C. Content of the New Community (2:1-42)

The promised gift of the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost (vv.1-4); the culmination of the Passover cycle; the celebration of the giving of the Torah, which shaped the old covenant community as the people of God; and the Festival of the Firstfruits. For the Christian community, it came as the culmination of the Crucifixion/ Resurrection at Passover; it shaped a new covenant community as the people of God; and it was the “firstfruit” of the consummation of God’s purposes in Christ (Eph 1:13-14).

As the history of Acts unfolds, we see that the disciples were filled with the presence, the power, and the purpose of God. They entered into a new experience of relationship with God in which their lives came under God’s control. Yet they retained their individual freedom and human foibles—as seen in the freedom of Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Spirit (5:1-11), the prejudiced view of the Hebrews toward the Hellenists (6:1-6), and the perspective of some Jewish Christians toward God-fearers (11:1-18) and gentile Christians (15:1-29). While filled with the Holy Spirit, they still evidence the need to bring various areas of their lives into obedience to the guidance of the Spirit, a reality that confirms Wesley’s emphasis on sanctification that continues beyond the experience of entire sanctification. Experiencing one’s life under the presence, power, and purpose of the Holy Spirit does not immediately confer “perfection” upon all the characteristics and dynamics of one’s being.

The initial experience of the Holy Spirit by the Christian community was attended by visual and aural phenomena that attracted the attention of the larger Jewish community in Jerusalem (vv.2-6). The disciples immediately began to prophesy, that is, they began to communicate their experience of God’s presence, power, and purpose (God’s mighty works) to those around them. There is much debate whether the disciples were empowered to speak in various languages or whether the listeners were empowered to hear. Since the Spirit was given to the disciples, it seems reasonable that they were gifted with languages so as to communicate their experience of God to the gathered Jewish community.

The old covenant community of Jews and proselytes, gathered in Jerusalem from across the world, is perplexed by what they see and hear (vv.7-13). They have no frame of reference for understanding such an experience. Not knowing the reality of this new life graced by God, they can explain it only by reference to the only kind of human existence they know.

Peter, however, provides the old covenant community with a frame of reference that enables them to understand what they are seeing and hearing (vv.14-36). Not only does Peter claim that this experience is the fulfillment of old covenant promises (vv.16-21), but, by changing the text of Joel, Peter indicates that it inaugurates the last days, a phrase that intimates to Jewish hearers that the new realm of God’s kingdom has begun. While this sets the experience into a context the Jewish community can understand, it is a radical proclamation. Peter further highlights the radical nature of what God has done by his exegesis of the text, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (v.21). First, Peter indicates that Jesus, the name of the one attested by God through signs, wonders, and resurrection, is responsible for this experience of the Holy Spirit (vv.22-33). Second, Peter indicates that Jesus is the Lord, an identification that applies a title for God to Jesus (vv.34-36). Third, he indicates that salvation is in the name of Jesus (vv.37-40). All of this is confirmed by the Holy Spirit who has been given by Jesus, the risen Lord, and who is now available to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

In answer to the people’s response, Peter calls the old covenant community to a new covenant (vv.37-38). In the old covenant, to repent and be baptized for forgiveness was to leave an old order of being behind and to become part of a new order, God’s covenant people. Now Peter calls the old covenant people to enter into a new order of being, which is characterized by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Peter’s invitation reveals the diversity of those invited into the new covenant (vv.39-40). Not only are his Jewish hearers and their descendants included, but also those far off, a term that includes the diaspora Jews, apostate Jews, proselytes, and even Gentiles. All humanity is invited.