12: The Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Part Four)

Holy Spirit
/ By Randall Johnson

I want to suggest to you that the reason there are only four descriptions of the baptism in the Spirit in the book of Acts, is not because only four groups received the Spirit. It is because each group that receives the Spirit in these accounts is a different “people group,” or ethnicity, or, in the case of the disciples of Acts 19, an unusual group preached to by Paul. I’ll explain more of that as we go. Suffice it to say, the first occasion was the people group of the Jews. The occasion next described is with a different people group, the Samaritans.

^{Acts 8:14}When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. ¹⁵When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, ¹⁶because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money ¹⁹and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

Though the Samaritans believe the gospel, repent and are baptized, as Peter told his Jewish audience in chapter 2, they did not receive the Holy Spirit, that is, were not baptized in the Spirit. It is not until Peter and John come up from Jerusalem and lay hands on them that they receive the Holy Spirit. Why? Two reasons:

First, Peter was given the keys to the kingdom (Matthew 16:19) to open the door to those being saved. He opened it for the Jews on the Day of Pentecost. Now he was opening it for this half Jewish, half Gentile group called the Samaritans. That John came along was, therefore, not technically needed, but it was important for another apostle to witness this.
Second, the conflict between the Jews and Samaritans was legendary and violent. Their disagreement about the true form of the faith was severe. If they had not received the Spirit through the laying on of the Jerusalem apostles, they might have been tempted to think of themselves as a separate church from that of the Jewish saints. As it was, they came under the oversight of the Jewish apostles and saw themselves as one church.

There is no direct indication that when they received the Spirit there were any visual or auditory signs. Simon’s “seeing” the Spirit given might suggest there was some manifestation of the Spirit, but that is really a secondary thing. On the Day of Pentecost, it was crucial for the Jews from every country to have some tangible sign, and perhaps it was also crucial for the apostles to have these manifestations as a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. It may not have been so important for the Samaritans, or at least Luke did not feel it important to include it.

Next comes people group number three.

About the Author Randall Johnson

A full-time pastor since 1979, Randall originally graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary (ThM) in 1979 and from Reformed Theological Seminary (DMin) in 1998. He is married with four grown children and a pile of epic grandchildren.

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