Acts 2

 2:1.  First Fruits (Lev.23:9-14) was observed the day after Sabbath (Sunday) during Passover week.  The priest waved a sheaf of the new grain harvest before the Lord.  Jesus, our high priest, brought himself before the heavenly Father and waved his perfect life as an offering before the Lord for our sakes.

     “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”

      “But each in his own order:  Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at his coming.”  1 Cor.15:20, 23.

     Pentecost was the completion of the spring grain harvest.  From First Fruits, seven Sabbaths were counted, and the day after the seventh Sabbath, fifty days, was Pentecost.  This was the New Grain Offering, also called the Feast of Weeks.  A wave offering of bread baked with leaven was offered (with other things) and a proclamation was made to the gathered people (Lev.23:15-21; Ps.67).

     2:2-4.  Presumably, those gathered here are the same mentioned in 1:15, both men and women, who numbered “about one hundred and twenty persons.”  It is probable that all of them, not just the apostles, received this baptism as of fire by the Holy Spirit.

     2:5-21.  The gift of tongues that they received was a gift of clearly understood alien languages.  That was the marvel of it.  It was not the inferior gift of tongues (glossolalia) which “no one understands”  (1 Cor.14:2).  Those who mocked (13) were not the amazed visitors who heard in their own language, but the men of Judea (14), who dismissed the whole thing with a joke about the babbling of wine bibbers.  It is these men especially that Peter addresses.  He and the eleven are those specially commissioned as witnesses, but the passage from Joel 2:28-32 makes it plain that the Spirit has been poured forth on them all, men and women alike, and all are prophesying.  Peter is the one who preaches to make clear to the crowd what has happened, and what they are to do.

     2:22-24.  These three verses are some of the most pointed in all the Bible in setting forth the plain truth of man’s rebellion, and God’s overruling sovereignty and grace.  As Joseph told his brothers who had sold him into slavery, “…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive”  (Gen.50:20).

     2:24.  For “the agony of death,” the margin reads, “lit., birth pangs” of death.

     “Christ’s death pangs were birth pangs” (Thomas Boston).  His labor brings forth children unto God (cf. Is.53:11).

      2:25-29.  Peter quotes Ps.16:8-11.  Here again, see how the apostle uses the OT Psalms as the very words of Christ, spoken prophetically through the mouth of David.  They applied to David, but as Peter shows, the words only have their complete fulfillment in Christ (29; see also 1:16; Heb.10:5ff.).

     2:30.   Note the margin, “Lit., of the fruit of his loins.”  This is God’s covenant with David.  See Ps.132:11; 2 Sam.7:12f.; Ps.89:3f.

     2:32-33.  Their witness is vital.  This testimony must be believed.  Christ did not show himself to the world.

     2:34-36.  Peter closes with Ps.110:1, and gives them the answer to Jesus’ riddle from it, “If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?” (see Mt.22:44-45).  God has made David’s seed (whom they crucified!) both Lord and Christ.

     2:37-47.  They were pierced to the heart.  This is a mortal wound.  A lighter wound will not do (cf.5:33), but the promise of eternal life is applied to all those who come in true repentance, and trusting in the name of Jesus.   The sign and seal of baptism is given to them, to their children, and to any at all whom the Lord calls.  This saving gift of the Holy Spirit (38) is not like the temporary and visible gifts.  This invisible gift is the sure promise of new life for the dead, eternal life in Christ the living One (27-28).

     2:43.  The signs that confirmed the words of Jesus (22) also accompanied his words given through the mouths of the apostles (cf. Acts 14:3; 2 Cor.12:12).