Peter and John: Receiving the Spirit in Samaria
Acts 8:14 NASB "Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John." There is an important word there, receive—lambano [lambanw], word that Luke uses in relation to the Holy Spirit as well as accepting the truth of the Scripture. It is a word that is a synonym for belief; it is accepting something as true. They have heard that the Samaritans had received or accepted the Word of God. It might be even more clear to say the message of God because they are talking about the gospel message that Philip had proclaimed. So they sent Peter and John. Why? All that had happened was that they had trusted in Christ as the Messiah and now the apostles are going to send Peter and John there.
Acts 8:15 NASB "who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit." So what has happened? First they believed, then Peter and John comes, and then they received the Holy Spirit. They did not receive the Holy Spirit, the ministries of the Holy Spirit for the church age believer, at the instant of faith. Today we do. Others did at that time. If you were Jewish and trusted in Christ you immediately received the Holy Spirit, but these are not Jews, they are a separate ethnic group not really viewed as Gentiles but not really Jews either. And especially because of the ethnic hostility that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans it was important for God to demonstrate that they were of equal stature and equal position in the body of Christ with the Jewish Christians.
Then there is a parenthetical explanation. Acts 8:16 NASB "For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." This shows that this ethnic group has been baptised and it was not by the Holy Spirit because they hadn't received Him. The only baptism to which this could refer would be believer's baptism or water baptism which is by immersion. So what has happened is that Philip has proclaimed the gospel, they have believed the gospel, they have been baptised in terms of immersion as believer's baptism, then Peter and John come and pay hands on them, and [17] "Then they {began} laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit."
It is important to understand how this fits within the structure of the book of Acts because there are actually four "Pentecosts" in Acts. There is one related to the Jewish people in Acts 2, one related to the Samaritans in Acts8, one related to the Gentiles in Acts 10, and one related to Jewish believers in the diaspora in Acts chapter 19. One of the reasons we want to see this is because within the modern Pentecostal-Charismatic movement the claim is made that the gift of tongues experience is what happens when you get the Holy Spirit. So there are two different t works of grace: one is related to salvation or justification when you believe in Jesus, and then a second work of grace sometime after you are justified and that is when you get the rest of the package—receiving the Holy Spirit. And they believe the necessary sign for receiving the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. Charismatic and Pentecostal are not synonyms. A Pentecostal gets the Holy Spirit, signified by speaking in tongues, but he separates into another denomination—Assembly of God, United Pentecostal Church in America. Charismatics stayed in their denominations, so there were Baptist charismatics, Catholic charismatics, Presbyterian charismatics, etc. They stayed in their denominations but they still held to the fact that speaking in tongues was the necessary sign of receiving the Holy Spirit, which was a second work of grace. The claim was that there was a set pattern: you get saved, there was an initial work of grace, and then when you dedicate your life or some other spiritual experience you then received the second blessing, second work of grace, you received the Holy Spirit and you necessarily speak in tongues. That was their pattern and they would go to Acts.
But the point is, that is not the pattern in Acts. In Acts 2 it starts off with only the twelve in 2:1 who are already believers. There is a noise like a tornado coming through in 2:2, and then there is this visible manifestation like flames of fire over each one of the eleven disciples. Then we are told that at that point they are filled with the Holy Spirit, and then they speak with these other languages they have not learned. There is no laying on of hands, no mention of water baptism until Acts 2:38 when Peter says, Repent and believe and let each one be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. So Acts 2:38 is the first mention of baptism. It has to be water baptism, not Spirit baptism. The Spirit baptism is what happened when the Spirit came; the water baptism is what is depicting through a physical ritual the spiritual truth of spiritual baptism.
Then we have the order of events in Samaria. First of all the Samaritans believed, then we are told they were baptised by water. There is still no mention of the Holy Spirit. They had not even received the Holy Spirit we are told, in fact. Then Peter and John come from Jerusalem a few days later, prayed for them and laid hands on them (no laying on of hands in Acts 2), and then they received the Holy Spirit, vv. 15-17. But there is no speaking in tongues; it is not mentioned. Some people say that because it happened in other places it had to have happened there. But if it is not mentioned we can't say that it did happen. In the other three places the Holy Spirit specifically informed us that it happened and we ought to assume that it didn't happen in Samaria. And there is a reason for that—if we understand the purpose for tongues.
In Acts 10 Peter has been commissioned and authorised by God to now take the gospel to the unclean Gentiles, to the house of Cornelius. Peter goes up there and starts to proclaim the gospel and explain who Jesus was, and they believed while they were sitting there listening. And the Scripture says that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them, and that expression is used describing the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:13. So Peter proclaims the gospel, they believe while they are hearting, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and then they spoke in tongues and praised God. Praising God is a generic term, it doesn't mean they said, "Praise God." That is a superficial concept. If we go to the praise psalms—most of the psalms after Psalm 100 are praise psalms—they describe what God has done. That is how we praise God. We describe the works of God and what He has done; we don't just say, "Praise God." There are many Christians who go through this sort of infantile kind of language thing, and we just need to realise that is a characteristic of babyhood. Those who have had a child know that that child is going to talk like a baby, and they are going to just repeat things that they hear other people say. So notice the order here. They are baptised by water after they speak in tongues. In Samaria they didn't speak in tongues and they were baptised with water first and there is no laying on of hands.
In Acts 19 we have the situation when Paul was in Ephesus. These disciples or students of John the Baptist come to Paul and they have only heard of the baptism of John the Baptist. And tyey were baptised with the baptism of John the Baptist (a water baptism which was by immersion) and they had already believed. They had believed an Old Testament gospel but they hadn't heard a thing about Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Paul explains that Jesus is the Messiah, explains about the Holy Spirit, and than says they need to be baptised. He doesn't wait for them to go through a ten-week orientation class because they already have a good theological understanding of the Scripture. They just needed to get the last couple of pieces in place in terms of who Jesus was and the Holy Spirit, and so they are baptised by water in the name of Jesus in Acts 19:5. Then Paul laid hands on them and the Holy Spirit came, they spoke in tongues (languages) and were prophesying.
The question we need to ask: what is going on here with the coming of the Holy Spirit and the speaking in tongues, and why does it happen to the Jews, the Gentiles and these Old Testament saints, but it didn't happen with the Samaritans? There is an answer to that but we have to understand the purpose for speaking in tongues.
Acts 2:38 NASB "Peter {said} to them, "Repent [change your mind] …" This goes back to Deuteronomy 30. Israel was promised the kingdom and the blessings that would come with the new covenant, which was related to the giving of the "new" Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that this would happen when Israel turned. This was a challenge to the Jewish people to turn and accept God and reject their idolatry. " … and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The Greek word for "receive" there is lambano [lambanw] and it is the word that is just a generic term for receiving the Holy Spirit. And it refers to the whole package of all of the Holy Spirit's ministries in the church age: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, baptism by the Holy Spirit, filling by the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, etc. All of these are part of just receiving the Holy Spirit. He tells them to be baptised.
We are told then in verse 41 of that chapter that three thousand were saved. That is a lot of people, and they weren't spending any time waiting to baptise them. In Acts 10, the Cornelius episode, Peter says immediately after they believe, "Can anyone forbid water to them?" And they immediately get baptised. We will see at the end of Acts chapter eight that Philip goes down and clarifies the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch, and as soon as the Ethiopian believes he is immediately baptised by water baptism. So where did people get baptised on the day of Pentecost? We are told that they were outside the temple, on the temple steps, and they had ritual baths that the Jews used before they went into the temple. There were more than 30 of them.
The purpose of tongues. Paul clarifies this in 1 Corinthians 14:20, 21. What is important about speaking in languages? It wasn't what was said. Paul doesn't say here that they were given the gift of languages so they could explain the gospel to people who speak a foreign language. There is no evidence of that anywhere in Scripture. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says not to do this when an unbeliever is present because he is going to think you're nuts, you're drunk, whatever. It's purpose wasn't for evangelism.
1 Corinthians 14:20 NASB "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature." In other words, don't be immature in your understanding. Know what the Word of God says, and on the other hand in terms of malice and mental attitude sins, being an infant shouldn't characterise your life at all. In understanding be mature. [21] "In the Law it is written, 'BY MEN OF STRANGE TONGUES AND BY THE LIPS OF STRANGERS I WILL SPEAK TO THIS PEOPLE, AND EVEN SO THEY WILL NOT LISTEN TO ME,' says the Lord." God is speaking to the Jews. The context of that quote comes from Deuteronomy 28:49, 50 which is part of the discipline God said He will bring upon Israel if they reject Him. Part of that discipline is that they are going to hear the Word of God and it is not going to be in Hebrew. When God called out Abraham He was saying, 'From now on I am dealing with the people in the world via Abraham and the Jewish people,' and all of the Scripture was given in Hebrew with a few portions in Aramaic. And what God is saying here is that if they continue to reject Him He was going to bring foreign powers who would conquer them and they would hear Gentile languages where they shouldn't hear Gentile languages in the temple mount, proclaiming the truth of God. They should be hearing it from their own prophets but they have rejected that and now they are going to hear it from a conquering nation.
In Isaiah 28:11, 12 Isaiah reiterates the same prophecy. The Assyrian threat is on the horizon and Isaiah is also predicting the future destruction of Judea by the Babylonians. Is 28:11 NASB "Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue,
Tongues, the hearing of Scripture not in Hebrew (in a Gentile language), was sign of judgment. It didn't matter what was said, it was that Scripture was taught as a sign of judgment to Israel. They hear it on the temple mount on the day of Pentecost. Judgment is coming. The Gentiles are speaking in other Gentile languages. That is the same issue in Acts 10. John the Baptist's disciples are also speaking in languages (Acts 19) and this is going to reverberate through the Jewish communities in Asia Minor. Why not the Samaritans? Because the Samaritans are a sort of bastard ethnic spin-off from the Jews, they are neither Jew nor Gentile. The announcement of significance is what happened on the day of Pentecost, it is what happens among the Jews and what happens among the Gentiles; but the Samaritans are in a kind of ethnic no-man's-land and so there is no need for them to hear a message related to judgment. So they don't speak in tongues, it doesn't fit the purpose that God had for speaking in tongues.
All of this leads to an understanding of the receiving of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit which we will deal with next.