Notice, for example, how the exhortation in Psalm 105 to seek the LORD’s presence continually (v. 4) arises from God’s work of (1) rescuing his people from their Egyptian bondage and (2) bringing them into the land in which he promised to dwell with them. He brings his people out with joy, as the Psalmist recounts in v. 43, for he brings them out to dwell in his presence in which there is fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11).

Nevertheless, while these means of God dwelling with his people in the Old Testament were good as both sufficient for the time and effectual in administering the covenantal presence of God, they were still only temporary and provisional (Heb. 8:13). They ultimately foresignified Christ to come, as foretold by the prophets (see Westminster Confession of Faith 7.5). In the incarnation, the Son of God “tabernacled” among us as the true and eternal, the final and permanent dwelling place of God (John 1:14). For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9).

With this redemptive-historical transition from what was good, yet provisional, to what is now better and permanent, that is, from the shadows to the substance, which is Christ, the joy-full presence of God is experienced in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, even extending to all nations (see Westminster Confession of Faith 7.6).

With all that in mind, we can consider the event of Pentecost with its momentous background as the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the church by the risen and ascended Lord, Jesus Christ. If it is by a Spirit-kindled faith that we share in Christ (Belgic Confession art. 22; Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 53), who is himself the end-time temple of God, then what does that tell us about the nature of the church?

Pentecost and the Church as the Temple of God

The apostle Peter writes, “As you come to [Jesus Christ], a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:4-5; cf. Isa. 8:14; 28:16; Ps. 118:22). In a similar vein, the apostle Paul asks the Corinthian church, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you…?” (1 Cor. 6:19; cf. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:20-22; Rev. 3:12; 11:1-2). The point is that as believers are united to Jesus Christ by faith they too are built up as the temple of God. The church is the eschatological temple where God now dwells in the power of his Spirit. This is the reality that the tabernacle and temple prefigured. However, God is not just dwelling with his people, as he did in the past, but within them in an unprecedented way.

This indwelling of the Spirit in the church transforms the church into the dwelling place of God, which takes place at Pentecost. Pentecost closely parallels the Sinai theophany when Moses received the blueprint for building the tabernacle.[1] But rather than Moses coming down from the mountain with a blueprint to construct a shadow of the heavenly reality, Jesus comes down from heaven in the power of the Holy Spirit[2] with the heavenly reality itself.

Pentecost also parallels those occasions in the Old Testament when God came to fill with his presence the tabernacle (Exod. 40:34-35) and temple (1 Kgs. 8:10-11). This is why Peter on the day of Pentecost uses the prophecy of Joel to explain the significance of this extraordinary event (Joel 2:28-32). The church as the eschatological temple of God is totally dependent upon Jesus Christ and filled with his resurrection joy (Ps. 16:11). Clowney helpfully writes,

The church’s existence as the body-temple depends totally on the resurrection body of Christ in which the church is raised up, and on the Spirit of Christ by which the church lives. Paul’s appeals for the unity of the church are drawn from the unity of the body of Christ as the true and final temple. For Paul the body and the temple go together: the breaking down of the middle wall of the temple creates one body; the New Temple grows as a body (Eph. 2:21); the body is built as a temple (Eph. 4:12, 16). Christ is the cornerstone of the structure, the Lord in whom the New Temple exists.[3]

Pentecost and the Mission of the Church

The substance has superseded the shadow, the church has superseded the Solomonic temple as the eschatological end-time temple with people from all nations being built up as a spiritual house. “Subsequent to Pentecost, when people believe in Jesus, they become a part of Jesus and the temple, since Jesus himself is the locus of that temple.”[4] Consequently, as the church expands throughout the earth by Christ’s Word and Spirit, God’s dwelling place is also extended and the creation mandate is fulfilled in the form of the Great Commission (note, for example, the allusion to Gen. 1:28 in Col. 1:6).[5] G. K. Beale powerfully captures the impact of this theme on the mission of the church today:

Jesus … becomes the cornerstone of the new temple, and Christians are like living stones being built into the dwelling place of God (Eph. 2:22; 1 Pet. 2:5), which ‘grows into a holy temple in the Lord’ (Eph. 2:21) through the proclamation of the word of God during the church age. Through faithful witness, even in the midst of suffering, the church expands with power, eventually to fill the entire earth.[6]

Pentecost tells us most emphatically that God is a missionary God (Ezek. 20:34; John 3:16; 4:23) who has sent his missionary Spirit (John 16:8ff) to testify to and apply the work of his missionary Son (Luke 19:10) to form a missionary people (John 20:21; Acts 1:8; 1 Peter 2:9) to fulfill his mission for the world (Gen. 1:28; Matt. 28:19-20). At Pentecost the church became the eschatological temple set ablaze by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel during the already-not yet until the mission of God is complete.

For more on this topic check out this episode of Vos Group with Drs. Camden Bucey and Lane Tipton as they expound upon the insight of Geerhardus Vos regarding the redemptive-historical significance of the tabernacle and God dwelling with his people.

[1] For a defense of relating the two events see G. K. Beale, “The Commencement of the Spirit’s Building of Believers into the Transformed Temple of the End-Time New Creation,” in A New Testament Biblical Theology, 592ff.

[2] For a discussion of the close relationship between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit see Richard B. Gaffin, “Pentecost: Before and After,” Kerux 10, no. 2 (September 1, 1995): 3-24.

[3] Clowney, “The Final Temple,” WTJ 35 (1973), 184-85.

[4] Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology, 634.

[5] It can be said that the church inherits the creation mandate in the form of the great commission.

[6] Beale, God Dwells Among Us, 135-36.

Acts 1-9 — Ethnically Nearsighted Missions

Acts does not begin with a church zealous to reach the gentiles with the good news of the gospel; in fact, the gentiles are not even on their radar. The witness of the church in the first nine chapters is limited to those who were either members of or related to the Jewish community. The two exceptions would seem to be Philip’s proclamation of Christ to the Samaritans (Acts 8:4-25) and to the Ethiopian eunuch on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (8:26-39). However, the Samaritans were not regarded as purely gentiles since they had Jewish ancestry and the Ethiopian eunuch is depicted as a God-fearer since he was in Jerusalem for Passover and possessed a Jewish scroll (Isaiah)—he was likely a proselyte to the Jewish religion.

Why is it that the church, who during this time had already received the Great Commission, was not compelled to reach the Gentiles with the good news? Christ had commanded them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20; cf. Acts 1:8). Yet, this command did not expand the limited insight the Jews had regarding the universality of the gospel. They remained ethnically nearsighted, targeting only the Jewish population, so that the issues and problems surrounding the incorporation of the gentiles into the church were not entertained or even imagined. Thus, the first nine chapters of Acts surprisingly supports the notion that the Great Commission did not “play a role in launching the church on her missionary labors” outside the Jewish community.

Acts 10 — Peter’s Encounter with Cornelius

Peter himself gives six utterances of a universalistic nature (2:17, 21, 39; 3:25, 26; 4:12), yet it is not until his encounter with Cornelius that he understands the true universalistic nature of the gospel to be for both Jew and gentile alike. It is in Acts 10 that the “gentile-problem” begins to appear as a blip on the church’s radar. It’s here we perceive the motivation that leads the church to bring the gospel to those outside the Jewish community.

It’s interesting to note that the “gentile-problem” is first encountered here in Acts 10 and not at the Jerusalem Council found in Acts 15.[2] Peter’s words are telling when he stands up before the council and says, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe” (15:7). Peter indicates that the council was not meeting to necessarily answer the problem, since God had already clearly provided an answer earlier. But, as Harry Boer notes,

At the Jerusalem conference it was established that believing gentiles need not observe the law of Moses. Before the Church effected this clarification it had already, in connection with the conversion of Cornelius, made the fundamental affirmation that gentiles as gentiles could be the recipients of salvation. When later developments threatened the integrity of this affirmation (“Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved” Acts 15:1) the Church acted and acted resolutely to safeguard it. The Jerusalem conference did not bring a new state of things into being. It simply rejected a heresy. The new state of things had been brought into being earlier at Jerusalem when the Church accepted as valid the conversion and baptism of Cornelius.[3]

Let us then look more closely at Acts 10. It opens with Cornelius, a gentile centurion, seeing an angel of God in a vision who commends his offerings before God and commands him to send his servants to Joppa to bring the apostle Peter back to his home (10:1-8). As his servants journey to the city, Peter falls into a trance. He sees a great sheet descending with all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds in it (a good friend likes to speak of this as Peter’s bacon dream). Then a voice speaks to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat” (10:13). Peter, bewildered at the command, replies, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean” (10:14). But the voice comes to him a second time, saying, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (10:15). Following this vision Cornelius’ servants arrive and invite Peter back with them (10:17-23). They arrive and Peter says to Cornelius, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (10:28). Cornelius goes on to explain what happened to him a few days earlier (10:30-33). Peter then speaks the good news of the gospel to Cornelius and his household, hitting some universal notes that he previously had been shortsighted to (10:34-43). Then comes this significant conclusion to the event:

While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (10:44-48).

Peter’s carrying out of the Great Commission in baptizing and teaching Cornelius and his household was not motivated by Christ’s command itself, but by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the uncircumcised gentiles. That the gospel was intended for both Jew and gentile was not inferred from the Great Commission, but from the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the gentiles.

Now it’s not that we’re to look for the Pentecost event (or something similar to it) to repeat itself upon a certain people group or household to then be motivated to bring the gospel to them. Rather, Pentecost was a once for all accomplishment that belongs to redemptive-history, as Gaffin has made a convincing case for in his book Perspectives on Pentecost (see also our interview with him). But isn’t the Pentecost event of Acts 2 repeated in Acts 10? Sinclair Ferguson helps us to understand the redemptive-historical significance of Acts 10,

The coming of the Spirit to the household of Cornelius marks the breakthrough of the gospel into the Gentile world. … The event is viewed as epochal, programmatic, rather than paradigmatic.[4]

This is how the church in Jerusalem interpreted the event, saying, “Then to the gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18). They did not see it as only motivation to reach Cornelius and his household, but the entire gentile world.

Acts 11 — Peter’s Mission Report in Jerusalem

This is precisely the defense Peter will give before the circumcision party in Jerusalem who criticized him for going to and eating with the uncircumcised. He does not say, “Do you not remember that we were commanded to make disciples of all nations by our risen Lord?” Rather, his defense is grounded in the indicative of Pentecost. After recounting his vision to them and the subsequent actions, he says,

“As I began to speak [to Cornelius and his household], the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. … If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (11:15, 17).

Again, his defense did not center on the Great Commission, but on the act of God pouring out his Spirit on the gentiles. Upon hearing this, the circumcised party was silenced “and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life’” (11:18). Notice there is no discussion of the Great Commission, only the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion: The Pentecostal Indicative

The Great Commission was being fulfilled without direct consciousness of it!

“The gift of the Spirit to Cornelius and his family removed in Peter all tension resulting from the contradiction between his ingrained Jewish exclusivism and the divine leading that required him to preach the gospel to the gentiles.”[5]

The Great Commission did not confront the early church with the “gentile-problem”; instead, it was the Pentecost event that did. This is not to say that the Great Commission was irrelevant, but that it did not carry with itself the motivation and power to reach the uncircumcised. “The Great Commission … derives it meaning and power wholly and exclusively from the Pentecost event.”[6] To demand obedience to the Great Commission without grounding it in what God has done at Pentecost is legalism. It is the indicative of Pentecost that empowers the church to carry out Christ’s command to go and make disciples of all nations. This is what moved the early church to action, and this is what should move us today.

[1] See Harry Boer, Pentecost and Missions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 15-27 for a historical survey that tries to explain the present disproportion between the Great Commission and Pentecost. He argues that the ratio in the early church favored Pentecost, while today the scales have shifted: the Great Commission receives the emphasis, while Pentecost receives very little attention at all.

[2] Boer points out that Luke gives more verses to Cornelius’ conversion (66 verses) than to the crucial Jerusalem council (35 verses). He believes that this supports his conclusion that the important Gentile-question was first answered with Cornelius than with the council.

[3] Boer, Pentecost and Missions, 35.

[4] Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996), 81. Gaffin, in his article “Pentecost: Before and After,” argues the same point that Pentecost belongs to historia salutis not ordo salutis. He writes, “Pentecost… is an event, an integral event, in the historia salutis, not an aspect of the ordo salutis; Pentecost has its place in the once-for-all, completed accomplishment of redemption, not in its ongoing application. Without Pentecost the definitive, unrepeatable work of Christ for our salvation is incomplete. The task set before Christ was not only to secure the remission of sin but, more ultimately, as the grand outcome of his Atonement, life as well (e.g., John 10:10; 2 Tim. 1:10)—eternal, eschatological, resurrection life, or, in other words, life in the Spirit. Without that life “salvation” is obviously not only truncated but meaningless. And it is just that life, that completed salvation, and Christ as its giver that is openly revealed at Pentecost. … All in all—from a full, trinitarian perspective—Pentecost involves the epochal fulfillment of the ultimate design and expectation of God’s covenant purposes: God in the midst of his people in triune fullness. Pentecost brings to the church the initial, ‘firstfruits’ realization of the Emmanuel principle on an irrevocable because eschatological scale.”

[5] Boer, Pentecost and Missions, 40.

[6] Boer Pentecost and Mission, 47.

What is hermeneutics? How do Dispensationalist interpret the Bible? How does that differ from Covenant Theology? How do we misunderstand Dispensationalism? How do Dispensationalists misunderstand those who call themselves Reformed? Why do we continue to misunderstand each other?

We’ll discuss these and other related questions in this episode of Theology Simply Profound.

Theology Simply Profound is a podcast of Westminster Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, serving the western suburbs of Chicago, where God powerfully speaks through his means of grace.

Music credit: pamelayork.com. Thank you, Pamela York, for the use of your beautiful jazzy rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We encourage our listeners to check out her website and consider purchasing some of her music.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

We’ll discuss these and other related (and sometimes unrelated) topics in this episode of Theology Simply Profound.

Theology Simply Profound is a podcast of Westminster Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, serving the western suburbs of Chicago, where God powerfully speaks through his means of grace.

Music credit: pamelayork.com. Thank you, Pamela York, for the use of your beautiful jazzy rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We encourage our listeners to check out her website and consider purchasing some of her music.

Participants: Melodie McKenzie, Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo