We usually think of Pentecost as the day on which the Church was founded with the descent of the Holy Spirit
This, of course, is true. Pentecost marks the birthday of the Church. But when Christ foretold the event of Pentecost, He made no mention whatsoever of the Church being birthed on that day.
The Lord's primary focus was on the personal experience His disciples were to undergo on that memorable day. Here is the promise of Jesus: Ye shall receive power after
the Holy Spirit is come upon you. And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the
earth (Acts 1:8).
The Power and Passion to Witness
The Lord made explicit mention of three aspects of the Pentecost event:
1. Coming down of the Holy Spirit
2. Experience of Supernatural Power
3. Witnessing
The power (dynamis) received by the
disciples in that Upper Room was a supernatural, spiritual power that enabled
them to accomplish what in the natural was impossible. St. Peter (who out of
fear denied Christ just days before) took the courageous initiative, driven
by the new power he received, to face the crowds that had gathered in Jerusalem
and to boldly proclaim Jesus as the Messiah and the Risen Redeemer of Israel.
So, Pentecost power was initially manifested in the intense desire and drive to proclaim the Gospel of salvation. The disciples, who had spent forty days with their divine Master after His resurrection, were now fired up with a new passion to preach the reality of the resurrection and, what follows logically, the lordship of Jesus Christ. His victory over death and His rising on the third day makes Him the long awaited Messiah and Lord:
Let all the house of Israel
know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, Whom ye have crucified, both
Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36).
Witnessing to Christ followed spontaneously the infusion of Pentecost power into the disciples and, thereafter, into the heart and life of every believer. The Holy Spirit stirs the recipient of this heavenly anointing with an overwhelming desire to witness to Christ both privately and publicly.
During the days following Pentecost, the apostles witnessed to the message of salvation and especially to the resurrection of Jesus that qualified Him to be Lord and Messiah. What made the difference was the impact the apostles made upon the hearts of the people in a supernatural manner, since they witnessed with great power (Acts 4:33). Only the action of the Holy Spirit could account for such impressive life-changing
effectiveness.
"He that lacks awareness of his baptism and was baptized in infancy, accepting it only by faith and having effaced it by sins, but refuses the second one - I mean the baptism of the Spirit, given by God in His love to those who seek it in repentance - how can he possibly be saved? Not in the least!"
St. Symeon the New Theologian, Catechesis 32:66
I often wonder how many of us priests and bishops can claim such Holy Spirit effectiveness in transforming the hearts and lives of our Orthodox people? How many personal testimonies are there of men and women in the Church who have been transformed because of their coming into a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit?
Witness Unto ME
St. Peter on the day of Pentecost declared with holy boldness how Jesus was exalted by the Father as the result of His resurrection from the dead. Since He died and arose in triumph, God exalted Him at His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31).
Jesus said: Ye shall be witnesses unto ME (Acts 1:8). Pentecostal power ultimately points to Jesus. He becomes central and the focus of everything that is spoken after the believer is indwelt by the Holy spirit. The Lord did not say: "Ye shall be witnesses unto my teachings." He said: ...unto ME. Pentecost makes our message and our testimony strictly Christ-centered! It assures that our sermon revolves around the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. If it does not, the speaker demonstrates he has not had the Upper Room experience.
In the infant Church there was only one sermon topic: Jesus Christ. The apostles were never in search of some new topic for their next message. They did not have to sit and prepare their sermons in advance. They were totally absorbed with Jesus and He was their one and only all-consuming interest.
The Holy Spirit caused their hearts to be filled with the Risen and Exalted Christ. What else was there to preoccupy their attention? Nothing was on their mind except Jesus. The mouth speaks
from the overflowing of the heart (Matthew. 12:34)
The sufferings, dying, burial and triumphant resurrection of Jesus, these redemptive events flooded their mind. The Good News, the Gospel, was at the tip of their tongue because of the overflow of their hearts.
The apostles were not delivering Sunday sermons. The ministry of the word (diaconia tou logou) was a daily ministry. And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and
to preach Jesus Christ (Acts 5:42). They proclaimed Him both Savior and Lord. That which was central for the apostles was the lordship of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that glorifies Jesus, and once the believer has had his or
her Pentecost experience, he or she is inexorably driven to declare His lordship
and "preeminence in all things."
The lordship of Jesus is not simply an article of the Creed. It is a personal experience - the very purpose of Pentecost. No one can say Jesus is the Lord, except
by virtue of the unction of the Holy Spirit. Those who have gone through their
Pentecost experience belong to the Church, the community of the redeemed. They
dwell in the world as pilgrims in enemy territory, since Satan remains "the
prince of this world."
"If the Holy Spirit is operative within us unknowingly and without our sensing His presence, obviously neither in eternal life which follows will we receive the perception of the Holy Spirit, neither will we behold the light of the Holy Spirit, but we will be dead and blind and unconscious, remaining then as we are now, and thus vain is our hope"
St. Symeon the New Theologian, Theology Chapters, p. 77
Satan laid down his master plan in the Garden of Eden for his total dominion over the world. God Himself exposed his plan by revealing that there will be enmity between the Serpent and the woman, between the seed of the Serpent (the Antichrist) and the seed of the woman (Jesus Christ). With the fall of Adam, Satan devised a scheme to thwart God's plan for establishing His kingdom on earth by dislodging the dominion of Satan.
St. Paul speaks of the program of Satan as the mystery of iniquity (2 Thessalonians 2:7), and he states that in his own day it doth already work. He declares that Jesus will not return in glory, until the apostasia, or falling away occurs and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. He is making direct reference to the Antichrist.
God's Response to the Apostasy
The eschatological apostasy marks the final stage of Satan's plan to exercise complete control over the entire world with the purpose of winning the universal worship of humanity. It will take place prior to the Second Coming and will climax at the time of the seven-year Great Tribulation period.
The apostasy has been peaking in the world for the last several decades now. It is a gradual process of dethroning Christ from His position of lordship over the basic institutions of society. It has infiltrated the mainline Churches, aiming at pushing Jesus into the background and into obscurity. Man is increasingly exalted. Christ-substitutes are replacing the headship of Jesus. The primacy of the Pope in the Roman Church has been a classical example.
Prior to the rise of the ultimate Antichrist as world dictator a very strong demon antichrist spirit will be released into the world, and it is obvious that this pernicious spirit is already in our midst. It is already doing its work of releasing an Antichrist mentality and mindset, a general tolerance of the fact that Jesus Christ is obscure, located some place in the background of the Church.
Men of high rank in the Church have come to usurp the authority and preeminence of Christ in subtle ways. It is not by some organized conspiracy nor by some deliberate plotting. It is the insidious activity of the Antichrist spirit even in things sacrosanct in the Church. It catches churchmen unawares lurking behind time-honored religious structures and forms
The name of Christ is heard in routine litanies and in the religious platitudes that come out of the mouths of the clergy. But God will intervene as the day of Christ's return draws near. He will do a work of restoration and mercy by causing His Holy Spirit to move sovereignly in the midst of His people. Joel prophesies this apocalyptic move of the Holy Spirit: I will
pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17).
Joel's prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. It is known in scripture as the former rain of
the Holy Spirit outpouring. But at the time leading up to the Second Coming,
God will pour out the latter rain. The natural disasters included in the prophecy did not take place on the day of Pentecost. That part of the prophecy will be fulfilled at the eve of the Second Coming.
The Church birthed on the day of Pentecost passes through a stage of desolation, foretold by Joel(1:4). The latter
rain of the Holy Spirit comes to meet the need for the restoration of
God's people. It is God's extraordinary provision for the Church's renewal and
rejuvenation.
The Holy Spirit Baptism
Jesus referred to the power of Pentecost as the baptism with the Holy Spirit: For John truly baptized with
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence(Acts 1:5).
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is part of the rebirth of the new believer. In the gospel of John we read the related words of Jesus:Truly, truly, I say unto thee, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God (John 3:5).
According to Orthodox theology the baptism in water takes place when the sacrament of the holy baptism is performed, while the baptism in the Holy Spirit occurs when the sacrament of Chrismation is administered. We hold that the two conditions for personal salvation are met in these two sacraments of the Church.
But, as St. Symeon the New Theologian stresses, since these two sacraments were administered to most of us in infancy with no personal awareness on our part, it is important that we make the baptism in the Holy Spirit an actual personal experience now that we are adults. He deals at great length on the subject:
"He that lacks awareness of his baptism and was baptized in infancy, accepting it only by faith and having effaced it by sins, but refuses the second one - I mean the baptism of the Spirit, given by God in His love to those who seek it in repentance - how can he possibly be saved? Not in the least!"
St. Symeon the New Theologian, Catechesis 32:66
All men and women are called upon to experience the Holy Spirit baptism both in liturgical Churches, as well as in non-liturgical Churches. It is the only way in which we can secure our spiritual survival at a time when the Antichrist demon spirit is beginning to flood the world and is trying to transform the Bride of Christ into the great harlot Church. We will never make it with religious routine and the familiar religious formalism the Church offers us today
The Holy Spirit baptism is the special extraordinary provision God is making available to all those who long for the latter rain. Jesus said, Whosoever thirsts,
let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture hath
said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John
7:37f).
Whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water
that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life(John 4:14).
A Personal Pentecost
Each member of the Church, dear reader, needs to have a testimony of experiencing the baptism with the Holy Spirit. You won't make it into Heaven on your baptismal certificate. That piece of paper cannot secure your salvation. You need a personal experience of rebirth. Otherwise, we make a liar out of Christ Who said: Whosoever believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of water.
You must have an experience of Pentecost, dear reader, in order to be with Jesus eternally in His glory and majesty. You need the Upper Room experience.
"If the Holy Spirit is operative within us unknowingly," teaches St. Symeon the New Theologian, "and without our sensing His presence, obviously neither in eternal life which follows will we receive the perception of the Holy Spirit,
neither will we behold the light of the Holy Spirit, but we will be dead and
blind and unconscious, remaining then as we are now, and thus vain is our hope"
St. Symeon The New Theologian, Theology Chapters, p. 77
St. Symeon had to confront many critics in his day over this teaching which he regarded as very fundamental to spiritual growth and salvation. He exhorted them with these words:
"Do not become theomachoi (opponents
of God) and antitheoi (adversaries of God), but come, bow and fall down
together with me and do not rise until you have received the gift of God, as
I, who am unworthy, have received this gift of grace"
St. Symeon the New Theologian, Catechesis 34
We do not earn the right to receive the Holy Spirit baptism. It is not a reward for our righteousness. It is given to us purely because of God's grace and divine favor.
In 1972, I too received this heavenly provision that literally revolutionized my life and ministry. It works. It is not just theory for me. It's for real. Let me address the same exhortation to my readers: Do not become theomachoi and
antitheoi, but come, bow and fall down together with me and do not rise
until you have received the gift of God, as I, who am unworthy, have received
this gift by grace!
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