The Birth of the Church
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2022 · 3 July 2022
So we’re in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and the church was born. Remember Jesus promised, “I will build my church,” in Matthew 16. He also promised repeatedly that He would send His Holy Spirit, and He did both on the same day, the day of Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit inside the believer united his redeemed people into one body which essentially formed the church.
The Holy Spirit Jesus says has been with you but now shall be in you. The church is new. It is identified in the New Testament as a mystery, which means it was hidden in past ages. It is the new people of God who will become his witness in the world. No longer an ethnic group as in the Old Testament, the Jews, but a body. The body of Christ made up of Jews and Gentiles.
We learned that this is a one-time event. Subsequent to this, every believer at the point of salvation is baptized with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ and given the Holy Spirit to take up a place in that believer’s life. Romans 8:9 says, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ or the Holy Spirit, he’s none of His.” 1 Corinthians 12 is explicit about every believer being baptized with the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” It is clear to the Jews that the Samaritans are in the same body with them. In Christ, it’s neither Jew nor Gentile or Samaritan. In Acts 10:44, the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on Gentiles. For they heard them speak with languages and exalting God, exactly what happened at the day of Pentecost.
So let us go back to Acts 2 with that explanation in mind. The Jews needed proof of everybody’s inclusion, and there it was. So that was point one in looking at the birth of the church. So point one was the evidence of the coming of the Spirit. Now let’s come to point two, the effect of the Spirit’s coming. The effect of this event is the birth of the church, and that’s starting in verse 5.
Verse 5 - 6, “And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.” Here in Jerusalem are these pilgrims who have been part of the Diaspora, the dispersion of the Jews in previous centuries, and they come back for this event.
And when this sound occurred, remember back in verse 2, there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind. And it filled the whole house where the 120 believers were sitting. But it went beyond the house. They were attracted by this massive sound. And verse 6 says, “When the sound occurred, the crowd came together. And they were bewildered and confused.
Because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own native language. Now that’s the first thing you need to understand about whatever this phenomena called tongues is. It is actual languages. And in verse 7, they were amazed and astonished. And they say, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” They were the folks who were out of the mainstream, the uneducated.
Everybody knows that Galileans are inferior. And the inner circle of Christ’s disciples had been known as Galileans. They had been referred to as Galileans in Matthew 26 and in Mark 14. The people therefore are astonished that they are speaking in all these languages. Now this is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah which said, I will speak a language you can’t understand as a sign of judgment.
This sign of judgment on Israel is essentially the establishment of the church because the church now takes the place of Israel, the unfaithful nation. The judgment comes in 70 AD when the Romans destroy and slaughter them. All these were Jewish people or Proselytes to Judaism. And they had never heard God being praised in any Gentile language but Hebrew, or its derivative, Aramaic.
But now they’re hearing God being praised in the language to which they were born, it says in verse 8 -9. There were Parthians there which would be Iran. There were the Meads, a part of the great Persian Empire. Then there were the Elamites, which would be the area of Babylon. Then, in Mesopotamia which is between the Tigress and the Euphrates where the Garden of Eden once was.
Then there’s Cappadocia, which is in Asia Minor, directly north of Israel. And Pontus, north of Cappadocia. Then there’s modern Turkey. Verse 10, then there’s Phrygia west of Galatia. Then there’s Pamphylia, a small little strip of the coast of Asia Minor. Then we cross the Mediterranean in Egypt and also Libya and Cyrene, and now we’re in Africa. Then there were visitors from Rome, both Jews and Proselytes.
And then there were Cretins from Greece. And then there were Arabs near Damascus. All these people heard the truth of the wonderful works of God in their own languages, verse 11 says. The word ‘tongues’ tends to confuse people. It shouldn’t, but because of the misuse of that word to misrepresent the work of God. Verse 12, they were all amazed and perplexed, saying what could this mean?
So that’s five different times a word was used to describe their confusion. The miracle of Pentecost was that the apostles and disciples of Jesus, the 120 believers in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came, were enabled to speak foreign languages they did not know. And with those foreign languages declare the mighty deeds of God. What did they declare? God’s attributes and His mighty works.
All these languages appear because of God’s judgment. The content of their speech is the mighty deeds of God in Gentile languages. And the Jews should have known that this was a judgment. What are you going to do when the population of people from all these places that spoke all these languages, would be represented not just by one person, but by many people from Galilea.
What does this mean? Verse 13, “Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.” This shows that they had no answer. How does being full of wine enable you to do that? It might cause you to slur your words, but it doesn’t help even your own language that you speak, let alone give you another one. But then the whole thing doesn’t make sense to all of them. So Peter starts talking.
Something happened to the people who made up that little group of 120. They were, up to this point, hesitant, and powerless, full of fears and doubts. And then, all of a sudden on the day of Pentecost, there’s this explosion of the new age. They’re out in the street, and they’re out in the daylight, and they’re all over the temple, and they’re declaring Christ everywhere they go.
Their transformation proved that the Holy Spirit of God had come, and the new age had been born. And the first thing the church does at the launching of the Messianic age is to preach. And Peter tells them, “It is none other than Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had just crucified.” The Lord has given him an incredible introduction, with all the phenomena that has happened. So, Peter connects to that.
It is the first Christian sermon ever preached, and it sets for us a pattern of preaching, apostolic preaching, and a pattern that carries down even for our own preaching today. But in many churches, the pattern of the Holy Spirit’s moving in the church is bogged down because men are lost in all kinds of foolishness that is secondary to the power of preaching the Word of God.
The priority of Jesus Christ and the prophecy of Isaiah was that He came to preach. John, writing many years after that, looked back and said, “Jesus cried in the temple teaching and saying.” Jesus boldly preached. His preaching was powerful. His preaching was urgent, but His preaching was at the same time compassionate. Preaching involves the gospel proclamation and theological instruction.
The dynamic of the Spirit of God issued itself in the birth of the church in the preaching of the Word. When the Holy Spirit had come, we saw how the Spirit of God set the scene for the sermon. By the sound that they all heard of the wind, the crowd gathered. And then when the disciples began to speak in all of these languages, they were amazed and shocked, they were astonished.
Acts 2:41 says, “At least 3,000 Jews were saved.” Peter preaches to them. So there were some open minds. And under the great preaching of Peter, they repented and were saved. And not many days later, there were thousands more. Their amazement and their honest questioning was answered in the sermon, and they believed. But then there were also those Jews who only wanted to mock and scorn.
Do we know where they come from? They’re the products of the Pharisees and scribes and rabbis who were the avowed and vicious enemies of Jesus. Peter wants to offer a true explanation, and so starting in verse 14, we meet the new Peter, the post-Holy Spirit Peter, and he’s amazing. So Peter, taking his stand with the 11, raised his voice and started to preach to them.
Verses 14-17, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. 15 For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.” How did they understand the Old Testament in Acts 1, even before the Holy Spirit comes? Luke 24 tells us that because Jesus met two of them on the road to Emmaus, and then in the upper room, Jesus opened up the Old Testament, the law, the prophets and the holy writings.
Jesus gave them a course on Old Testament interpretation that took place over a period of 40 days. From the day of His resurrection to the day of His ascension, He taught them the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Him. So Peter stands up and launches into an explanation right out of Joel 2:28-32 with boldness. He’s now God’s man, empowered by God’s Spirit with God’s message.
Most likely speaking in Aramaic, he explains Pentecost, and it’s a masterful explanation. Everybody who is a preacher would like a dramatic introduction. His introduction was staged by God with astonishing, audible sound, visual effects and miraculous languages. Peter steps in after God has given him the perfect introduction and says, “This is what it means. First of all, he says, “They’re not drunk.”
Verse 18, “And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.” Joel was talking about the arrival of Messiah. When Messiah comes, there will be evidence of His arrival, miraculous things. There will be visions, prophecies, and revelatory dreams. Verse 19, “I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood, fire and vapor of smoke.”
Verse 20-21, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. 21 And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Wow, that’s a big prophecy. How are we supposed to understand that Joel connects the coming of the Holy Spirit with the second coming of Jesus?
Because in the Old Testament, the church age is a mystery. They saw the coming of Messiah, and with Him the Spirit, and a flourishing of divine revelation, and then the final judgment. What they didn’t see was the interval of the church because that’s hidden. And notice Peter just says, “This is what Joel said.” And it starts with the last days, verse 17 when the Messiah comes again.
That’s why the Scripture says Christ appeared once in the end of the age. Common Old Testament expression for Messianic times was used in Isaiah 2, Jeremiah 23, and Ezekiel 38, used by Josiah, used by Micah, and used by Joel. What the Jews didn’t know is that Jesus would come, be rejected, purchase our redemption, and launch the church to take the gospel to the whole world.
Israel failed to do that, and when it was complete, then He would establish His kingdom. But that is the mystery age hidden in the past. So far, we’ve been waiting 2,000 years for the parenthesis to close and the kingdom to come. But the last days of Israel, and the last days for the world, really began when Christ arrived. And you are seeing the evidence that we have entered the last days.
The last days in verse 21 are characterized by gospel proclamation, by calling sinners to repentance, and that’s the ministry and mission of the church. It’s why we do what we do. What about prophecy, visions, dreams, wonders in the sky, signs on the earth below, blood, fire, vapor and smoke? Sun turned to darkness, moon to blood. Well that all is within this great era when Jesus judges and establishes His kingdom.
We are still in the last days. The beginning was at Pentecost; the end is in the final divine judgment. In this time, in this Messianic era, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is the age of salvation. So, Peter, guided in every single word by the Holy Spirit, begins by explaining to the people that what they saw and heard was the Holy Spirit inaugurating the Messianic age of salvation. Let us pray.