This Sunday is Pentecost, and so today I'm borrowing an essay my brother, Joshua Barber, wrote, for blog-fodder. It's a meditation on what it means that the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples on the day that was traditionally celebrated as the day that Moses received the Law. Enjoy!
-Jessica Snell
Lawless Men, Red-lettered Days:
A Discussion on the Significance of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit in the Jewish Tradition as Compared to the Christian Tradition
If bliss with God is left only for those who fulfill the law perfectly in every way, then all are damned to eternity in Hell. This is the reality that we are all faced with, and before the coming of Christ the only hope for mankind was to adhere as closely to the law as they could, imperfect as they were. It is this slim hope of salvation which was being celebrated on the day of Pentecost in Acts two when the disciples that were gathered together there “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues.” The Holy Spirit which was sent from God the Father through Jesus Christ His risen Son, who just fifty days before had instituted the first communion at Passover, and shortly thereafter died and rose again proclaiming their salvation from their sins and freedom through the Spirit from the law.
One of the reasons that Christ was given such a hard time by the Jewish community was because he preached of a final judgment according to what was in the heart of a person, not simply by a recounting of what they had done, what laws they kept and which they broke. “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God,” that is, that those who seemingly keep the law perfectly, those who lord above others their piety and knowledge of the laws, are sickening in the sight of God. “For the Lord looks on the heart,” and not merely at man's outward actions. This was not the way that the Jewish community had been interpreting the words of God for many years, and traditions that had grown more out of care for the letter of the law rather than the spirit had were being kept just as religiously as the laws themselves. Christ spoke out against these traditions being held as though they were law, and for this he was hated by the Pharisees.
All of His teachings and actions that seem to go against the law occur after His having been baptized by John, and the Spirit of God coming down upon him in the form of a dove. At this occurrence the voice of God speaks from Heaven saying “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” After this bestowal of the Spirit upon Christ, He goes out and teaches among the people for weeks upon end. Many of His miracles are recorded as having been done on the Sabbath, a thing that is against the letter of the law as given to the fathers of the Jews. But since we have been granted the sight of the Holy Spirit coming down with a blessing from the Father, we may know that what Christ does is lawful. Because He is filled with the Spirit, which is the same Spirit that should be at work through the law when it is being properly followed by the hearts of men, he can do no wrong. His healing of the sick and lame on the Sabbath is made lawful by the fact that He does these things in the Spirit of the law, both figuratively and literally.
It needs to be noted, and is noted quite explicitly by Luke, that Christ's earthly parents “performed everything according to the Law of the Lord” while He was young. By including this piece of information in the Gospels we are able to see quite clearly that Christ was in no way impure, either by the letter of the law or the Spirit.
He is the perfect fulfillment of the law; He is the only one whose “righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,” and thus He is the only one who will be allowed to “enter the kingdom of heaven.” So we see that still, though the Spirit of God has come down to dwell in a man born of the flesh and tempted with all the temptations that befall mankind yet still pure, still mankind is not saved from the fires of Hell. His disciples, though they believe that He is God, are bound yet by the law that they broke before He was with them. They are not guilty of the laws that they appear to break while following Christ, for “have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?” While they are with Christ, and doing as He does they will not be blamed for their actions, they are simply being like the priests in the temple. But they still have death to pay for the sins of their foolishness that they committed before Christ came and called them to be His followers.
Thus it is that He keeps foretelling His death, saying, “the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised,” for it is through this action that He is able to bring His followers into Himself, that they may be accounted His righteousness. So for this reason He allows Himself to be beaten, bruised and broken by will of those Pharisees whom He has so enraged by speaking truth, trying to correct their ways. He is tortured and rebuked, nailed like a dead animal to a tree and exposed to the elements and insults of His enemies. There, to the wonder and terror of all who love Him, He gives up His life.
Three long days of merciless silence ensue. The Heavens that rang with the voice of God at Christ's baptism, and the thunder of the Father's pain for His Child at His death, are now silent. Eleven disciples, without a leader to follow, passed these days in devastation: they had just watched God die.
But on the third day Christ's heart beat once more. On that third day, He called angels to come and move a stone for Him. On that third day, He showed the world that Death was overcome by Life.
Thereafter He appeared to the Apostles and assured them of His life, saying that He would send His Spirit to be among them after He had gone. And then He went, and they waited once more. But this time they waited assured of the hope they had found in their blessed Lord. They followed the laws and customs of their people once more, for Christ was not longer there with them leading them in the ways of the Spirit of the law. And as they gathered together for Pentecost, the day that the Pentateuch teaches that the law was given to Moses on, the Holy Spirit comes and rushes upon them, manifesting itself through the bestowal of tongues. It cannot be an accident that on the day they were to celebrate the giving of the law to the Israelites they are gifted with the presence of the Holy Spirit in such a way that they are forced through joy to go out and witness to the Gentiles in their own languages; allowing them the joy of “mak[ing] disciples of all nations.” This final bestowal of the Spirit on the disciples is a sign that they are now in the body of Christ and are filled with the Holy Spirit and pleasing to God the Father just as Christ was while He walked among them.
It is though this participation in Christ, through the Spirit that saves us from the law. But it is actually so much more than that. We are not above the law, nor are we outside of it; we are part of the fulfillment of the law through Christ, for “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.” Christ being the fulfillment of the law in a man made of flesh, and all the followers of Christ being made a part of Him through the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, making “one new man in place of the two,” so that we are not longer submitted to the obedience of the law, but to participation in Christ.
Thus, the Jewish tradition of Pentecost takes on a new meaning through the workings of Christ. What once was a traditional ceremony about a forlorn hope in a fallen world by a lost people is now made into a great celebration of the assurance found in the fact that the Son of God was here, and loves us so much that He died to make us one with Him, that we might not die and be made victims of Hell. It is because of this amazingly important role of the Spirit in this salvation process that Christ warns us that “whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” The Spirit is to be honored and glorified, once more this is fitting for the redefinition of the holiday of Pentecost: in place of the one salvation that the Jews sought through the law, we now celebrate the blessing of God as found in the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:4
Luke 16:15
I Samuel 16:7
Luke 3:22
Ibid. 2:39
Matt., 5:20
Ibid., 12:5
Ibid., 17:22
Ibid. 28:19
Luke 16:17
Ephesians 2:15
Matthew 12:32
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