Parallels of Pentecost
Hebrew culture is full of festivals and times of remembrance for what God has done. One such festival is Pentecost, literally meaning “fiftieth day.” Pentecost marks the period fifty days after the Passover, where the Spirit of God swept through Egypt, killing all of the first born sons. The only way a child could be saved from this plague was by the parents placing the blood of a lamb on the outside of the door in the pattern of a cross, which the Spirit would see and subsequently pass over from that house onto the next.
Fifty days after this event, in a time of celebration after Moses had already led the Israelites out of Egypt, God met with Moses on Mount Sinai. Descending on the mountain in fire with a very loud trumpet sound, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron the law that they were to follow in the land that the Lord had given them. The law brought a way to distinguish the holiness of God from the holiness of man, setting a standard that man alone could never achieve, but would strive for if his heart were truly set on God. This event is mirrored almost identically in the Acts 2 account of Pentecost.
The New Testament Pentecost shares many parallels with that in the Old Testament. In the same way that fire and wind accompanied the sharing of God’s law with His people, the upper room experience in the second chapter of Acts details the Holy Spirit descending in “tongues of fire,” distributing from one source and resting on the heads of each of the 120 in attendance. Accompanying the fire was the sound of rushing wind, like that of a trumpet. And just as the law was given by God to guide man’s heart towards Him, the Holy Spirit (parakletos in Greek, meaning “helper”) was given to steer man’s conscience toward God, and to aid him in spiritual journey while here on earth, constantly interceding for us.
Another allusion is the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. In the OT, all of the people on earth were in one location in the city of Babel, united against God and building a tower to make themselves higher than Him, and to make a name for themselves throughout the earth for all of human history to remember. Their motives are eerily similar to Lucifer’s before he fell in Isaiah 14:14 saying, “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Out of love, God chose to disperse all the peoples from Babel and gave them each a different language so that one could not understand the other. This kept them from eternally being away from the grace of God and suffering the wages of their sin, which is spiritual death.
In contrast of the OT, the 120 in the upper room were all united towards God, waiting for him to fill them with power. Here, although people were from all regions of the earth and spoke different languages, each man in his own language interpreted the tongues that were heard from those on which the Holy Spirit had descended on with fire. This is the opposite of the Tower of Babel experience, and speaks to the power of man united towards the purposes of God.
As Peter proclaims in his sermon in Acts 1, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Peter quotes the Old Testament prophet Joel 2:28-32, saying that in the last days God pour out His spirit on all flesh. Though not a complete fulfillment of the prophecy, it is obvious that God moved greatly in Acts 2, and that He is restoring to the church all that has been lost since then. Once again, He is pouring out His spirit throughout the earth, and it is our responsibility to position ourselves as the 120 did – in unity, obedience to the Holy Spirit, and faith.
