And there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting.
The day of Pentecost opens not with a sermon but with a sound. It came before anyone saw or said anything. Three questions follow: where did the sound come from, what does "mighty rushing wind" really mean, and why did it fill the whole house and not just the people?
The first fact recorded is the direction. One writer sees in that starting point the church's point of control:
The Holy Spirit of God is the real uniting force that has bound the church together as a living organism. He came down from heaven with this in view. The Spirit did not come from any earthly religious centre, but "from heaven." Heaven then is the point of control for the Church of God. Can we doubt that if the Spirit came from heaven, it was with a view to attaching us to Christ who is in heaven?
The same writer ties the origin of the sound to the place Christ had just gone:
This sound comes from heaven because Christ was there. It did not come from the temple but from heaven, stamping the mark of what is heavenly on this company.
One writer says the usual translation of this Greek word gives the wrong picture:
It is like the sound of a powerful sustained breathing: that is how I think the words should be understood. Everyone agrees the word means "blowing" or "breathing" rather than "wind," which is what the ordinary versions have. A storm cannot supply the symbols here. To stay consistent, "sustained" is a better word than "rushing"... The idea it suggests is a power that inspires and gives life, though it is more than human — a heavenly power. It is not fitful or, as we say, impulsive. It lifts and carries on with divine energy.
Another writer draws out what a blowing that keeps on means. He also sets it apart from the breathing in John 20:22:
The sound heard here was like "a rushing mighty wind," and another translation says it was "a violent impetuous blowing." That word "blowing" suggests "it kept on blowing." This would teach us that the Spirit was beginning something here that was to continue. "Violent" would suggest irresistible power. Again, the word "blowing" means a breathing, though it is not the word translated "breathed" in John 20:22. There it was the inbreathing of life; here it is the inbreathing of power.
Why compare the Spirit to moving air at all?
The coming of the Holy Spirit of God is likened to "a rushing mighty wind." This would show that the Spirit's power is irresistible. We have heard of winds reaching such high speed that they tear up giant trees by the roots as if they were rows of bowling pins. The word for wind and the word for spirit are the same in Greek. The wind cannot be seen, but its power is felt; so the influence of the Holy Spirit can be felt, and yet not seen in bodily form.
The next verse adds tongues of fire resting on each person. One writer keeps the two signs apart:
This was a wholly new thing, so signs came with it. They were of two kinds: the violent blowing that filled all the house, and the divided tongues as of fire that sat on each one. So the Spirit showed His presence in a general way for the whole house, and in a special way as power of testimony for each.
One writer sees the filled house as God moving in to dwell on earth again:
But when the day of Pentecost had fully come, this earth became once more a dwelling place for God in the person of the Holy Spirit. That sound like a rushing mighty wind filled all the house where the disciples of Christ were sitting in Jerusalem. From that moment the Spirit has never been absent from the earth for a single moment. God had come to earth to dwell on it for the third time in the world's history. How favoured is this earth! A globe so small, yet God's habitation is found on it!
Commentators differ over the building itself. One holds that the crowd's arrival points away from a private room:
The one place is not named. It may have been the upper room of Acts 1. But crowds heard the Spirit-given words, so more likely it was some court of the temple, such as Solomon's porch.
Others locate it in an ordinary upper room and find the contrast with the temple the whole point:
The temple, so magnificent, was left desolate (Matt. 23:38). Though the priests were very busy, all was hollow; the substance was gone. But in the upper room the Spirit was the glory. A poor place by comparison, yet the scene of the divine presence.
- Source — the sound came from heaven, not from any religious centre on earth. That makes heaven the church's point of control, and ties it to Christ above.
- Sound — the word means a sustained blowing or breathing, not a storm. It is power that lifts and carries on, and it keeps on blowing.
- House — that blowing filled the whole house: God took up a dwelling place on earth again, and has not left it since.
- Each — the filled house speaks of His presence with the whole company. The tongues resting on each person speak of power for testimony.
- Power — the wind cannot be seen, yet its force is felt. The Spirit works the same way: unseen, and impossible to resist.
And there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them.
After the sound of the rushing wind comes something to see: fire-like tongues, split apart, resting on every person in the house. Commentators ask why tongues, why fire, and why one for each.
The wind and the tongues were two signs, not one sign repeated. One writer shows what each of them marked:
This was an entirely new thing, so signs came with it. These signs had a twofold character. There was the violent blowing which filled the whole house. There were also the divided tongues as of fire which sat on each one. So these signs showed the Spirit's presence in a general way for the whole house, and in a special way as power for testimony for each.
The Spirit had come on Jesus in a very different form. One writer explains the change from the character of the ones He came upon:
The way the Spirit came was quite different in the two cases. On the Lord He came like a dove. With the disciples the form was "divided tongues as of fire." Why the difference? He came upon the Lord Jesus in a form suited to the character of that blessed One whom He was sealing. Christ was the meek and lowly One. What better picture of meekness than a dove? As for the disciples, they were to be witnesses, as the Lord had told them. So the sign for them was tongues.
The tongues were split, not single. That detail is read as a map of where the message was headed:
The divided tongues meant testimony — the power of God in testimony, the word in testimony. Such testimony carries everything before it, just like fire, which destroys and judges all that comes in its way. And it was not merely one tongue, but each one divided into many, which sat on each disciple. The idea was this. The Spirit of God was there. The testimony of God in grace was no longer for the Jew alone. It was to go out to the ends of the earth.
The many languages point back to Babel, where God had scattered human speech in judgment:
The judgment of God had inflicted these various languages on them. It had broken up their ambitious project at the tower of Babel, where they joined together to build a unity of their own. But the grace of God went out exactly where His judgment had placed them. If a crushing blow laid their pride in ever so many separate ditches, the grace of God went out to those ditches. It blessed them where they lay, and raised them out of their fallen state.
Fire stands for judgment. One writer notes that this sign was never seen again, and follows what the word did when it reached the crowd that day:
These tongues were seen on that occasion, and we never read of them being seen again... And "as of fire" may foreshadow the effect of the word of God. The word discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12)... Fire is an emblem of judgment. The three thousand bore witness to the power of the word to act on consciences before night closed on that eventful day. Cut to the heart, they cried out in agony of soul, "Brothers, what shall we do?" The word reaches the conscience now, and it acts as judge within. Light shines in, and shows a person what he has never seen and judged before.
Another writer ties the fire back to the cross:
We find also that they were "as of fire." What does this imply? Simply that grace reigned through righteousness. There was that in man which called for judgment; and the cross had fully met it; there sin had been judged. This testimony was to be founded on the cross, and therefore the divided tongues "as of fire."
The verse says the tongues appeared, but that it rested on each of them. The singular is not an accident:
There were not many spirits present. There was only One, for the word says "it sat upon each of them"... So they received power from the Spirit to speak a variety of languages. They spoke in many different ways, but one Power directed them all.
- Cause. The cross met the judgment that sin called for, so grace now reigns through righteousness.
- Gift. One Spirit came, not many. The older reading "it sat upon each one" holds the many voices under one directing Power.
- Reach. The tongues were divided because the testimony was no longer for one nation alone. Grace went out to the very places where God's judgment at Babel had scattered men.
- Result. Fire pictures the word that judges even as it blesses. It cut hearts open that same day, and three thousand cried out to ask what they should do.
- Rest. The wind filled the whole house; the tongues rested on every person. God was present among His people, and each one had power to speak for Him.
And they were all filled with [the] Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave to them to speak forth.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.