In Acts 2 we see the account of the birth of the church when the Holy Spirit fell on the apostles and they were filled with power (Acts 2:1-4).  Many have looked at this passage and are not sure, however, of whether the Spirit fell only on the apostles, or if He fell on the 120 mentioned previously (Acts 1:15).  So then, who did receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2?  Was it the 120 who were in the upper room when the replacement for Judas was chosen, or was it just the apostles?

     First let’s examine who was given the promise of the Holy Spirit by Jesus.  When Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5, 8) and to baptize them in it, to whom was He speaking?  In order to find the antecedent of them, we need to look back at Acts 1:2.  Here Luke tells us that the them in this context are the apostles that Jesus had chosen.  Therefore the promise of Jesus to send the baptism of the Holy Spirit was given to the apostles.  They were the ones to receive the promise and watch Jesus ascend into heaven (Acts 1:11).

     Second let’s examine the time frame with regards to the promise and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them.  After witnessing the ascension of Jesus into heaven, the apostles traveled a ‘Sabbath day’s journey’ (fixed at 2,000 cubits or roughly 1,000 yards) back to Jerusalem.  Thus they would have arrived back in Jerusalem on the same day in which Jesus ascended and met with the others mentioned in the upper room there (Acts 1:12-17).  Since we see that Jesus was with His apostles for 40 days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3), and since we know that Jesus was in the tomb for 3 days, we can accurately calculate that it had been 43 days since the death of our Lord on the cross when this event with the 120 in the upper room takes place.  Since we also know that there are 50 days between the Passover (time of the crucifixion) and the day of Pentecost, we can see that this meeting took place one full week prior to the day of Pentecost.  The importance of the calculation of the days is that it shows that the narrative of the 120 in the upper room was not on the same day as Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles.

     Third let’s examine the event of the Holy Spirit falling upon them on the day of Pentecost.  In looking at Acts 2:1-4 the Bible tells us that they were all together in one place (it does not specify where that place is – upper room, temple, marketplace, etc.).  The Holy Spirit fell upon them and they began to speak in tongues.  Again we need to find the antecedent of them and they in this passage.  This is found by looking at the last verse of Acts 1.  Here we read that the lot fell upon Matthias and he was numbered with the other eleven apostles.  This is to whom the they at the beginning of Acts 2 is in reference.   They were the 12 apostles and it was upon them that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was given, fulfilling the promise made by Jesus in Acts 1:5, 8.

     Through the rest of the book of Acts we can see that the apostles had the ability to heal sickness, cast out demons, and transfer spiritual gifts by the laying on of their hands.  Once the apostles passed from this life, however, those spiritual gifts and that miraculous ability also passed away.  The working of miracles to confirm the word of God had accomplished the task given to them, mainly to confirm that the words spoken by the apostles and prophets were true and were from God (Mark 16:20).  We today have the written word, which we can read and examine to see that these things are so.