Pentecost: The Gift Christ Pours Out

Pentecost is the day the ascended Christ poured out the Spirit upon his Church. The Spirit himself is eternal, of one being with the Father and the Son, and he has been at work since before the world was made. What is new at Pentecost is not the Spirit but his outpouring on the Church in fulfillment of an ancient promise: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33).

The Spirit Christ pours out is the Spirit who has been with him all along. Basil of Caesarea, writing in the fourth century, called the Holy Spirit Christ’s “inseparable companion.” (On the Holy Spirit, p. 56). The Spirit overshadowed Mary at the conception (Luke 1:35). The Spirit descended on Jesus at the Jordan (Luke 3:22). The Spirit drove him into the wilderness (Mark 1:12) and sustained him through the 40 days of testing. Through the eternal Spirit Jesus offered himself unblemished to God (Heb. 9:14). By the Spirit of holiness he was declared Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). Sinclair Ferguson rightly says the Spirit was the constant companion of the Son “from womb to tomb to throne” (Michael S. Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, 55).

Feast of Grace

This matters as we think about what Pentecost means. The Spirit who comes upon the church at Pentecost is the Spirit of Christ. He has accompanied the Son through every step of his saving work, and he comes to us bearing the character of the one he glorifies. To receive him is to receive Christ. To be filled with him is to be conformed to Christ. Pentecost is not a generic infusion of divine power. It is the personal presence of the risen Lord with his people, by his Spirit, until the end of the age.

This is why Pentecost is finally a feast of grace. The Spirit is not a reward for achievement. He is not given to those who earn him. He is the gift the Father promised to the Son, and the gift the Son gives to those for whom he died. Michael Horton puts it well: the Spirit “is the mediator of, not the surrogate for, Christ’s person and work.” (Horton, 55). Christ has not left us. By his Spirit, he has come closer than he could be in the flesh. Where the Word is preached and the bread is broken, he is given to us by the Spirit. The Spirit is how the ascended Christ keeps his promise: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

This also reframes what it means to live the Christian life. We do not have to climb our way into the Spirit’s presence. Many Christians live with a quiet anxiety that they need to work harder to find the Spirit. The gospel of Pentecost is the opposite: He has been given. He has been poured out. The real pastoral question is whether we are walking in step with the Spirit we have already received. Paul tells the Ephesians, “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18), and the verb is present continuous tense, which means “keep on being filled with the Spirit.” The disciples filled at Pentecost are filled again in Acts 4:31 to speak with boldness. Stephen, already “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5), receives a fresh filling as the stones begin to fall (Acts 7:55). The Christian life is a life of continual receiving from the Lord who gives without measure (John 3:34).

For ordinary Christians in ordinary parishes, this looks like the means of grace. The Spirit comes to us through the Word read and preached, through baptism and Eucharist, and through prayer, all of which the gathered church receives together. Our forebears in the faith kept these things at the center of Christian life because Christ himself placed them there and the Spirit had bound himself to them. Augustine called the visible signs of the church the “visible Word” (Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 80.3 and Contra Faustum 19.16).

Through them the Spirit applies what Christ accomplished. He brings the death and resurrection of Jesus into our present and makes them ours.

Missionary Feast

Pentecost is one of the seven Principal Feasts of the church year, and it is also a missionary feast. The tongues of fire that fall on the apostles signal the unbinding of the gospel. The Spirit who at Babel scattered the nations now gathers them. The promise made to Abraham, that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3), begins to unfold in public. Samaritans, Gentiles, disciples of John, all are brought into one body by one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). Pentecost is the gospel reaching out beyond the walls of the upper room. It always has been.

So we keep this feast not as memorialists, looking back to a wonder that happened to other people, but as participants. The Spirit poured out then is the same Spirit poured out now. The Lord who sent him then sends him still. We were sealed in union with Christ by the Spirit at the font, and we are fed Christ by the Spirit at the table. We come not as those who have earned a place but as those who have been given one. The Father promised. The Son secured. The Spirit applies. And we receive him again, not because we have run dry but because the Father – in his kindness – keeps giving him to us.

Come, Holy Spirit. Come and bring us Christ. Come and send us out.