Pentecost
Today is Pentecost. Originally Pentecost was an OT harvest festival in which the first fruits of the field were brought to the Lord. It was also called “The Feast of Weeks.” But sometime after the events of Acts 2, Pentecost had become for the Jews a festival of celebrating God’s giving the law on Mt. Sinai and this is how Jews down to the present day celebrate it. A literal reading of the opening words of the Pentecost account are: Now when the day of Pentecost had fully come or “had been fulfilled.” This is significant, because like all the OT ceremonies and festivals, Pentecost, too, pointed forward/ was a foreshadow of Christ and His Church. For example--the OT sacrifices pointed forward to Jesus’ perfect once for all sacrifice; the Passover pointed forward to Jesus’ work; the Sabbath pointed forward to Christ’s rest in the tomb and His finishing all the work for our salvation and to our perfect heavenly rest, etc. So now with the festival of Pentecost fully coming/ being fulfilled we see that OT harvest festival of the first fruits, pointing forward to the “first fruits”/ harvest of souls of the NT Church; the first of those from all over the world who would come to faith in Jesus--the promised Savior who had come and brought about the salvation of the world by His life, suffering, and death and gloriously rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. It was He who was sending the Holy Spirit in full measure upon His Church
The Holy Spirit made His presence known that day! He “announced” His arrival with a sound like a rushing of a violent wind that...filled the whole house where [the disciples] were sitting. By that He attracted a crowd to where the disciples were so the crowd could hear the Gospel from the disciples. And He marked His presence on the disciples as the ones to listen to, by the tongues like fire resting on each one of the disciples. And even with the disciples preaching to the crowd in the various native languages of the people--languages the disciples had never studied but which the Holy Spirit gave them ability--we read of the crowd: They were all amazed and perplexed. They kept saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocked them and said, “They are full of new wine.”
Of course Pentecost points us to the Third Person of the holy Trinity--the Holy Spirit. It often seems that He is “neglected” as we tend to think primarily of the work of the Father and the Son. But the Holy Spirit is God as the Father is God and the Son is God--and yet there are not three gods but one God. The thing to remember is that the Holy Spirit is not a force or power; He is a distinct Person of the Trinity like the Father and the Son. Listen to Jesus in our text: When the Counselor comes, whom I will send you from the Father--the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father--He will testify about Me. Notice here: Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Counselor and the Spirit of Truth. Because Jesus sends the Holy Spirit and He proceeds from the Father, that’s why we confess in the Creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. He is the Third Person of the Trinity!
Just because the work of the Holy Spirit is seemingly “quiet” and in the “background”, it does not mean that His work is unimportant. His work is to proclaim Jesus and to work faith in Him in the hearts of people. The Holy Spirit does not point to Himself but to Jesus and His work! As we examine Jesus’ words of our text, that He spoke to His disciples on that first Maundy Thursday evening, before His betrayal and arrest, we will hear Jesus tell us on this Pentecost festival of the Holy Spirit’s coming on the Apostles and on the Church.
The first thing we hear Jesus telling us about the Holy Spirit is of His unique coming on the Apostles beginning the first Christian Pentecost. Jesus tells the disciples of the Holy Spirit’s work: He will testify about Me. And then He adds: And you also are going to testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning. The apostles have a very special and unique role. It is through their teaching and testifying about Jesus that Jesus will establish and build His NT Church. There is that vital phrase: from the beginning. The apostles saw what Jesus did; they heard His preaching; they were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus. They knew that Jesus had truly died and rose again; they knew that His claims were true: He is the Son of God and Savior of the world. They would be the ones who would lay down their lives on account of their confession of Jesus. Because they were with Jesus from the beginning, they would be the only ones who could do that special role, as Peter said when the disciples were to choose a replacement for Judas [Ac 1.21-22]: Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection. And for that special and most difficult role, to carry out that blessed task of going into all the world and spreading that message of Jesus crucified and risen and for Jesus to build His Church upon the ministry of that confession, that’s why He sends them the Holy Spirit. And Jesus’ promise is fulfilled on the great day of Pentecost.
And you also are going to testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning. With the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost, we have the wonderful assurance that all that they taught and wrote as apostles was preserved from error. Our text: But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. That’s why we can be sure that our Scriptures are without error and the word of God--because the Holy Spirit so guided these men to choose and write and speak the very words that they did--in their own vocabulary and style but with the Holy Spirit’s moving them. Notice again what Jesus says in the one and same breath: the Spirit of truth...He will testify about Me. And you also are going to testify. The witness of the apostles is the witness of the Holy Spirit! That’s that glorious and unique role that they and they alone have. Through them--what they taught and what they wrote, the holy Scriptures--the Holy Spirit is testifying. Earlier Jesus had promised [14.26]: ...the Holy Spirit...will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. He reminded them what Jesus had taught and proclaimed; He wrote it in their hearts: Jesus overcame death and the devil; He called to mind and gave meaning to all that Jesus had done and said; and keeping them from error. Through that Spirit given and empowered word of the Apostles, through that word of the Apostles of the person and work of Jesus for us and our salvation--through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Church there is the continuation of Jesus’ ministry as He welcomes and gives the fruits and blessings of His work, even into our hearts and lives today. Through His holy and inspired word Jesus, still today, after His exaltation/ after His resurrection and ascension into heaven, He is still our teacher; He is still teaching us, still preaching to us, still placing us in the crowds and performing miracles before us, still showing Himself alive to us.
Our text: But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears He will speak. He will also declare to you what is to come. The Holy Spirit, in His office as Teacher and Comforter, grounds everything on Jesus and His merit. The Holy Spirit doesn’t reveal “further” truths or truths that aren’t in Scripture as if there are more revelations to come. He doesn’t bring up new and foreign and opposing doctrines. Instead, He leads the apostles into truths that Jesus concretely and precisely proclaimed. They proclaimed those truths and that is what the Church is established on. There is nothing else! But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He enlightened the apostles; He strengthened them; He made them firm so that with great joy and zeal and without error they preached, established the doctrine of Christ and set up the Church. This the glory that we see when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit on the Church/ the apostles that first Christian Pentecost day. He gloriously equipped them for their role and He set them on their task, gathering people from all over the world into the Church. Setting up the Church through them.
That was the unique/ once, never to be repeated role of the apostles. Because they had been chosen and called specifically by Jesus and had been with Him all throughout His earthly ministry; they had been eyewitnesses of His teaching, miracles, death and resurrection; they were especially promised and given the Holy Spirit. So does that mean that Pentecost has no meaning or significance for us today? Is this a “that was then and this is now” time? Hardly! We, today, are richly blessed by the Holy Spirit. He is still being poured out upon Christ’s Church; He never stopped being poured out.
The simple fact is that the very fact that there is a Church today, that you and I are Christians and there are Christians throughout the world and throughout history shows the working of the Holy Spirit. Not only can we on our own, by our own choice or wisdom, not decide to become Christians--faith is a gift of God He works in us by the Holy Spirit in the word and sacrament--but the very fact that we still have God’s word/ truth today is by the Holy Spirit’s gracious working and preservation. Would God’s truth given to us poor human vessels have continued on except by the work of the Holy Spirit? Hardly! That’s the Holy Spirit’s work! Listen again to Jesus in our text: He will glorify Me, because he will take from what is Mine and declare it to you. When the Holy Spirit declares Christ to us/ declares the Gospel to us, Jesus is glorified. Jesus is both glorified when His work is proclaimed and also when the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts that recognizes and knows Jesus rightly and receives from Him His gifts of forgiveness of sin, eternal life, peace with God, etc. Whom the Holy Spirit saves, He saves through Jesus--faith in Jesus. Where there is faith there Jesus is glorified as by that faith not only do we know Jesus rightly and seek His gifts but we also love Jesus and hate sin; we desire to do the Lord’s will. As we hate sin and do His will, God is glorified.
The work and blessing of the Holy Spirit who was poured out in full measure on Pentecost and who is still mighty and active in the world today, you and me being evidence of that--His work and blessing is seen in the name that Jesus calls Him in our text: the Counselor, or as some translations: the Comforter. We see this as we see the apostles beginning on Maundy Thursday when they fled from Jesus in the garden and Peter denying Jesus and even into Easter Sunday when we find them behind locked doors for fear of the Jews and compare them from Pentecost on throughout the book of Acts--they are bold, step forward, and proclaim Jesus. In the same way, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of comfort. In our sorrows and tribulations He fills us with joy and directs our eyes and hearts to Jesus; He comforts us with the promises and work of Jesus, assuring us that we are God’s dear children and nothing separates us from His love. As our Comforter and Counselor He works through the word of the apostles and grounds us in the faith so that we not only stand in the truth but that we can also reject error. In that love of our Lord and His word that the Holy Spirit works in us, and even in times of sorrow, He leads us deeper into the word so that we seek out our Lord’s word and truth all the more and by this He strengthens and exercises faith. He then leads us to the holy Sacraments where He forgives sins and strengthens us so that we endure. Praise be the Holy Spirit who came that first Pentecost on the Apostles to equip them for their unique task; and for coming to us today. INJ