The Messiah and the Covenants of Israel (Continued)

The Day of Pentecost

Those believers that qualified to be members of the new order, the Church, were gathered in Jerusalem at the Feast of Weeks, when the ascended Son of God sent the Spirit of God to initiate the New Covenant for them. As with the Messiah at His baptism, so now with the disciples of the Messiah, the Spirit of God descended and rested upon each of them. More than that, He indwelt them, thus fulfilling that part of the New Covenant that speaks of the law, statutes and ordinances of God being written on tablets of flesh. Spontaneous praise to God broke out and was heard and understood by many of those who were in Jerusalem for the feast, no matter which was their native language. This phenomenon drew much public attention, and gave Peter an opportunity to explain the significance of these unusual events and how they were the activity of the Man that was recently crucified, but who had been resurrected and returned to heaven to a place of honor at the throne above. In this, the first public address of the new dispensation, Peter references prophetic Scriptures to explain what had happened. He brought forward the words of Joel who spoke of the day when the New Covenant would be in play. Peter said, “… this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:16-18) That Joel was speaking of a day when the Spirit of God will be poured out upon all flesh, that is all Jewish flesh, is supported by other writers. For example, Paul says, “all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Rom. 11:26) In that future day it will be all Jewish flesh without exception. But the T’nach regularly uses the words ‘all flesh’ to refer to the whole of humanity.[1] And, in the light of the historic events of the day of Pentecost, we must initially interpret the phrase as all flesh without distinction, that is, the young and the old, male and female, bond and free. And later events allow us to add Jew and Gentile but that is getting ahead of ourselves.

 Many of the crowd convicted by Peter’s words, no doubt because they had tacitly, if not actively, rejected the claims of Jesus, raised the question, “what shall we do?” (Acts 2.37) This prompted Peter, apostle to the Jews, and holder of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to respond and in his response we will find the clue needed to illuminate how it would be possible for individual Jews to receive the blessings of the New Covenant. Peter said, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” (Acts 2:38-40) What is envisaged here is an offer of the blessing of the New Covenant to those who would distance themselves from the decision of the nation’s leaders and recognize Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and take Him as their Lord. Peter, in saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation” recognized that it was ‘this generation’ that was under a suspended sentence from the Son of God. Those that wish to be saved from the blanket judgment that was upon the nation were required to act then, on the day of Pentecost, in the same manner as the whole nation will be required to act sometime in the future. Indeed, any Israelite of any generation has the same opportunity, and can know the same salvation, if they fulfill the conditions that Peter laid on his listeners, to recognize Jesus as Messiah and Lord.  

More Next Time:

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[1] Gen.6.12,13,17; Job 34.15; Ps.65.2; 145.21; Isa.40.5, 6, etc