- I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants; - Isaiah 44:3
- It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. - Joel 2:28-29
- I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. - Zechariah 12:10
In the Old Testament era, the Holy Spirit only came upon some individuals temporarily and to empower them for a particular service. Beginning with the first Feast of Pentecost following the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon all believers. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit resulted in His permanent indwelling, sealing, and baptizing of believers. The outpouring inaugurated the New Covenant and began a new era — the Church Age.
In particular, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred three times with three different groups of believers: the Jewish believers at Pentecost, the Samaritan believers, and the Gentile believers.
- And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. [...] in the last days, God says, That I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams; - Acts 2:4, 17-18
- Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. - Acts 8:14-17
- And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way? - Acts 11:15-17