Sermonette: When Pentecost Was Fully Come

Sunday or Monday?
#558s
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 18-May-02; 23 minutes

In the spring of 1974, two significant doctrinal changes were made in the Worldwide Church of God that climaxed a rather tumultuous period in the history of the Worldwide Church of God. Probably as a result of these changes, the church lost about 3,500 people from its fellowship and 35 ministers left to establish or attend other organizations.

Now, the first announced change was in regard to Pentecost and this resulted in the observance of Pentecost being changed from a Monday each year to a Sunday. Once understanding came of a counting error, it was shown that the Monday observance was clearly wrong. The counting mistake was actually very simple. Mr. Armstrong counted as any English-speaking person would have when confronted with the same scriptures. However, the Bible in that area was not written in English, it was written in Hebrew. And the mistake was that he should have counted like a Hebrew-speaking person would have, because English-speaking people count exclusively, that is, away from. Hebrew-speaking people count inclusively, that is, beginning with. Now, this is a peculiarity of the Hebrew language that he did not take into account.

I want you to turn to Leviticus 23, verses 15 and 16.

Leviticus 23:15-16 "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbath shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord."

The instructions here are fairly clear-cut.

The Sabbath mentioned in verse 15 was the one that was in question, and it has to be a weekly Sabbath with movable dates, otherwise, the need for counting is eliminated. Counting from the day following a fixed day Sabbath, meaning a holy day, would always place Pentecost on a fixed date. And therefore, there would be no need to count because it would always fall on the same date every year.

All of the holy days, with the exception of Pentecost, are on fixed dates. Trumpets is always on Tishri 1. Atonement is always on Tishri 10. The first day of the Feast of Tabernacles is always on Tishri 15. And the Last Great Day is always on Tishri 22. Now, the same with the Days of Unleavened Bread, they are on fixed date. So except for Pentecost, all holy days fall on the same dates each and every year.

Among the Jews, there were a number of sects. We are most familiar with the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Some of us are aware of the Essenes, the Karaites, and the Philosophes. Now, they did not all agree on which Sabbath to come from. But there is a consistent peculiarity among all of these groups, that despite not counting from the same Sabbath, they were in unanimous agreement in the method of counting. And the reason for that is that they all counted as a Hebrew-speaking person would count. That method was in disagreement with the way Herbert Armstrong counted.

People became aware of this and they brought it to Herbert Armstrong's attention, and at first, he resisted it, which would be kind of natural. But he became convinced that he had wrongly counted when he was brought into touch with Hebrew-speaking Israelis and not one of those Israelis agreed with Herbert Armstrong.

Now the key to understanding this verse is centered on the word "from." "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath." If we understand this word "from" from a Hebrew point of view, then things clear up rapidly. If I asked anybody here to meet me seven days from today, right here at this building, you would show up next Sabbath. But if I asked a Hebrew speaking person to meet me in seven days, they would come on Friday.

The reason is wrapped up in this word "from" and this peculiarity of the Hebrew language. You count away from. Day one to you in the count would be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, bingo. We are at seven and it is Saturday again. To a Hebrew-speaking person, day one is the day that he is in. He begins his count there: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And if I was counting like an English-speaking person and they were counting like a Hebrew-speaking person we would never meet. Well, that is all the mistake was.

Just understanding that, you can understand why Herbert Armstrong came out with Day 50 being on a Monday. Whereas a Hebrew-speaking person in counting to Pentecost, Day 50 would always be on a Sunday. Even though they both began supposedly on the same day, they did not begin the count on the same day. So the change had to be made, Monday was wrong.

Then another technical problem arose that impacts upon counting but this one comes out of the New Testament. I want you to turn to Acts the second chapter and verse 1. The problem arose because of the interpretation of a phrase here in Acts 2:1. And that phrase. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come." It is that phrase "When the day of Pentecost was fully come."

Now, these people who challenged the change to a Sunday Pentecost claimed that the word "fully" meant that Pentecost could not be observed until the 50th day was fully complete and therefore Pentecost must still be observed on a Monday. Well, I will tell you right up front. This is nonsense. They cannot base that on this verse.

First of all, the word Pentecost means 50th. It does not mean 51st. And when the 50th, and since the word "day" is right there, "when the 50th day was come." So we are going to look at this a bit more closely and I might use some terms that you are unfamiliar with, but just hang in there with me because I do not know how to explain it without using a technical term.

I am going to give you this phrase as it is in Berry's Interlinear Bible. Now, you know what an interlinear Bible is. That is a Bible that has the Hebrew and the Greek, and then usually above or below they will give you the exact literal translation. It is very difficult to read it in English because all the words are out of place. Their syntax is not the same as ours in either language. Here is the way Berry's interpret this: "And during the accomplishing of the day of Pentecost."

If you compare that with the way that it is in the King James, you will begin to see a difference. Now, that translation is technically far more correct than what appears in the King James here. But even he left out one word. I am going to insert that word. It is just an article, that is all. I am going to insert and it will translate then in this way. "And during the accomplishing of the day, the 50th day." Very specifically the 50th day, not the 51st day. And pay attention to that word "accomplishing." Pay attention to its tense, especially.

Now the Greek word from which "fully" is transliterated sumpleerousthai. The word is an infinitive, and an infinitive is a word that can be either a noun or an adjective, but it has the sense of being a verb, with one exception. It has a very general application. In other words, it is not specific in pointing to any specific thing during the action. Now, Strong's Concordance does not help us much here because in order to get the specific meaning of this word, one has to consider other aspects of grammar such as voice, person, gender, case, tense, and mood. They all come together in this.

The root word is a verb, sumpleero, and its basic meaning is to fulfill or to fill full. I am going to give you an English translation using that definition. "And in the fulfilling of the day, the 50th day."

Now we have to look just a little bit deeper because understanding this word is affected by a specific arrangement of words. The Greeks spoke and wrote emphatically. That is, they emphasized certain words, almost like Herbert Armstrong wrote. You know, stars, asterisk, bolding, and all that kind of stuff. Well, they wrote that way commonly in order to draw attention to certain areas that they wanted to draw attention to. Because this infinitive sumpleerousthai is preceded by the preposition "en," that is the equivalent of the English word in, which in turn that "en" is followed by the definite article too (spelled too just like our too but pronounced toe). Both of those, the preposition and the definite article, precede sumpleerousthai and it turns sumpleero into a present tense articular infinitive. This is the technical word, a present tense articular infinitive. I am going to tell you what that means and it is very simple.

What this means is that the action, in this case the fulfilling or the accomplishing, was in the act of taking place. It was not past tense the way the King James has it. It was not already fulfilled, it was not future, that is, about to take place, but it was taking place right before the eyes and ears of those people who were there. The action was contemporaneous, while they were watching and hearing. Now, if the action had been either past or future, it would have required different verbal forms in sentence construction than appears here. The 50th day, brethren, was being accomplished. It was a Sunday, 50 days counting beginning with Jesus' ascension to His Father as the wave sheaf offering.

The New English Bible translates this phrase, "While the Day of Pentecost was running its course." Is that not clear? Moffett translates it, "During the course of the Day of Pentecost." That is so simple. West translation, "And when the Day of Pentecost was being fulfilled."

Now, there are only two other places where these particular forms of this verb are used and it is really interesting that they are both in Luke. Luke was the only one (he wrote Acts too) who used this particular form. The one appears in Luke 8, verse 23.

Luke 8:23 But as they sailed He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling [there is that word] with water, and were in jeopardy.

This word "filling" is derived from the same verbal root, but it is a little bit different word. It is [not understandable.] However, this one is written in the present imperfect tense in the passive voice and it therefore expresses incomplete, ongoing action that was happening to them, meaning the boat was being filled. It is not that it was already filled, it was being filled. Now, if you have a New King James version, you will find it correctly translated there.

Just consider the logic of this. If the boat was already completely filled as the King James version indicates, Jesus would have been sleeping under water. Figure that one out. You would have to think that Luke had a little bit too much to drink while he was working here. I do not know. It is not past tense, it is action that is happening. It is in the process of filling, just like in Acts 2:1, the day was in process.

The next one was in Luke 9, verse 51.

Luke 9:51 Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.

The phrase and the exact same word that appears in Acts 2:1 is in "when the time had come." It shows it as being fulfilled, it shows it as already having happened. So it is the same word. It is the same present tense articular infinitive form as in Acts 2:1. And remember that that indicates contemporaneous action that is not complete. It is happening right now. That is, within the context. It should be translated, "And it came to pass when the days were being fulfilled."

Now, I will give you another little proof that this is correct. What chapter in the book of Luke does this appear in? It is chapter 9. How many chapters does Luke have in it? It has 24. How long was it before the days were fulfilled? It was 15 more chapters before the days were fulfilled that He was tried, crucified, buried, and resurrected! See, that "He should be received up." It was not fulfilled yet. It was in the process of being fulfilled, that is all. So only when that final process took place where He was tried, crucified, buried, and resurrected would the days be fulfilled.

Those translators should have known better than to translate it as they did. And so Acts 2:1 provides no Bible authority for observing Pentecost on a Monday, the 51st day of the count beginning with the Sunday following the weekly Sabbath between the two holy days of the Days of Unleavened Bread.

JWR/aws/drm