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Experiencing this amazing unity that Jesus had invited them into at the last supper created a growing passion to share this love and peace with others all around them outside who were living in emptiness and pain. In dwelling on and rehearsing the many acts and words of Jesus they were drawn into deeper sympathy with the passion of God to draw many more into this profound, healing love. They shared this growing, mutual desire but were not sure how to best go about it. And they remembered Jesus' clear instruction to wait until they had received power, whatever that meant.
They had little idea what it would look or feel like, but they were very confident that when they received this gift of power from Jesus there would be no missing what it was. So they focused their attention and prayers on Jesus and on the Father in Jesus' name as He had invited them to do, and they set their hearts on craving a deeper experience of sharing the passion they sensed emanating from the heart of Jesus and His Father.
At this point they heard something that had seldom been heard since the Garden of Eden recorded in Genesis 3:8. They heard the sound of God approaching and began to experience the fire of His presence. All of their senses came alive as their Creator approached just as He had done in the Garden. The whole house filled with electric, fiery intensity as the emotions and feelings they had been experiencing toward God and His Son were amplified and accelerated. It was not so much that their feelings were different now, but that they were confirmed and empowered with supernatural authentication and boldness. They began to feel for the first time the fearless, holy boldness that they had seen so many times in Jesus and they now could begin to understand better what had always before somewhat mystified them.
The intensity of this revelation of God's presence was not limited to the senses of the believers gathered in the upper room. It was a physical manifestation that rocked the ground like an earthquake and sent shock-waves throughout the surrounding city resembling the roar of a tornado. But unlike a destructive tornado this did not strike fear into people's hearts so much as great curiosity. The sky was not filled with the angry clouds of a storm but they could clearly hear the powerful sound of hurricane-force winds coming from a single building in the city. This was amazingly strange and people quickly emptied their houses and filled the streets around the building pushing and shoving to see what might be causing this mysterious “storm”.
Meanwhile inside, on the roof and around the balconies, the believers were filled with the very power of the Almighty Himself and spontaneously burst into the language of heaven – praise and gratitude and celebration of the goodness and awesome beauty of God. As they did so they discovered they now had new-found expertise in the multiple languages of earth equipping them to more plainly communicate the wonderful love and the essence of salvation they were experiencing to everyone who would care to listen. The burden of their message was focused on one thing alone – (2:11) ...speaking of the mighty deeds of God!
As the curiosity, amazement and even criticism continued to increase in the rapidly growing crowd outside, the believers realized that someone must be their spokesperson to effectively share what was now their all-consuming passion. As they looked around at each other they immediately knew who could best express the real meaning of what they were experiencing. He was one who had gone the lowest both publicly and in his own esteem. But he had experienced healing in his heart from Jesus and was accepted, loved and forgiven by every person in this new family. Now the time had come to restore him to the position of respect and leadership that Jesus had prepared him for in the public arena, the very place where he had humiliated himself and his beloved Master.
Verse 14 says that Peter was “put forward” as their spokesman. He did not assert himself or try to be reinstated. He was now deeply humble and quiet but very devoted in his passion for the One who had given everything and stopped at nothing to save and love and redeem this unreliable, loud-mouthed impulsive sailor that had often caused Him trouble and grief. The group was unanimous in pushing Peter, the redeemed fisherman-now-turned-shepherd to the front to express and demonstrate most eloquently the redeeming love that was overflowing from all of their hearts.
When Peter opened his mouth, what now flowed out uninhibited was his passion for his best Friend and mighty Saviour and his intense longing for everyone else to share in this incredible new experience with him. The people standing behind him were overflowing with the same love and presence of God, now supercharged with boldness and fearless joy after the reception of the Holy Spirit received from Jesus. The people in front of him were very curious, baffled and quite ready to listen. Peter sensed that this was now the time to release the revelations Jesus had opened to him in Scripture over the past few days. Peter had finally begun to see the bigger picture from God's perspective and had let go of his own small agenda for an earthly kingdom full of pride and self-important people. All of the believers now shared a single focal point – Jesus and His exalted position in the Universe.
The Jews gathered in front of Peter had a shared paradigm that everything else had to be filtered through; they were sons of Abraham and all concept of royalty and authority must come through King David. They had ended up making gods of their beliefs and their ancestors. Peter's first words to the Jews directly addressed this problem of idolatry. Peter had heard the angels at Jesus ascension clearly identify the One who would return to claim the earth as “this Jesus”, the same One they had just spent 3 ½ years getting to know. Now Peter used this same phrase at the beginning, middle and end of his first speech to explain what was happening right now both on earth and in heaven. He wanted the Jews to broaden their perspective to see the real issues as God sees them. He was acting as a personal witness as Jesus had asked Him to do. And in the process of testifying about the identity of Jesus he also exposed the false basis of the Jew's faith and their need to transfer their allegiance and reverence from earthly objects and people to heavenly truth and personalities, particularly to God Himself and His Son. Peter's message was simple and direct – “stop trusting in your heritage and your religion to save you and accept God's provision of redemption through Jesus to save you. You, in your obsession for your man-made religion , ended up torturing and killing God Himself. It's time to surrender! Lay down your armed resistance to God's love for you. Be baptized – immersed in the truth about God's character as well as in water – and you too can experience with us this incredible life-energizing, fulfilling experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit of God Himself.”
He explained that Jesus had as a human come under the covenant requirements of humanity's covenant with Satan. Jesus then paid the price of breaking that covenant by His death. Since he was also the original Creator and owner of the human race He could use His death, both as a human under the law and as God on earth, to free all who would accept Him from the covenant power of death and sin over them. By being baptized into His death they could then be free of their “deal with the devil” and could live in a new covenant relationship with their life-loving Creator and Redeemer and experience eternal life.
