resurrection of Christ (I Cor. 15: 20, 32). "Christ the firstfruits, afterwards they that are

Christ's at His coming."

Then there comes a gap of forty-nine days and after this, Pentecost. Now Pentecost is

just the Greek word for fifty. Fifty days are numbered from Passover to Pentecost.

Again you will notice it is linked with firstfruits (Lev. 23: 17): "Ye shall bring out of

your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals." God was dealing with Israel and

Judah. "They shall be baken with leaven", for these were certainly not sinless like the

Saviour and leaven is always a type of sin in the Bible. Now note: "they are the

firstfruits unto the Lord" (23: 17), and this gives us another clue as to the true purpose

of Pentecost in the N.T. It was the gathering out of a "firstfruits", a firstfruits of this

great earthly kingdom. Had the whole nation of Israel repented and turned back to God

under Peter's ministry, a harvest would have followed! The Kingdom could have been

realized then. Those who were saved on the day of Pentecost were a firstfruits, an earnest

of the kingdom that could have come at that time had the whole nation responded. But,

alas, they were not ready. What a commentary on their hardness of heart and their

Going further, we read Acts 2: 5 "And there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews,

devout men out of every nation under heaven";  they were called the Jews of the

Dispersion. They lived outside the boundaries of the promised Land. These faithful Jews

came up to Jerusalem to keep the feasts. They came up to keep this feast, the feast of

Pentecost, and no Gentile, even if he had wanted to, would ever have been allowed there.

The reader probably knows that no Gentile was ever permitted inside the Temple, under

pain of death! There was the Court of the Gentiles outside and beyond that they could

not go. There was therefore no Gentile at the feast of Pentecost; the people of Israel only

are at this feast. It was not until the Ethiopian eunuch and the response of Cornelius that

we find the purpose widening and the Gentile comes into blessing. And even then that

was obviously out of the reckoning of the Apostle Peter, and certainly out of the

reckoning of the early church.

Let us turn on to chapter 10:  Peter here gives an explanation as to why he went to

Cornelius and, remember, he had to have a very special vision to go there. He had to

have a very definite "thus saith the Lord" to disobey the command of Leviticus

concerning eating and having direct contact with the outside Gentile world. But God

now showed him that His plan was widening. He had said to Abraham "In thy seed shall

all families of the earth be blessed". God never intended that the Jew should be first and

last; that he should be the first, to be the channel, yes, but not the last. We have the

explanation in the N.T. as to why He did it; it was to provoke this nation to jealousy, to

wake them up spiritually (Rom. 10: 19; 11: 11).

So after Peter had gone to Cornelius, and he had responded, we read--(verse 45):

"They of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter".

What made them astonished? "Because that on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of

the Holy Ghost." This was something new; showing that it did not happen to any

Gentile on the Day of Pentecost. And not only that, but Peter had to go to the mother