Acts 2:1-4
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”
On the day of Pentecost, AD 31, God sent the power or ability with His Spirit to enable His church – to beget and strengthen the firstfruits He was beginning to call into His church, symbolically represented by one of the “wave loaves.” The New Testament Festival of Pentecost is now a memorial commemorating the founding of the New Testament church of God through the receiving of power or ability with the Holy Spirit, to go and make disciples of all peoples, inclusive of the gentiles, which the work used for “nation”, Matthew 28:20.
God’s church observes the Feast of Firstfruits as an annual reminder of this step in God’s Master Plan: God’s people today are merely the firstfruits – the small first group to be offered salvation through Christ. The world, except for the few called, is cut off from God – not yet called to salvation – neither saved nor lost – not yet judged. But the members of God’s church are being judged (I Peter 4:17) – judged in how well they are preparing for God’s Kingdom!
The day of Pentecost pictures the church being called, trained and enabled with the ability, for the special mission of preparing for the time when God will open salvation to the world, when the firstfruits will be a kingdom of priest, with and under Jesus Christ!
