Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Greek word for receive means “immediately or right now.”1 This was not a foreshadowing of what was going to happen. The disciples actually received the Holy Spirit before Jesus ascended into heaven. But they were not clothed with power until they had been filled with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

The Day of Pentecost

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1-4)

I know that many of us have witnessed the flannelgraph version of this account in our Sunday school classes. Typically, the assembled believers are depicted as having little tongues of fire on top of their heads. This is probably not the best representation of what happened. In the Old Testament fire often symbolizes the presence of God. What the author of Acts described as “tongues, as of fire” is the manifestation of God’s presence. These followers of Jesus, both men and women, were engulfed or baptized in God’s presence. This revealed presence is also seen in the reference to a “rushing mighty wind.” As we established in chapter one, the Holy Spirit is not a “mighty wind.” He is a Person. However, the manifestation of His arrival in the upper room took the form of a mighty wind.

The Greek word for “filled” in Acts 2:4 literally means satiated.2 According to the dictionary, satiate means “to supply to excess.” Those in the upper room were filled to excess with the Holy Spirit. All of them experienced a greater degree of God’s manifest presence in their lives. In addition to the manifestations of fire and wind, another sign of the infilling of the Spirit was the fact that the believers began to speak in other tongues.

Day 2

Why Tongues?

A tongue is simply a language. If I were in Spain and met someone who clearly wasn’t speaking Spanish, I could ask either, “What is your mother tongue?” or, “What is your native language?” They mean the same thing. In contrast I wouldn’t need to ask someone who spoke English what his native tongue is because, as a native English speaker, I recognize the language. Therefore, to me English is a “known” tongue, whereas I might consider another language an “unknown” tongue. More on this later.

On the Day of Pentecost, Jews from many nations had gathered in Jerusalem for a religious celebration. As residents of various countries and regions, these Jews had many “mother tongues.”