The Birth of the Church - The New Birth of the Christian

I. Acts chapter 2 describes the Birth of the Christian Church

Jesus was crucified and had risen from the dead. At His ascension He “commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” Acts 1:4-5

His reference to John the Baptist and to His own teachings assure us that the events of Acts 2 are the genuine experience that the Lord planned for us. (Matthew 3:11, John 14:16-17, 26)

II. The Chapter Outlined

The first 13 describe the events between the breaking of the day and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the assembled church.

Verses 11-36 record the first Gospel message preached by Peter. Verses 37-47 show is the response of the assembled crowd, the salvation instructions and the

events of the rest of that day.

Going back to the first of the chapter, The day of Pentecost refers to a feast called the “Feast of Weeks” which was the second of three annual festivals where every Israelite male was required to attend. The name is derived from the prefex of ‘Pente’ which means 5 or 50 for the 50th day after the consecration of the harvest season.

This particular Pentecost was to be the most famous of all. Unified prayer was the order of the meeting. A sound came that reminded them of a great wind Cloven tongues of fire appeared and then came to rest upon each of the assembled persons. The were filled with the Holy Spirit They spoke with ‘tongues’ under the control of the spirit.

These events caused quite a stir among the people gathered in the city. The people who were in Jerusalem, some residents and some visitors for the feast, came into the

area where this prayer meeting was being conducted. These ‘tongues’ were heard in at least 15 languages, and the quality of those speaking was enough

to cause the assembled people to say that they spoke like native speakers. The assembled had no explanation about what they were seeing. Others mocked.

Peter’s gospel message and the People’s Response

“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:37-38

III. God’s Plan of Salvation

1. When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and obey Acts 2:38 we experience the birth of water and the Spirit. We are “born again” (John 3:3, 8). We actually become a new creation in Christ Jesus. .

Repentance

1. Repentance is the first response of faith to the call of God (Mark 1:15). It is absolutely necessary to salvation (Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 17:30; II Peter 3:9).

2. Without repentance baptism is not effective, and without repentance a person cannot receive the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38;3:19).

3. The inward work of salvation begins at repentance, but repentance alone is not the complete work of salvation. Repentance and water baptism together bring the full work of remission of sins (Acts2:38). Perhaps we can say that God deals with the present consequences of sin at repentance and with the past record and future consequences of sin at water baptism.

Water Baptism

1. Water baptism is part of salvation (I Peter 3:21). It is an expression of faith in God by obedience to His Word (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:41).

2. The scriptural mode of baptism is immersion in water, and only this method retains the biblical symbolism of baptism as a burial (Matthew 3:16;Acts 8:36-39; Romans 6:4).

3. Baptism is more than a symbolic ceremony and more than a public declaration of joining the church. The biblical significance of water baptism is as follows:

a. God remits sins at water baptism (Acts 2:38;22:16). God erases the record of sin and cancels the penalty for sin. He washes away sins; He buries them forever.

b. Baptism is part of the new birth (John 3:5; Titus3:5).c. Baptism identifies us with the burial of Jesus(Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12). It indicates we

died to sin by repentance and are burying our past sins, the dominion of sin, and the sinful lifestyle.

d. Water baptism is part of the one baptism of water and Spirit that places us into Christ (Romans6:3-4; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:5). It is a personal identification with Jesus and part of entrance into His family.

e. Baptism is part of our spiritual circumcision (Colossians 2:11-13). By the new birth we enter into the new covenant relationship with God.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

1. The baptism with, by, in, or of the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit) is part of New Testament salvation, not an optional, post conversional experience (John 3:5; Romans8:1-16; Ephesians 1:13-14; Titus 3:5). (I Corinthians 12:13). (Romans 8:9).

2. The Bible records five historical accounts of receiving the Holy Spirit and is accompanied by the sign of tongues in the New Testament church:

a. The Jews,b. The Samaritans, c. The Gentiles, d. The apostle Paul, and e. The disciples of John at Ephesus.

3. A person receives the Spirit, has power to overcome sin and live a holy life (Acts 1:8; Romans 8:4, 13). If we let Him continually fill (control and guide) us, we will bear the fruit of the Spirit and become Christ-like (Galatians 5:22-23).

IV. Our Apologetics

Here I attempt to answer some questions that arise from discussions with people.

“What is it like to speak in tongues?”

Like many of life’s experiences, this is almost impossible to describe. There are some things to remember. In the Acts 2 description you will note in verse 4 that is happened as “the spirit gave the utterance.” The person being filled the Spirit supplies the vocal chords, the breath, and the body that speaks. It is God who gives the utterance. This means that the articulation of the words and the forming of those words is performed by the spirit, or given by the spirit. It is a supernatural occurrence every time it happens.

“Will I lose control of myself?”

People do not lose control of themselves when they are filled with the Holy Spirit. They are not “possessed” by God, they are filled with His spirit and the difference is that you can stop whenever you want. God is always a gentleman and it is very doubtful that you will be “out of it” or that you will not remember everything that happened.

“Do I have to speak in tongues to go to heaven?”

We are never instructed to seek after tongues and speaking in tongues is not the end product we are to achieve. We seek God and His righteousness, His conversion experience, His salvation. It is a Bible fact that Isaiah prophesied that tongues would come (Isaiah 28:11), Jesus spoke it (Mark 16:17), Peter said that what the saw and heard was Bible Prophecy fulfilled (Acts 2:16), and tongues accompanied the Holy Spirit infilling in the book of Acts (Acts 2:1-4, 10:44-46, 19:6).

“Well, what about the wind, tongues of fire and all that spoken of in Acts 2? Do you expect that as well and have you ever seen that?”

Those were never repeated and no one has ever spoken of seeing that again. We know that these were a single occurrence for the church that day and not for anyone else. The people who gathered together did not mention those things but did make a point of talking about tongues. We may easily conclude that the wind and tongues of fire did not follow them out into the streets.

“Isn’t tongues a gift of the spirit given only to a few?”

Some are confused with the Gift of Tongues described in 1 Corinthians 12:10 and the initial evidence of Holy Spirit baptism described in Acts 2, 10, and 19. The two mentions both refer to languages that have not been learned or taught to the individuals involved. They are languages supernaturally spoken by the person but with a profound difference. In the Acts 2 account every language was a member of the 4,000 languages spoken and understood by people living on the earth. Many travelers to other countries have witnessed the same thing happening. In 1 Corinthians 14:2 we read that the language is one that no man understands. It is a language from God to be used for His purpose and must have an interpretation (not a translation) to edify the church. Paul also states 3 times in 1 Corinthians 14 an endorsement of speaking in tongues with a command that we not forbid the practice.

“The only reason tongues were given by God in Acts 2 was for the purpose of spreading the gospel to those assembled.”

You cannot understand the occurrences of the day by placing our cultural limitations upon that day and time. We are almost exclusively speakers of only one language while they were multilingual. Peter’s message was recorded in Greek, the Old Testament was in Hebrew and Chaldean, the Romans spoke Latin, and as is recorded in Acts 2 several other languages were represented. Verses 7, 11, 12, 13 all let us know that the assembled crowd spoke to each other. No one would dare indicate that the assembled crowd was all given the gift of tongues for the time that they were together. For that to have happened and not be reported would be incredible.

“This was just Peter’s account and is not shared by the other Apostles.”

Peter “stood up with the eleven.” (Acts 2:14) This is the last time all of the disciples were together as a group. It is unthinkable that Peter could have gotten as far off base as some say he is with verse 38 and not one of the other eleven corrected him. We know that at least Thomas was brave enough to speak up, yet the statement that they “stood up with him” testifies of their agreement and support.

“I certainly didn’t speak with tongues when I received salvation.”

No one doubts that you have an experience with our Lord, but we must always start with the Word of God and judge our lives and obedience by what the Word says. Life is a journey with many wonderful discoveries and your walk with God is a journey that He has prescribed for you. I would ask you to read carefully the account in Acts 19 of the Ephesian disciples. They were believers, but Paul insisted that they receive the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as well as being re-baptized in the name of Jesus.

“There is a difference in the Acts 2:4 filling of the Holy Ghost and the Acts 2:38 Gift of the Holy Ghost. The gift is given to all when they confess Christ and the filling with the Holy Ghost is an empowerment for special service.”

Just before Jesus was to be taken up into heaven, he spoke these words: “For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” (Acts 1:5) Jesus says that in a few days they would be ‘baptized’ with the Holy Ghost. The fulfillment of His words in Acts 1:5 is found in

Acts 2:4, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost…” It is obvious that even though two terms are used, the terms mean the very same thing. Peter stands up to preach at Pentecost and describes the baptism of and the filling with the Holy Ghost like this: “This Jesus hath God raised up… and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear”. (Acts 2:32-33) We have a third term, the ‘promise,’ that obviously refers to the same experience. We follow on with Peter’s words to the 38th verse of this same chapter to discover another term for this experience: “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2:38) Some people would argue that the gift of the Holy Ghost received at salvation is a different experience than the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They would argue that these two “Holy Ghosts” must be separated. This can be very confusing, so let’s examine the scripture record.

We have been reading from the 2nd chapter of acts about the Day of Pentecost. After that day the Lord Jesus Christ began to add to His church. Peter was instructed by the Lord to travel to a distant city and to preach to a man who was of another nationality. Some believed that these men who Peter was going to see could never be saved but God chose differently. In the events recorded we get a clear understanding of how the scripture uses different terms to mean the same thing. Let’s go to Acts chapter 10.

“While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” (Acts 10:44-47) Verse 44 says that the Holy Ghost ‘fell on them,’ and in verse 45 on these men was ‘poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.’ Verse 47 calls it ‘received the Holy Ghost.’ We have three terms here that are connected: ‘fell on them,’ ‘poured out the gift’ and ‘received the Holy Ghost’ which all refer what happened to the household of Cornelius. We find a further connection when Peter says that they received the Holy Ghost ‘as well as we,’ referring to himself and those with him. Now, Peter was one of those on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, so what happened to Peter and what happened in Acts 10 are the same experiences. Acts 2:1-4, Acts 2:38, Acts 10:44-47 are all talking about people who experienced the same God-given baptism of the Holy Ghost.

You’ll remember that some did not believe that the gentiles could receive salvation. We find that Peter, returning to Jerusalem, felt the need to defend what happened with the gentiles of Cornelius’ house.

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.” (Acts 11:15)“Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus

Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17)There can be no doubt that the Cornelius house experience of “fell on them” and “gave them the

like gift” refers to the exact same experience as the one the disciples had on the day of Pentecost. Peter uses the terms “as on us at the beginning” (verse 15) and “as he did unto us” (verse 17).

Jesus used several terms to describe what He intended to give us, and the Bible uses several terms to describe what happened but all of these terms refer to the same experience. When you hear the words baptism of the Holy Ghost, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Filled with the Holy Ghost, the promise of the Holy Ghost or received the Holy Ghost, they all refer to the same thing.

“ Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” (Acts 2:38-39)

The Baptism of the Holy Ghost is one experience and the promise is for you today