Hechos 2:4

Spirit filling and Spirit baptism are two distinct ministries of the Holy Spirit. Both occurred on this occasion, though Luke only mentioned filling specifically. We know that Spirit baptism also took place because Jesus predicted it would take place "not many days from now" before His ascension (Acts 1:5). Moreover, Peter spoke of it as having taken place on Pentecost a short time later (Acts 11:15-16). [Note: See Fruchtenbaum, pp. 116-17.]

Filling with the Spirit was a phenomenon believers experienced at various times in the Old Testament economy (Exodus 35:30-34; Numbers 11:26-29; 1 Samuel 10:6; 1 Samuel 10:10) as well as in the New. An individual Christian can now experience it many times. God can fill a person with His Spirit on numerous separate occasions (cf. Acts 4:8; Acts 4:31; Acts 6:3; Acts 6:5; Acts 7:55; Acts 9:17; Acts 13:9; Acts 13:52). Furthermore God has commanded all believers to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Luke used "filling" to express the Holy Spirit’s presence and enablement. [Note: Bock, "A Theology . . .," pp. 98-99.] Filling by the Spirit results in the Spirit’s control of the believer (Ephesians 5:18). The Spirit controls a believer to the degree that He fills the believer and vice versa. Believers experience Spirit control to the extent that we yield to His direction. On the day of Pentecost the believers assembled were under the Spirit’s control because they were in a proper personal relationship of submission to Him (cf. Acts 1:14). In the Book of Acts whenever Luke said the disciples were Spirit-filled, their filling always had some connection with their gospel proclamation or some specific service related to outreach (Acts 2:4; Acts 4:8; Acts 4:31; Acts 9:17; Acts 13:9). [Note: Frederick R. Harm, "Structural Elements Related to the Gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts," Concordia Journal 14:1 (January 1988):30.]

". . . Luke always connects the ’filling of the Holy Spirit’ with the proclamation of the gospel in Acts (Acts 2:4; Acts 4:8; Acts 4:31; Acts 9:17; Acts 13:9). Those who are ’full of the Holy Spirit’ are always those who are faithfully fulfilling their anointed task as proclaimers (Acts 6:3; Acts 6:5; Acts 7:55; Acts 11:24; Acts 13:52)." [Note: Walt Russell, "The Anointing with the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts," Trinity Journal 7NS (Spring 1986):63.]

"No great decision was ever taken, no important step was ever embarked upon, by the early Church without the guidance of the Spirit. The early Church was a Spirit-guided community.

"In the first thirteen chapters of Acts there are more than forty references to the Holy Spirit. The early Church was a Spirit-filled Church and precisely therein lay its power." [Note: Barclay, pp. 12, 13.]

The Christian never repeats Spirit baptism in contrast to filling, God never commanded Spirit baptism, and it does not occur in degrees. Spirit baptism normally takes place when a person becomes a Christian (Romans 8:9). However when it took place on the day of Pentecost the people baptized were already believers. This was also true on three later occasions (Acts 8:17; Acts 10:45; Acts 19:6). (Chapter 19 does not clearly identify John’s disciples as believers, but they may have been.) These were unusual situations, however, and not typical of Spirit baptism. [Note: See my comments on these verses in these notes for further explanations.] Spirit baptism always unites a believer to the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). The "body of Christ" is a figure that the New Testament writers used exclusively of the church, never of Israel or any other group of believers. Therefore this first occurrence of the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit marks the beginning of the church, the body of Christ (cf. Matthew 16:18).

Speaking with other tongues was the outward evidence that God had done something to these believers inwardly (i.e., controlled them and baptized them into the body). The same sign identified the same thing on the other initial instances of Spirit baptism (Acts 10:46; Acts 19:6). In each case it was primarily for the benefit of Jews present, who as a people sought a sign from God to mark His activity, that God gave this sign (Luke 11:16; John 4:48; 1 Corinthians 1:22). [Note: See William G. Bellshaw, "The Confusion of Tongues," Bibliotheca Sacra 120:478 (April-June 1963):145-53.]

One of the fundamental differences between charismatic and non-charismatic Christians is the issue of the purpose of the sign gifts (speaking in tongues, healings on demand, spectacular miracles, etc.). Charismatic theologians have urged that the purpose of all the gifts is primarily edification (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:7). [Note: E.g., Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, pp. 134-36.]

They "always seem to be spoken of as a normal function of the Christian life . . . [in which the Spirit] makes them willing and able to undertake various works for the renewal and upbuilding of the Church." [Note: E. D. O’Connor, The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church, pp. 280, 283. See also Ernest Swing Williams, a classic Pentecostal theologian, Systematic Theology, 3:50; Bernard Ramm, Rapping about the Spirit, p. 115; John Sherrill, They Shall Speak with Other Tongues, pp. 79-88; and Catalog of Oral Roberts University (1973), pp. 26-27.]

Many non-charismatics believe that the purpose of the sign gifts was not primarily edification but the authentication of new revelation.

There is an ". . . inseparable connection of miracles with revelation, as its mark and credential; or, more narrowly, of the summing up of all revelation, finally, in Jesus Christ. Miracles do not appear on the page of Scripture vagrantly, here, there, and elsewhere indifferently, without assignable reason. They belong to revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. Their abundant display in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic Age in revelation; and when this revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course." [Note: Benjamin B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles, pp. 25-26.]

". . . glossolalia [speaking in tongues] was a gift given by God, not primarily as a special language for worship; not primarily to facilitate the spread of the gospel; and certainly not as a sign that a believer has experienced a second ’baptism in the Holy Spirit.’ It was given primarily for an evidential purpose to authenticate and substantiate some facet of God’s truth. This purpose is always distorted by those who shift the emphasis from objective sign to subjective experience." [Note: Joel C. Gerlach, "Glossolalia," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 70:4 (October 1973):251. See also John F. Walvoord, The Holy Spirit at Work Today, p. 41; and Culver, p. 138.]

Other non-charismatics believe that the specific purpose of the sign gifts was to identify Jesus Christ as God’s Son and to authenticate the gospel message that the apostles preached.

Most non-charismatics grant that the sign gifts were edifying in their result, but say their purpose was to authenticate new revelation to the Jews (Acts 2:22; Mark 16:20; Acts 7:36-39; Acts 7:51; Hebrews 2:2-4; 1 Corinthians 14:20-22). [Note: See S. Lewis Johnson Jr., "The Gift of Tongues and the Book of Acts," Bibliotheca Sacra 120:480 (October-December 1963):309-11.] Jews were always present when tongues took place in Acts (chs. 2, 10, and 19). It is understandable why God-fearing Jews, whom the apostles asked to accept new truth in addition to their already authenticated Old Testament, would have required a sign. They would have wanted strong proof that God was now giving new revelation that seemed on the surface to contradict their Scriptures.

God had told the Jews centuries earlier that He would speak to them in a foreign language because they refused to pay attention to Isaiah’s words to them in their own language (Isaiah 28:11; cf. 1 Corinthians 14:21). Jews who knew this prophecy and were listening to Peter should have recognized that what was happening was evidence that it was God who was speaking to them.

"Barclay and others have puzzled over the necessity for using various dialects when it would have been more expedient to simply use either Greek or Aramaic-languages known to speaker and hearer alike. [Note: Barclay, p. 16.] However to suggest this is to miss the point of the record. The Spirit desired to arrest the attention of the crowd. What better means could He adopt than to have men who quite evidently did not speak the dialects in question suddenly be endowed with the ability to speak these languages and ’declare the wonders of God’ before the astonished assembly? The effect would be a multiple one. Attention would be gained, the evidence of divine intervention would be perceived, the astonished crowd would be prepared to listen with interest to the sermon of Peter, and thus the Spirit’s purpose in granting the gift would be realized." [Note: Harm, p. 30.]

"As has been pointed out by various scholars, if simple ecstatic speech was in view here, Luke ought simply to have used the term glossais [tongues], not eterais glossais [other tongues]." [Note: Witherington, p. 133.]

". . . the startling effect of the phenomenon on those who in difficult circumstances desperately wished otherwise (as in Acts 4:13-16; Acts 10:28-29; Acts 11:1-3; Acts 11:15-18; and Acts 15:1-12) supports the purpose of authentication (and not edification) for the sign gifts." [Note: J. Lanier Burns, "A Reemphasis on the Purpose of the Sign Gifts," Bibliotheca Sacra 132:527 (July-September 1975):245.]

God gave the gift of tongues also to rouse the nation of Israel to repentance (1 Corinthians 14:22-25). [Note: Zane C. Hodges, "The Purpose of Tongues," Bibliotheca Sacra 120:479 (July-September 1963):226-33. Some good books that deal with speaking in tongues exegetically include Robert G. Gromacki, The Modern Tongues Movement; Robert P. Lightner, Speaking in Tongues and Divine Healing; John F. MacArthur Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective; and Joseph Dillow, Speaking in Tongues: Seven Crucial Questions.]

It is clear from the context of Acts 2:4 that this sign involved the ability to speak in another language that the speaker had not previously known (Acts 2:6; Acts 2:8). However the ability to speak in tongues does not in itself demonstrate the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Satan can give the supernatural ability to speak in other languages, as the blasphemous utterances of some tongues speakers have shown. Sometimes an interpreter was necessary (cf. 1 Corinthians 14), but at other times, as at Pentecost, one was not.

Were the tongues here the same as in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12; 1 Corinthians 14)? If so, was ecstatic speech present on both occasions, and or were foreign languages present on both occasions? Or were the tongues here foreign languages and the tongues in Corinth ecstatic speech? [Note: See Kent, pp. 30-32, for a clear presentation of these views.]

"It is well known that the terminology of Luke in Acts and of Paul in 1 Corinthians is the same. In spite of this some have contended for a difference between the gift as it occurred in Acts and as it occurred in Corinth. This is manifestly impossible from the standpoint of the terminology. This conclusion is strengthened when we remember that Luke and Paul were constant companions and would have, no doubt, used the same terminology in the same sense. . . . In other words, it is most likely that the early believers used a fixed terminology in describing this gift, a terminology understood by them all. If this be so, then the full description of the gift on Pentecost must be allowed to explain the more limited descriptions that occur elsewhere." [Note: Johnson, pp. 310-11. See also Rackham, p. 21. Longenecker, p. 271, pointed out the differences between tongues in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12, 14.]

Probably, then, the gift of tongues was a term that covered speaking in a language or languages that the speaker had never studied. This gift was very helpful as the believers began to carry out the Great Commission, especially in their evangelization of Jews. Acts documents and emphasizes the Lord’s work in executing that mission.

Evidently most if not all the believers present spoke in tongues (Acts 2:3; Acts 2:7-11). It has been suggested that the tongues speaking on the day of Pentecost was not a normal manifestation of the gift of tongues. It may have been a unique divine intervention (miracle) instead. [Note: See my note on 19:6 for further comments on the cessation of the gift of tongues.]

God gave three signs of the Spirit’s coming to the Jews who were celebrating the Feast of Passover in Jerusalem: wind, fire, and inspired speech. Each of these signified God’s presence in Jewish history.

"At least three distinct things were accomplished on the Day of Pentecost concerning the relationship of the Spirit with men:

(1) The Spirit made His advent into the world here to abide throughout this dispensation. . . . [i.e., permanent indwelling]

(2) Again, Pentecost marked the beginning of the formation of a new body, or organism which, in its relation to Christ, is called ’the church which is his body.’ . . . [i.e., Spirit baptism]

(3) So, also, at Pentecost the lives that were prepared were filled with the Spirit, or the Spirit came upon them for power as promised." [i.e., Spirit filling] [Note: L. S. Chafer, He That Is Spiritual, pp. 19-21.]