationality, whatever their own language might be, they were at once understood, and so perfectly understood that the speaker seemed to them to speak the words of their mother tongue. It was more, not less, than the mere power of speaking this or that foreign tongue. It was the power of making utterances which could appeal directly to the heart, and through the heart to the understanding, of men of the most varied tongues. And thus it surmounted the barrier of language altogether, and it drew into common accord men whose languages had hitherto separated them from each other. Thus it was a fitting symbol of the uniting power of the Divine Spirit.
Dean J. Armitage Robinson.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
4
It was the house that was filled with the sound, but it was they, the apostles, who were filled with the Holy Ghost. This enabled them, each of them, to speak with other tongues. This refutes the theory that the Lord assigned to each apostle the ability to speak with some specific foreign tongue, giving him the task of speaking to some of the foreigners present. That will not do anyway, for there were fifteen or more tongues represented at Jerusalem, but there were only twelve apostles, and hence there would not have been enough speakers to go round on that plan.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 2:4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, etc. And then those fire-tonguesthey saw flaming round their heads a bright and glorious aureoleseemed to speak from each mans heart, and to give utterance in a new strange language to the thoughts of awful joy and thankfulness which the new possession of the Spirit woke up within them; for they were joined now, as never man had been joined before, with the Spirit of the Eternal. It was the Spirit with all the fulness of Christ and His redeeming work. Under the old covenant, when the tabernacle was building, skilful artists like Bezaleel, leaders and judges like Joshua, were
filled now and again with the Spirit of God and the Spirit of wisdom (Exo 31:3; Deu 34:9). Solitary instances among the prophets of Israel may be cited where the Spirit of the Lord dwelt for a time in this or that servant of the Most High, but now for the first time began that intimate union which should endure through time and eternity between man and his God. Then was fulfilled the words of the Masters dying prayer: As Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us (St. Joh 17:12); and from that hour the Spirit has never departed from His Church in spite of all her divisions, her errors, her short-sighted policyhas never left her, never deserted her; but in all lands, through all ages among those many varied sects which follow Him, though often afar off, His blessed Spirit has ever dwelt with those who strive to do His will, to carry out His work.
With other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. On the question what these tongues were, see the general Excursus on the Miracle of Pentecost at the end of the chapter, and Schaffs History of the Apostolic Church.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Act 2:4. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost That is, all the one hundred and twenty, as appears from Act 2:1. At the time of this wonderful appearance, this whole company were abundantly replenished with both the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, not only in order to their own salvation, but also and especially to qualify them to be Christs witnesses to mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, according to his promise, Act 1:1; Act 1:8. They were filled with the graces of the Spirit, and were more than ever under its sanctifying influences; were now holy, and heavenly, and spiritual; more weaned from this world, and better acquainted with the other. They were more filled with the comforts of the Spirit, rejoiced more than ever in the love of Christ, and the hope of heaven, and in it all their griefs and fears were swallowed up. They were also, 2d, In proof of this, filled with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which is especially meant here: they were endued with miraculous powers for the furtherance of the gospel. It seems evident that not the twelve apostles only, but all the one hundred and twenty disciples were endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost at this time; all the seventy disciples, who were apostolical men, and employed in the same work, and all the rest that were to preach the gospel; for it is said expressly, (Eph 4:8; Eph 4:11,) that when Christ ascended on high, (which refers to this here, Act 2:33,) he gave gifts unto men, not only some apostles, such were the twelve; but some prophets, and some evangelists, many of the seventy disciples, itinerant preachers; and some pastors and teachers, settled in particular churches, as we may suppose some of these afterward were. And began to speak with other tongues To speak languages of which they had before been entirely ignorant. For this miracle was not in the ears of the hearers, as some have unaccountably supposed, but in the mouths of the speakers. The meaning is not, that one was enabled to speak one language, and another another, as it was with the several families that were dispersed from Babel; but every one was enabled to speak divers languages as he should have occasion to use them. And we may suppose that they not only understood what they themselves said, but understood one another too, which the builders at Babel did not, Gen 11:7. They did not speak now and then a word of another tongue, or stammer out some broken sentences, but spoke each language which they spoke as readily, properly, and elegantly, as if it had been their mother tongue: for whatever was produced by miracle was the best of the kind. They spake not from any previous thought, but as the Spirit gave them utterance He furnished them with the matter, as well as the language. And this family, praising God together with the tongues of all the world, was an earnest that the whole world should, in due time, praise God in their various tongues. Now observe here, reader, 1st, This was a very great and stupendous miracle, a miracle upon mens minds: for in the mind ideas are conceived, and words are framed: a miracle, with regard to every individual, and every language, thus communicated to that individual, equal to that of giving speech to persons born deaf and dumb, concerning which, see the note on Mat 15:30. These disciples had not only never learned any of these languages, but had never learned any foreign tongue, which if they had done, the acquisition of these might have been thereby facilitated. Nay, for aught that appears to the contrary, most of them had never so much as heard any of these languages spoken, or had any idea of them. 2d, It was a peculiarly proper, needful, and useful miracle. The language these disciples spoke was Syriac, or rather Chaldaio-Syriac, a dialect of the Hebrew; so that their being endued with this gift was necessary, even for their understanding both the Hebrew, in which the Old Testament was originally written, and the Greek, in which the New Testament was to be written. But that was not all: they were commissioned to preach the gospel to every creature, to disciple all nations. But here an insuperable difficulty meets them at the very threshold: how shall they be made acquainted with the several languages of the nations to which they are sent, so as to speak intelligibly to them all. It would be the work of the life of any of them to learn their languages. Hence, to prove that Christ would give authority to preach to the nations, he gives ability to his servants to preach to them in their own languages. And it should seem that this was, at least in part, the accomplishment of the promise which Christ made to his disciples, Joh 14:12. Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto the Father; for this gift of tongues may well be reckoned, all things considered, a greater work than any of the miraculous cures which Christ wrought. It is observed by Dr. Lightfoot, that as the division of tongues at Babel once introduced confusion, and was the means of casting off the Gentiles from the knowledge of the true God; so now, there was a remedy provided by the gift of tongues at Zion, to bring the Gentiles out of darkness into light, and to destroy the veil which had been spread over all nations. And Archbishop Tillotson thought it probable, if the conversion of infidels to Christianity were sincerely and vigorously attempted by men of honest and disinterested minds, God would, in an extraordinary way, countenance such attempts by giving all proper assistance, as he did to the first preachers of the gospel.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
See notes on verse 3
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
WITH THE HOLY GHOST
4. In the old dispensation the Holy Ghost operated extrinsically in the people. It is the crowning glory of the gospel dispensation to be filled with the Holy Ghost, in which case He operates on us intrinsically. The law must be satisfied before the glorious Retribution, back to the Edenic state in which God filled Adam and Eve like angels, can take place. The incarnation of the Son defeated the devil and magnified the violated law; thus sweeping every difficulty out of the way and lifting the flood-gate of perfect love to pour its Niagaras of full salvation into the consecrated believing heart. Hence the crowning glory of the Pentecostal dispensation is the filling of the heart with the Holy Ghost. We find the gospel standard uniformly recognized throughout the history of the apostolic church. It was not only the indispensable qualification of the gospel herald, but it was a sine qua non in the deacon, entrusted with the temporal interests of the church, as well as the eldership, charged with the graver responsibilities of the immortal soul. At this point Satan long ago maneuvered to derail and thus blast the purity and blight the glory of the Christian Church; seducing the fair Bride of Christ to receive his black hand in wedlock, deck herself in all the ornamentation of the world, and verify the horrific prophecies pertaining to the harlot of Babylon. Revelation , 12 th and 17th chapters. If the church had remained true to the Pentecostal doctrines and experiences she would long ago have enjoyed the honor of conquering the world and bringing back her glorified spouse to be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. The filling is impossible unless preceded by a radical emptying, a complete evacuation of our spiritual being by all evil. This is the negative experience under the cleansing blood, the invariable antecedent of the glorious positive experience, i. e., the impletion of the Holy Ghost. If you are true to the infallible Monitor, you can always have at your command the needed information relative to this glorious and extraordinary experience, as He is sure to reveal to you an emptiness in your heart, an aching void the world can never fill. Spirit filled people alone constitute the Bridehood of Christ (Matthew 25). Our Lord proposes to rule the world during the coming millennial age through the instrumentality of His Spirit-filled, transfigured Bride (Rev 20:6). He is now depending on the Spirit filled members of the Bridehood to preach the gospel of the glorious coming kingdom to all nations, calling out the elect and thus preparing the world for His glorious return to reign in righteousness (Mat 24:14). Reader, I abjure you, by the infinite value of your soul and the infinitesimal glories of the coming kingdom, that you get truly filled with the Holy Ghost and by doubtless faith and martyr obedience keep filled, on tiptoe watching and waiting to hail your Lord descending on a cloud (Rev 1:7).
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with {c} other tongues, as the {d} Spirit gave them utterance.
(c) He calls them “other tongues” which were not the same as the apostles commonly used, and Mark calls them “new tongues”.
(d) By this we understand that the apostles were not speaking one language and then another by chance at random, or as eccentric men used to do, but that they kept in mind the languages of their hearers: and to be short, that they only spoke as the Holy Spirit directed them to speak.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Spirit filling and Spirit baptism are two distinct ministries of the Holy Spirit. Both occurred on this occasion, though Luke only mentioned filling specifically. We know that Spirit baptism also took place because Jesus predicted it would take place "not many days from now" before His ascension (Act 1:5). Moreover, Peter spoke of it as having taken place on Pentecost a short time later (Act 11:15-16). [Note: See Fruchtenbaum, pp. 116-17.]
Filling with the Spirit was a phenomenon believers experienced at various times in the Old Testament economy (Exo 35:30-34; Num 11:26-29; 1Sa 10:6; 1Sa 10:10) as well as in the New. An individual Christian can now experience it many times. God can fill a person with His Spirit on numerous separate occasions (cf. Act 4:8; Act 4:31; Act 6:3; Act 6:5; Act 7:55; Act 9:17; Act 13:9; Act 13:52). Furthermore God has commanded all believers to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18). Luke used "filling" to express the Holy Spirit’s presence and enablement. [Note: Bock, "A Theology . . .," pp. 98-99.] Filling by the Spirit results in the Spirit’s control of the believer (Eph 5:18). The Spirit controls a believer to the degree that He fills the believer and vice versa. Believers experience Spirit control to the extent that we yield to His direction. On the day of Pentecost the believers assembled were under the Spirit’s control because they were in a proper personal relationship of submission to Him (cf. Act 1:14). In the Book of Acts whenever Luke said the disciples were Spirit-filled, their filling always had some connection with their gospel proclamation or some specific service related to outreach (Act 2:4; Act 4:8; Act 4:31; Act 9:17; Act 13:9). [Note: Frederick R. Harm, "Structural Elements Related to the Gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts," Concordia Journal 14:1 (January 1988):30.]
". . . Luke always connects the ’filling of the Holy Spirit’ with the proclamation of the gospel in Acts (Act 2:4; Act 4:8; Act 4:31; Act 9:17; Act 13:9). Those who are ’full of the Holy Spirit’ are always those who are faithfully fulfilling their anointed task as proclaimers (Act 6:3; Act 6:5; Act 7:55; Act 11:24; Act 13:52)." [Note: Walt Russell, "The Anointing with the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts," Trinity Journal 7NS (Spring 1986):63.]
"No great decision was ever taken, no important step was ever embarked upon, by the early Church without the guidance of the Spirit. The early Church was a Spirit-guided community.
"In the first thirteen chapters of Acts there are more than forty references to the Holy Spirit. The early Church was a Spirit-filled Church and precisely therein lay its power." [Note: Barclay, pp. 12, 13.]
The Christian never repeats Spirit baptism in contrast to filling, God never commanded Spirit baptism, and it does not occur in degrees. Spirit baptism normally takes place when a person becomes a Christian (Rom 8:9). However when it took place on the day of Pentecost the people baptized were already believers. This was also true on three later occasions (Act 8:17; Act 10:45; Act 19:6). (Chapter 19 does not clearly identify John’s disciples as believers, but they may have been.) These were unusual situations, however, and not typical of Spirit baptism. [Note: See my comments on these verses in these notes for further explanations.] Spirit baptism always unites a believer to the body of Christ (1Co 12:13). The "body of Christ" is a figure that the New Testament writers used exclusively of the church, never of Israel or any other group of believers. Therefore this first occurrence of the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit marks the beginning of the church, the body of Christ (cf. Mat 16:18).
Speaking with other tongues was the outward evidence that God had done something to these believers inwardly (i.e., controlled them and baptized them into the body). The same sign identified the same thing on the other initial instances of Spirit baptism (Act 10:46; Act 19:6). In each case it was primarily for the benefit of Jews present, who as a people sought a sign from God to mark His activity, that God gave this sign (Luk 11:16; Joh 4:48; 1Co 1:22). [Note: See William G. Bellshaw, "The Confusion of Tongues," Bibliotheca Sacra 120:478 (April-June 1963):145-53.]
One of the fundamental differences between charismatic and non-charismatic Christians is the issue of the purpose of the sign gifts (speaking in tongues, healings on demand, spectacular miracles, etc.). Charismatic theologians have urged that the purpose of all the gifts is primarily edification (cf. 1Co 12:7). [Note: E.g., Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, pp. 134-36.]
They "always seem to be spoken of as a normal function of the Christian life . . . [in which the Spirit] makes them willing and able to undertake various works for the renewal and upbuilding of the Church." [Note: E. D. O’Connor, The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church, pp. 280, 283. See also Ernest Swing Williams, a classic Pentecostal theologian, Systematic Theology, 3:50; Bernard Ramm, Rapping about the Spirit, p. 115; John Sherrill, They Shall Speak with Other Tongues, pp. 79-88; and Catalog of Oral Roberts University (1973), pp. 26-27.]
Many non-charismatics believe that the purpose of the sign gifts was not primarily edification but the authentication of new revelation.
There is an ". . . inseparable connection of miracles with revelation, as its mark and credential; or, more narrowly, of the summing up of all revelation, finally, in Jesus Christ. Miracles do not appear on the page of Scripture vagrantly, here, there, and elsewhere indifferently, without assignable reason. They belong to revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. Their abundant display in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic Age in revelation; and when this revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course." [Note: Benjamin B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles, pp. 25-26.]
". . . glossolalia [speaking in tongues] was a gift given by God, not primarily as a special language for worship; not primarily to facilitate the spread of the gospel; and certainly not as a sign that a believer has experienced a second ’baptism in the Holy Spirit.’ It was given primarily for an evidential purpose to authenticate and substantiate some facet of God’s truth. This purpose is always distorted by those who shift the emphasis from objective sign to subjective experience." [Note: Joel C. Gerlach, "Glossolalia," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 70:4 (October 1973):251. See also John F. Walvoord, The Holy Spirit at Work Today, p. 41; and Culver, p. 138.]
Other non-charismatics believe that the specific purpose of the sign gifts was to identify Jesus Christ as God’s Son and to authenticate the gospel message that the apostles preached.
Most non-charismatics grant that the sign gifts were edifying in their result, but say their purpose was to authenticate new revelation to the Jews (Act 2:22; Mar 16:20; Act 7:36-39; Act 7:51; Heb 2:2-4; 1Co 14:20-22). [Note: See S. Lewis Johnson Jr., "The Gift of Tongues and the Book of Acts," Bibliotheca Sacra 120:480 (October-December 1963):309-11.] Jews were always present when tongues took place in Acts (chs. 2, 10, and 19). It is understandable why God-fearing Jews, whom the apostles asked to accept new truth in addition to their already authenticated Old Testament, would have required a sign. They would have wanted strong proof that God was now giving new revelation that seemed on the surface to contradict their Scriptures.
God had told the Jews centuries earlier that He would speak to them in a foreign language because they refused to pay attention to Isaiah’s words to them in their own language (Isa 28:11; cf. 1Co 14:21). Jews who knew this prophecy and were listening to Peter should have recognized that what was happening was evidence that it was God who was speaking to them.
"Barclay and others have puzzled over the necessity for using various dialects when it would have been more expedient to simply use either Greek or Aramaic-languages known to speaker and hearer alike. [Note: Barclay, p. 16.] However to suggest this is to miss the point of the record. The Spirit desired to arrest the attention of the crowd. What better means could He adopt than to have men who quite evidently did not speak the dialects in question suddenly be endowed with the ability to speak these languages and ’declare the wonders of God’ before the astonished assembly? The effect would be a multiple one. Attention would be gained, the evidence of divine intervention would be perceived, the astonished crowd would be prepared to listen with interest to the sermon of Peter, and thus the Spirit’s purpose in granting the gift would be realized." [Note: Harm, p. 30.]
"As has been pointed out by various scholars, if simple ecstatic speech was in view here, Luke ought simply to have used the term glossais [tongues], not eterais glossais [other tongues]." [Note: Witherington, p. 133.]
". . . the startling effect of the phenomenon on those who in difficult circumstances desperately wished otherwise (as in Act 4:13-16; Act 10:28-29; Act 11:1-3; Act 11:15-18; and Act 15:1-12) supports the purpose of authentication (and not edification) for the sign gifts." [Note: J. Lanier Burns, "A Reemphasis on the Purpose of the Sign Gifts," Bibliotheca Sacra 132:527 (July-September 1975):245.]
God gave the gift of tongues also to rouse the nation of Israel to repentance (1Co 14:22-25). [Note: Zane C. Hodges, "The Purpose of Tongues," Bibliotheca Sacra 120:479 (July-September 1963):226-33. Some good books that deal with speaking in tongues exegetically include Robert G. Gromacki, The Modern Tongues Movement; Robert P. Lightner, Speaking in Tongues and Divine Healing; John F. MacArthur Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective; and Joseph Dillow, Speaking in Tongues: Seven Crucial Questions.]
It is clear from the context of Act 2:4 that this sign involved the ability to speak in another language that the speaker had not previously known (Act 2:6; Act 2:8). However the ability to speak in tongues does not in itself demonstrate the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Satan can give the supernatural ability to speak in other languages, as the blasphemous utterances of some tongues speakers have shown. Sometimes an interpreter was necessary (cf. 1 Corinthians 14), but at other times, as at Pentecost, one was not.
|
Instances of Speaking in Tongues in Acts |
|
Reference |
Tongues-speakers |
Audience |
Relation to conversion |
Purpose |
|
Act 2:1-4 |
Jewish believers |
Unsaved Jews and Christians |
Sometime after conversion |
To validate (for Jews) God’s working as Joel prophesied |
|
Act 10:44-47 |
Gentile believers |
Jewish believers who doubted God’s plan |
Immediately after conversion |
To validate (for Jews) God’s working among Gentiles as He had among Jews |
|
Act 19:1-7 |
Believers |
Jews who needed confirmation of Paul’s message |
Immediately after conversion |
To validate (for Jews) Paul’s gospel message |
Were the tongues here the same as in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12; 1 Corinthians 14)? If so, was ecstatic speech present on both occasions, and or were foreign languages present on both occasions? Or were the tongues here foreign languages and the tongues in Corinth ecstatic speech? [Note: See Kent, pp. 30-32, for a clear presentation of these views.]
"It is well known that the terminology of Luke in Acts and of Paul in 1 Corinthians is the same. In spite of this some have contended for a difference between the gift as it occurred in Acts and as it occurred in Corinth. This is manifestly impossible from the standpoint of the terminology. This conclusion is strengthened when we remember that Luke and Paul were constant companions and would have, no doubt, used the same terminology in the same sense. . . . In other words, it is most likely that the early believers used a fixed terminology in describing this gift, a terminology understood by them all. If this be so, then the full description of the gift on Pentecost must be allowed to explain the more limited descriptions that occur elsewhere." [Note: Johnson, pp. 310-11. See also Rackham, p. 21. Longenecker, p. 271, pointed out the differences between tongues in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12, 14.]
Probably, then, the gift of tongues was a term that covered speaking in a language or languages that the speaker had never studied. This gift was very helpful as the believers began to carry out the Great Commission, especially in their evangelization of Jews. Acts documents and emphasizes the Lord’s work in executing that mission.
Evidently most if not all the believers present spoke in tongues (Act 2:3; Act 2:7-11). It has been suggested that the tongues speaking on the day of Pentecost was not a normal manifestation of the gift of tongues. It may have been a unique divine intervention (miracle) instead. [Note: See my note on 19:6 for further comments on the cessation of the gift of tongues.]
God gave three signs of the Spirit’s coming to the Jews who were celebrating the Feast of Passover in Jerusalem: wind, fire, and inspired speech. Each of these signified God’s presence in Jewish history.
"At least three distinct things were accomplished on the Day of Pentecost concerning the relationship of the Spirit with men:
(1) The Spirit made His advent into the world here to abide throughout this dispensation. . . . [i.e., permanent indwelling]
(2) Again, Pentecost marked the beginning of the formation of a new body, or organism which, in its relation to Christ, is called ’the church which is his body.’ . . . [i.e., Spirit baptism]
(3) So, also, at Pentecost the lives that were prepared were filled with the Spirit, or the Spirit came upon them for power as promised." [i.e., Spirit filling] [Note: L. S. Chafer, He That Is Spiritual, pp. 19-21.]