Pentecost: The Fulfillment of a Promise

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Acts 2:16-22
Psalters: 252, 426, 393, 391
  1. What it signifies.
    1. Our text implies that what Joel did not experience (800 years earlier) they would in the last days,
    2. My Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God, Who is the means of revelation and of applying salvation.
      1. The Spirit would be poured out, i.e., to bestow abundantly, as a steady, gushing stream.
      2. God began pouring out the Spirit of Christ on Pentecost and has continued ever since.
    3. What are the differences between the time when this promise was given to Joel and the dispensation when it is fulfilled?
      1. Then this particular Spirit (that of Christ) was not yet for Christ was not yet (John 7:39).
      2. Then the Spirit worked through just a few: prophets, priests, and kings; not all the people were anointed.
      3. Then the Spirit operated only in one nation; it was not a universal Spirit.
  2. The recipients of the fulfillment of the promise are the living elect in heaven and on earth.
    1. Peter says the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled when the crowd heard and saw the result of the outpouring of Christ s Spirit.
      1. This was the appropriate time for God to fulfill the prophecy.
      2. The Messiah had accomplished salvation.
    2. On Pentecost nothing new was created, but the old was enriched.
    3. It shall come to pass in the last days.
      1. Joel saw that last day as one with no long period between the first and second coming of Jesus.
      2. We know the whole New Dispensation is the last day (after which there will be no other days).
  3. The effect of the pouring out of the Spirit of Christ is that it prepares the nations for judgment.
    1. The immediate effect is that all the members of the church are given to understand divine revelation.
    2. How do they all prophesy? Through the apostles and the Scriptures, we know the promise and speak of it.
      1. After Pentecost every member can receive and understand God s revelation as it comes through the preaching.
      2. And if we possess the Spirit, we will speak ( prophesy ). We will make our confession in the world.