The Gentile Pentecost (Acts 8-15)Sýnishorn

God ‘wrongfoots’ everyone

Nobody but nobody expected what God did next!

‘The circumcised believers, (the Jews), were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, (the non-Jews). For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God’ (Acts 10:45).

Again and again and again throughout human history, God has made a crucial intervention that absolutely no one was expecting.

Abram was not expecting God to make him a promise – but He did!

The Israelites were not expecting God to send Moses – but He did!

The Jews were expecting the Messiah, but when He came they didn’t recognise Him.

And absolutely no one was expecting the Messiah to be crucified!

And no one was expecting that God would raise Jesus from the dead – despite the fact that Jesus had repeatedly told His apostles this would happen!

The believers were expecting the Spirit but none of them knew what was about to happen at Pentecost. (The crowd was so bewildered, (Acts 2:6) that the leading evangelistic sermon ever preached began with the statement; ‘these people are not drunk!’ (Acts 2:15).

And nobody, but nobody was expecting the Spirit to come on the Gentiles!

The Holy Spirit didn’t even wait for Peter to finish his talk – at the precise moment when Peter had stated that there is forgiveness for everyone who believes in Jesus, the Spirit fell powerfully on the believing Gentiles and they spoke in tongues and praised God.

‘God showed that He accepted the Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 15:8).

The outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles is the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham; ‘He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit’ (Galatians 3:14). ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise’ (Galatians 3:29).

God acted and every single person in the room was in shock! The Gentiles were astonished that they were encountering Christ in the Spirit, and the Jews were astonished that God had poured out His Spirit on the Gentiles!

The whole event was such a shock and surprise that half the next chapter is taken up with Peter explaining himself to the ‘circumcised believers in Jerusalem’, (Acts 11:2). To their credit when they heard, they concluded, ‘So then, even to the Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life’ (Acts 11:18).

Jesus repeatedly taught that when God intervenes at the end of the age in the final judgement, ‘many who are first will be last, and many who are last shall be first’ (Matthew 19:30, 20:16). In other words, there are going to be a lot of surprises!

We are on Holy ground in these chapters. If we don’t feel the shock that they felt, then we have almost certainly not understood the significance of what God did. God is God and He will do exactly what He wants in the way He wants. Nevertheless, we can always be sure that He is righteous and loving in all He does. He is never capricious.