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The Book of Acts by Stanley Horton
(ISBN 0-88243-317-2) © 1981 from Gospel Publishing House.
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Books can be ordered from Gospel Publishing House.
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• I. - The Church Established (1:1 to 2:47)
• II. - Ministry in Jerusalem (3:1 to 8:3)
• III. - Ministry in Samaria and Judea (8:4 to 11:18)
• IV. - Antioch a New Center (11:19 to 18:22)
• V. - Ephesus a New Center (18:23 to 20:38)
• VI. - The Road to Rome (21:1 to 28:31)

(These quotes are from pages 30-31.)

"Wind and Fire" (Acts 2:2,3)  "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as
of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there
appeared unto them cloven tongues like a of fire, and it sat upon each of them."

   Suddenly, without warning, a sound came from heaven like that of a mighty (violent) rushing wind or tornado. But it was the sound that filled the house and overwhelmed them, not an actual wind.

   The wind would remind them of Old Testament divine manifestations. God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind (Job 38:1; 40:6); a mighty east wind dried out the path through the Red Sea, enabling the Israelites to escape from Egypt on dry ground (Exodus 14:21). Wind was also a frequent symbol of the Spirit in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 37:9, 10, and 14, for example). Jesus also used wind to speak of the Spirit (John 3:8)

   The sound of the wind indicated to those present that God was about to manifest himself and His Spirit in a special way. That it was the sound of a wind with carrying power also spoke of the empowering Jesus promised in Acts 1:8, an empowering for service.

   Just as suddenly, cloven tongues like tongues of flame or fire appeared. "Cloven" means "distributed." That is, something that looked like a mass of flames appeared over the whole group. Then it broke up, and a single tongue that looked like a flame of fire settled on the head of each one of them, both men and women. There was, of course, no actual fire, and no one was burned. But fire and light were common symbols of the divine presence, as in the case of the burning bush (Exodus 3:2), and also the Lord's appearance in fire on Mount Sinai after the people of Israel accepted the Old Covenant (Exodus 19:18).

   Some suppose these tongues constituted a baptism of fire bringing cleansing. However, the hearts and minds of the 120 were already open to the resurrected Christ, already cleansed, already filled with praise and joy (Luke 24:52, 53), already responsive to the Spirit-inspired Word (Acts 1:16), already in one accord. Rather than cleansing or judgement, the fire here signified God's acceptance of the Church Body as the temple of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:21, 22; 1 Corinthians 3:16), and, then, the acceptance of the individual believers as also being temples of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).[Emphasis mine] Thus, the Bible makes clear that the Church was already in existence before the Pentecostal baptism. Hebrews 9:15, 17 shows that it was the death of Christ that put the New Covenant into effect. From the resurrection Day when Jesus breathed on the disciples, the Church was constituted as a new covenant Body.

   It is important to notice that these signs preceded the Pentecostal baptism of gifts of the Spirit. They were not part of it, nor were they repeated on other occasions when the Spirit was outpoured. Peter, for example, identified the filling of the believers at the house of Cornelius with Jesus' promise that they would be baptized in the Spirit, calling it the identical gift. (Acts 10:44-47; 11:17). But the wind and fire were not present. They seem to have been needed only once.