On Pentecost God speaks in His Living Temple, His fire and glory fill His Living Temple, the Law of the Lord is written in the hearts and minds of His People - His Living Temple. The Grain of Wheat is bringing forth the firstfruits of the harvest (John 12:24).
The Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon and their system of worship has passed away and our High Priest Jesus now stands ministering in the Heavenly Tabernacle - He is in heaven before the Father and He is in us. God’s People are the continuation of Christ on earth - if of course we truly believe that we are His Body. (If we profess a high view of Scripture how can we not believe that we are His Body?)
When Jesus was on earth His followers struggled to understand Him; in Acts and elsewhere (I’m particularly thinking of Peter and Barnabas in Galatians Chapter Two) we see that the struggle continued. It may have been a more enlightened struggle, it may have no longer been focused on who Jesus is, but the Gentile Question was not resolved without a struggle, and the issue of justification by faith and seeking perfection through the Law (or other means) appears to have continued in much of the church. Now that I think about it, the NT letters and Revelation bear witness to the painful process of spiritual struggle and growth and pressure. Even the person of Jesus Christ would become an issue in the life of the church and would generate a painful struggle - it is already present in some of the NT (I’m thinking particularly of First John), but it would become full-blown in the fourth century.
So we have a tension between the “already” and the “not-yet”. We do not want to deny either one, but we do want to base our lives on the “already” for it is only then that we can, by God’s grace, work through the struggle of the “not-yet”. In other words, we live on the basis of the perfect work of Jesus Christ and our union with Him - He is our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and our Completion.
Back to Pentecost; do we appreciate the watershed of the Holy Spirit coming to indwell the People of God? When we read Acts do we see a New Man walking the earth? Do we see a New People? Do we see the dry bones of Ezekiel now living as the People of God who are living in and through the Holy Spirit?
The New Man is proclaiming the Kingdom of God, He is healing, He is raising the dead, He is seeking His sheep in all people groups, He is loving all without regard to social class, education, ethnicity, whether slave or free, whether male or female.
When Peter quotes Joel (Acts 2:17ff) about the “last days” what do we make of that? Do we appreciate the reality of the Son of God living in and through His People? The Son left in a cloud and on Pentecost He returns in a cloud of glory, a cloud of witness. This is not to say that He is not returning today, nor that He will not return tomorrow; and it is not to say that there is not a return of the Son that is a consummation and restoration of all things (Acts 3:21; Ephesians 1:9-10). However, it is to say that Jesus is fulfilling His promise that He will disclose Himself to His obedient people (John 14:21).
Why ought we not to anticipate Jesus to manifest Himself today as He did while on the earth? Why ought we not to believe that as He lived within His people in Acts He desires to live within His people today? Does Jesus Christ change? Does He love the sick any less today? Does He not have compassion on those oppressed by Satan today? Does He desire to destroy death any less today (and think about this, He has conquered death and abolished its power 2 Timothy 1:10) than He did when He raised the widow’s son or when He called “Lazarus come forth”?
Ought we not to expect the Son to demonstrate that the Kingdom of God is at hand today as He did when He walked this earth?
On the one hand we make excuses of our lack of faith in the Son of God and we seek to qualify His promises and His desire for us to bear fruit for our Father’s glory. On the other hand, those who teach that God desires to demonstrate His power today often fail to see Jesus Christ as the nexus of our identity and ministry, this is not about “us” doing this or that, this is about Jesus Christ living in and through His Body - touching the world. This is about the members of the Body giving life to one another in Christ (Ephesians 4:16).
A Pentecostal mindset is an Incarnational mindset. A Pentecostal life is an Incarnational life.
The book of Acts is an account of the continuing Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
What about my life? Your life? The life of our local congregation? The life of the church across the world?
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