Day: June 29, 2025

June 17  –  The Decision to Replace Judas — Acts #3

David Chupp Acts , , , , , ,

Acts #3 — The Decision to Replace Judas
Acts 1:15-26

Last week, we completed our 70-week study of Jesus’ ministry.  We will continue the Bible’s story with the Book of Acts, Luke’s second volume.  We have already covered the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts chapters 1 and 2.   There is one other story in Acts 1 that we will cover today, and it happens just before Pentecost.  

One thing I don’t want you to miss as we study the book of Acts is that the coming of the Holy Spirit is a turning point in the Bible and the history of the world.  Part of what we will concentrate on is the significant difference the Holy Spirit makes in God’s people.  The Holy Spirit is essential to living the abundant life Jesus discussed.  After that Pentecost, God’s Spirit is now not just in one person, Jesus, but in over 3000 people who are scattering throughout the known world.  And the number of people carrying God’s Holy Spirit continues to multiply today.  

Jesus said: 

John 14:12   “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 

You are going to hear this verse a lot.  It confuses many people because they first wonder how anyone could do anything greater than Jesus did.  Secondly, they don’t see how Jesus going to the Father has anything to do with his disciples doing greater works.  But remember our discussion of Jesus’ ascension.  Jesus performs the duties of our high priest.  He enters the holy place and offers the sacrifice for our sins to the Father, and then he gives the blessing from the Father – God’s very presence in the form of the Holy Spirit. Greater works than these will be done because God’s presence in our world has been multiplied. This is the difference the Holy Spirit makes.

Before this, in the time of history after the fall and before Jesus, the manifestation of God’s presence to His people was very limited.  He appeared to Noah.  He appeared to Abraham and his descendants at times.   He appeared to all of Israel at Mount Sinai and on several occasions. The Old Testament contains the stories of how God occasionally clothed people with the Holy Spirit.   But these visitations of God’s presence were very few, with at times hundreds of years between.

Moses expressed the desire that all people have God’s Holy Spirit. 

Numbers 11:29    Would that all the Yehovah’s people were prophets, that Yehovah would put his Spirit on them!

And then Jesus came, God in flesh.  And Jesus appeared to many thousands at one time on several occasions.  But think throughout history, how many people living in the world never had the opportunity to witness firsthand a specific manifestation of God.  Jesus came to change that.   Because the Holy Spirit was sent in Jesus’ name, all who believe and follow Jesus will have an encounter with God personally.  And now God’s power is available to work in every follower.  This is the difference the Holy Spirit in us makes.

But just before the Holy Spirit comes, we have this story in Acts 1:

Acts 1:15, 21-26   In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas…    
So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”
And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Why must there be a replacement for Judas?  Are eleven apostles not enough?  Jesus chose twelve disciples and told them: 

Matthew 19:28  “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Twelve thrones must be filled.  In his complete rebellion, Judas has disqualified himself.  So, a replacement must be chosen. Note that later, when James, the son of Zebedee, is martyred by Herod Agrippa in Acts 12, there is no need to replace him.  We will see James on that throne later.  But they must replace Judas.

So this is a monumental decision.  And how do they choose the person to take this position?  First, they discussed the qualifications.  They must have been there for the entire ministry of Jesus, from his baptism in the Jordan to his resurrection.  They wanted an eyewitness.   So they narrowed it down to two individuals, and they “cast lots.”  Did they draw straws, flip a coin, or roll the dice?  We don’t know, but it was something along those lines.  Does it bother you that the decision of who will sit on a throne of judgment in Heaven was left to something like a coin toss?

Let’s say that one day you decide to hire a financial investor to help you handle your money.  You interview several people and you ask them about their investment strategies.  How will you choose where to invest my money?   One of them says, “When deciding how to invest other people’s money, I usually just flip a coin to choose which investment to take.  Sometimes I roll the dice and sometimes just close my eyes and point.”  I am going to guess that this guy would not be your first choice.  After all, no reasonable person would ever make a major life decision by flipping a coin or rolling the dice.  That is ridiculous… isn’t it?  

Yet in Acts 1, the disciples choose someone to sit on a throne and be a judge in the New World by casting lots.  Casting lots to make big decisions was standard practice in many of the cultures seen in the Old Testament.  When Jonah was running from God and the ship was in a storm, the pagan sailors cast lots to see whose God was angry at whom. 

Jonah 1:7   “And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.”

This was standard practice for many religions in the day. But it wasn’t just in the pagan cultures.   In Israel, when they decided to divide the promised land and determine which tribe got which property, they did it by casting lots.1  On the Day of Atonement each year, the High Priest would cast lots to see which of the two goats would become the scapegoat and which would be sacrificed.  The Book of Exodus gives instructions for two stones, named the Urim and Thumim, to be worn in a pouch in the High Priest’s breastplate.  They were often used to cast lots as a way to determine God’s will.

Once, in Samuel, the Israelites were at war with the Philistines, and Saul determined to attack them.  The people followed his decision, but the High Priest said they should ask God.  This was a life-or-death decision.   So they asked God, but He did not answer.  They reasoned that God refused to answer because someone in the camp had sinned.  To determine who had sinned, they again consulted the Urim and the Thumin, the High Priest’s “holy dice.”  

Here is the story:

1 Samuel 14:36-42  Then Saul said, “Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning light; let us not leave a man of them.” And they said, “Do whatever seems good to you.” But the priest said, “Let us draw near to God here.” And Saul inquired of God, “Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel?” But he did not answer him that day. And Saul said, “Come here, all you leaders of the people, and know and see how this sin has arisen today. For as the LORD lives who saves Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.” But there was not a man among all the people who answered him.
Then he said to all Israel, “You shall be on one side, and I and Jonathan my son will be on the other side.” And the people said to Saul, “Do what seems good to you.” Therefore Saul said, “O LORD God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day? If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O LORD, God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim.” And Jonathan and Saul were taken, but the people escaped. Then Saul said, “Cast the lot between me and my son Jonathan.” And Jonathan was taken.”

So God answered them through the holy dice, the Urim and the Thumim, and revealed that Jonathan sinned by breaking their fast.  Again, it may seem strange to you that these life or death situations are left to the roll of two stones.  You might want to stop Saul and say, “But rolling the dice is random! That is no way to decide!”  And everyone there would think you were the heretic.  Casting lots is only odd if you think the result of tossing the stones is left to chance.  And no one in Israel thought the answer was left to chance.  God would control the result to give His answer.  This is stated very clearly in Proverbs:

Proverbs 16:33  The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

This proverb says the dice are rolled in your lap, but the result is not random.  God intervenes and controls the result.  We still use this idea when we say “your lot in life.”   And perhaps you’ve heard of the “lottery.” But our view is that the lottery is just random, a one-in-a-million chance to win.  But this is different.  

The writer of this proverb and all those who cast lots had a very high view of God’s sovereignty — God’s control over the world.   We can all agree that God has control over His creation.  He is not some cosmic watchmaker who created the world, wound it as one would wind a watch, and then left it to run on its own.  We can all agree that we see God intervening in the world in the Bible.  But how much control does God maintain over this world and your life?  

This is a highly complex question, and many theologians, much smarter than I, reach different conclusions and use scripture to support their positions. 

My Calvinist friends believe God is completely sovereign over every aspect of life.  Not a leaf falls to the ground nor an airplane falls out of the sky that is not determined by His will.  Moreover, they maintain that God has willed (predestined) that some individuals will be saved and some will not.  And those individuals do not have a choice.  They say Judas was destined by God to betray Jesus.  God determined that Judas would do this.  Nothing else could happen.  There is no other way Judas’ story could end.   

That is not what I see in the scriptures.  I certainly believe that God is sovereign, but that he created people with free will.  People have the option to make decisions contrary to God’s will.  Even though God wants everyone to be saved, people can freely choose to reject God. 

1 Timothy 2:4   [God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Judas had a choice.  He didn’t have to betray Jesus.  They were going to arrest Jesus anyway.  Judas just made it easier.  Everyone has a choice.  God can make his plan happen without forcing people to sin.  God is so good that He can accomplish his will despite some people’s choices.  God often intervenes in the world to cause everything to work toward good.  When people choose evil and cause harm to come to others, God is in the business of taking that bad situation and causing it to work for good.   But God’s perfect will is not done on earth now due to humanity’s bad choices.  

One day, God’s will is going to be completely done on earth as it is now being done in heaven.  That is what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer:  “Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

These two ways of approaching the idea of sovereignty are much more complex than this.  So please search the scriptures for yourself and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  I believe God loves us and does everything He can to encourage us to make the best decisions.  I think that applies to all people, as the Bible says.   I believe God wanted Judas to be saved.  When I read the Bible, I see God constantly intervening in people’s lives to lead them to where he would have them to be.   I don’t think our lives are random any more than the result of casting lots was random. 

But the Bible clearly says that prayerfully casting lots presumed that God determined the result.  It was His will, not just random chance.  So why are we not doing that today?  Is it because we believe God no longer has the power to control the roll of the dice?  Is it because we don’t think God cares enough about our decisions to give us the correct answer?  Is it because we are enlightened in our modern world and believe we are so intelligent that we don’t need God’s help to make good decisions?  

Though we see many instances of casting lots throughout the Old Testament and again here after Jesus’ ascension, there is not one example of casting lots in the Bible after this point in Acts chapter 1.2  Why? There are many times in the New Testament stories about the apostles making difficult and sometimes life-or-death decisions, but never after this episode in Acts 1 do we see them consulting God’s answer by casting lots.  

Why?  Because the next event in the Bible is the coming of the holy spirit.  This is what Jesus’ ministry was leading up to: victory over sin and death and the blessing of the Holy Spirit. These things are part of God’s plan to dwell with his people again.  And now that the Holy Spirit is within us, there is no need to cast lots again.  So, how does the church in Acts make decisions?

Acts 13:2   While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

God speaks to them through the Holy Spirit.  “The Holy Spirit spoke while they were worshiping and fasting. Do you want to hear from the Holy Spirit?  Here is your first clue: worship and fast.   We do not hear because we don’t listen.  We have not trained ourselves to listen to God. We are too busy doing other things. Can you hear from the Holy Spirit while watching TV or surfing the internet? Absolutely. God can speak at any time. However, while you are watching TV or surfing the internet, when the Spirit speaks, His message to you might be, “Stop watching TV!” or “Get off the internet!”  But if you really want to hear God’s Spirit, you should follow his direction to worship, fast, and pray. Remember, Paul told Timothy:

2 Timothy 1:6   Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,”

Fan the flame.  Encourage the Spirit by being obedient.  Cultivate a relationship with the Spirit within you. You won’t hear from the Spirit if you are constantly dumping buckets of water on the fire.  Here is another example of the Spirit’s direction:

Acts 16:6   And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

Paul thought heading west to Ephesus was the right move, but the Spirit said NO! You can’t go there now.    “There is a way that seems right to a man”….. “Lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.“

And we know the Holy Spirit sometimes speaks through visions:

Acts 16:9-10   And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

And in Acts 15, the apostles met in Jerusalem to solve the church’s most significant question in the first century.  What about Gentiles who want to follow the Jewish Messiah?  Must they become Jewish first?   Must they be circumcised?  Must they stop eating shrimp?  

They came to that meeting with very different opinions on the matter.  And they meet and discuss this, and then they come to an agreement.  How did they decide?  Here is their report:

Acts 15:28   For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements…

“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”  The voice of the Holy Spirit came to them, and they agreed with the Spirit.   Now let me ask you, “Is this how you make decisions?”  

God loves you and wants the best for you, and he has placed His Spirit within you to guide you.  Oh, that we would listen.

The Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart, to lead you in the path God wants you to take. God is not just sitting back watching.  He is bringing people into our lives for a reason.  He is challenging you so you can grow and comforting you so that you may know peace in the storm.  If we can only open our eyes to the work of God in this world, then we will see all the times that God intervenes and directs our path, all of those bad situations we avoided, and all of the accidents we didn’t have.  We would see that really few things in our lives are coincidences, and very little is left to chance.

I recently reenrolled in Hebrew classes.  I started 10 years ago and had to stop after a few years because my Pediatric practice was leaving me with too little time.  In the past 2 weeks, I have been reviewing vocabulary words and came across this Hebrew word, miqreh, which means “chance or accident.”  I remember coming across this word years ago, and knowing the Scripture’s high view of God’s sovereignty, I wondered where it was found in the Bible and how it was used.  But I never found the time to look it up then.  But now I had the time. You only see this word 10 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.  Here is one verse:

Ruth 2:3   So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.

The Book of Ruth is short, but it is packed full of wisdom. The story occurs during the period of the Judges, a bleak time of Israel’s failure and rebellion.   A famine forces Naomi, her husband, and her two sons to leave Israel and live in Moab.  Her husband dies there, and Naomi’s two sons marry women from Moab.  One of those women is Ruth.  Later, both sons die, and Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law. Three widows left together.   Naomi returns to her country, Israel, and Ruth agrees to go, even though it means leaving her homeland.  Life is hard for the two widows.  They live in poverty, gathering the remnants of the grain harvest left in the field. 

Ruth just “happened” to come, of all the fields around Bethlehem, to the one who belonged to a relative of Naomi.  However, how the writer of Ruth has crafted the story makes it evident that this is no accident.  The writer emphasizes God’s involvement in the story all along.  God takes the horrible circumstance of the death of the three men and works the story for the good.   Ruth thought she ended up at Boaz’s field by accident.  Too often, we are like Ruth and chalk up the work of God to good luck.   Boaz becomes the kinsman-redeemer who rescues Naomi and Ruth from poverty.  Boaz and Ruth have a son, Obed, who becomes the grandfather of David and the ancestor of Jesus.  God has taken something bad and made good out of it.  And it was not an accident or coincidence.

God is just as active in our lives as he was in Ruth’s.  There are many fewer coincidences in life than we might realize.  I love how Oswald Chambers says it in his devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest”:

“God engineers our circumstances as He did those of His Son; all we have to do is to follow where He places us. The majority of us are busy trying to place ourselves.”3  

God is intimately involved and moving in our lives on a daily basis.  Just yesterday, Shirley shared with a friend at lunch about one such incident. 

We were leaving New York City, where we had been for a week.  Meriel had won a drama competition and was invited to participate in a trial run of a new Dreamworks play that they were demonstrating for some Disney executives.  We were at the airport past security when Shirley realized her purse was left at the hotel.  The purse that had our car keys for the car parked in Atlanta.  We decided it was worth the trip back, and Shirley insisted that Meriel and I take the flight that was leaving soon. She changed her flight to the next one and then took a taxi back to pick up her purse.  

She got on the plane, and a woman sat down beside her.  God ordained this meeting.  This woman was going through a terrible situation, and she needed help.  She needed some godly counseling.  And she “happened” to sit by my wife, a pastoral counselor, for a several-hour flight.   God went to a lot of trouble to set this up.  This was no more an accident than Ruth gleaning wheat in Boaz’s field.  And I could tell you many stories where God moved us and our circumstances for the cause of Christ.  God is active in our world and is working good all around us.

God is powerfully sovereign, constantly moving in the world he created.  Despite the popular Christian song, I don’t think God has to tell the sun to rise every morning.  He designed a beautiful universe where gravity and other forces keep the sun and the moon in their orbits for billions of years with no need to make adjustments.  God can intervene in the sun’s orbit if he desires it (see Job 9:7 and Joshua 10).  But he initially set things up so well that it doesn’t need regular adjustment.   He doesn’t need to push each leaf off the trees in the fall.  In his design for this world, leaves fall when it is their season.  And the sun and the leaves are obedient to the laws God set up for them in the beginning.  But people are not leaves or planets.  We have free will.  We are not always obedient.  We are capable of making decisions that run counter to God’s will.   So unlike the sun’s rising, God must constantly intervene in our lives to work things for good.  If we sin and choose a wrong path, God, out of his love, mercy, and grace, intervenes to urge us back on track.   He brings people into our lives to encourage us to return.  God’s love for us is so great that he continually adjusts our world to help us do the next right thing.

God promised that this time would come: 

Isaiah 42:16   And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them.  I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.  These are the things I do,  And I do not forsake them.

This is what God does.  His Holy Spirit constantly goes before us, leveling the ground in ways we do not see.  

We are often blind to God working in our lives.  Think about your past week.   Like Ruth, you might see something that happened as a chance encounter or an accidental meeting, but it was God-directed and meant for your good.  We need to have the attitude of the lot casters who said…

Proverbs 16:33  The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Here is the attitude we need:

Proverbs 16:9   The heart of man plans his way, but Yehovah establishes his steps.

When you walk out your door today or when you wake up tomorrow morning, you may have plans for your journey, but expect the Holy Spirit to intervene.  Remember when we discussed the Great Commission and Jesus said:   “As you go about living life, disciple people.”

Let me encourage you again to view every person that comes into your life, every “chance encounter”, as if God has purposely brought you together.  What would you say to someone, and how would you act differently if you knew God had specifically arranged for them to meet you that day?  I believe God directs our lives, so we have many daily opportunities to influence people for God’s Kingdom. This is how we fulfill the Great Commission.  Much more good is done for God’s kingdom through the encounters of his people just doing life than all the preachers and missionaries put together.   We need to be more aware that God is placing people in our path and looking for opportunities to display Jesus.

So you can get rid of your ‘Holy Dice.’  You don’t need them.  We have the Holy Spirit within us.  We must live lives of worship, prayer, and fasting, fanning the flame of God’s spirit in us.  As we go through the book of Acts in the following months, we will see how the Holy Spirit made a difference in the lives of the early church.  Let us decide to imitate their response to the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Ask God to open your eyes to see Him working all around you. Ask God to give you ears to hear.  God is speaking.  Are you listening?

  1. This is where our word comes from for the land we own.  Our “building lot” is 1.3 acres.  
  2. It is interesting that Luke begins his Gospel and the Book of Acts with a casting of lots. In Luke 1:9, we learn that Zechariah was chosen by lot to offer incense in the Temple when the angel came to announce he would have a son.
  3. Chambers, Oswald.  My Utmost for His Highest. 1924.

June 10  – The Ascension — Acts #1

David Chupp Acts , , , , ,

Acts #1 — The Ascension
Mark 16:15-19, Luke 24:50-53, Acts1:1-11, Hebrews (many passages)
(Cross-posted in the 70 weeks with Jesus section.)

Luke 24:50-51   And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.  While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.  And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.

We love to celebrate the significant happenings in the life of Jesus.  We primarily make a big deal of Christmas and Easter, as days to honor Jesus’ birth and resurrection.  I can’t imagine any Christian I know forgetting to celebrate either of these.  But do you celebrate Jesus’ Day of Ascension?  You probably didn’t notice that it just passed us by.  This year it was  Thursday, May 29.  It is always 40 days after Easter.  It may never be mentioned if your church does not follow a liturgical calendar.   We all know that Jesus ascended back to the Father.  But we never seem to talk about it.  

Why do we not talk about or celebrate Jesus’ ascension?  Well, we mention it a lot.  It is part of the creeds recited at each service in many churches.  From the Apostles’ Creed: “…he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.”  But I can’t recall hearing a sermon, Sunday School lesson, or reading a book about the ascension.  

Three weeks ago, I was looking ahead to this day, when our week-by-week study of Jesus’ ministry came to the ascension.  And I realized that I hadn’t ever thought much about the ascension.  I had no idea what I could share with you.  But let me tell you how good God is.  He led me to a book by Patrick Schreiner, “The Ascension of Christ, Recovering a Neglected Doctrine.”  This book and the book of Hebrews pointed out to me the importance of the ascension and what Jesus is doing now in the presence of God for us.

Schreiner notes that there are several reasons that we don’t emphasize the ascension. First, there is not much specific information in the Bible about the ascension.  Schreiner states: “The ascension narrative account covers a mere seven verses in the Bible, which, if you are counting, is 0.03 percent of all the verses in the Scriptures.”1

While there are very few verses describing the ascension event, there is a good deal of discussion in the Scriptures about the implications of Jesus’ ascension.  However, many of those we miss because we don’t understand the importance of the ascension.

The disciples didn’t understand the ascension either at first.  They were not expecting Jesus’ ascension.   He had told them, but they missed it.  For all they knew, Jesus had returned from the dead so he could resume his ministry with them.  In Luke’s second book, the Book of Acts, he begins the book the way he finished the Gospel of Luke, with Jesus’ ascension.

Acts 1:1-5  In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.  He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Jesus tells them plainly that the Holy Spirit is coming in just a few days.  The disciples knew the scriptures.  They knew that Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah all spoke of the new age that would come when the Holy Spirit came.2. So now they expect the new age to begin in just a few days, and they ask him:

Acts 1:6   So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Despite everything Jesus has taught them, they are still expecting that when the new age comes, the Messiah will restore Israel to national independence and remove the Roman oppressors. They have been hanging on to this idea of a Messiah with a military takeover throughout the past year, at times even discussing what positions of authority they would have when Jesus took over.  As he did at Jesus’ arrest, I can see Peter picking up his sword again and saying, “So now’s the time you are going to wipe out Rome and restore Israel’s kingdom?.

And Jesus answers:

Acts 1:7-11   He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 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.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

Jesus says the Father’s timing for the last days is not their concern.  It is not for them to know the Father’s timing or worry about that.  Instead, their focus should be on their task as witnesses.  The kingdom of God that they are to proclaim to the world is his message of grace and forgiveness.  That is what is important.  Talk about a Mike Drop moment – Boom!  Impressive statement, impressive exit.

Let me say that a little louder for my friends on the internet.   Stop wasting time arguing, debating, and trying to figure out the Father’s timing on the last days. Jesus says that it is none of your business.  God has given us this incredible gift of the Holy Spirit.  And we have God’s power through the Holy Spirit so that we can be powerful witnesses to God’s message of grace.  Let’s do that.

So the next time someone wants you to watch this 1-hour video on how the end times are being fulfilled, whip out Acts 1:7-9 and tell them God said I don’t have time to waste trying to figure out things that are not for me to know.  I need to spend that hour with the Holy Spirit, being God’s witness to the world.

So Jesus blows their mind with his pronouncement, then blows their mind with his sudden departure.  This was not at all what they expected.  (That was a recurring theme for the disciples with Jesus the whole year.). So they are just staring up at the clouds, with that dumb, clueless look on their faces.   Just staring at the cloud….Until God sends a couple of angels:

Acts 1:10-11  And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

“Stop staring at the sky.  He’ll come back, but not today.  Go do what he told you to do.”

We don’t realize the importance of the ascension, so we find ourselves asking questions.  Perhaps you’ve thought about some of these:
Why did Jesus have to go?
Wouldn’t it have been better if Jesus had just stayed on earth?
Why did he have to leave for the Holy Spirit to come?
What is Jesus doing up there anyway?   
Are any of these your questions?

We talk all the time about what Jesus has done on earth (his life, death, and resurrection), and we like to talk about what he will do when he comes back, but we rarely talk about what Jesus is doing right now.  I think we would better understand the ascension if we realized how it fits into the big story of the Bible.

But the problem is that many people don’t have a firm grip on the Bible’s story. We talk a lot about heaven and earth, and some people get the idea that one day, we will leave Earth and go to heaven. But the Bible does not really view heaven and earth as two distinct, separate geographic locations. We need to think in terms of “God’s space” and “our space” and how they were the same in the beginning in Genesis 1-2.  

It helps to picture this, and I think the people at the Bible Project have done the best job illustrating this concept.  So please take 6 minutes and learn much as you see their video.

The Bible discusses the ascension almost as part of the resurrection.  Jesus was dead, then he rose from the grave in bodily form, but a glorified body (It was recognizable but not so easily.  He was able to pass through walls or appear instantly.).  But it is still a human body, bearing the scars of his crucifixion.  He rises from the dead, then stops off here, like a short layover for 40 days for some unfinished business.  He wants to ensure the disciples accept his return to life by seeing him.  He needs to make sure their guilt over denying him does not keep them from doing the work, and then he needs to give them final instructions on their ministry and the need to wait on the gift of the Spirit.

Then he ascends in his glorified human body to sit at the right hand of the Father.  So we have Jesus, in his human body, in God’s space.  The New Testament writers often speak of Jesus’ exaltation: his resurrection, rising to heaven, and enthronement as one process, the ascension.  Jesus has opened the door for us to be with God again one day.

Jesus tried to explain this to Nicodemus:

John 3:13-15   No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

No one ascends to God’s space except Jesus.  The only way we go is if we go with him.  There is no other way.  The Son of Man must be lifted up — This encompasses the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension.  Jesus was lifted up on the cross, lifted up from the grave, and then lifted up into the skies.  Because of this, we may have “eternal life,” which is life in God’s space.

And what is Jesus doing there?  Jesus is at the right hand of God, acting as our high priest.  In the Bible, priests served God and God’s people by mediating between God and man before God’s altar, where God’s space and our space meet.  The book of Hebrews is full of statements of how Jesus is fulfilling the priestly role in God’s space now.  I will discuss three of these priestly roles Jesus is doing now:  He intercedes for us; He presents a sacrifice for us, and He provides a blessing to us.

Hebrews 7:25  Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

What does Jesus’ intercession look like? You have heard Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” But did you realize that verse was talking about Jesus’ intercessory role?

Romans 8:31-34   “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Who can be against us?  Who can be our accuser?  Remember in the book of Job, when the Satan (the accuser) comes to bring a charge against Job?  Paul tells us no one can bring a charge against those in Christ.  Let the accuser come.  He has no charges to bring against us because Jesus has taken them all away on the cross.  Jesus is at God’s throne, so no one can come to accuse.  If Jesus is for us, then no one can come against us.  He is always making intercession for us, speaking to the Father on our behalf.   

As Jesus in His final days prayed for Peter:

Luke 22:31   Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

Jesus is in heaven, praying for you that your faith will not fail.   And Jesus understands your temptation.  Look at this passage in Hebrews 4:14-16.  First verse 14:

Hebrews 4:14  Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 

The fact that Jesus is present as our high priest in the throne room of God should encourage us.

Hebrews 4:15  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Humanity is represented in heaven right now, because Jesus is there in his human body, his glorified human body.   Jesus did not give up his humanity, so he can better represent us there.  He understands us.  He has been where you are, experiencing all the temptations, all the weaknesses.  Jesus knows us.  He gets us.  And he speaks to the Father on our behalf.

Hebrews 4:16   Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

So then, we can come to God’s throne when we are in need with confidence. We don’t approach God’s throne as a lowly subject fearful of the King’s response, but we come sure in the grace of our Lord Jesus, confident that he has paved the way to the throne with intercession.

Remember a few weeks ago we talked about the difference in the 2 fig trees (April 27, 28 A.D.  – Jesus rides in a parade, rearranges furniture, and kills a tree.— The Year of the Lord’s Favor #80). Jesus tells a parable in Luke 13:6-9 of a fig tree that should have fruit but does not for three years. The owner wants to dig it up and discard it, but it is given another chance.   Then, in his final week, Jesus sees a tree that should have fruit, but does not, and it dies.  Why does this tree wither, but the other gets another chance?   Because the tree in the parable has an intercessor, someone to speak for it and ask for another chance.  Jesus is our intercessor, sitting by the Father, seeking mercy and forgiveness for us.

We often ask our friends to pray for us, to intercede for us.  And that is a good thing.  But sometimes we may forget to pray for each other.   Jesus is at the Father’s right hand, praying for you.  He is lifting you up by name.  He is speaking to the Father, calling you his brother or sister.  He is praying, O Father, help her see the truth of this scripture.  Father, help her understand how she should respond.  Oh, what a Savior!

Secondly, Jesus, our High Priest, provides a sacrifice for us.

Hebrews 5:1 “For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.”

Just as the altar stands between the holy place and the people, the priest stands between the people and God.  He offers a sacrifice to God on behalf of the people and then offers a blessing from God to the people.  And once a year, and only once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would make an offering and prepare himself, then ascend the 12 steps leading up to the thick curtain that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies.  This curtain or veil was embroidered with cherubim, signifying the priest was entering God’s space.  He would take the blood of the offering to present to God by sprinkling it on the mercy seat.  

Every year, this would be repeated to make atonement for the sins of all the people.  But it was not a perfect system.  The priests were also sinners and had to make offerings for their sins constantly.  But they looked forward to a time when there would be a great high priest who could ascend to God’s space without sin.

David asked in Psalm 24:

Psalm 24:3-4  “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”

And this would be fulfilled in Jesus.  He was without sin, he had clean hands and a pure heart.  He is the only one worthy to ascend to God’s space and stand in God’s presence.  And because we are covered with his righteousness, we will stand in God’s presence.

Hebrews 9:11-14   “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

The sacrifice Jesus makes for us is himself, a perfect sacrifice. Though the high priest would enter the holy of holies only once a year,  priests in Israel would make many sacrifices every day.  Besides the offerings that people brought, twice a day, every day, a lamb was sacrificed, called the tamid offering, for the sins of the people.  Tamid means “continual” or “constant.”  Their sacrifices were never complete.

Hebrews 10:11-14   And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Unlike the earthly high priest who had to make sacrifices daily, Jesus’ perfect sacrifice is once for all.  His crucified body, still bearing the scars, is always before the Father as our perfect sacrifice.  No other blood sacrifices are needed.

The third aspect of the work of the high priest that Jesus is fulfilling for us is blessing. In the Old Testament, when the high priest completed his sacrifices, he left the tent of meeting, lifted up his hands, and blessed the people.  We see this initiated with Moses and Aaron:

Leviticus 9:23   And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of Yehovah appeared to all the people.

And the book of Numbers gives us the blessing they would use.

Numbers 6:22-27   Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
‘Yehovah bless you and keep you;
Yehovah make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
Yehovah lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’
So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Aaron and the priests were to place God’s name, Yehovah, on them and bless them.  The blessing is the presence of God among them, shining his face on them, regarding them, and giving them peace.  Peace is shalom, wholeness, peace with God and man.

And what blessing does our High Priest, Jesus, grant us from the heavens?  Jesus enters God’s presence and then, as priests of old did, sends us the blessing of God’s presence.  But this blessing of presence comes not as the priests of old placing God’s name on them.  This blessing of presence comes by placing God himself in us, in the person of the Holy Spirit, sent in the name of Jesus, Yeshua, to dwell with us.  This presence of God within us will enlighten us and give us shalom.

John 14:25-27  “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

John 16:7   Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

Like the High Priests of old, Jesus had to present himself as the sacrifice before the Father in God’s space, the heavenly temple. After presenting the sacrifice, He gave the blessing of the Holy Spirit. That is why Jesus had to ascend before the Spirit could be sent down.

With his ascension, the door was opened from God’s space to our space. He has not only made our eventual ascension possible but also opened the door for God to come in a more tangible way into our space.  Individuals in the Old Testament were temporarily clothed with the Holy Spirit to do specific deeds: leaders like Saul and David, craftsmen like Bezalel, and prophets like Ezekiel and Daniel. But when Jesus enters God’s space in his glorified human body, He opens the door for God’s spirit to come upon all believers, not just temporarily, but to live with us. He cleanses us from sin so we can be fit vessels of God’s Holy Spirit.  

What about those who think it would be better if Jesus had stayed on earth?  Wouldn’t it be great for Jesus to be right here now?  We could ask him questions, get his advice, and watch him work.  Yes, but remember when Jesus was here in 28 AD, he was limited in his human form.  He could only be in one place at a time.  And this is a big world.  He was only able to minister to a relative few.  But now that same spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, is with every believer, every day, every hour.  He is available to answer our questions and give us advice.  Oh, we need to learn to listen to his voice and open our eyes to see him at work all around us.

So we have seen that Jesus had to ascend to God’s space to complete his work of salvation, to continue his work of intercession, and to convey his blessing of the Holy Spirit from God’s space to ours.

The ascension is Jesus’ enthronement.  He sits on the throne at the Father’s right hand to do all these things and then one day to come again, to establish his complete rule by making God’s space and Man’s space one again.  And so shall we ever be with the Lord.

  1. Schreiner, Patrick.  The Ascension of Christ: Recovering a Neglected Doctrine (Snapshots).   Page 7.
  2. Isaiah 32:15-20, 44:3-5, Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26, Joel 2:28-3:1, Zechariah 12:8-10

An addendum on the Gospel of Mark ending that contains the ascension:
There are two Gospel passages that tell about Jesus’ ascension.  However, most scholars agree that the passage in Mark is not part of the original document of Mark’s Gospel, but was appended by some unknown person over two hundred years later.  The early church fathers, before 300 AD, did not have Mark 16:9-20 in their copies of Mark.  Church historian Eusebius, in 320, had access to many manuscripts of Mark, and he remarked that this passage was missing in almost all manuscripts.  Ending the Book of Mark at 16:8 is a rather abrupt conclusion, and apparently someone ‘borrowed’ material from other gospel writers to make a more thorough conclusion.  

This is one of just a few passages that scholars agree have been appended to the scriptures.  You may find them enclosed in brackets or with a footnote in modern versions of the Bible.  None of them are important variations, theologically speaking.  

I cannot find any source that discusses where the verses on drinking poison and picking up serpents came from.  There is a verse in Luke 10:19, and Paul was inadvertently bitten by a viper with no ill effects, but nothing else I can find.  (If you know of something, please let me know.). In the Tyndale Commentary, Alan Cole says this: “It would be unwise, however, to build a theological position upon these verses alone; and this no responsible Christian group has ever done.”

And I sat in the furthest back pew (there were only 5), one evening at a small church near Kingston, Georgia, who did just that.  They had that verse from Mark inscribed around the tops of the walls at the front of the church.  There was a lot of music, several snakes were handled, but no one took the Coke bottle with clear liquid on the altar.  While I can’t agree with their theology or practice, I admired their resolve.  May we be so bold as to do what Jesus asks us to do.

June 15  – Shavuot (Pentecost) — Acts #2

David Chupp Acts , , , , ,

Acts #2 — Shavuot (Pentecost)
Acts 2:1-13
(Cross-posted in the 70 weeks with Jesus section.)

We have reached week 70 in our study. We began in January, looking at John the Baptist as the forerunner to Jesus. The 70-week study of Jesus’ ministry started on February 16th, with Jesus’ baptism. We have followed Jesus week by week as he traveled about, teaching, healing, and discipling his small group. 

As I was looking back this week, I asked many people this question: “What is the climax of Jesus’ ministry?”  Most said the climax was the crucifixion or the resurrection, which are good answers.  But to decide on the climax of the story, let’s review the plot, the story of the Bible, which is all about Jesus.

God created a world and people and said it was good.  And God and his people lived together in the same space we call the Garden of Eden.  But sin came in Genesis 3 and broke the fellowship between God and his people.  Sin and death entered the world.  And the rest of the Bible is the story of how God is working to restore his relationship with his people, to reunite heaven and earth.   

In Exodus, God tells Moses to build a tabernacle, “So I can dwell with them.” God establishes his presence in this small people group, leading them with a pillar of fire and cloud.  Later, Temples were built as places where God’s and man’s space could overlap. But even with constant sacrifice, sin is not completely dealt with. People continue to be rebellious.  

So Jesus comes, Emmanuel, God with us.  And for a short time, God is present with us in the person of Jesus.  Through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, sin and death are defeated so that we have the possibility of eternal life with God.  And then in his ascension to the Father and his enthronement at the Father’s right hand, He serves as our High Priest and from there sends us the blessing of the Father, which is God’s presence with all of us.  In Jesus, God is fulfilling his goal of communion with us by sending the Holy Spirit to live in us.  And we have become temples, filled with God’s presence, where God’s space and man’s space overlap.   Is this the climax?

God is not finished, because the day is coming when Jesus will return to complete his work.  He is coming again to bring a complete end to sin and death and to restore God’s kingdom over all, and heaven and earth will be one again.  That is the day that the prayer you constantly pray will be answered.   “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  This is the climax of Jesus’ ministry – when he returns and God has completed his redemption of the world.

But today we are talking about the arrival of the Holy Spirit.  Just before he ascended, Jesus told the disciples the Holy Spirit was coming in a few days.  They were to wait in Jerusalem until then.  And what did they do while they were waiting?

Luke 24:50-53   While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.”

First, they worshipped right there.  Then they returned to Jerusalem.   And how did they spend their time there?  They were continually blessing God.  And where were they meeting to bless God?  The Jewish Temple.   What does it mean to bless God?   Blessing is from the root word to ‘bend the knee.’   We praise and thank God for who he is and what he has done.  And Jesus, as a young boy, was taught the traditional Jewish blessings.  It seemed that there was a blessing for everything. 100 blessings a day.

When we wake up: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has given me today the breath of life.” When we have food: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.” And when we go to bed:  “Blessed is He who brings sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids.”

Blessing God — this is how we worship God every day, everywhere.

Worshipping While Waiting.  Do you like to wait?  I have to confess that I am not good at waiting. I can, at times, be annoyingly impatient, especially when driving. The light turns green, and suddenly, the three seconds it takes the car in front of me to go seem an eternity.  Am I the only one like this?  The disciples took advantage of this time of waiting to bless God.

So, this past week, I experimented with finding reasons to thank or bless God anytime I found myself waiting, worshiping in waiting. At 5:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning, driving from Georgia to Alabama, at the four red lights in a row (with no other cars present), I am blessing God.  “Blessed are you, our Lord, King of the universe, who has made such a beautiful day.  Blessed are you, Yehovah, who has created coffee so I can be fully awake.”

Later that trip, I got behind a large truck doing 15 mph up the mountain in Crossville. (This happens almost every time.) But this time, instead of complaining to myself about the delay, I am blessing God.  “Blessed are you, our Lord, king of the Universe, who has given me a chance to see this amazing view off the mountain.”  Let me tell you, it was a much better drive.

The disciples didn’t know exactly when the Spirit would come.  Jesus told them the Father’s timing was not for them to know.  

Why is God waiting 10 days?  What is He waiting for?  When you study the scriptures, you find God is very intentional with his timing.  The Old Testament often speaks of the “fullness of time.”  Jesus says over and over in his Gospels, “My hour has not yet come,” until he prays in Gethsemane, and then says, “The hour has come.”  God makes sure that Jesus is crucified as the Passover lambs are being slain, and he is resurrected on the day of the Feast of FirstFruits.  So it should not come as a surprise that God is setting up the coming of the blessing of the Holy Spirit at a special time.

Pentecost is from the Greek pentekostos, meaning “50″, because it is 50 days from Passover.  By the time of Jesus, the Jews had been celebrating that day for over a thousand years.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is called Shavuot, which translates into ‘sevens’ or ‘weeks.’   Leviticus 23 commanded them to count seven ‘sevens’ or seven weeks and then one day.  Then there was a special offering with grain and animals, as well as a special reading and convocation.  (Leviticus 23:15-21).   This was one of the three feasts that the scripture required all males to attend and make an offering.  (Deuteronomy 16:16).  So, as in Passover, the city is packed with over a hundred thousand Jews from all over the known world who have made their way to Jerusalem for this special day, bringing offerings of thanksgiving for God’s blessings.  

Isn’t it interesting that God tells them to count up 50 days?   The scriptures specify the day that the Passover falls as the 14th day of the 1st month.  But the Bible never says that Shavuot is on the 6th day of the third month.  It simply says to count the days.  For 50 days, they have a special grain offering in the Temple and would make a ceremony of counting the days.  It is all about anticipation.  Something great is coming.  

Shavuot is a harvest celebration.  As Passover and Firstfruits celebrate the barley harvest, Shavuot, 50 days later, celebrates the wheat harvest. But they are both more than harvest celebrations.  Passover celebrates the night they were spared the death of the firstborn, and they escaped bondage in Egypt.   Shavuot also commemorates the giving of the law on Mt Sinai, which Exodus tells us happened 50 days after the first Passover.

We talked about how seven is the number of completeness throughout the Bible.  If seven is completeness, the eighth in the series is the beginning of something new.  In Genesis, God set up the week of seven days; the eighth day is the start of a new week.  We have seen many examples of sevens in the Gospel of John.  Jesus has seven table meals in John’s Gospel with people; the eighth is after the resurrection.  There are seven confessions people make about Jesus, and then the eighth one, after the resurrection, is the one that is new and different.  For the first time, He is recognized as God.  The eighth of something is new.  So we count 7 weeks, seven sevens — complete completeness, then the next day is something radically new —Pentecost.  God is doing a new thing.   To the Jews in Jesus’ day, the new thing was the giving of the law.

And that encounter with God at Mount Sinai was dramatic and powerful.  The mountain is filled with fire and smoke and noise, with the whole mountain shaking violently.  The people were filled with fear and refused to go up the mountain as God had invited them, so they sent Moses for them.   We have discussed this powerful manifestation of God seen here, and how it is repeated at the dedication of the tabernacle with the cloud and fire consuming the sacrifice and God’s glory filling the space. 

This same overwhelming presence of God was seen again at the dedication of Solomon’s temple.  Again, fire came down from heaven, consuming the sacrifice, and again, God’s glory filled the Temple. But the people continued to rebel, and you remember that God punished his people for their sin by allowing the foreign nation of Babylon to conquer them.  

Ezekiel, the prophet, saw in a vision the presence of God leaving Solomon’s Temple.  Then the temple and the city of Jerusalem were destroyed, and all the people taken captive.  Seventy years later, when they returned to the land of Israel, they rebuilt the temple and had this grand dedication service.  But unlike the dedication of the tabernacle, unlike the dedication of Solomon’s temple, this time, God did not show up.  There was no fire, no wind, no cloud, and no sound.  God did not return because the sins that led to their exile still remained.  They had not repented.

But God revealed to Ezekiel that though God had abandoned this Temple, He had not abandoned His people.  One day, he would return to His temple.   And all the prophets in the Old Testament looked forward to this time when God would return.  As the final prophet in the Old Testament, Malachi said:

Malachi 3:1    Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly return to his temple;

And they waited, and they waited… 400 years they waited.   Until that messenger that Malachi spoke of came… John the Baptist – the one crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord.  And then, about 16 months later, God finally returns to the temple.

God comes to the temple in the form of Jesus.  He comes riding on a donkey as King David and Solomon did.  And he enters the temple on that Palm Sunday.  But he comes not to be praised, but to judge.  That is when he overturns the tables of the crooked money changers and drives out the corrupt animal salesmen.  He comes with harsh words of judgment for the religious leaders of the day.  And they kill him.  And he is resurrected, but he does not return to the temple again.  He is coming back to the temple just as Ezekiel and the other Old Testament prophets foresaw, but not yet.  Just look at the picture God is painting in history:

For 400 years, the children of Israel were held in slavery in Egypt.  400 years of waiting for redemption.  And Passover comes, and they are delivered from slavery, passing through the sea and traveling 50 days to Mount Sinai, where God’s presence shows up in mighty form.  Then you skip forward in history, and after the last prophet spoke in the Old Testament, for 400 years, they waited for God to return to His Temple. For 400 years, they waited for redemption. And Passover comes again, and through the death of Jesus on the cross, deliverance comes from slavery to sin. And then 50 days later, God’s presence comes in a mighty way to his temple. It is Pentecost. Could God make this any clearer?  He is about to intervene in history again, like he did at Sinai.

Let’s see what happened when God’s presence came on that first day of Shavuot, when God came on Sinai. But first, we have to realize that things of God are hard for the writers of the Bible to describe.  They are trying to represent in words something we don’t have the words to explain or the context to understand.   When Ezekiel sees God leaving the temple, he tries to give us a picture of what he is seeing, God’s throne chariot, but it is indescribable.  So he talks about wheels inside wheels that move in any direction, made of jewels, and multi-faced animals, and well, it is nothing I can picture.  

God is so much greater, so different that we cannot adequately describe his appearance.  So descriptions of God’s appearance or the descriptions of Heaven (God’s space) in Revelation are … well… just bizarre.  The Bible writers do the best they can, but it is like trying to explain a rocket ship to a caveman, or to explain colors to someone who has been blind from birth.  With that in mind, let’s look at how God’s presence at Sinai is described.  

Exodus 20:18   Now, when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled.

Our translators are trying to translate what it says in Hebrew, but they are having problems. Did they ” see” the thunder?  In Hebrew, it actually says,  “When all people saw the voice.” That Hebrew word appears over 500 times in the Bible and is almost always translated as voice, except in Exodus. They use “thunder” to try to describe God’s voice.

Look what Job says about God’s voice:

Job 37:2-4   Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice, to the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth.
After that comes the sound of his roar; He thunders with his majestic voice.
When his voice resounds, He holds nothing back.

So the people “saw the voice of God” and  then “flashes of lightning.”  “Flashes of lightning” is one Hebrew word, “lappidim,” which is always translated as “torches” except in this verse.    This is not lightning.  There is another Hebrew word for lighting (barak) used 21 times in the Bible.  These are pieces of fire that are moving or, as the modern Tyndale commentary says, “fireballs”, like in Abraham’s vision of God.1  Or as Jerry Lee Lewis would say, “Great balls of fire.”2

Many times in the Bible, the voice of God is visualized as flames of fire.  Here is one example in the Psalms

Psalm 29:7   The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.
  The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness.

So when God’s mighty presence comes at Mount Sinai, it is hard to describe, but the people see the voice of God like fireballs, and it thunders and roars. Over 1000 years later, on the same day of the year, at the celebration of that Sinai moment, God’s presence comes again on the Temple Mount.  And how does Luke describe it?

Acts 2:1-3 “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.”

Notice he doesn’t feel the wind but hears the sound of a “mighty rushing wind”.  In Greek, a “violent” wind.  Have you ever been close to a tornado?  One day, my family huddled in our hall when one passed by.  The sound has been described as a freight train, a thundering, rumbling, howling sound.  It is a frightening sound.

A flame comes and divides itself into tongues of fire.  Tongue in Greek can mean the actual muscle in your mouth or, more commonly, ‘tongue’ is a language.  (We still use the term, “native tongue.”). A few verses later, when it says the disciples speak in “other tongues,” it is, of course, not saying they had different muscles in their mouth, but they spoke different languages.3  As in Sinai, fire divides into pieces, ‘tongues’ or ‘balls’ of fire.  God’s presence is being manifested in much the same way as it was at Sinai. 4 Again, Luke is trying to describe God’s presence, and like the writer of Exodus, he does the best he can.

What we can see is that the day the Old Testament prophets had looked forward to has arrived. God’s presence has finally returned to the Temple after over 400 years of waiting. But where do the flames come from to rest? Not on the Temple building, as when God came to the Tabernacle and Solomon’s temple, but on the disciples’ heads.  The temple that God returned to was not the physical building there, not Herod’s Temple.  They waited over 400 years for God to return to His Temple, and he has.  But the temple is us. 

1 Corinthians 3:16   Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 

Jeremiah had seen this coming. 

Jeremiah 31:33   For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Who is there in the temple on that Pentecost?   Jews from all over the world gathered for the required feast—the whole house of Israel.  At the first Shavuot, God gave them the law on stone tablets.  But Jeremiah saw the day coming, a new Shavuot with a new covenant: “I will put my law within them.”  The word they translate as “law” is the Hebrew word ‘Torah.’  And Torah can mean law, or the first five books of the Bible, but it literally means “God’s instructions for living.”   If we listen to and follow the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit within us will teach us how to live.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Again, the Holy Spirit within us will “cause us to follow God’s instructions”.   The Spirit will show us how to live and follow God’s rules.  And just after this passage is the vision God gave Ezekiel of the spirit coming.  There was a valley full of dried-up bones.  And God asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones come back to life?”  It sure didn’t look like it.  They were dead and dried up and lying in the sand.  But God said, “I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.”   And the breath came into them, and they stood and came to life.   

And God tells Ezekiel the meaning of the vision.  The bones are the house of Israel, which is dried up without hope.  But God is going to breathe life into them.  Remember that the Hebrew word for breath is Ruach, the same word for wind or spirit.  In Genesis 1, the Spirit is hovering over the face of the waters.   Then God takes the dust and breathes life into the dust.  God places his breath, his spirit, in us.   Breath is life. 

When a baby is born, it appears lifeless at first, which can be scary. Then, it is stimulated and takes its first breath, and with that first breath come signs of life: movement and crying.  If you have ever witnessed a death, there is that last breath, a final exhale of breath from their lungs.  You can see how long ago people understood breath as life. Breath enters, and there is life; breath leaves, and there is death.  That is why they used the same word for breath, wind, and spirit (in Hebrew ‘ruach’ and in Greek ‘pneuma’). God tells us it is His Spirit, His Ruach, that gives us life.

People look at the Church in the world and see decreasing attendance in worship and decreasing membership, and they say the Church is dying.  I don’t believe that.  Because life is not measured in numbers, numerical growth does not determine life.  It is the spirit that gives life.  If we can learn to accept the presence of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, then we live.  But so many don’t even consider the presence of God’s spirit in them.

Paul tells his apprentice Timothy:

2 Timothy 1:6   Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,”

We need to be fanning the flame in ourselves.  When you invite God into your life, He comes as the Holy Spirit, that fireball from God.  We need to feed that fire by listening to the Spirit, agreeing with the Spirit, and following the Spirit.

Paul repeatedly tells us not to ignore God’s Spirit in our lives.

1 Thessalonians 5:19  Do not quench the Spirit.”
Ephesians 4:30   Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit is within us to instruct us, lead us, and make our character more like Jesus so that we will look like him.  The spirit within us causes us to produce this fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;”

This is what a disciple of Jesus looks like.  This is the effect of God’s Holy Spirit in a person.  

Maybe, like me, you look at this list of nine attributes and realize you aren’t listening to the Spirit as much as you should.  Today is a good day to begin being a better listener and follower.

Let me add one more connection between that first Pentecost, that first Shavuot at Mount Sinai, and the Pentecost in Acts 2.  Do you remember when Moses was up on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God? What was going on with the people of Israel?   They have given up on Moses and made a golden calf to worship.   And God sent a plague on the people, and those who were guilty were affected and were then slain by the Levites.  And 3000 died that day (Exodus 32:28).

After the Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost, Peter preaches a sermon. Many decide to follow Jesus and are baptized. How many?

Acts 2:41 “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

God is redeeming here what was lost before.  God is still in the business of redeeming that which was lost.  And those 3000 Jews from all over the known world who just got baptized will head back to their home countries the next day.   Do you see what God just did there?  3000 missionaries spreading the Gospel to the world, all sent in one day.

And there is a world beyond our doors that is broken and lost.  And God, through His Holy Spirit in us, desires that no one perish, but all come to repentance.  Remember Jesus telling his disciples (John 14.12) that they would do greater works than he did because he was going to the Father? Jesus goes to the Father so he can send us the blessing of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of Christ lives in us.  We need to be doing great things.

  1. Cole, R. Alan.  Tyndale Complete Commentary, Exodus.  
  2. The phrase “Great Balls of Fire!” became popular in the southern United States in the mid-1800s, according to “Phrase Finder” (internet website) based on the references in Exodus, as the presence of God indicated by fire.  The phrase became more popular in the South after being quoted multiple times by Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind” (1939).  But the best-known use of the phrase was in the song popularized by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1957, “Great Balls of Fire.” Lyrics and music by Otis Blackwell and Earl Burroughs.
  3. Notice that what happens at Pentecost, with all of the people able to understand each other as if they all had the same language, is the reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel in Genesis.  Those people were arrogantly trying to build their own way to heaven.  At Pentecost, God is making a way for heaven to come to people.
  4. Where did this happen?  Tradition from the 5th century says it was at the Upper Room, where they also had the Last Supper.  But a look at the Scripture makes that less likely.   It is happening on the day of the Feastival of Shavuot, a one-day festival.   The scripture tells us they were in the Temple “continually.”  Peter mentions the time in his sermon after the Spirit comes as 9:00 am.  The temple services typically began with the first Tamid offering at 9 am.  And this service is one of the three times that the Scriptures say is required attendance. They would not have missed the service that is the highlight of the one-day celebration.  And the Scriptures mention that 3000 responded to Peter’s sermon and were baptized.  This had to happen in or near the temple grounds to have a place large enough for a crowd this large to hear them speak, and then to have a place to baptize that many.  There were over 50 mikveh near the Temple Mount, for people to immerse themselves in before entry into the Temple.