The Day of Pentecost was the first time God’s glory filled the House and the priests DIDN’T have to flee - because they were the House. Awesome.

Back again with a few more notes on my findings:

3. The Spirit fills the believers at various points
~ at Pentecost (2:4) and after their prayers when Peter & John were released (4:31)
~ Stephen (6:3 and 7:55)
~ Saul (according to Ananias, 9:17)
~ Barnabas (11:24)
~ the disciples (13:52)

4. Through the Spirit comes..
~ power (10:38) which enables Christ’s followers to be His witnesses (1:8) of His death and resurrection (5:29-32), speaking God’s Word boldly (4:31)
~ wisdom (6:3)
~ comfort (9:31 - or strength/encouragement, NIV)

5. Baptism with the Spirit comes specifically..
~ as Jesus promises to His apostles and followers (1:5 and 11:16)
~ with repentance (at least to Peter’s Jewish audience, 2:38)
~ to those who obey God (5:32)
~ through Peter and John the apostles to the believing Samaritans who have received God’s Word (8:16-19, I think we’ve already discussed this though; how interesting that for the Gentiles no laying on of hands was needed by anyone for the Spirit to be given to them!)
~ given to the uncircumcised Gentile household of Cornelius as Jewish Peter the apostle tells them about forgiveness through Jesus (10:44-45 and 11:15) - just as it was to the Jewish followers in Jerusalem (15:8)

Winding down now! It’s been fun finding all these things out. And I thoroughly recommend that no-one blindly swallow anything I’ve posted; please go to the Bible yourself and check out the references!

Regards,
Tia Z.

Tia Zheng - 09 October 2008 07:13 PM

Back again with a few more notes on my findings:

Hey Tia

I just wanted to say thanks for posting all this stuff on the Spirit - I’ve found it very helpful.

Mike

Robert Denham - 07 October 2008 10:05 AM

I’m not sure it’s as simple as that though I’ll admit that I haven’t given this a lot of thought. All faithful OT Jews must have had the Spirit otherwise they wouldn’t have remained faithful. To me the differences between pre and post Pentecost appear to be more to do with quantity in the sense that post Pentecost the Spirit is lavishly poured out on believers to the point that we’re all equipped to be priestly representatives of God.

Angus, this sounds reasonable, but it is not supported by the Scriptures. God was present with his people through the Holy of Holies, not individually, except where his Spirit came on his prophets & some leaders. (Some references to consider… Exodus 31:3, Numbers 11:17, 1 Sam 10:6, Ezekiel 36:27, Joel 2:29) One of the unique features of the new covenant was the presence of the Holy Spirit with all God’s people, so that each one became a temple of God, even as we were being living stones built in the temple of God (individual (eg 1 Cor 6:19) and communal (eg 1 Cor 3:16-17) use of that image).
The Old Testament sees God’s presence as mainly being in the Tabernacle or temple (eg Lev 9:24, 1 Sam 2:21, with occasionally found elsewhere (like on Mt Sinai in Ex 33:14ff)
If you want to read something I have written see here and look at the pdf named The Holy Spirit in the Bible Studies section.

Hi Robert. Thank you for your detailed reply which I only just discovered earlier this evening. (Somehow I missed it earlier even though I track the RSS feed for the forum.) I’m still pondering where I stand on this issue. However I have found several excellent online articles including this one from John Piper, and another more comprehensive article from a Baptist theologian, Dr Mike Stallard. I still believe that the Holy Spirit was essential for faith in the OT, and I’m wondering if it’s matter of semantics as to whether he was ‘indwelling’ or otherwise. (I haven’t yet had a good look at your Bible Study on the Spirit, but from my cursory look you seem (understandably given the format) to be posing more questions than offering detailed answers on this issue.)

On a different tack, recently I heard some wonderings about

the place of hearing the Spirit speak to oneself, and the place of healing, wonders and miracles for Christians today as compared to the Gospels and Acts

I will stick to Acts just for the moment - bit by bit, as usual. References given in chapter:verse, again. Will try not to double-up too much with references from previous posts.. .. ..

For starters, let’s have another whack at chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Hearing the Spirit speak:
Jesus gave spoken (verbal) instructions through the Spirit (1:2). I would have thought this equal to the Spirit giving instructions, as He did in the past (1:16).

One might conjecture that as Jesus is God’s final Word (Hebrews 1:1-2), we don’t need to seek extra spoken revelation from the Spirit. (I am not of course denying that God may speak that way if He feels a person needs it!)

I’m open to any further words the Spirit may have for me that He has not already spoken through the Scriptures we have, but I’m not going to waste much time holding my breath until it happens, and I certainly won’t collapse and die out of hopelessness or give up my faith if the Spirit never speaks to me outside of the Scriptures already breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

Healing, wonders, miracles, etc.
There’s a fair bit of this in Acts, but from prior reading I suspect (unproven) that many of the miraculous signs in Acts are directly or indirectly connected with the preaching of the gospel.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though...firstly, we’ve got the obvious miracle of Pentecost (a relevant snippet is 2:4-11). The apostles & other followers of Jesus baptised with the Spirit that day begin to speak in other tongues (2:4) - to be exact, declaring the wonders of God in the tongues, ie. languages, of the crowd present (2:11), that every person in that multi-lingual Jerusalem crowd may clearly understand.

What’s the miracle of speaking in tongues for, in Acts 2?
Seems like the end result of this first Acts miracle is that around 3000 people repent, believe, are baptised and added to the number of Christ’s followers (ie. the number of those who had witnessed His death & resurrection; see 2:38-41). The reported wonders & miraculous signs soon afterwards (2:43), seem to achieve the same result (2:47).

~

Second comes the account of the healing of the man born lame at the gate called Beautiful (snippet provided from 3:6-16). Peter capitalises on this healing by preaching the good news of Jesus to those who have seen the man healed, ending with a call to repent (see 3:12-16 - just as he had done in chapter 2 previously).

Luke the writer of the Acts comments in 4:21-22 that, as a result of the miraculous healing, all the people praise God for what had happened.

So why the healing?
This miracle directly precedes the proclamation, in Jesus, of the resurrection of the dead (4:2), hope for new life, etc. This healing as recorded for us in Acts precedes Peter’s call to repent, to turn to God and listen to Him (he addresses his words to those who saw the event). It also results in people praising God; God gets the glory.

In these early chapters, then, the miracles seem associated with the good news of Jesus being spoken by Peter, the other apostles and presumably the other witnesses of Christ’s death & resurrection - whose emphasis seems to be on desiring to speak God’s word with boldness (check out snippet from 4:29-31).

Thoughtful comments & constructive criticism of the above partial analyses are most warmly welcome.

TZ.

For those who have been looking at this thread, apologies that it hasn’t been updated for a fortnight. I haven’t abandoned it; it’s just that school, 290 reports, music stocktaking and a 2000w assignment are currently demanding all my attention. I will be onto it as soon as work/study commitments allow.

Hope to be back posting more soon!

TZ.