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The Birth Of The Church

The Bible in Acts 2 tells us of the Day of Pentecost when the Church in the New Testament was born. This is the birth of the Church in the New Testament. Nowadays, with everything that is happening in the world, we could say that we are living in times where the Church is being rebirthed. God is at work. He is doing new things. There are a lot of things that will be different at church from here on out. We do not know what they will be, but we know that life is changing.

When we talk about Pentecost, we could say we are talking about drawing the Church together, the birth of the Church, and the rebirth of the Church today. Acts 2:1–4 says, “When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. Then they saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.”

There was a time frame for everything that took place in Acts 2. They were having their Jewish festival called Passover, a commemoration commanded in Exodus when the people of Israel were in Egypt and God sent the plagues. Each family took a lamb, slew it, and put the blood over the doorpost of the house. The death angel passed over because the blood was on the doorpost of the house. Many years later, Jesus Christ was crucified during these same celebrations. The crucifixion of Christ and Easter Sunday took place in that time of Passover.

Why did that happen at that exact same time of the year? It happened to symbolize that Jesus is the spotless and perfect Lamb of God. He was slain for our sins. The blood of Christ could be painted over the doorposts of our hearts, not our house so that eternal death could pass over us and eternal life be ours in Jesus Christ.

Fifty days after Passover, that same year that Jesus was crucified, fifty days later, the Church is born. Pentecost, from the Greek word Pentēkostē, means fifty. It was fifty days after Passover, and it was a harvest time because now there was going to be a harvest of souls—the first fruits. Souls are going to come to Christ, and people are going to gather in Jerusalem again, and that is when the Gospel is going to go out. 

It is not by accident that the Church is born on Pentecost. It is not by accident that the Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost. It is by God’s divine calendar.