received from the Father the Spirit, whom He promised to send when He
left us. Therefore it is He--'this Jesus'--who has 'poured forth
this,'--this new strange gift, the tokens of which you see flaming on
each head, and hear bursting in praise from every tongue.

What triumphant emphasis is in that 'He'! Peter quotes Joel's word
'pour forth.' The prophet had said, as the mouthpiece of God, '_I_
will pour forth'; Peter unhesitatingly transfers the word to Jesus.
We must not assume in him at this stage a fully-developed
consciousness of our Lord's divine nature, but neither must we blink
the tremendous assumption which he feels warranted in making, that
the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God meant His exercising
the power which belonged to God Himself.

In verse 34, he stays for a moment to establish by prophecy that the
Ascension, of which he had for the first time spoken in verse 33, is
part of the prophetic characteristics of the Messiah. His
demonstration runs parallel with his preceding one as to the
Resurrection. He quotes Psalm cx., which he had learned to do from
his Master, and just as he had argued about the prediction of
Resurrection, that the dead Psalmist's words could not apply to
himself, and must therefore apply to the Messiah; so he concludes
that it was not 'David' who was called by Jehovah to sit as 'Lord' on
His right hand. If not David, it could only be the Messiah who was
thus invested with Lordship, and exalted as participator of the
throne of the Most High.

Then comes the final thrust of the spear, for which all the discourse
has been preparing. The Apostle rises to the full height of his great
commission, and sets the trumpet to his mouth, summoning 'all the