When have you wanted the Holy Spirit to do something powerful in your life? Perhaps you wanted the healing power of the Holy Spirit, or the miraculous ability to translate foreign tongues. Maybe you wanted the power of God for understanding the future, or a prophetic Word that would speak precisely what God’s heart desires for a given moment or season.
All of this to say – I think we often approach the Holy Spirit, and even passages like Acts 2:1-21, considering all the Holy Spirit enables the people of God to do. But what if we chose to focus specifically on the person of the Holy Spirit, as we read some of these passages?
We regularly state that we believe in a Triune God. This is a mysterious Truth from how God has revealed God’s self throughout scripture. In the Nicene creed, after mentioning God the Father, and God the Son, we confess “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.”
Jesus mentions in Acts 1:8 that we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes, to be His witnesses. Our world builds so much on power – on seeking it, keeping it, and protecting it. So often we hear about the power here, and become so focused on empowerment, we miss out on the person. Focusing only on the power of the Holy Spirit over the Person of the Trinity, causes us to seek a temporary tool instead of an eternal relationship. In scripture, the acts of power are always as a sign of a relationship now available.
As we read passages like this, what if we held in mind – not “empowerment” as if these followers are all “leveling up” in some cosmic video game – gaining new abilities…but what if we listened to the description as God’s people are entering into relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person, one person of the fullness of God?
In these moments, God is revealing what has changed as we are brought to New Life by the arrival and indwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit.
In John 14:16-18, Jesus says “I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion (comforter/advocate), who will be with you forever. This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be in you.”
Our God wants us to know Him intimately, as He already knows us intimately. Here are some things I believe we learn about the person of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:1-21:
- The Holy Spirit comes from heaven. Verse 2 – “from heaven there came a sound..” Heaven is where God is, and here is the source of what arrives. Luke 24:49 tells us the Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus and promised by the Father.
Are we being attentive for God to respond from His presence, or are we waiting for His help and response to arrive from the sources/systems of this world? - The Holy Spirit is revealed as uncontrollable wind and yet also purposeful fire.
The wind arrives, and fills the entire place. The Spirit is all-encompassing, arriving in ways that fill every corner of our being and our space. The fire arrives, but doesn’t fill the entire place. Instead, it divided so that it rested on each of them. The purifying Spirit of God is purposeful and personal. How are you in need of the Holy Spirit to arrive in your life today? - The Holy Spirit enables living according to His reality. The breath of God always brings New Life. This IS Holiness: abiding in the Love of and living in the ways of God. In the presence of God, all are united as one. Language is not a barrier. This was obviously unexpected by those observing what was happening, as Luke describes them as being bewildered, amazed, and astonished.
Filled and being used by God for His purposes – they are being made Holy. This is His desire for our lives as well – that we would experience being so filled with His Love and Spirit, that our purposes and hearts are refined to fully reflect His own. In what ways could the realities of God arrive as unexpected in your life? - The Holy Spirit makes right what humanity has made wrong.
There’s confusion and bewilderment here, as languages unexpectedly come together. The same confusion happened in Genesis 11:7 in the opposite direction, when God scattered the people into different languages due to their prideful ways at Babel. In order to humble them enough that they might reach out to God (remain in relationship), God had scattered them. Here, as relationship is restored – there is a safe place for global healing. - The Holy Spirit brings glory to God – not the individual.
They were used to prophets, priests, and kings – individuals who represented God’s Reign and Rule. Even when Jesus was with them, there were arguments about which of them would be recognized as closest to Him.
Here they were all speaking about the mighty acts of God.
Now the promise of Jeremiah was being fulfilled: “..this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34) - The Holy Spirit brings fulfillment of God’s promises.
Peter quotes the prophet Joel, reminding them of the words they were now seeing fulfilled. In Joel chapter 2, he calls on a people who are experiencing the judgment of God to repent. To humble themselves, turning away from their own desires and toward God. He prophecies that God will respond with rescue and redemption, and then these words that His Spirit will be poured out on all people – yes even people precisely like YOU – in ways that ripple out to impact all of creation. Scripture proclaims no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3b). John Wesley wrote, “Every true Christian now “receives the Holy Ghost,” as the Paraclete or Comforter promised by our Lord.” (Wesley, “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion”) We understand that we are included in those Joel talks about as able to receive the Spirit of God. We include all those we would normally overlook as those with potential to be those who speak for God…even the self we see in the mirror.
To what end? The final verse – Acts 2:21 reveals to us the most important way that we “expect the unexpected”. Who might experience salvation?
The expectations of our world says things like:
Everyone who is born into the right circumstances..
Everyone who makes good decisions..
Everyone who achieves enough in Jesus’ name..
Everyone who lives a really really good life..
Everyone who _______ (other reasons we think God will accept us)..
Instead – “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
This is an invitation into relationship…the one in need of salvation knowing and being known by the one saving. There are no requirements of proving any sort of ability in order to come and receive.
Do you desire the Holy Spirit – who is our living invitation into the power of relationship here and now with the Triune God? This IS Salvation. Come and receive. Come and be received by the power of the Holy Spirit, into right relationship with God.
words from wick 