02.21.06

Acts and the Holy Spirit

Posted in Uncategorized at 12:47 pm by CLP

I have been spending time in devotionals recently studying the book of acts. I have noticed that the book of Acts could easily be termed the “Holy Spirit” book because the work of the Holy Spirit after the resurrection of Jesus Christ is emphasized as the key feature of the book. As is commonly known, the book opens with the apostle’’s being filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaiming the gospel in many tongues (with the gift of speaking, not the gift of hearing among the crowd) just as Jesus had promised them before ascending into heaven:

Acts 1:8 “But you shall receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you; and you shall witness to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Our doctrines concerning the Holy Spirit and the gospel we proclaim to this day were shaped largely by the many work of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. There is an issue which is not readily discussed concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. There are multiple accounts in the book which tell how a group of people would have repented and believed in Jesus the Christ but would not have received the Holy Spirit. It was not until one of the apostles, either Peter or Paul separately, had gone to them and lay on their hands that they received the Holy Spirit:

Acts 8:14-17: When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Acts 19:2-6: and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
In the first verse (Ch. 8) there is an account of a people who are said to have received and believed in the word of God which can only mean that they received Jesus since he is the word of God (John Ch.1). Despite their profession of faith they did not receive the Holy Spirit. I have found one commentator who claims that the Samarians did not receive the Holy Spirit because God did not want to make the messianic Jews in Jerusalem jealous since they did not commune with the Jews. This commentator states that the Samarians did not receive the spirit without the work of the apostles to encourage the messianic Jews that they still had a special place in God’s redemptive plan as the chosen people of the Old Testament. I disagree with this assertion since Paul tells us that the circumcision of the believer is a circumcision of the heart and not of the flesh and that these are the Jews who are God’s chosen people (Romans 2:29).

Another source, Chris (Poteet that is), brought up the point that the Holy Spirit was withheld from these people not for the sake of the Jewish Christians in general for the apostles. The idea is that the apostles were being shown that God’s redemptive plan was extended to the gentiles and not the ethnic Jews alone. This idea is emphasized in the tenth chapter of the book of Acts when Peter is led by God to visit the house of Cornelius to preach the gospel. While he is there many gentiles received the Holy Spirit and it says that “those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also” (Acts 10:45). This idea seems to be emphasized in multiple other points throughout the book where the apostles are being shown that the old ways have been abolished and that redemption now comes solely through faith in Christ Jesus; as Peter was shown in his vision concerning clean and unclean animals to be used for food (Acts 10:9-16) when Jesus tells Peter not to call common what God has cleansed. This vision is followed up by Peter’s visit to the house of Cornelius where he is shown that God has cleansed the gentiles also.

So do we need to be concerned that we might be without the Holy Spirit today. As Paul would say, certainty not! The proclamation is given, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

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