The Significance Of The Feast Of Pentecost

The following comes from an article I found.



Pentecost and the Law

"The Pentecost of the Old Covenant is an “antitype” of the Pentecost of the New Covenant. The term “antitype” refers to how a stamp is made in the mirror image of its desired impression. Thus does the Old Testament point forward to the New, with events of either Pentecost mirroring the other. Moses, the prophet of the Old Law, received it on the Pentecost after Pesach (Passover); Jesus, the fulfiller of the Old Law, gave a New Law on the Pentecost after Pascha (Easter). Jesus the Christ ascended to God on the 40th day after Pascha; Moses descended from God on the 40th day after Pentecost. Moses, leading the other Levites, killed 3000 idolaters on the ancient Pentecost; St. Peter, leading the other Apostles, converted 3000 devout Jews to eternal life, who had come to worship God on the festival...

This is a matter of stunning importance; in the New Covenant, the Law is not given as a fait accompli, written down in stone or on a page. Rather, God Himself descended upon the Church in the fire of the Holy Ghost, making of each heart a sanctuary, abiding in each soul and giving it the power to fulfill the Law in Spirit and Truth. Of course, this is not to make each person into his own priest, prophet and king, justifying persons in their private opinions about religious truth – the Spirit is given to the whole Body of the Church, and the differing ranks and duties of the members must be honored, all cleaving together in Faith, Hope and Charity by the same Spirit...

God has cast His fire on the earth, and when the time is ripe it shall become an ineluctable conflagration. Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla (“That day, the day of wrath, blasts the cosmos to cinder and ash; so David and the Sibyll swear”). Our choices and deeds shall determine whether we are reduced to cinders as well, or whether we shall be found to be “not of this world,” and already accustomed to the purifying fire of the divine nature in the tabernacle of our hearts."

Read the whole article HERE