Page 273 - Through New Eyes

274 THROUGH NEW EYES

Covenant. Before Pentecost, the Disciples were still so confused
as to ask when Jesus was going to restore the kingdom to Israel
(Acts 1:6). After Pentecost, the believers continued to be some-
what confused over the relationship of Jew and Greek, so that it
took miracles, confrontations, and a Church council to establish
the new nature of the New Covenant (Acts 10-11; Galatians
2:11-21; Acts 15).
The second phase lasted from Pentecost in A. D. 30 to
Holocaust in A.D. 70. This phase is known in the New Testa-
ment as the “last days ,“ a phrase that unfortunately has been
often misapplied to the time just before Christ’s second
coming. 15 During this phase, Ishmael and Isaac were together in
the house, competing for possession of the kingdom. Finally,
Ishmael was cast out, and Isaac stood forth as sole heir (Gala-
tians 4:22-31). Also, during this forty-year period the Church
despoiled the Old Covenant of its treasures, as Israel spoiled
Egypt and as David spoiled the Philistine. These treasures built
the new temple of God, His Church. Thus, during this period
the old heavens and earth coexisted with the new.
What came down upon the disciples at Pentecost was God’s
glory-cloud. When we remember that the Tabernacle and Tem-
ple were Old Covenant architectural models of the glory-cloud,
it is apparent that the New Jerusalem descended from heaven at
Pentecost. What John sees in Revelation 21 is but a picture of
what happened in Acts 2. It was on Pentecost that God gave the
law from Mount Sinai. lb As the cloud covered Mount Sinai with
wind and fire and thunder, so “there camefiom heaven a noise like
a violent, rushing wind” (Acts 2:2). The cloud was also filled
with fire, which was distributed to the disciples (Acts 2:3). As the
cloud filled the Tabernacle and Temple, so the cloud “filled the
whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). In the Old Cov-
enant, when the cloud filled the house, the priests had to flee;
but in the New Covenant the Church is in. Christ, and thus is not
driven away from the Throne (cf. Exodus 40: 35; 2 Chronicles
5:14). The heavenly cloud-pattern typologically imprinted itself
on the house, creating a new world, and also upon the individu-
als in the house, filling them with the Spirit (Acts 2:4) and creat-
ing a new humanity.