James Nisbet Commentary - Acts 2:4 - 2:4

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James Nisbet Commentary - Acts 2:4 - 2:4


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FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT

‘They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.’

Act_2:4

When our Lord manifested Himself to His disciples for the last time before His Ascension into heaven, He reminded them that He had promised to send the Holy Spirit to take His place as their Guide and their Strengthener, and to abide perpetually in their midst. By three symbols, by wind, by fire, by voice, the Spirit declared His Presence.

I. The manifestation by wind.—First of all by wind: ‘There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.’ The stirring power of the Spirit was thus symbolised. Wind is a mysterious force, invisible to men and beyond their control, discoverable only by its results, and so a sudden rush of strong wind might fitly symbolise that a Power more than human was moving men in spite of themselves.

II. The manifestation by fire.—Then, secondly, ‘There appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire.’ Fire is another of the forces of nature, full of significance. Inanimate though it be, it seems mysteriously endowed with a kind of living force, and in Holy Scripture fire is specially spoken of as an agent of cleansing and purification. The fire which appeared to rest on the heads of the disciples indicated the purifying power of the Spirit’s Presence. ‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,’ was the promise and the warning which summed up the Baptist’s message. Not actual fire again, but tongues like as it were of fire, was the symbol which emphasised the purifying power of the Holy Ghost.

III. The manifestation by voice.—And then, once more, ‘They began to speak with tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ The second symbol leads fitly into the third, and by this the unifying power of the Spirit’s Presence was signified, for differences of language form the strongest barriers which separate men from each other. The mysterious utterances of the gift of tongues have been, indeed, commonly interpreted in the past as having been made in many foreign languages, but as we read the record again with care we are not led to suppose that this was the case. From St. Paul’s account of the gift of tongues in the Corinthian Church, we are led rather to suppose that these were ecstatic utterances which could only be understood by those who were in spiritual sympathy with the speaker. By all such, whatever their nationality, whatever their own language might be, they were at once understood, and so perfectly understood that the speaker seemed to them to speak the words of their mother tongue. It was more, not less, than the mere power of speaking this or that foreign tongue. It was the power of making utterances which could appeal directly to the heart, and through the heart to the understanding, of men of the most varied tongues. And thus it surmounted the barrier of language altogether, and it drew into common accord men whose languages had hitherto separated them from each other. Thus it was a fitting symbol of the uniting power of the Divine Spirit.

—
Dean J. Armitage Robinson.