be said, that it better agrees with the custom of the apostles (Luke 24:53; Acts 2:46; 5:12, 42), with
the time of the miracle (the morning hour of prayer), and with the assembling of a large multitude
of at least three thousand hearers, and also that it seems to give additional solemnity to the event
when it took place in the symbolical and typical sanctuary of the old dispensation. But it is difficult
to conceive that the hostile Jews should have allowed the poor disciples to occupy one of those
temple buildings and not interfered with the scene. In the dispensation of the Spirit which now
began, the meanest dwelling, and the body of the humblest Christian becomes a temple of God.
Comp. John 4:24.
IV. Effects of the Day of Pentecost. From Farrar’s Life and Work of St. Paul (I. 93): "That
this first Pentecost marked an eternal moment in the destiny of mankind, no reader of history will
surely deny. Undoubtedly in every age since then the sons of God have, to an extent unknown
before, been taught by the Spirit of God. Undoubtedly since then, to an extent unrealized before,
we may know that the Spirit of Christ dwelleth in us. Undoubtedly we may enjoy a nearer sense
of union with God in Christ than was accorded to the saints of the Old Dispensation, and a thankful
certainty that we see the days which kings and prophets desired to see and did not see them, and
hear the truths which they desired to hear and did not hear them. And this New Dispensation began
henceforth in all its fulness. It was no exclusive consecration to a separated priesthood, no isolated
endowment of a narrow apostolate. It was the consecration of a whole church—its men, its women,
its children—to be all of them ’a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar
people;’ it was an endowment, of which the full free offer was meant ultimately to be extended to
all mankind. Each one of that hundred and twenty was not the exceptional recipient of a blessing
and witness of a revelation, but the forerunner and representative of myriads more. And this miracle
was not merely transient, but is continuously renewed. It is not a rushing sound and gleaming light,
seen perhaps for a moment, but it is a living energy and an unceasing inspiration. It is not a visible
symbol to a gathered handful of human souls in the upper room of a Jewish house, but a vivifying
wind which shall henceforth breathe in all ages of the world’s history; a tide of light which is rolling,
and shall roll, from shore to shore until the earth is fall of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters
cover the sea."§ 25. The Church of Jerusalem and the Labors of Peter.
Σὺ εἷ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ πέτρᾳ οικοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ
κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς.—Matt. 16:18.
Literature.
I. Genuine sources: Acts 2 to 12; Gal. 2; and two Epistles of Peter.
Comp. the Commentaries on Acts, and the Petrine Epistles.
Among the commentators of Peter’s Epp. I mention Archbishop Leighton (in many editions, not
critical, but devout and spiritual), Steiger (1832, translated by Fairbairn, 1836), John Brown
(1849, 2 vols.), Wiesinger (1856 and 1862, in Olshausen’s Com.), Schott (1861 and 1863), De
Wette (3d ed. by Brückner, 1865), Huther (in Meyer’s Com., 4th ed. 1877), Fronmüller (in
Lange’s Bibelwerk, transl. by Mombert, 1867), Alford (3d ed. 1864), John Lillie (ed. by Schaff,
1869), Demarest (Cath. Epp 1879), Mason and Plumptre (in Ellicott’s Com., 1879), Plumptre
(in the "Cambridge Bible," 1879, with a very full introduction, pp. 1–83), Salmond (in Schaff’sA.D. 1-100.