Pentecost: Why Fire? Why Wind?

If you know what Pentecost Sunday is, there’s a good chance you learned about from a pentecostal/charismatic, tongue-talking, demon-rebuking, bible-slinging preacher. I grew up in that, and I’m grateful for it! Something I did not learn until much later, however, is how many significant events are recorded in Acts 2 concerning Pentecost and God’s incredible faithfulness throughout the story of salvation. It would take quite some space to cover more than one significant aspect of Pentecost, so I’m going to focus on one that I think often gets little light in Christian circles: Why does the wind blow in the upper room, and why are there tongues of fire?

But first, real quick…

What is Pentecost?

Pentecost comes from the Greek word that means fiftieth, because it was celebrated fifty days after Passover. It was the second of three Jewish pilgrimage festivals where people brought gifts and offerings to God (Exodus 23:14-17). It was called Shavuot (The Feast of Weeks) and commemorated the first fruits of the wheat harvest, but as time continued into the second-temple jewish period (roughly 515 BC to 70 AD) it became a remembrance for the Law of Moses given by God at Sinai.

Now that last part is significant, because when God gave the Law to Israel at Sinai, it was the culmination of Him bringing salvation and righteousness to a people once lost in slavery under evil powers. Why does the Holy Spirit get accompanied by a mighty wind and tongues of fire? Let’s recap some biblical events and the dynamic imagery given to us in the Bible.

Why Fire?

As the book of Exodus opens up, we the readers get a window into the struggles of Israel under Egypt. What started as a plan for survival from famine under God’s guiding hand slowly became a place of slavery and suffering. Then God shows up with a declaration to save His people, and He shows up in a burning bush (Exodus 3:2-5). When God leads Israel out of slavery and into the wilderness to empty them of their dependence on their slaveholders, He does so as a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21-22). When God gives the law to Moses and makes a covenant with Israel at Sinai, He rests on the mountain wrapped in smoke and fire (Exodus 19:18).

What’s with all the fire, God? John the Baptist helps us understand the significance of this.

He announces that when Jesus comes, He will baptize the world with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3:16-17). He will gather wheat into the barn, and then burn away the chaff with “unquenchable fire.” Fire refines what is pure and burns away what is rubbish. It is a divine symbol of both God’s beautiful saving righteousness and God’s judgment against evil, which are two sides of the same coin. God’s victory over sin and darkness was witnessed in His fiery presence in the Old Testament, where He conquered His enemies, delivered His children, and set them apart for holiness. But when the Holy Spirit comes, He will do that individually inside each and every follower of Jesus, bringing them together in perfect harmony as a redeemed and purified people. But what is saving for those who take refuge in Jesus is judgment for those who reject Jesus, as evidenced by Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:3,9). If you are for Christ, that fire is a wonderful warmth in your soul. If you are for yourself, that fire should scare the crap out of you. Tongues of fire rest individually on each believer in the upper room because God’s salvation plan is taking on a new dimension that the Law of Moses could not take on: The Law is being written on human hearts (Jeremiah 31:33) and the Holy Spirit is burning away sin and producing righteousness in us with the same fiery power God displayed in the Old Testament all those years ago. Within you, evil is being judged and defeated, and righteousness is being bestowed and multiplied.

Why Wind?

Before the fire shows up, a “sound like a mighty rushing wind” arrives from heaven (Acts 2:2). There is a Greek (pnévma) and Hebrew (rū-aḥ) word for “wind” or “breath” that is interchangeable with “spirit” in several places in scripture. In Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, God declares He will “put [his] Spirit in you and you will live” (Ezekiel 37:1-14). According to Jesus the wind illustrates the effect the Holy Spirit has on a person born of the Spirit of God (John 3:8). It is God’s breath, or wind, that fills Adam with life as well (Genesis 2:7), so wind can be synonymous with God’s life-giving presence. But if we dive into other corners of the Old Testament, we see that God’s judgment resides in the wind as well. God’s “scorching” and “destructive” wind blow against evildoers in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea. One of the Psalmists describes the wicked as husks that the wind blows away (Psalm 1:4, 35:5, 83:13). And in Jesus’ parable of the house built on the sand, when the winds blew, that sand-house collapsed (Matthew 7:27).

So, does God’s mighty wind grant life, or destroy it? Well just like fire, that depends on whether you’re giving yourself over to Jesus or you’re keeping yourself king of your own heart. God’s wind is a beautiful sweeping away of the garbage we want swept out of our lives, but it’s an odious hurricane for the darkness that dwells in us, and woe to those who cling to that darkness.

Pentecost is a beautiful picture of how God brings holiness into our lives. We are finally able to live a life worthy of the goodness of God thanks to the inner work of the Holy Spirit, but we have to take that holiness seriously. We’ve been purified in fire. We’ve been swept clean of debris. We’ve been made holy vessels. What are we doing with these vessels? Where is holiness in the grand scheme of our Christian priorities? Are we thanking God for the wind and fire that are making us clean? Or are we frustrated at the pain of righteous burning and heavenly sweeping?

If we’re embracing holiness, Pentecost is really good news.

If we aren’t, it is terrifying news.

God’s Promises in Unlikely Places

Admit it. There are sections of the Bible that you dread reading because the immediate value of the scripture passage is not apparent, so you glaze over it, or skip it altogether. Genealogies and levitical laws are the most common of these passages. We know they exist for a reason, but do I want to be that person who figures out what that reason is? I’ll let some bible scholar do that and appreciate John 3:16 over here.

Well, I’d like to highlight one of these passages for you and share something amazing from it. You know all those gross chapters in the Book of Leviticus where God writes commands that deal with animal blood, food laws, and women waiting outside the camp after childbirth?

There are incredible promises for your future in those chapters.

What?! Crazy right? But watch this.

In Leviticus Chapter 12, after a woman gives birth to a child, she shall “not touch any consecrated thing nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” (12:4) Passages like this can be difficult to read because we’re all subject to evolutionary social morality. This just sounds cruel.

But an important thing to understand about “purification” in the Old Testament is that it is not dealing with vague spiritual taboos from thousands of years ago. It deals specifically with worship. If a person is “unclean,” they are removed from God’s holy presence, and they cannot do what they were created to do, worship and enjoy God’s intimate presence, until they are somehow made clean again.

This isn’t just about blood and rituals. Stick with me here.

There is a remarkable similarity between the middle chapters of Leviticus and the beginning of Genesis, where God creates all things. In the creation account, Adam and Eve are in the garden, spending intimate time in worship with God (Genesis 1-2). As soon as they sin, they are removed from the garden (Gen 3:6-7; 23-24) and thus removed from God’s presence, and cannot worship Him intimately. There is remarkable similarity in the wording of these passages. When we are “unclean,” we are unable to be with God in true worship, until something makes us clean again. Adam and Eve could not worship God in the garden, and Israel cannot worship God in His tabernacle. Both must be made clean again. Both locations, the garden, and the tabernacle symbolize God’s presence with humans, and in both places, God rejects human presence due to uncleanliness. The goal of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is the worship of God. The goal of the laws in Leviticus 11 and 12 is the worship of God as well.

In Genesis 1 and 2, God creates animals, birds, sea creatures, creeping creatures, and then humanity. In Leviticus 11 and 12, God deals with sacrifices and food preparation concerning animals, then birds, then sea creatures, then rituals regarding humanity.

The Levitical Laws are revealed in the same manner the Creation Account in Genesis is revealed. Why?

Because the same blessings God granted us in creation He promises to restore to us in covenant!

This passage is intentionally written to show God’s promise to restore humanity in relationship with Him through cleansing. The author of these books wrote this because God always planned to make us clean again and allow us to worship Him like we were destined to from the beginning! Just as God purposefully created a beautiful world where we could spend time with Him, so He purposefully crafts a covenant where we can be restored to Him through purification.

So here we are in Leviticus, talking about bloody childbirth (literally) and how it causes one to be unclean. But the word for childbirth in Leviticus 12:2 in Hebrew is “seed,” and it’s the same word used in Genesis 3:15, where God promises to put enmity between the serpent and future human children. In other words, God promises to eventually overcome evil through the “seed” of humanity, which will trample upon the head of the serpent. God’s promise to fix what is broken will come through human pregnancy, which will one day result in the purification of all mankind, restoring their intimate dwelling with God. It is from this same promise that God purifies the entire world through a human, Jesus Christ, through blood sacrifice on the cross, making us, the unclean, clean again, and able to enter into the presence of God unashamed and free to worship Him, just as we were designed to do from the beginning of creation.

The similarities continue in Leviticus when God commands cleansing laws concerning skin issues and diseases (Leviticus 13-14). God also covers the shame of Adam and Eve after their sinful fall using animal hides (literally skins in Hebrew; Genesis 3:21). I won’t go further into those passages, but look them up for yourself and recognize the parallels between Genesis’s early chapters and Leviticus.

The bottom line is that God’s promise to restore you and keep you in close relationship with Him is firmly rooted throughout the Bible. Hold fast to them. Cling to them. Don’t let anyone try to remove them from your heart.

This small, simple passage about ritual purification regarding childbirth is a promise that echoes throughout all of eternity that God will make us, the rebellious, unclean, sinful wretches that we are, purified and able to enter into His presence once again.

Don’t rush through these chapters in the Bible. They may seem odd and out of place in our contemporary context, but there are powerful promises in them that reveal the hope of a good God who redeems His beloved creation, you and me.

Don’t Downplay Worship for Justice

There’s a saying that makes its rounds every 10 years or so in nominal Christian circles, and it goes something like this:

“Jesus did not ask to be worshiped. He does not want our worship, he wants social justice.”

This is completely untrue, and it derives from classically liberal Christianity in the early 20th century. Before we get to that, however, let’s establish that God does care about justice, and Jesus does want to be worshiped. This nonsensical idea that we have to devalue one thing to elevate another is foolish and dangerous. We do not need to minimize God’s worship to elevate God’s justice. We should be wary of minimizing any aspect of God’s character to favor another. Common social reform philosophies do this all the time—they require that we identify and tear down a villain social group to elevate another, oppressed social group. In this context, the pious worshiper is the villain.

This has been happening since philosophies concerned with social reform began, and Christianity was naturally thrown into the mix. Let’s talk about how that all started.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Christianity went through some wild cultural gauntlets. People were focused on two things almost exclusively: (1) How our beliefs and values fit within science and reason, and (2) how we can better push humanity toward utopia. Within this world of science, reason, and progress, Christianity was in danger of becoming a fairy tale folk religion, aiding in personal peace but serving no real contribution to humanity’s modern needs. A few eloquent theologians stepped up to the plate and tried to curb the issue. Classically liberal theologians like Albrecht Ritschl and Adolf Harnack felt compelled to force Christianity to keep up with modernity, the world of modernism. Enlightenment philosophy and the scientific method were the filters through which everything must be viewed, and we have Immanuel Kant to thank for that. Kant decided that Christianity should only be valued for the moral foundations it contributes to society. So to help Christianity “compete” with modernity, liberal theologians funneled faith through the hose of Kantian ethics and morals. The theologian who made this idea famous in our North American Churches was Walter Rauschenbusch. He authored the famous work, A Theology for the Social Gospel. Essentially, Rauschenbusch reduced Christianity to a few simple religious statements and socialist-political and economic programs. Theology has nothing to contribute to personal faith, eternity, or macro-universal belief: It must be sequestered into the corner of moral judgments and values.

Despite Rauschenbusch’s blatant disregard for proper methods of interpreting ancient literature, we should be grateful for his contribution to Christianity in that it sparked a revival for the Church taking initiative in matters of social justice. After abolishing institutional slavery, Christianity once again fell into a mold where it was criticized for ignoring social plights, and over the last hundred years, Christianity continued to grapple with its place in social causes and politics. As corporate giants grew and individuals were swallowed up in the river of socialist dynamics, Christians wanted to apply their faith in a context that met these needs, and they are noble for desiring to do so.

But there is nothing wrong with churches valuing worship services and investing in opportunities to praise God corporately; doing so does not diminish a church’s impact on social justice. If a church is neglecting the needs of the community, the issue goes deeper than their approach to worship. Typically, when churches invest heavily in worship and exaltation of God within their congregations, they are known for feeding the poor, clothing the destitute, and housing orphans and widows. It’s as if close proximity to God results in acting out the will of God in justice and healing. Those who value intimacy and communion with God will share the same values and desires that are in God’s heart. If God wants justice for the oppressed and the poor, then worshiping Him and spending time in His presence will transform your heart to want justice for the oppressed and the poor. It is completely false and out of context to portray Jesus as a divine figure who diminished worship practices and religious experiences while attempting to reform society and bring justice. So let’s take a closer look at a few moments when worship is explicitly offered to Jesus in the New Testament.

As soon as the Magi who traveled from the East saw Jesus, they “fell down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11). They also offered him some seriously expensive gifts. The author of Matthew is highlighting the significance that magi from a distant, pagan land are recognizing Jesus as one who should receive worship.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem before his crucifixion, the crowd lays palm branches in his path and shouts, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:9). This is a declaration among Jews that transformed the original meaning of the word (save us, please!) to a promise that God is coming to deliver His people as He did in the Exodus (Salvation is coming!) It directly identifies Jesus as the One God Who has come to save His people.

After Jesus walks on water in front of his disciples, they worship him, saying, “Truly you are the son of God” (Matthew 14:33). Jesus does nothing to correct them.

When Jesus reveals himself to his female disciples after he rose from the tomb, they “clasped his feet and worshiped him” (Matthew 28:9). Jesus tells them not to be afraid. He doesn’t tell them to stop worshiping him.

When Thomas sees the holes in Jesus’ hands and believes, he says, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Jesus doesn’t correct him.

In 1 Corinthians 8:5-6, roughly 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the apostle Paul writes,

Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through who are all things and through whom we exist.

In this scripture, Paul adapts an ancient Jewish expression of faith called the Shema (Deut. 4:6-9; 11:13-21). You see, devout Jews were explicitly monotheistic, meaning they worshiped only one god in a polytheistic world (where multiple gods were worshiped in various ways). The fact that first-century Christians (who were largely converted Jews) added a binitarian shape to their monotheistic worship of God alone by associating Jesus as their “Lord” is impossible to fathom unless they had no problem accepting Jesus as one who should be worshiped alongside God their Heavenly Father. That the early church chose to go against custom and promote the worship of Jesus speaks volumes.

The very reason Jesus was crucified by the Sanhedrin was for declaring to be God. He was questioned by the Pharisees (Matt 22) His disciples (Luke 6) and Pontius Pilate (Luke 22:66-71) and accepted association as God each time, solidifying his condemnation. If Jesus did not want to be worshipped, he did a terrible job disassociating himself from it. If anything, the position demands that we at least call Jesus incompetent for missing the significance of this issue in his teaching.

Jesus consistently regarded himself as God among monotheistic Jews who devoutly worshiped God (YHWH). The Jewish faith had an immensely high view of institutional worship that separated them from every pagan tradition. That Jesus never instructs his followers to reject these customs of worship is profound.

I’m barely scratching the surface of the evidence here: Jesus expected worship, received worship, and is pleased by our worship. Jesus overturned social norms and institutionally established values, sure, but every time he did it, he revealed a divine hierarchy where the kingdom of light is overturning the kingdom of darkness. It is beyond the context of the gospel narratives to assume Jesus’ miracles were more about social justice than they were about light defeating darkness. The kingdoms of evil were being overpowered by the kingdom of God (Luke 11), and the more people flocked to Jesus in worship and acceptance of his godhood, the more they accepted the values and principles of the kingdom of God itself, which seeks to establish justice, mercy, healing, and wholeness. I am all for social justice, as every sincere follower of Jesus is. But I will never downplay worshiping God for the sake of elevating the principles of God’s kingdom. I will never deny God what is due Him for the sake of spreading some of His principles. God demands worship and He demands justice.

Give Him both.

Significance of the Virginal Conception

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Christmas story is the miraculous conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, within His mother Mary. The first chapters of the gospels of Matthew and Luke reveal that Jesus was not conceived by man, but by God Himself within the womb of a betrothed young virgin (Matthew 1; Luke 1). Believers in the story today tend to focus most on how incredible God’s miracles are, with Jesus’s conception being a powerful way to start the miracle showcase on earth in Jesus’s ministry. After the Enlightenment and the emergence of Deism in the 18th century, leading thinkers and college professors required miracles to be challenged and viewed with extreme skepticism, relegating them as less important than universal truths or reason. Yet in both cases, many who view this miraculous story often miss the broader significance of the virgin birth: God is the author and sustainer of all creation. 

In the second century, a church father named Theophilus introduced the concept of creatio ex nihilo, “creation out of nothing.” This statement meant that the Hebrew God of the Bible is absolutely unique in that He is not simply a deity with powers higher than our own; He is the Creator of all that exists and brought all things into being when they did not exist. Other beings can create, but only God can create something from nothing. In the time period in which Jesus was born, just before the height of the Roman Empire, many pagan and philosophical religions considered spiritual beings to be real and have certain power. But the concept of a single, transcendent, divine creator was virtually unknown to the Greek world. The Hebrew people, however, had believed the God of their scriptures was the Creator God since the very beginning. In Genesis 1:1, when God creates the heavens and the earth, the author of Genesis uses the word bara (to create). This word is uniquely reserved for God alone when it comes to creation. Though scholars go back and forth on the precise purpose of how this word is used, they unanimously agree that in Hebrew literature God possesses a unique power to create that no other being holds. His creation power far exceeds all others. Unlike all other creators, God is above and outside of the limitations of time and space, and He alone can form something beautiful without any starting materials. God does not need a single thing from us in order to make something amazing. So in the midst of darkness, formlessness, and nothingness, God created.

Early in the bible, mankind has abandoned God yet again with their pursuit of self, so God starts over, creating a new nation out of nothing. Out of that nation, God will send a redeemer who saves all of humanity. God calls a simple man named Abram out of the wilderness and promises to multiply his family into a nation that will transform the world (Genesis 12-17). In other words, God came upon a landscape that had nothing, a wilderness, and He made something incredible from it. God calls Abram from nothing, renames him Abraham, and creates a nation where there was no nation. The author of Genesis wants you to understand a theme here: God makes things out of nothing, and from that nothing comes something eternally significant. 

Fast forward almost 2000 years, where the angel Gabriel visits Mary and tells her she will conceive and bear a son, who will be named Jesus. Her first question, of course, is how? She is a virgin after all. Gabriel’s answer, God will form the child all on His own. Gabriel explains to Mary that the Holy Spirit will form Jesus in her womb. He then reveals that Mary’s relative Elizabeth, who is barren, has already conceived a child and is 6 months into her own pregnancy. Every society in the known Roman world determined a woman’s value by her ability to bear children, so Elizabeth would seem to amount to nothing in her world. But that is perfect, because God will make something out of nothing. In Mary’s case, she will not need to conceive a child, because God is the one who will send His Son Jesus, the world’s savior, into the world in the most eternally significant event in history in a way that only He can: From seemingly nowhere and out of nothing.  

Ironically, many religious leaders did not accept Jesus as God’s chosen savior because they knew he was from Nazareth in Galilee, and the prophecies told them they would not know where the Messiah would come from (John 7:27). What they did not realize was that Jesus came from Heaven, not from ordinary places. God did not need a starting point in any town or city, He did not need the perfect environment or the right conditions to magically align. He did not need anything at all. God fulfilled His promise in the same way He always does, uniquely as the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of all things. The Virgin Conception is a beautiful reminder that God never runs out of options and He is not limited to what we can offer Him. If the world seems too dark and hopeless for God to have His way, that is actually perfect. Those are the exact conditions God has supernaturally worked through before, and He will do it again. God will take the darkness and emptiness and nothingness and form beauty, fullness and salvation from it. God is the God of creatio ex nihilo, who will take our nothing and make exactly what He wants to out of it. I cannot think of a more wonderful promise of hope, and I will never look at the Virgin Conception the same way. If your world is too dark, your hope is gone, and your wilderness seems unending, you are actually in a great place. Give God your life, and let Him make something amazing out of nothing.