The Lord said to me…”I will test my
people with a Plumbline, Amos 7:8 (TLB)
The Plumbline is a blog to encourage
the Body of Christ.
Acts
#3 All Filled With The Spirit 2:4
Now that
God had acknowledged the Church as the new temple, the next thing was to pour
out the Holy Spirit on the members of the Body.
What Jesus promised as a
baptism is pictured here as a filling, that is, a full, satisfying experience.
Some try to make a distinction between being baptized in the Holy Spirit and
being filled. Actually, the Bible uses a variety of terms. It was also a
pouring out of the Spirit as Joel prophesied (Acts 2:17–18, 33); a receiving
(and active taking) of a gift (Acts 2:38); a falling upon (Acts 8:16; 10:44;
11:15); a pouring out of the gift (Acts 10:45); and a coming upon. With this
variety of terms it is impossible to suppose that the baptism is any different
from the filling.
Remember, too, that
since the Holy Spirit is a Person, we are talking about an experience that
brings a relationship. Each term brings out some aspect of the Pentecostal
experience, and no one term can bring out all the aspects of that experience.
It is clear also, since
they were all together and in one accord, that when Acts 2:4 says, “all of them
were filled,” the entire 120 is meant. Some writers suppose that only the 12
apostles were filled. However, more than twelve languages were spoken.
Moreover, Peter, speaking in the gift of prophecy, quotes Joel, who wrote of
sons and daughters prophesying (v. 17; see Joel 2:28). Later, when Peter spoke
before a large group in Jerusalem, he said, “ ‘God, who knows the heart,
showed that he accepted them [the Gentiles] by giving the Holy Spirit to them,
just as he did to us’ ” (Acts 15:8). This suggests that the Spirit fell in
the same way not only on the 12 but also on the 120 and also on the 3000 who
believed on the Day of Pentecost. Clearly, the experience was and is for all.
This, however, was a New Testament experience. In the Old Testament, only
selected individuals were filled.
As soon as they were
filled, the 120 began to speak (and continued speaking) in other tongues
(languages). This also was a new thing. Speaking in tongues (Gk. gives us the
term “glossolalia”) “was entirely unknown in Judaism, and its appearance would
be regarded as a remarkable novum
marking an equally remarkable new phase in God’s dealings with His people.”
“Began” is significant. It shows, as in Acts 1:1, that what was begun was to
continue. This indicates that speaking in other tongues was the normative
accompaniment of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It continued to be a gift that
brought edification and blessing on other occasions (1 Cor. 14:4).
This speaking came “as
the Spirit enabled them” (Gk. “proceeded to give and kept on giving them to
speak out loudly and boldly”). That is, they used their tongues, their muscles;
they spoke. However, the words did not come from their own minds or thinking.
The Spirit gave them what to speak—and they expressed it boldly, loudly, and
with obvious anointing and power. This was the one sign of the baptism in the
Holy Spirit that was repeated.
Some writers call these
tongues “ecstatic” utterance. “Ecstatic,” as the word is used today, implies a
state beyond both reason and self-control. It also suggests a trance, or mystic
state, that makes it nearly impossible for one to move. This sort of ecstatic
state or trance was common among the pagans, but “ecstatic” is really an
improper term and does not apply either here or in other passages where
speaking in tongues is mentioned. There is no evidence that any believer spoke
as if forced to do so. They retained their senses and spoke in willing
cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
With this in mind we
must also recognize that the tongues here and the tongues in 1 Corinthians 12
to 14 are the same. Tongues at Pentecost were a sign to unbelievers. God used
them to draw a crowd as well as to edify the believers. But when they continued
speaking in tongues, the crowd said of them that they were drunk. This
corresponds to what 1 Corinthians 14:23 says about uninterpreted tongues. We
should also note that there are about four thousand languages now and many more
existed in the past (cf. 1 Cor. 14:10). But in a local church, as at Corinth,
there are not likely to be many foreigners present. Therefore, the messages in
tongues need interpretation (1 Cor. 14:6–13). The fact that they can be
interpreted shows also that the speaking in tongues is real language, not
gibberish.
In the 1906 Azusa Street
revival, people were coming from all over the world. When my grandmother spoke
in tongues a man from Denmark told her she was speaking Danish. When my mother
spoke in tongues a black woman from one of the French-speaking islands told her
she was speaking French. There was enough of that type of evidence to let them
know that what was happening was the same as on the Day of Pentecost. A number
of missionaries have told me of people in recent times speaking in tongues that
were languages the missionaries understood but the people who were speaking did
not.[1]
Dr. Stanley Horton,
noted AG Theology professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, continues
to map out for us a clear path to understanding the purpose and process of the
Holy Ghost ministry in Early and Present day Church.
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