THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

130 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
seems to be impressed upon us by this verse is that,
during the accomplishing of the various ceremonies of
the day of Pentecost, the disciples were not dispersed
and mingled with the great crowds of worshippers, but
kept together, and were with one accord in one place
not scattered about. It can hardly be doubted, therefore,
that at the moment the Spirit descended upon
them they were all in one and the same place somewhere
within the large area of the Temple, presumably
in Solomon's Porch.
Concerning the verse we are now considering (Acts
2:1), Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, in a letter to the author,
said :
"Personally, I believe that the statement that the
day of Pentecost 'was being fulfilled' means far more
than that they were observing its ritual. I am convinced
that the meaning of Luke here is that all that
was signified by that feast was finding its historic fulfilment."
With the aid of this comment we can see a great
wealth of meaning in these few words of Scripture.
The coming of the Holy Spirit took place some little
time before nine in the morning (see verse 15), just
long enough for it to be "noised abroad" (2:6), and for
an enormous crowd to congregate. There would be
ample time for this between the morning services and
nine o'clock.
On reading attentively the record in verses 1-14 it
will be seen that the events there narrated happened
all in one and the same locality; for there is no change
of location. Wherever the disciples were when they
began to speak in other (feeteros-diiferent) tongues or
languages, and where the astonished multitude assembled
and listened to the first Gospel address ever
preached "with the Holy Ghost come down from heav-