Pentecost
To the day after the seventh sabbath
you should count, fifty days, and you
must present a new grain offering to
Jehovah.—Lev. 23:16.
When GOD (JehovahOrYahweh) spoke to Abraham, He indicated that Abraham’s
“seed” would be more than just one person. It would be “like the stars of the
heavens and like the grains of sand that are on the seashore.” (Gen. 22:17) The
appearance of other members of the “seed” was foreshadowed by the Festival of
Weeks. When Jesus was on earth, the Festival of Weeks was known as Pentecost
(from a Greek word meaning “fiftieth”). At Pentecost 33 C.E., the greater
High Priest, the resurrected Jesus Christ, poured out holy
spirit upon the small group of 120 disciples gathered in
PENTECOST--pen'-te-kost:
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The
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
In the Old
Testament and then the New
As the name
indicates (pentekoste), this second of the great Jewish national festivals was
observed on the 50th day, or 7 weeks, from the Paschal Feast, and therefore in
the Old Testament it was called "the feast of weeks." It is but once
mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament (2 Chronicles
8:12,13), from which reference it is plain,
however, that the people of
"offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the
sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the set feasts, three times in the year,
even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the
feast of tabernacles." The requirements of the three great festivals were
then well understood at this time, and their authority was founded in the
Mosaic Law and unquestioned. The festival and its ritual were minutely
described in this Law. Every male in
The Old Testament
does not give it the historical significance which later Jewish writers have
ascribed to it. The Israelites were admonished to remember their bondage on
that day and to reconsecrate themselves to the Lord (Deuteronomy 16:12),
but it does not yet commemorate the giving of the Law at Sinai or the birth of
the national existence, in the Old Testament conception (Exodus 19). Philo,
Josephus, and the earlier Talmud are all ignorant of this new meaning which was
given to the day in later Jewish history. It originated with the great Jewish
rabbi Maimonides and has been copied by Christian writers. And thus a view of
the Jewish Pentecost has been originated, which is wholly foreign to the scope
of the ancient institution.
2. In the New Testament:
The old Jewish
festival obtained a new significance, for the Christian church, by the promised
outpouring of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7,13). The incidents of that memorable day, in the
history of Christianity, are told in a marvelously vivid and dramatic way in
the Ac of the Apostles. The old rendering of sumplerousthai (Acts 2:1) by
"was fully come" was taken by Lightfoot (Her. Heb.)
to signify that the Christian Pentecost did not
coincide with the Jewish, just as Christ's last meal with His disciples was
considered not to have coincided with the Jewish Passover, on Nisan 14. The
bearing of the one on the other is obvious; they stand and fall together. the Revised Version (British and American) translates the
obnoxious word simply "was now come." Meyer, in his commentary on the
Acts, treats this question at length. The tradition of the ancient church
placed the first Christian Pentecost on a Sunday. According to John, the
Passover that year occurred on Friday, Nisan 14 (
See CHRONOLOGY OF
THE
The occurrences of
the first pentecostal day after the resurrection of
Christ set it apart as a Christian festival and invested it, together with the
commemoration of the resurrection, with a new meaning. We will not enter here
upon a discussion of the significance of the events of the pentecostal
day described in Ac 2. That is discussed in the article under TONGUES (which
see). The Lutherans, in their endeavor to prove the inherent power of the Word,
claim that "the effects then exhibited were due to the divine power
inherent in the words of Christ; and that they had resisted that power up to
the day of Pentecost and then yielded to its influence." This is well
described as "an incredible hypothesis" (Hodge, Systematic Theology,
that Pentecost marks the
rounding of the Christian church as an institution. This day is said to mark
the dividing line between the ministry of the Lord and the ministry of the
Spirit. The later Dutch theologians have advanced the idea that the origin of
the church, as an institution, is to be found in the establishment of the
apostolate, in the selection of the Twelve. Dr. A. Kuyper holds that the church
as an institution was founded when the Master selected the Twelve, and that
these men were "qualified for their calling by the power of the Holy
Spirit." He distinguishes between the institution and the constitution of
the church. Dr. H. Bavinck says: "Christ gathers a church about Himself, rules it directly so long as He is on the earth,
and appoints twelve apostles who later on will be His witnesses. The
institution of the apostolate is an especially strong proof of the
institutionary character which Christ gave to His church on the earth"
(Geref. Dogm., IV, 64).
Whatever we may
think of this matter, the fact remains that Pentecost completely changed the
apostles, and that the enduement with the Holy Spirit enabled them to become
witnesses of the resurrection of Christ as the fundamental fact in historic
Christianity, and to extend the church according to Christ's commandment.
Jerome has an especially elegant passage in which Pentecost is compared with
the beginning of the Jewish national life on
"There is
Sinai, here Sion; there the trembling mountain, here the trembling house; there
the flaming mountain, here the flaming tongues; there the noisy thunderings,
here the sounds of many tongues; there the clangor of the ramshorn, here the
notes of the gospel-trumpet." This vivid passage shows the close analogy
between the Jewish and Christian Pentecost.
3. Later Christian
Observance:
In the
post-apostolic Christian church Pentecost belonged to the so-called
"Semestre Domini," as distinct from the "Semestre
Ecclesiae" the church festivals properly so called. As yet there was no
trace of Christmas, which began to appear about 360 AD. Easter, the beginning
of the pentecostal period, closed the
"Quadragesima," or "Lent," the entire period of which had
been marked by self-denial and humiliation. On the contrary, the entire pentecostal period, the so-called "Quinquagesima,"
was marked by joyfulness, daily communion, absence of fasts, standing in
prayer, etc. Ascension Day, the 40th day of the period, ushered in the climax
of this joyfulness, which burst forth in its fullest volume on Pentecost. It
was highly esteemed by the Fathers. Chrysostom calls it "the metropolis of
the festivals" (De Pentec., Hom. ii); Gregory of Nazianzen calls it
"the day of the Spirit" (De Pentec., Orat. 44). All the Fathers sound
its praises. For they fully understood, with the church of the ages, that on
that day the dispensation of the Spirit was begun, a dispensation of greater
privileges and of a broader horizon and of greater power than had hitherto been
vouchsafed to the church of the living God. The festival "Octaves,"
which, in accordance with the Jewish custom, devoted a whole week to the
celebration of the festival, from the 8th century, gave place to a two days'
festival, a custom still preserved by the Roman church and such Protestant
bodies as follow the ecclesiastical year. The habit of dressing in white and of
seeking baptism on Pentecost gave it the name "Whitsunday," by which
it is popularly known all over the world.
Henry E. Dosker
To the day after the seventh
sabbath you should count, fifty days,
and you must present a new grain
offering to Jehovah.—Lev. 23:16.
When Jehovah spoke to
Abraham, He indicated that Abraham’s “seed” would be more than just one person.
It would be “like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand that are
on the seashore.” (Gen. 22:17) The appearance of other members of the “seed”
was foreshadowed by the Festival of Weeks. When Jesus was on earth, the
Festival of Weeks was known as Pentecost (from a Greek word meaning
“fiftieth”). At Pentecost 33 C.E., the greater High Priest, the
resurrected Jesus Christ, poured out holy spirit upon
the small group of 120 disciples gathered in
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