The Significations of Pentecost

The Significations of Pentecost 

 

Two significations of the first Pentecost after our Lord’s resurrection were stressed by Richard Ebler in his lesson for our Bible class. The first of these was Its fulfillment of the typology integral to the days of Pentecost which had preceded it. Known as the harvest feast, or feast of weeks, It was also a feast of firstfruits, since the two loaves made of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were presented to the Lord on that occasion (Exod. 34:22). 

 

The fulfillment of this typology was in the fact that the Pentecost coming seven weeks (inclusively) after Jesus’ resurrection marked a great harvest of souls. In turn, this could be said to be the firstfruits of the gospel and, as such, the pledge, or earnest, of a multitude which no man can number who will respond to and be saved by the gospel ere the day of grace has run its course. 

 

Further antitypicality was seen in Pentecost regarding the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. The law was given fifty days after the deliverance of Israel from Egypt (cf. Exo. 12 and 19), and the gospel went “forth from Jerusalem” fifty days after Christ’s death, which marked our deliverance from sin (Isa. 2:1-4). 

 

At the giving of the law, it is to be noted, 3,000 were slain because of their sin, while on the Day of Pentecost, when the gospel was first proclaimed, 3,000 were saved by their obedience. That contrast is indicative of the law as a “ministration of death” (II Cor. 3:7), whereas the gospel is one of justification and life (v. 9). 

 

The fact that on Pentecost God gave the Apostles to so speak that the peoples of various languages present heard them in their own tongues (Acts 2 :6-12) was noted by Brother Dick as a marked contrast with God’s confusion of the people’s tongues at the tower of Babel, as a result of their presumptuous endeavor to circumvent Him. 

 

So does God honor His Old-Testament ordinances and types, the teacher remarked. Consequently, we should have great respect for the ordinances of the new-covenant era, which He has ordained. To lightly regard or despise them, is to do so with reference to God, whence they are. --Noted and recorded by Fred O. Blakely