PENTECOST will ever be the day for the church of Christ on earth, not on which she originated, not on which she was conceived, but the day on which as world-church she was born. Up to the days, when Israel appeared among the nations, there truly were believers, there was indeed revelation from the side of God, and from the side of God’s children there was worship of the Holy One and Temple ceremonial, but joined together into a visible church they were not. Among Israel the church hid in the shadow of Israel’s national existence, but it was not the liberated, the independent, the whole human race embracing, in brief the holy, catholic, Christian church.
With equal definiteness therefore both must be confessed: as well on one hand that the beginnings of Christ’s church lie in Paradise, as on the other hand that her independent appearance, not for one people, but for the whole world and for the whole human race, only dates from the altogether unique illustrious, the of God appointed Pentecost day at Jerusalem.
As in Paradise the Lord God had first formed man’s body from the dust of the earth, and after that had breathed into his nostrils “the breath”, or as it stands literally “the spirit of life”, that so man should come to full, lively existence, so only by all that had gone before, the body of the church had been formed in the circle of Jesus’ disciples, and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost entered into that body of the church, that so only the church of Christ should be enabled to make her appearance in the world, and to fulfil her mission with respect to the recreation of all things.
We are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and the root of all confession among Christians is therefore the confession of the holy Threefold fulness. But however deep the heart of this adorable mystery hides from us in the Being of the living God, yet this threeness of the Holy reflects itself, be it in an imperfect way, in the revelation of life. We but stammer, when we relate the Creation more particularly with the Father, Redemption more closely with the Son, and Sanctification more naturally with the Holy Ghost, for every Christian knows and confesses, that all outgoing work of the Divine majesty is common to these three Persons. Nevertheless this distinction, provided it never becomes separation, gives clearness to our perception. So it may be said, that each season that changes, every year that passes, brings us a day of the Father, a day that speaks to us of God the Father as our Creator; even as Bethlehem and Golgotha and the day of Resurrection brings us the witness of God the Son and our Redemption. And in this relation, in this series, in this succession, Pentecost is the great and illustrious day, of which already Joel prophecied, which brings us the rich revelation of God the Holy Ghost, or our Sanctification.
Pentecost is the day, that declares to us, not merely that powers, workings, influences and motions of the Holy Spirit began to operate in men. For he who deems this to be the case brings to nought all God’s work in Paradise, in Abraham’s tent and in Israel. Rather the Holy Scripture shows, and on its authority the church of Christ confesses, that the workings of the Holy Spirit in general went out from the hour of Creation, when it was yet “dark upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2); and more yet that already from the days of old the Spirit of God wrought spiritually, that His workings were in all God’s saints, yea, that “God put His Holy Spirit in the midst of Israel” (Is. 63:11). Also in the Incarnation of the Word the work of conception was by the Holy Ghost, and at the Baptism the Holy Spirit came down upon the One born of Mary, and before and after His resurrection Christ had imparted to His disciples “the gift of the Holy Ghost”. Hence it is unthinkable and impossible, that only on the day of Pentecost the workings, the gifts, the influences of the Holy Spirit first went out toward God’s saints. Had nothing else therefore taken place on the day of Pentecost, than that the apostles and others who tarried with them in the upper room, had received in richer measure the gifts of the Holy Ghost, nothing illustrious, nothing uncommon nor out of the ordinary would mark that Pentecost-day, nothing that had not taken place before, and has repeated itself every time afterward, century upon century, repeats itself still, and shall repeat itself until the return of the Lord.
He therefore who would understand Pentecost day should carefully consider the word of the apostle John, that “the Holy Ghost (before Golgotha) was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (7:39).
Workings, influences, gifts of the Holy Spirit had always been abroad, but now something else, something new would come, and Jesus Himself described that something new in these words: “that then rivers of living water should flow forth from believers.” Of this saying the apostle writes: “This he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for thus far the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.”