Acts 2:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the account of the Holy Spirit coming down on Christ’s disciples. The time and place are carefully noted to make the event certain. It happened when the day of Pentecost had fully come, with the night and part of the day already past. This feast was counted from the day after the firstfruits offering, which was the day after the Passover, the day Christ rose.

The Spirit came at a major feast because many people were gathered in Jerusalem, including visitors from other lands. That made the event more public, and news of it could spread quickly. In that way, the Jewish feasts helped open the way for gospel work. They served, as it were, like a bell calling people to God’s new work.

Pentecost also remembered the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, when the Jewish church began as a nation. So it was fitting that the Holy Spirit came on that day, with fire and tongues, to announce the gospel law. That law was not for one nation only, but for all people. The feast also fell on the first day of the week, which gave added honor to that day and confirmed it as the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, a lasting memorial of Christ’s resurrection and the Spirit’s outpouring.

This gives us reason to honor that day with special thanks for those two great blessings. Every Lord’s Day, we should remember Christ’s resurrection and the gift of the Spirit in our prayers and praise. We should do this with real feeling and thankful hearts.

The disciples were all together in one place, with one heart and purpose. Scripture does not say exactly where they were, whether in the temple or in an upper room, but it was in Jerusalem. That was the place God had chosen, where he promised to meet his people and bless them. Even though Jerusalem had shown great dishonor to Christ, he still gave this honor to Jerusalem. In that city, he would begin teaching his remnant, his faithful people, in every place.

The disciples were together, and they were still few enough to fit in one place. More importantly, they were of one accord. While Jesus was with them, they had often argued about who was the greatest, but those quarrels were now over. What they had already received from the Spirit, when Christ breathed on them, had corrected much of their misunderstanding and stirred up holy love. They had also been praying together more than usual, and that helped them love one another better.

This was good preparation for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The blessed dove does not come where there is noise and unrest, but where there is peace and quiet. If we want the Spirit poured out on us from above, we should be of one accord. Even if we have different views and interests, we should agree to love one another. Where brothers live together in unity, there the Lord gives his blessing.

The Holy Spirit did not come in a cloud, as God often did in the Old Testament when he filled the tabernacle or temple. Those clouds hinted at the darkness of that earlier time. Christ also went up to heaven in a cloud, which shows how much remains hidden from us about the world above. But the Spirit did not descend in a cloud, because he came to scatter the clouds that cover human minds and bring light into the world.

First, there was an audible sign to wake up their expectation of something great. The sound came suddenly, not gradually like ordinary wind. It came from heaven, like a thunderclap, and it was the sound of a wind. In Scripture, the Spirit’s work is often compared to the wind, because you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going (John 3:3). When God was about to breathe life into dry bones, the prophet was told to call to the wind, “Come from the four winds, O breath” (Ezekiel 37:9). God’s ways are in the whirlwind and storm, and he spoke to Job out of the whirlwind.

This was a rushing, strong wind, with great force and great noise, as if it would push everything aside. It showed the powerful work of the Spirit of God on people’s minds, and through them on the world. By that power, they would be made mighty through God, able to tear down proud thoughts and false ideas. The sound filled not only the room, but the whole house where they were sitting. It likely alarmed the whole city, but to show that it was supernatural, it settled on that one house. This would also guide those who noticed it to go and ask what it meant.

This wind filling the house would have filled the disciples with awe and helped them enter a serious, reverent, and settled frame for receiving the Holy Spirit. In this way, the Spirit’s convictions prepare the way for his comforts. The rough blasts of that blessed wind ready the soul for his softer and gentler touch.

Here is also a visible sign of the gift they were about to receive. They saw tongues that seemed to divide, like fire (Acts 2:3), and it sat, meaning it rested, on each of them. The point is not that the tongues sat, but that the Spirit, shown by them, rested on each person, as he had rested on the prophets long ago. Dr. Hammond describes it as something like flaming fire lighting on each one, dividing apart, and taking the shape of tongues.

A candle flame is somewhat like a tongue, and there is also a gentle meteor that naturalists call ignis lambens, a soft flame that does not consume. That was the kind of fire this seems to have been. There was an outward sign to confirm the disciples’ faith and to convince others. In earlier times, God often confirmed the first call of prophets with signs, so all Israel would know they were truly sent.

The sign was fire so that John the Baptist’s word about Christ would be fulfilled, that he would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, that is, with the Holy Spirit as with fire. They were then at Pentecost, keeping the memory of the law being given on Mount Sinai. That law came in fire, so it was called a fiery law, and the gospel also came with fire. Ezekiel’s mission was confirmed by a vision of burning coals (Ezekiel 1:13), and Isaiah’s by a coal touching his lips (Isaiah 6:7). The Spirit, like fire, softens the heart, burns up what is sinful and worthless, and stirs up holy love and devotion in the soul. In that way, spiritual sacrifices are offered, as fire burned on the altar. This is the fire Christ said he came to send on the earth (Luke 12:49).

The fire appeared in cloven, or divided, tongues. The Spirit works in many ways, and speaking in different tongues was one of them. This gift was singled out as the first visible sign of the Holy Spirit, and the sign pointed to it. They were tongues because the word of God comes through the Spirit, and Christ would speak to the world through him. The Spirit was given not only to give knowledge, but also power to publish and proclaim that knowledge, because the Spirit’s gifts are given to help others.

These tongues were divided to show that God would spread the knowledge of his grace among all nations. He had once divided the light of the heavens among them in his providence (Deuteronomy 4:19). The tongues were divided, yet the disciples still remained united in heart. There can be true unity of feeling even where people speak in different ways. Dr. Lightfoot notes that the dividing of tongues at Babel was the casting off of the nations, because once they lost the language in which God was spoken of and preached, they lost the knowledge of God and fell into idolatry. Now, after more than two thousand years, God restores the knowledge of himself to the nations by another dividing of tongues.

This fire sat upon them for some time, showing the lasting presence of the Holy Spirit with them. In old times, prophetic gifts were given only at times and in a limited way, but Christ’s disciples had the Spirit’s gifts with them continually, even if the visible sign soon disappeared. Whether the flames moved from one person to another, or whether there was one flame for each person, is not certain. But the flames must have been bright and strong to be seen in daylight, for the day was fully come.

Then came the immediate result. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, more fully and powerfully than before. They were filled with his grace and came more fully under his sanctifying work, becoming more holy, heavenly, and spiritual. They were less attached to this world and better acquainted with the world to come. They were also filled with the Spirit’s comfort, rejoicing more than ever in Christ’s love and the hope of heaven, so that their griefs and fears were swallowed up.

They were also filled with the Spirit’s gifts, which is mainly what is meant here. They were given miraculous powers to help spread the gospel. It seems clear to me that not only the twelve apostles, but all one hundred and twenty disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit at this time. That would include the seventy disciples, who were apostolic men and worked in the same mission, and the rest as well who were to preach the gospel. Scripture says that when Christ ascended on high, he gave gifts to people, not only apostles, such as the twelve, but also prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Ephesians 4:8, Ephesians 4:11). The word all here must refer to all who were gathered together in Acts 2:1 and Acts 1:14-15.

They began to speak in other tongues, languages they had never learned, besides their own. They did not speak ordinary conversation, but the word of God and the praises of his name, as the Spirit gave them speech, or gave them weighty sayings worth remembering. It is likely that each person did not just receive one language while another received a different one, as happened with the families scattered from Babel. Rather, each one was enabled to speak many languages as needed. We may also suppose that they understood not only themselves but each other, which the builders of Babel did not (Genesis 11:7).

They did not speak only a word or two of another language, or stumble through broken sentences. They spoke each language as naturally, clearly, and well as if it were their native tongue, because whatever God produced by miracle was perfect of its kind. They did not speak from prior study or careful planning, but as the Spirit gave them utterance. He supplied both the message and the language. This was a very great miracle. It was a miracle in the mind, and so it was one of the most gospel-like miracles, because words are formed in the mind. They had not only never learned these languages, but had never learned any foreign language that might have helped them with these. As far as we can tell, they had not even heard these languages spoken, or formed any idea of them.

They were neither scholars nor travelers, and they had no chance to learn languages from books or from daily conversation. Peter was bold enough to speak in his own language, but the others were not public speakers, nor were they quick to understand. Yet now, as Isaiah said, “the heart of the rash understands knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers is ready to speak clearly” (Isaiah 32:4). When Moses complained, “I am slow of speech,” God answered, “I will be with your mouth,” and he gave Aaron as Moses’ spokesman. But God did even more for these messengers of his, because the one who made human mouths new-made theirs.

This was a very fitting, necessary, and useful miracle. The language the disciples spoke was Syriac, a form of Hebrew, so they needed this gift to understand the original Hebrew of the Old Testament and the original Greek of the New Testament. But that was not all. They had been sent to preach the gospel to every creature and to make disciples of all nations. At once, a great problem stood in the way, how could they learn so many languages well enough to speak clearly to all peoples? That would take a lifetime of study.

So God showed that Christ could give authority to preach to the nations by also giving ability to speak to them in their own languages. This seems to have fulfilled Christ’s promise to his disciples, “Greater works than these you will do” (John 14:12). In every way, this may be counted a greater work than the miraculous healings Christ performed. Christ himself did not speak in other tongues, and he did not give that gift to his disciples while he was with them. But it was the first result of the Spirit being poured out on them.

Archbishop Tillotson thought it likely that if unbelievers were now sincerely and earnestly approached for Christ, by men of honest hearts, God would give special help to such an effort, as he did when the gospel was first made known.