Greek Key Terms:
Context: Fifty days after Passover — Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks — the disciples are gathered in Jerusalem as Jesus commanded (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-5, 8). A sound like a violent rushing wind fills the house. "Divided tongues as of fire (διαμεριζόμεναι γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρός)" appear and rest on each of them, and "all were filled with the Holy Spirit" and begin to speak in other tongues (languages) as the Spirit gives them utterance. Peter immediately interprets the event (vv. 14-36) as the fulfillment of Joel 2:28-32 ("in the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh"), of David's prophetic Psalm 16 (the unabandoned holy one), and of Psalm 110 (the exaltation of the Messiah to God's right hand). Theologically, Pentecost is the descent of the crucified, risen, and exalted Christ's Spirit on the covenant community — the inauguration of the "last days" and the decisive "already" of the New Covenant promise.
Greek Key Terms (expanded lexical note):
OT-to-OT Development (Pentecost is a NT event; this section traces the Spirit-and-fire expectation that Acts 2 fulfills):
Connections:
Christological Connection: The burning bush staged divine fire inhabiting a single shrub on Horeb. Sinai scaled that fire to cover a whole mountain before an entire nation. The tabernacle and temple institutionalized the Glory-presence for Israel. The Incarnation (John 1:14) permanently united that divine presence to one human body. Pentecost is the corporate distribution of that same Glory-fire: what once rested on one bush, then on one mountain, then on one body in the Incarnation, now rests on each believer — "divided tongues as of fire" resting on each. Every Christian becomes, in Spurgeon's phrase, "a burning bush and not consumed." The bush-principle has been universalized in the covenant people.
Two theological trajectories converge at Pentecost. First, the divine-presence-in-fire trajectory from Exodus 3 reaches its inaugurated-eschatological climax: fire without destruction is now the normal indwelling experience of the covenant community, not a rare theophanic event. Second, the Spirit-on-God's-people trajectory from Numbers 11:29 ("that all the LORD's people were prophets"), Ezekiel 36:26-27 (Spirit within the heart), and Joel 2:28-29 (Spirit poured on all flesh) reaches fulfillment: the Moses-wish becomes the church's reality. The convergence is not accidental — both trajectories are one and the same, because the Spirit is the Glory-Spirit (Kline) that was in the bush, on Sinai, and in the temple. The same divine fire that appeared at Horeb now indwells the church.
Pentecost is christologically mediated at every point. The Spirit outpoured is the Spirit of the risen and exalted Christ (Acts 2:33): "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." The Spirit is poured out because Christ has ascended, because His atoning work has cleansed the conscience so that consuming fire can indwell the forgiven without destroying them. Beale calls this "the Spirit's presence as the inaugurated eschaton": the age-to-come Glory-presence has broken into this age in and through Christ's risen body and poured-out Spirit. The church is now the eschatological temple (Ephesians 2:21-22) — each believer a brick inhabited by the same fire that was in the bush.
Already: every believer is indwelt by the Spirit of the Exodus-3 God, and the church corporately is the Spirit-temple where divine fire dwells unconsuming. Not yet: the full unveiling of the Glory-presence in the new Jerusalem, where the tabernacling is consummated and "they will see his face" (Revelation 22:4) because "the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb" (Revelation 21:23). The tongues of fire at Pentecost are the firstfruits of a cosmos that will one day be the temple — filled with the unmediated fire of the presence that first appeared in a Midianite thornbush.
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment (primary) — Pentecost explicitly fulfills prophetic promises Peter names in his sermon: Joel 2:28-32 quoted in full (Acts 2:17-21), as well as the New-Covenant Spirit-indwelling promises of Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, and Isaiah 44; John the Baptist's forecast of baptism "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" is realized here. Longitudinal Theme (Temple and Presence; Divine Fire) — Pentecost is the decisive inauguration of the Spirit-temple stage in the bush → tabernacle → temple → Christ → church → new Jerusalem arc (Beale). Redemptive-Historical Progression — Pentecost is the hinge event opening the "last days" (Acts 2:17) and inaugurating the New-Covenant age following Christ's exaltation. Typology (secondary, narrow, Backward-Looking) — only if carefully framed: the bush-Sinai-fire pattern is typologically taken up and distributed at Pentecost (one → all; local → corporate). Criteria: correspondence (divine fire indwelling without consuming), historicity (both events historical), escalation (single bush → every believer; Horeb → all flesh), pointing-forwardness (Joel 2 explicit; Numbers 11:29 implicit longing), retrospective recognition (Peter's Joel-citation). Analogy to Numbers 11:29 also holds. Anti-default check: primary method is Promise-Fulfillment (Peter's own reading), with typology appropriately subordinated to the explicit OT promises Peter names.
Trajectory Table: 022 - Burning Bush (Divine Presence in Fire)