Pentecost 2005

“Thy Kingdom come”

 

Today is Pentecost.  Pentecost is connected to the kingdom of God coming to earth.  At least that is the connection that Jesus made when he was asked about the kingdom of God.  By saying “Pentecost” I am not just referring to the historical moment or the biblical feast God commanded in the law.  You can read about those aspects of it in my book, “Special Appointments with God.” I give it the meaning it has in the Christian context in addition to those things.  I am referring to the active ingredient in Pentecost which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

Acts 1:3-9 (p. 770 in the Pew Bibles.)

3 After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." 6 So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses[1] in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." 9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

 

          Jesus taught about the kingdom of God after the resurrection.  I would give anything to have a CD of that teaching.  We don’t know exactly what he taught.  We can only infer it by the clues that Luke gives us in Acts 1 or in the behavior of the disciples afterwards.  In the Acts 1 passage there are several clues.

            First, we can surmise that it was an extended discussion because Luke mentions that it took place over 40 days.  We could say that he appeared to them and spoke about the kingdom of God. 

            Second, it would appear to be the primary topic about which Jesus spoke. It would appear that his discussion about the baptism with the Holy Spirit is related to his discussion about the kingdom of God.

            Third, in verse 4 it would appear Jesus also connected the kingdom of God with the gift of the Father.  Also in verse 6 when the disciples asked him about the kingdom, it was after the discussion about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

            Fourth, that kingdom has something to do with Israel.  This is implied by the disciples’ question “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”  Precisely what it has to do with Israel we do not fully know.  I think it means that Jesus will rule from Jerusalem and that Israel will have some unique place in that kingdom.  As Luke continues in his narrative, he starts with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Jews in Acts 2.  Then in Acts 8 he tells of the Holy Spirit coming upon Samaritans who were half Jewish and half Gentile.  In Acts 10 and 19 he describes the Holy Spirit coming upon Gentiles.  It appears that the kingdom will come to Israel but that it will take a bit of a detour through the Gentiles.  I think we are living in the detour to the Gentiles.

            When the disciples asked about the Jewish kingdom Jesus redirected their attention. He said don’t concern yourself with that.  Concern yourself with the Holy Spirit.  When he comes upon you, you will be a witness for me to the Jews and also to the Gentiles.  In this immediate context he did not say Jew and Gentile but used geographic placeholders for those people groups.

 

            Jesus himself said what this was about in Acts 1:8.[2]  It is about the power to be a witness in all the world.  There are two dimensions: receiving power and being a witness.   There is some kind of necessary and causal link between the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and doing the work of expanding the Kingdom.  This is why Jesus told them to wait.  They had great worship, the last part of Luke’s Gospel is clear enough about that.  They had great Bible Study, the last part of Luke also tells us that.  They already had the Holy Spirit, John’s Gospel makes that clear in John 20:22.

What they did not have was the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The subsequent nature of the Baptism of the Spirit is the critical part.  That is, it is subsequent to salvation.  It’s what Jesus did not have before the Spirit came upon him on the banks of the Jordan.  It’s what the disciples did not have, even after Jesus breathed his spirit into them on Easter night.  It is what the church is so lacking in today.  We need the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Our prayer is the same as the ancient Church.  In “The Divine Liturgy of James, the Holy Apostle and Brother of the Lord,”  written, as to its main fabric, before AD 200, they prayed like we do.  Three times in the liturgy there is a prayer for the gifts of the Spirit.  In the third prayer, which comes as part of the lengthy communion, the liturgist prays for the Holy Spirit to come.  He prays for the Spirit who is described as the one,

 

that descended in the form of a dove on our Lord Jesus Christ at the river Jordan, and abode on Him; that descended on Thy apostles in the form of tongues of fire in the upper room of the holy and glorious Zion on the day of Pentecost; this Thine all-holy Spirit, send down, O Lord, upon us, and upon these offered holy gifts. [3]

 

Enshrined in the divine liturgy, the analogy takes on enormous theological force.  It is not incidental or secondary.  The analogy is firmly within the mainstream of early church belief.  What the early Christians hoped to receive was compared to what Jesus and the disciples had received.  It short, what was hoped for was analogous to what their predecessors had received.

Our prayer is the same.  We want to win our world for Jesus and we need his spiritual baptism to accomplish.  We want to change the culture and teach it to observe all the Jesus commanded.  For that we need a spiritual baptism, an immersion in the Spirit. 

The great directive to take the Gospel everyone and teach the world to obey Jesus has not been withdrawn.  Everything that Jesus spoke in Acts 1 is still in effect today.  It still governs.  We are still responsible for what he said.  All of this adds up to the kingdom of God.

 

            We should think about Pentecost the way Jesus did, that it is related to the kingdom of God on the earth.  When we do so, we can appreciate the significance of Pentecost as a historic day.  In the Old Testament, it was understood as the day on which God gave the law of Moses on Sinai.  It was the date on which God established his government over Israel with the Sinai covenant.  We have to wonder if what Sinai is to God’s rule over Israel, Pentecost is to God’s rule over his church.

            The writer of Hebrews 12 makes that connection.  He contrasts Mt. Sinai with the City of the living God.  When the writer of Hebrews uses the word “city” it is a political term.  In Greek it is “Polis,” the root of our word political.  God has a spiritual city, the heavenly Jerusalem from which he rules. 

God’s governance is called the City of God.  For Augustine, who wrote a book by this title, the City of God came in two stages:  “…its temporal stage here below (where it journeys as a pilgrim among sinners and lives by faith) and as solidly established in its eternal abode—that blessed goal for which we patiently hope ‘until justice be turned into judgment…”[4]

In the City of God, where we now live, God governs.

 

“There his people may find him ruling, guiding, sanctifying, and comforting them; there he speaks to them by the gospel ministry; there they speak to him by prayer, and he hears them; there he trains them up for heaven, and gives them the earnest of their inheritance.”  (from Matthew Henry's Commentary)

 

We are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.  We have willingly submitted to the rule of Christ on the earth.  He rules us and gives us direction.  He calls us to witness, to announce his kingdom to all who will listen.  He not only wants us to do this but he will provide the power to accomplish it.  That power is contained in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The question is, do you recognize that you need it and do you want it?

 


[1] martus (mar'-toos);  of uncertain affinity; a witness (literally [judicially] or figuratively [genitive case]); by analogy, a "martyr":   KJV-- martyr, record, witness.

[2] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

[3] General Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church, p. 319, cited on p.  553, Vol. 7 Ante-Nicene Fathers.

[4] Augustine, City of God.  Book I, Preface.