Who is the Holy Spirit and what does He do? #3

Jesus said to his disciples, I have  food to eat you know nothing about John 4:32.

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Who is the Holy Spirit and what does He do?  #3

Acts 1:8 (NKJV) 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

Jesus' answer was gentle (Acts 1:7-8). First He pointed out that the prophesied kingdom would come, but that its coming was distant rather than "at this time." God will keep His promises, and this world will know Jesus' rule. But for now life is to have a different focus for Jesus' followers. That focus, stated in utmost simplicity, is this: "You will be My witnesses." The Holy Spirit Himself  will become the center of the believer's life. The meaning of our lives, the reason that our time on earth can be a great adventure, is summed up in the fact that the Holy Spirit is real, and that our every action can be a clear demonstration of the vital impact of the living God on human experience. This was something that the disciples had not yet grasped, but soon would.  The Holy Spirit, living within them, would Himself transform their experience. Then everything they were as individuals and as a community would witness to His presence.

These words, "You will be My witnesses," were the last ones Jesus spoke to the 11.  As a silent crowd of disciples watched, Jesus rose up, soaring away until the clouds hid Him from sight. Two angelic messengers completed Christ's answer to the earlier question. "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). This present time, during which the focus of our lives and the heart of our adventure with God is summed up in Jesus, will come to an end. As Old Testament days came to an end in the cross, our age will come to an end when Jesus returns—to establish the kingdom promised in the Old.

Yes, that day will come. But for then the disciples had to turn away from the Mount of Ascension and return to Jerusalem to see what new thing God had in store. There they waited, gathering for prayer. Waiting for a challenge, and a joy, that they could not yet imagine. (Adapted from The Teacher's Commentary).

When the Feast of Pentecost came, the 120 disciples of Jesus  were all together in the upper room. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty wind storm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them.  And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.  (See Acts 2:1-4).

The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as a Person, an individual distinct from and yet One with the Father and the Son. As God, the Holy Spirit had various relationships with men in Old Testament times. But the Old Testament also spoke of a coming day when God would enter into a new and special relationship with those who believe. Jesus had spoken often of this. Christ looked forward to a day when He would be back with the Father, and the Spirit "whom those who believed in Him were later to receive," would be given (John 7:39). The promised Spirit was to teach and guide believers (John 14:16) and, according to Jesus' final promise, to bring power for that new kind of life which bears witness to Jesus' reality (Acts 1:8). In that day, Jesus had said, the Spirit would not simply be "with" the disciples, but "in" them! (John 14:17)  And Pentecost was the promised day!

This drew a great crowd of the men who had come to Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival. Each person heard the disciples speaking in the language of the land where he was presently living. "How is it," wondered the visitors, "that each of us hears them in his own native language? . . . We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" (Acts 2:8; Acts 2:11) Perplexed and amazed, they asked each other, "What does this mean?" (Acts 2:12)

"This is what was spoken by the Prophet Joel:"In the last days," God says, "I will pour out My Spirit on all people."Acts 2:16-17

That great gift which God had reserved till the last days was being poured out freely now. All were to know the touch of the Spirit of God; both daughters and sons would be empowered by Him. Most significant of all, in that day on which the Spirit of God would flow out to touch and fill God's own, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Acts 2:21).

The disciples themselves did not understand just then all that the Spirit's coming meant. They didn't see Pentecost as the beginning of the church, as it later came to be understood. But they did know that God's new day was now! They did know that the Holy Spirit had filled them with Jesus' promised power.  And they did begin immediately to explain the striking witness that the rushing wind and the flames and the tongues had given to every observer of the reality of God's presence in these set-apart men. (Adapted from The Teacher's Commentary.)