14: The Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Part Six)

To this point, though every believer had been baptized in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13), the only outward manifestations that had been reported were when each different people group came to faith, Jews (though the disciples were already believers this was the historically first incidence of Spirit baptism), Samaritans, and Gentiles. Presumably every Jew who believed after Peter exercised the keys to the kingdom and let them in on the day of Pentecost was baptized in the Spirit without outward signs, as also every Samaritan and every Gentile after the initial groups entered the kingdom at Peter’s hand.

But the apostle Paul finds a group of “disciples” who are Jews who had either lived in Israel and followed John the Baptist, but had moved to Ephesus before the Messiah, Jesus, whom John had prepared the way for, had come, or they had somehow heard of the ministry of John the Baptist and embraced his teaching. They had not embraced Jesus the Messiah.

^{Acts 19:1} While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples ² 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.” ³ So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. ⁴ 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.” ⁵ On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶ When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. ⁷ There were about twelve men in all.

Luke usually reserves the term “disciples” for Christ followers, but this is an unusual bunch. They are believers in the sense that they believed God’s prophet who was announcing Jesus, but had not yet believed in Jesus. Paul notices that something is not right about them, that is, they don’t seem to display the Holy Spirit in their lives. How would they do that? What were they lacking? Some would argue that they weren’t speaking in tongues, didn’t have a prayer language, but it is more likely that they didn’t seem to manifest any of the gifts, nor the sense of relationship to Jesus that the Holy Spirit gives believers.

So Paul asks, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” It was Paul’s expectation that normal was to receive the Holy Spirit (to be baptized in the Spirit) when a person believed. All people groups had been birthed into the church so it would be normal for any believer to receive the Spirit, be baptized in the Spirit, without anyone laying hands on them and without any outward manifestations. But these “disciples” had not heard of the coming of the Spirit that John the Baptist himself had predicted Messiah would bring. These men needed the gospel.

Paul preaches the gospel to them and they believe and are water baptized. When Paul lays his hands on them, they receive the Spirit with outward manifestation, tongues and prophecy. It is a hallmark of the book of Acts that Luke takes pains to show that Paul’s and Peter’s experiences are much the same, that Paul has the same “clout” in his apostleship as Peter does. God shows this by Paul’s acting in the same way to open the door for this unusual “people group” to enter the kingdom and grants the same manifestation of the Spirit’s baptism to demonstrate that.

The experiences of Spirit baptism in Acts were chosen because they were the first time a unique people group had come to faith. They were each attended by the apostle Peter because he had the keys to the kingdom (Matthew 16:19), except for the last one which was attended by the apostle Paul. Every subsequent coming to faith did not require a tangible manifestation of the Spirit coming into the person’s life, though, of course, God might have given tangible evidence if He chose. Every believer has been baptized in the Spirit at conversion.