Today is Pentecost Sunday and today we celebrate the birth of the Church and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not simply the giver of gifts (as in 1 Cor 12), he is the gift of God himself. God is a good father and gives gifts to his children. The greatest gifts that he gives are the gift of his Son (John 3:16; Rom 8:32) and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told us, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is God’s presence with us and within us. This is something to rejoice over and celebrate.
There are so many things which I could speak about when it comes to the Holy Spirit. Time prevents me from doing that. Instead of speaking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit or spiritual gifts or controversies over speaking in tongues, I want to emphasize today that the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was the culmination of the work of Christ, his life, death, resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God. There are three tenses in connection with this link between the Spirit and the work of Jesus: past, present and future. The Holy Spirit points us backwards to what Jesus has done for us, he makes us witnesses to Christ in the present, and lastly he directs out vision to the future glory when Jesus returns.
To grasp how important Pentecost is we need to go back to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament very few people experienced the anointing or the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was at work in the nation of Israel, doing miracles (Isa 63:10-14) and dwelling in their midst (Haggai 2:5). However, only a few people actually experienced the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Only a few select people, like Moses, the judges, David and the prophets, could say that the Spirit was in them and even then there was a real possibility that the Spirit would be removed (Judges 16:20; Ps 51:11).
The event which changes the way in which God gives his Spirit to people is the coming of the Messiah. Isaiah prophesied about the coming of the one who would be especially anointed with the Spirit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked (Isa 11:2-4).
The overflow of the Messiah’s anointing with the Spirit is the Spirit being poured out on all flesh.
And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days (Joel 2:28-29).
This is what we see happening on Pentecost. But the Day of Pentecost was not simply an arbitrary day in which God decided to fulfil prophecy. Rather, the Day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church was the culmination of what Jesus has done. Several passages in the Gospel of John make this clear.
In John 7 we find Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. There he taught in the Temple. “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37-39). At that point in history the Holy Spirit had not been poured out because Jesus had not completed what he came to do. His glorification involved going to the cross and dying for the sins of the world, then being raised from the dead. It was no co-incidence that Jesus spoke these words at the Feast of Tabernacles. This Feast was one in which Israelites lived in booths made of branches, just as they did after they were delivered from Egypt (Lev 23:42-43). The Feast was one way in which Israel celebrated their deliverance. The Gospel of John alludes here to a greater deliverance. The deliverance that Jesus brings is deliverance from sin. Jesus had to deliver humanity from the power of sin before the Holy Spirit can be poured out on the people of God.
Later in John’s Gospel, just before Jesus went to the cross, Jesus promised, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). However, before Jesus could send the Spirit to live within his followers, he had to leave the world and go back to the Father. He had to go to the cross, then be raised from the dead and be exalted to the right hand of God. Without this the Holy Spirit could not come upon the children of God. “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
The need for Jesus to go away, to die, to be raised from the dead and to go to the Father, is precisely what is emphasised on the Day of Pentecost. I summarize here by picking out some verses from Peter’s Pentecost Sermon.
“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Acts 2:22-24).
“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (2:32-33).
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah” (36).
Let’s consider this message. Peter had told the crowd that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church was the fulfilment of the prophecy in Joel 2:28-32 that God would pour out the Spirit on all people. But then he went on to explain how this was possible. The whole amazing event was possible because the Messiah had come to Israel. He lived a life anointed by the Holy Spirit. Then he was put to death for our sins and raised from the dead. This is the gospel. But the Holy Spirit was not poured out until Jesus was also exalted to the right hand of God. His work is completed and he has received glory and honour above any other name. He is the Lord, and as the Lord he is now able to give the Spirit to his people.
So the coming of the Holy Spirit is vitally connected to the past, to the finished work of Jesus. But the Spirit is also connected to the present reign of Jesus, who is king over the kingdom of God. The coming of the Spirit is an indication that the kingdom of God has arrived. Jesus said as much when he cast out demons. “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28). The disciples also expected the kingdom when after his resurrection Jesus told them that they would receive the Holy Spirit. “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. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:4-6). Since the coming of the Spirit and the coming of the kingdom are linked, this explains why the sermon preached by Peter on the Day of Pentecost contains a reference to signs of the end. “Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke” (Acts 2:18-19).
Given that the end times have arrived because Messiah has come and the Spirit is poured out, it is not surprising that Jesus told the disciples that when the Spirit came they would become his witnesses to all Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The Holy Spirit is himself a witness to Jesus. Jesus said, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me” (John 15:26). The people of God, then, are filled with the Spirit in order to witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is the exalted one and we are his witnesses to this fact. The result is a partnership between the Holy Spirit and the Church to witness to who Jesus is and what he has done. Witnessing to the world about Jesus is one of the major reasons why God has given the Holy Spirit to the Church. It is the means by which the kingdom of God grows. The early Church proclaimed both Jesus and the kingdom of God (Acts 8:12; 19:8; 28:23). Witnessing to Jesus is the way in which the reign of Jesus increases in the world. This is the present connection between the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus.
The coming of the Holy Spirit in the way he came on Pentecost points us back to the redemption won by Jesus. The witness of the Church to the work of Christ is the way that God works in the world by his Spirit now. But the coming of the Spirit has another effect on the people of God. He points us towards the end of time, when Jesus will return in glory.
In the midst of discussing present suffering, Paul reminds us that “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23). The Spirit is the firstfruits of the wonders of the world to come. His presence in us now is a taste of what will come on the Final Day.
Elsewhere we are told: “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:14-15). 2 Cor 1:22 repeats this idea: God has “set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” The Holy Spirit guarantees that what we are promised in Christ will come to fruition. We are sealed because we are God’s possession. There is no way that those whom God has sealed will lose out on what God has promised. He has given us the Spirit and his glory is at stake, so we know that God will not fail us.
The Holy Spirit’s indwelling of the people of God is the surety that God will complete the salvation he has begun in us. The presence of the Spirit always draws us towards what is to come. Since we have a deposit of what is to come, he produces in us a longing for the completion of salvation. Consequently, very near the end of Revelation we find the exclamation, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘come’” (Rev 22:17), because Jesus is coming soon. “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (22:20).
So there are three things to remember about the Spirit being poured out on Pentecost that I want to remind you of today. We can think of these three things in terms of three tenses. The Holy Spirit was given to the Church on Pentecost and all the people of God ever since, because Jesus has won salvation for us. We should not think of the Holy Spirit only in terms of the gifts he gives to us. Instead let us be thankful that the presence of the Holy Spirit continually reminds us that Jesus has brought about our salvation and caused us to enter into the new age. That is the past tense. In the present the Holy Spirit works in the Church to make us witnesses to the world about Jesus and what he has done to buy salvation. And since we have the deposit of the new age, the Holy Spirit, our hearts must always be set on things above (Col 3:1-2) where our future lies. The presence of the Holy Spirit means that we long for Jesus to return in glory and complete the salvation he has begun in us. Thus the Holy Spirit coming on Pentecost is tied up with the past work of Jesus, the present proclamation of Jesus and the future return of Jesus.