Is Pentecost, as I have heard, the beginning of the family of God on earth? Did the Lord not have a people before this auspicious day in 33 AD?
[Guest Q&A from Bobby Valentine]If you want to drive some Christians crazy, then suggest that Acts 2 is the renewal of Israel, not the creation or the birth of the people of God.
Luke, whether he was an ethnic Jew, proselyte or god-fearer, does not teach that God's people began on Pentecost. Luke uses a myriad of terms to describe the people of God, but the word "church" is never found in the first four chapters of Acts, including Acts 2. Luke calls the crowd "Israelites" or "people/men of Israel."
Luke does not teach that what we call "the church" replaced the Israel we read about in Luke or in the Hebrew Scriptures. Luke believes that God's people have been renewed, that God has finally kept the promises made to Abraham and David, and Israel has been made new, with her King reigning on the Throne of David.
This is why in Acts 15 we see that God's people are called the house of David. Paul's mission to the Gentiles is presented by James as proof that God has reconstituted the kingdom of David. The kingdom of David was to include both ethnic Jews and the nations [Gentiles] under the reign of the Son of David. That house has been restored. Luke believes that the "people" continue the story that preceded that Day in Acts 2. These "people" are the same as "those" people with the same God—provided they are following Jesus the Messiah.
This perspective throws a monkey wrench in lots of sheet sermons I know. But Luke did not do his theology on a sheet sermon. This is Luke's story in the Gospel & Acts:
- Same God (God of Israel)
- Same Promise (to the ancestors, Abraham, David)
- Same Mission (bless the nations)
- Same People, Renewed (nations joining Israel to serve the King of Israel and worship the God of Israel).
So while Pentecost 33 AD is the birthday of the church, it was not the birth of God’s people.
