Acts 2:1

This fantastic chapter records the establishment of the church of Jesus Christ upon this earth, the same being the long promised kingdom of God, and the fulfillment of a vast body of Old Testament prophecy. Every line here recorded by Luke reveals truth of the most extensive dimensions. This is not merely the best account of the beginning of this current dispensation of the grace of God, it is the only account, the keystone that ties together the Old Testament and the New Testament; and, regarding such question as how the church began, and of how one becomes a member of it, and of the first emergence of God's new creation in Christ, this chapter provides a record of what is KNOWN, as contrasted with what is merely GUESSED about these vital considerations.

Significantly, this account is brief, so condensed that almost every line of it touches but does not elaborate things which tantalize human curiosity, and concerning which things men will always DESIRE to know more than is revealed. However, concerning things which are within the perimeter of what men NEED to know, this chapter blazes with eternal light.

And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place. (Acts 2:1)

PENTECOST

Pentecost ... This was one of the three principal feasts of the Jews (2 Chronicles 8:12,13), the others being Passover and Tabernacles. This feast was known by several names: "Firstfruits," "Harvest Festival," "Feast of Weeks" (Leviticus 23:15f), and "Pentecost," as here. The last two of these names derived from the time it was held, which was fifty days after the first ordinary sabbath after the beginning of Passover, "Pentecost" meaning "fiftieth." Also, since fifty days were exactly seven weeks, counting the first and last Sundays inclusively, this led to the name "Feast of Weeks." The historical church devised another name which came about thus: "The habit of dressing in white and seeking baptism on Pentecost gave it the name `Whitsunday,' by which it is popularly known all over the world."[1]

The Passover week, from which Pentecost was reckoned, usually had two sabbaths: (1) the first full day of the feast, called a "high" sabbath (John 19:31), and (2) the ordinary sabbath, the seventh day of the ordinary week. The first of these came on various days of the week, like any day occurring on a fixed day of the month; the second was always a Saturday. The year our Lord suffered (A.D. 30), the high sabbath fell on Friday, both our Lord and the robbers being crucified on Thursday the preceding day; and, to prevent the bodies remaining upon the cross on that high sabbath, the Pharisees requested Pilate to break their legs. Thus there were back-to-back sabbaths during the Passover at which Jesus died, as attested by the Greek text of Matthew 28:1.

It will be seen at once that reckoning Pentecost from Friday would give a Saturday for Pentecost (as sabbatarians have insisted); whereas, reckoning from the ordinary sabbath would give a Sunday. The Sadducees and Karaite Jews counted from the sabbath ordinary; the Pharisees counted from the high sabbath. Thus, depending upon which method of calculating was used, Pentecost fell upon either a Saturday or a Sunday; but there is no way that the Christians could have been persuaded to accept the Pharisees' method of counting it, neither the judgment of the Pharisees or Sadducees having any weight at all with the followers of Christ. The Karaite Jews, however, accepted the Scriptures literally, insisting that Pentecost be reckoned from the sabbath ordinary of Passover week; and it is certain that Jesus' followers would have done the same thing. As Barnes declared:

The Caraite (the alternate spelling of Karaite) Jews, or those who insisted on a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, maintaining that by "the sabbath" here was meant the usual sabbath, the seventh day of the week.[2]

Thus it is immaterial whether the Pharisees' or the Sadducees' position on this question prevailed in that year 30 A.D.; and all arguments based upon the date of the Jews' observance of Pentecost that year are irrelevant. The Christians would have allowed the literal, scriptural method, as did the Karaites, counting from the ordinary sabbath, and thus assuring that Pentecost would have been marked by them as falling upon the fiftieth day following the ordinary sabbath. That, of course, was a Sunday.

The verse before us carries a strong inference that the Pentecost observed by the followers of Jesus that year did not coincide with the Jewish observance.

Was fully come ... This is the rendition in the KJV, and there are no valid reasons for changing this in the English Revised Version. The words "fully come" are translated from a word of uncertain meaning; and the incomparable Lightfoot believed that Luke used that word here "to signify that the Christian Pentecost did not coincide with the Jewish, just as Christ's last meal with the disciples was considered not to have coincided with the Jewish Passover."[3]

In many areas, Christian tradition may not be considered as conclusive; but in this matter of what day of the week was Pentecost, the unbroken, unchallenged tradition of more than nineteen centuries, plus the fact that the first day of the week is stressed throughout the New Testament as the fixed day of Christian assemblies, makes it certain that Pentecost fell on a Sunday. Why would the church have clung to their assemblies upon the first day of the week, if indeed the very beginning of the church had been upon a Saturday? We agree with Bruce who said: "Christian tradition is therefore right in fixing the anniversary of the descent of the Spirit upon a Sunday."[4]

It should also be noted that the complicated nature of the question in view here is a key factor in the popular and erroneous opinion that Christ was crucified on Friday. Note this:

According to Matthew, and Mark and Luke, the passover that year fell on Thursday the 14th of Nisan, hence, Pentecost fell on Saturday.[5]

In view of the above, many calculators made the crucifixion to be on Friday with a view to fixing Pentecost on Sunday; but the exegesis here demonstrates that it is not necessary at all to do this. It is true, of course, that the Passover fell on Thursday (after sundown), after Jesus was crucified; and the next day (Friday) was a high sabbath from which the Pharisees would have calculated Pentecost, making it fall on a Saturday. But in their departures from the word of the Lord, the Pharisees were wrong in this, as they were wrong in so many other things. It is very significant, however, that it was the Sadducees, not the Pharisees, who were in charge of the Jewish religious affairs during that crucial time; and they reckoned Pentecost from Sunday after the sabbath ordinary. As Bruce explained:

This was the reckoning of the Sadducean party in the first century A.D. In the phrase "the morrow after the sabbath" (Leviticus 23:15), they interpreted the sabbath as the weekly sabbath. While the temple stood, their interpretation would be normative for the public celebration of the festival.[6]

Some scholars deny this, insisting that the Pharisees' calculations were followed; but take it either way: (1) If the count was from the high sabbath (as by the Pharisees), then the Christian Pentecost came a day later (as might be indicated by the words "fully come"); and (2) if the count was from the sabbath ordinary, as alleged by Bruce to have been the method then in vogue, then the Christian Pentecost coincided with it, having been most certainly celebrated on Sunday the first day of the week, no matter what the Jews did. To this student, it seems strongly indicated that Bruce is correct and that the Jewish and Christian Pentecosts coincided, the immense throngs of people mentioned in this chapter apparently proving this.

They were all together ... Who were the "they"? Scholars disagree radically about this; but the conviction here is that the reference is to the Twelve. They were the only ones to whom Jesus had promised such an outpouring of the Spirit. Furthermore, Peter's words (Acts 2:32) that "we are all witnesses" of Christ's resurrection can refer only to the Twelve, because only two disciples were found among the whole one hundred and twenty who were eligible to join them as "witnesses." What the word "all" surely means in Acts 2:32 must therefore be the meaning here. "We ... all," as used by Peter, identifies the "they ... all," as used here by Luke.

Also, "numbered with the eleven apostles," as it stands at the end of Acts 1, requires "eleven apostles" to be understood as the antecedent of "they" in Acts 2:1. DeWelt said:

The fact that the antecedent of any pronoun is found by referring back to the nearest noun (or pronoun) with which it agrees in number etc., clinches the argument of the baptism of only the apostle's in the Holy Spirit.[7]

Russell also restricted the meaning of "they ... they ... all" in this verse to "the apostles."[8] McGarvey wrote:

The persons thus assembled together and filled with the Holy Spirit were not, as many have supposed, the one hundred and twenty disciples mentioned in a parenthesis in the preceding chapter, but the twelve apostles. This is made certain by the grammatical connection between the first verse of this chapter and the last of the preceding.[9]

Another consideration is that the apostles had undergone a long preparation for the events of Pentecost, and there is no indication that the entire one hundred and twenty were thus prepared. The implications against understanding "they" in this verse as inclusive of the one hundred and twenty are too formidable to be set aside.

In one place ... Where was this? Some have supposed it was the upper room, and others have been sure that some area of the Jewish temple, such as Solomon's Porch, was the place of these events; and still others have understood the action to have taken place in both, beginning in the upper room and moving to the larger area in the temple with the progression of events. It appears most likely that some large area of the temple compound was the place, due to the large numbers of people involved. All that is certain is that it was in Jerusalem.

In later Jerusalem, Pentecost was celebrated as the anniversary of the giving of the Law at Sinai (based upon a deduction from Exodus 19:1); and the occasions do have the great factors in common, of the Law having been promulgated at Sinai, and the proclamation of the gospel having begun at Pentecost in Jerusalem. The typical nature of the first event is further seen in the death of three thousand souls through disobedience the day the Law came, and in the contrast of three thousand souls having been saved through obedience at Pentecost. John Wesley has the following comment:

At the Pentecost of Sinai in the Old Testament, and the Pentecost of Jerusalem in the New Testament, were the two grand manifestations of God, the legal and the evangelical; the one from the mountain and the other from heaven; the terrible one and the merciful one.[10]

The very weightiest reasons appear for God's choice of this day for the beginning of the church: (1) As Jesus was crucified at a great Jewish festival, it was appropriate that he should have been glorified at another; (2) Pentecost was the next after the Passover; (3) it was the anniversary of the giving of the Law; (4) the firstfruits were offered on Pentecost, and it was proper that the firstfruits of the gospel should come unto God on that occasion; (5) millions of people were in Jerusalem for that occasion; and (6) most importantly of all, perhaps, by its falling upon the first day of the week, it coincided in that particular with the resurrection of Christ, and was thus of major importance in certifying Sunday as the day of the Christian assemblies.

[1]; ISBE, p. 2319.

[2] Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1953), Acts,. p. 26.

[3]; ISBE, p. 2318.

[4] F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publishers, 1954), p. 53.

[5]; ISBE, p. 2318.

[6] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 53.

[7] Don DeWelt, Acts Made Actual (Joplin, Missouri: College Press, 1958), p. 35.

[8] John William Russell, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964), p. 286.

[9] J. W. McGarvey, Acts of Apostles (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Company, 1892), p. 21.

[10] John Wesley, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, n.d.), in loco.