First things first, read part 1 before you read this if you want to see it all in context.

After laying the foundation for my interpretation of the nature of baptism of the Holy Spirit, I now want to address the three passages that are often used to present a view that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is some kind of second blessing or initiation. This view often sees speaking in tongues as one evidence of the gift.

At the outset, let’s remember what Luke’s purpose was in writing Acts. The book of Acts is really a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. Luke follows Christ from birth to resurrection in his Gospel and then shows the growth of the church from Christ’s ascension through the last few years of Paul’s ministry. Luke is giving a detailed and orderly account of what happened as the Gospel of Jesus Christ spread and the church was birthed. It is probably unwise to root a theological doctrine in passages Luke uses to describe events that he considered significant in the initial spread of the church. This in no way implies that Acts is untrustworthy nor is it unuseful for doctrine. Of course it is both. It should, however, lead us to use the definitive teachings of Scripture to help us interpret the narrative accounts.

1. Does Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 represent a two-stage process? No. As the passage says, Saul was blinded for three days waiting in the house of Judas. Ananias is sent by the Lord to go to him. He lays hands on Saul who then receives his sight back and is filled with the Holy Spirit. We could speculate on the three day delay, but ultimately we do not know. What we do know is that in Paul’s own writings he teaches that we are sealed (baptized in the Spirit) when we believe (Eph. 1:13-14). Luke even sees the whole three day experience as one event. In 22:10ff and 26:12ff, Luke’s account of Paul’s conversion puts all of the elements together. The emphasis in all of it is that Saul, the church persecutor, had a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Were the dozen disciples in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7) believers who then received a second blessing by being baptized in the Spirit? No. The text is pretty clear. Paul probably initially thought that these disciples were believers. He quickly found out, however, that they were disciples of John. They had not even heard of the Holy Spirit. They had experienced the baptism of repentance but not the baptism in the Spirit, which comes when you place your faith in Christ. They were then baptized in the Spirit as they placed their faith in Christ. They then manifested their new faith in tongues and prophesy. This was very much a one-stage affair.

3. The final passage, Acts 8:4-25, is the most difficult to understand. Here, Luke tells of the Gospel spreading to Samaria. Philip was preaching and performing miracles. These miracles gave visible evidence to the truth of his claims. People were delivered from demon possession and others were healed and there was great joy in the city. Then a man named Simon, who was a sorcerer, comes along. He had long been looked up to in the city. Now, people were focused on Philip. Simon was astounded by the signs and the passage says that he, along with many others, believed and was baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. When word got back to the apostles in Jerusalem, they sent Peter and John to check it out. And “they prayed that they might receive the Holy Spirit for He had not yet come down on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. In this instance, the Spirit came through the laying on of hands. Simon was severely rebuked when he offered money to have the same power in his hands. What do we do with this passage?

• It would be foolhardy to say that the baptism in the Holy Spirit has to come from the laying on of hands. The apostles did not have hands laid on them at Pentacost. Cornelius did not either. In the next passage, the Ethiopian Eunuch did not. In fact, we don’t see the laying on of hands associated with the baptism in the Holy Spirit in overwhelming majority of recorded conversions in the Bible.
• Some have stated that the Samaritans were caught up with the moment but were not really believers. This interpretation struggles because it clearly states that they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Simon? He may be a different story. His actions bely his heart, and he is chastised for it. We don’t see that in any of the others, though.
• Here is an explanation that makes more sense to me. This delay could be a visual evidence of the bridge that the gospel was creating between two historically opposed groups of people: Jews and Samaritans. In this instance, God delays the coming of the Spirit on the new believers precisely so that representatives of the apostles from Jerusalem can witness Samaritans being fully initiated into the Christian community – the family of God. The testimony that Peter and John would take back would go a long way toward reconciling the schism between these two groups.

Is this exactly why it there is a delay? I don’t know, but I do know what the clear teaching of Scripture tells us about the sealing and baptism in the Spirit: He comes when we believe, placing our faith in Christ. Could it be that Luke includes this event precisely because it is so unusual? To take this event as normative for Christian walk in the Spirit, we would need more evidence. The evidence we have points to its rarity not its frequency.

By the way, as stated in my previous post, the filling of the Spirit and the baptism in the Spirit are two different things. As I preached this past week, we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes moment by moment type of thing.

Being filled with the Spirit means: I empty myself of the things that separate me from intimacy with the Lord and, to the fullest of my conscious knowledge, I give the fullest control of my life over to Jesus.