The Promise of the Father

It fell first to Simon, the fisher of Galilee, to boldly cast wide the gospel net, at a bemused and unbelieving crowd, to draw them to the shore of faith, by revealing the origin and nature of the Pentecost event, which they then witnessed, but were also about to become a part.

To this captive audience, Simon declares that the man Jesus, publicly condemned and executed before their very eyes only weeks before, was not only risen from the dead, but, having ascended to the right hand of God, had received “the promise of the Father” which had now been poured out (Acts 2:33).

This world, with all its pomp and pageantry, with all the glistening grandeur it has known or ever could know, such glory as was once paraded full before the Christ, in the wilderness of Judea, by the tempter, now defeated and forever judged; pales before the heavenly throng that gathers to greet the man who enters Heaven by his own authority and presents himself, unafraid and unabashed, before the throne of God: to receive, by means of a solemn and official act, this “promise of the Father.” Not for himself, who had the Spirit always, but for the benefit of those he had come to earth to save.

This promise of the Father, spoken of in ages past by the prophets of old (Isa 32:15; 44:3; Joel 2:28) had found its crowning utterance on the lips of the man Jesus, who spoke always in the Father’s name, as he prepared his disciples for the crisis of the cross and his imminent departure from them:  “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17) NKJV.

Risen, glorified, ascended; this man Jesus, the virtue of whose life outshines the Heavenly realm and the value of whose death outweighs all the treasures of Paradise, places them both at the disposal of the sinner and the rebel.  Upon man, who for so long has grieved the Spirit of Truth, is this same Spirit now poured out from on high, uniting men to God in the person of the risen Lord.  “For the promise is to you,” the fisher of Galilee proclaims, “and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39) NKJV.
Richard Dempsey

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