Where In The Bible Will I Find:

The Significance Of The Day Of Pentecost?

The day of Pentecost was the fiftieth day after the Sabbath of the Passover week; and as the count commenced on the day after the Sabbath, it also ended on the same day of the week, or our Sunday. On account of the seven weeks, which intervened between it and the Passover Sabbath, it was called in the Old Testament "The Feast Of Weeks," and also, as the wheat harvest occurred during this interval, it was called "The Feast of Harvest," and on account of the offering peculiar to it, it was called "The Day Of First Fruits."

As the Greek language became known in Palestine, it became known as Pentecost (fiftieth), because it was the fiftieth day. This was one of the three annual festivals at which all the male Jews were required to be present. The condemnation and death of Jesus had occurred close to one of these, and the next Pentecost was most appropriately chosen as the occasion for His vindication and for the inauguration of His kingdom or church.

The day was also appropriate from its being the day of the week on which He arose from the dead. The apostles were there along with the hundred and twenty disciples waiting as they had been instructed by Jesus (Luke 24:49). On this day the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles, but not on the hundred and twenty. This is made certain by the grammatical connection between the first verse of this chapter and the last of the preceding. Put together they read, "And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place" (Acts 1:26; 2:1).

The word They refers only to the apostles and not the hundred and twenty. This day is important because when the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance, the promise of a baptism in the Holy Spirit and of power from on high was fulfilled. They spoke in languages that they had never learned. The promise, "It shall not be ye that speak, but the Spirit of My Father that speaketh in you," was fulfilled in its most literal sense; for the very words which they uttered were supplied to them immediately by the Spirit.

Such power had never before been bestowed on men. It was the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Only one other time was the Holy Spirit baptism administered and that was at the house of Cornelius for the baptism of the Holy Spirit was a promise and not a command. Water baptism was a command (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38, 10:47; 22:16), and it is still commanded, but Holy Spirit baptism served its purpose on these two occasions and was no longer promised to anyone. Only God could administer Holy Spirit baptism, but we are commanded, to "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them (in water, Acts 10:47) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19).