In the Fullness of Time (eBook)

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Pentecost and the History of Redemption

Clearly central in Acts is what took place on the day of Pentecost. There is no better way, then, to gain a sound overall understanding of Acts than to consider the significance of this key event. Exploring that significance brings to light the pivotal place of Pentecost in redemptive history (the historia salutis), or, to be thematically more specific with an eye to Luke’s narrative in Acts, the role of Pentecost in the coming of the kingdom of God. Several observations show the appropriateness of approaching Acts as a whole by focusing on the redemptive-historical significance of Pentecost.

The Purpose and Structure of Acts: Initial Considerations

The Words of Jesus in 1:8

Without becoming embroiled here in the much-debated question of the purpose(s) of Acts, it seems fair to observe that Luke clearly structures his narrative in terms of the words of Jesus in 1:8:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

An overarching concern of Luke, then, is to structure his narration in Acts in terms of this witness-bearing, an activity that has its point of departure in Jerusalem and expands outwardly from there. Or, putting it in clearly intended ethnic terms, a primary aim of Luke, globally considered, is to document how this witness-bearing spread from Israel to the nations.

In other words, at least one concern of Luke—surely a basic concern—is to show that history unfolded just as Jesus said it would, to relate certain events that came to pass just as Jesus had prophesied. A bird’s-eye survey of Acts bears this out: the basic line of narration moves from Jerusalem to Rome, “the end of the earth,” where the narrative ends in Acts 28.

Several facets in this description of the purpose of Acts bear elaborating.

First is the apostolic factor. The “you” addressed by Jesus in Acts 1:8 is not indeterminate but specifically an apostolic “you.” Its antecedent, working backward in the immediate context from 1:8, is in 1:2: “the apostles whom he [Jesus] had chosen.” Also, “you,” occurring repeatedly beyond 1:2 through 1:11, refers to the apostles and in those references, it is important to see, is limited to them.

This focus on the apostles is reinforced in the rest of the chapter. After describing the return of the “you” to Jerusalem following the ascension (1:11), the eleven apostles are mentioned individually by name (1:13), and the main point to the end of the chapter is the reconstitution of the apostolate (1:25) to its original number of twelve with the election of Matthias. So, as Acts 1:8 is fairly seen as indicating what structures the entire narrative in Acts and the “you” there is an apostolic “you,” what Luke documents in Acts as a whole is an essentially apostolic task.

Second, this task is a universal task; the apostolic task is worldwide in its scope. The narrative flow in Acts 1:8, beginning in Jerusalem, reaches to “the end of the earth.” Further, the geographic terms of this worldwide expansion have evidently ethnic overtones. Acts documents the witness-bearing of the apostles that moves from Jew (Jerusalem-Judea), to part-Jew (Samaria), to non-Jew/Gentile (the ends of the earth).

The essentially ethnic dimensions of this universalism are put beyond question in Acts 13. At Antioch in Pisidia on his first missionary journey, Paul encountered fierce opposition from among the Jews, especially the religious leaders of the Jewish community (13:45; cf. 13:50), a rejection met, in turn, by the bold response of Paul and Barnabas: “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you [Jews]. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles” (13:46).

This response, then, is followed (1) by the derivative application to their own witness-bearing ministry of what the Lord says to the messianic servant in Isaiah 49:6: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, / that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47); and (2) with Luke’s observation, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord” (13:48; cf. 28:28). In the parallelism of the Isaiah quotation, “Gentiles” and “the ends of the earth” correspond to each other and are clearly interchangeable. “The ends of the earth” are specifically Gentile “ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8 and 13:47 are the only New Testament occurrences of the expression “the ends of the earth.” It seems likely, then, that its use by Jesus in 1:8 echoes the Isaiah passage (cf. Isa. 45:22) and points to the apostles’ impending witness to him as the one who fulfills the promise of universal salvation made to the messianic Servant (see also Acts 26:23). In Acts 1:8, geographic denotation has an ethnic connotation. This ethnic flow of the narrative in Acts points to and reinforces the universality of the apostles’ task.

Assuming that in Acts 13 Luke accurately represents what Paul said, it is legitimate methodologically to introduce several statements from Paul’s letters as further commentary that reinforces the universality of the apostolic task in which, as Acts documents, he was a key participant.

In Colossians 1:5—6, Paul refers to the “gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing.” Later, in 1:23, similarly and more explicitly concerning his own activity, he speaks of “the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation1 under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” Similarly, at the conclusion of his ministry, plausibly seen as reflecting on it as a whole, he speaks of his preaching as “fully proclaimed” to “all the Gentiles” (2 Tim. 4:17). As an apostle of Christ (see Col. 1:1; 2 Tim. 1:1), then, Paul knew himself to be involved in a gospel ministry not only worldwide in its scope but also already completed (“which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven”).

Third, then, the universal apostolic task that Acts documents is also a finished task. This conclusion follows implicitly from what we have so far been considering about the purpose of Acts and is intimated in the statements from Colossians just noted. Acts intends to show that in its universal realization, the apostolic task in view in 1:8 has been completed.

In other words, what Acts does not document, what Luke is not intending to relate, is an open-ended, partial history that has begun with the ministry of the apostles but is of one piece with and looks for its completion by others who will follow them.

That is the way Acts is sometimes read. Reaching the end of Acts 28, the narrative can appear unresolved and to end on a rather negative note with Paul, its principal subject, a prisoner in Rome under house arrest (28:16, 30). This hardly seems the way to conclude a narrative. What happened to him subsequently? So a part three to Theophilus, no longer extant, has even been hypothesized, in which Luke supposedly wrapped up the loose ends left for us in Acts.

To the contrary, there are no narrative loose ends in Acts. The task as foretold in 1:8 is finished. With the apostolic witness to Christ having reached the Gentile “ends of the earth” (Rome), the narrative that Luke intends is complete; it is not in need of being filled out or supplemented by an Acts 29 and following.

The note on which the document ends signals the successful completion of the apostolic task. The adverb “unhindered” (ἀκωλύτως, 28:31), positioned for emphasis as the last word in the final sentence, has a positive exclamatory force (“without hindrance!”).

The New Testament undoubtedly recognizes that there will be a future for the church after the apostles. It makes provision for that postapostolic future, most notably in the Pastoral Epistles and elsewhere. But that provision is not within the purview of Acts, except incidentally. Rather, in the light of 1:8, Acts documents a completed, universal, apostolic task. Acts records the finished founding of the “one holy catholic” church as also “apostolic” (the Nicene Creed).

Two Observations

The importance of this basic conclusion about the purpose and composition of Acts and certain of its implications will emerge as we consider how Pentecost and integrally related events are central to the narrative in Acts. Here, before moving on, a couple of other observations pertinent to this conclusion serve to reinforce it.

First, Acts 1:8 should not, as often happens, be made the theme verse for a missions conference or used to challenge a...