John Kilgallen, «‘With many other words’ (Acts 2,40): Theological Assumptions in Peter’s Pentecost Speech», Vol. 83 (2002) 71-87

The complete effectiveness of Peter’s Pentecost speech implies that the Lucan audience, if not that of Peter, knows at least three assumptions that are needed to make the speech as logically convincing as possible. These three assumptions are: (1) that Jesus is physically Son of David; (2) that the kyrios of Ps 110,1 is the Messiah; (3) that only the titles ‘Son’ and ‘Father’ should be used when describing that it is Jesus who poured out the Spirit. As for Peter’s audience, the fact that Peter supported his speech with ‘many other words (arguments)’ might argue that his audience were introduced to these three assumptions. As for Luke’s audience, Luke 1,35 and its context play a major role in justifying the logic of this Pentecost speech.

in all, if there is need to assert that it was Jesus who poured out the Spirit, Peter has chosen, with Jesus ascended to God’s right hand, the right moment to present this work of Jesus, though the reference to Jesus remains a bit awkward²⁹.

        The greater question, to which the phrasing of v. 33 gives rise, has to do with God. That is, throughout the entire speech of Peter there is reference only to ‘God’³⁰ — with one exception: in the latter part of v. 33, where we read that ‘[he] having received the promised Holy Spirit [epexegetical genitive³¹] from the Father...’. Why this change, this unique use of ‘Father’ in place of ‘God’? After all the Joel citation is clear that it is God who is the source of the outpouring of the Spirit. As in previous discussions, so here: there is nothing in the speech itself which warrants this change of vocabulary³². We must go elsewhere, indeed backwards, to gain some understanding of what we find in v. 33³³.

        Near the very end of his Gospel Luke cites Jesus’ words, ‘I will send the promise of my Father upon you’ (Luke 24,49). The statement of Peter at Acts 2,33 repeats the essence of this word of Jesus, and again offers the peculiarity that when Jesus is associated with the Spirit and with God, the proper term is not ‘God’ but ‘(my) Father’.

        Luke records Jesus’ speaking about ‘the Spirit from my Father’. Within the Lucan work there is one other significant use of this particularized vocabulary. At Luke 10,21, Jesus begins an address to ‘Father’ and repeats, in 10,22 such a reference twice; once he states that ‘All has been given me from my Father’ and then, as a conclusion, that