CONSIDERABLE CONTROVERSY HAS centered around the question of the relationship between speaking in tongues and Spirit baptism. Many in the classical Pentecostal tradition insist that Spirit baptism is an experience separate from and subsequent to saving faith or one’s initial conversion to Christ. The physical evidence, so to speak, of this “second blessing” of the Spirit is that one will speak in tongues.
Perhaps the most well-known body of believers who argue in this way is the Assemblies of God. This view is clearly articulated in points 7 and 8 of their “Statement of Fundamental Truths” (emphasis added):
7. THE BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church. With it comes the enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry.
• Luke 24:49 [KJV/NIV]
• Acts 1:4 [KJV/NIV]
• Acts 1:8 [KJV/NIV]
• 1 Corinthians 12:1–31 [KJV/NIV]
This experience is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth.
• Acts 8:12–17 [KJV/NIV]
• Acts 10:44–46 [KJV/NIV]
• Acts 11:14–16 [KJV/NIV]
• Acts 15:7–9 [KJV/NIV]
With the baptism in the Holy Spirit come such experiences as:
• an overflowing fullness of the Spirit, John 7:37–39 [KJV/NIV], Acts 4:8 [KJV/NIV]
• a deepened reverence for God, Acts 2:43 [KJV/NIV], Hebrews 12:28 [KJV/NIV]
• an intensified consecration to God and dedication to His work, Acts 2:42 [KJV/ NIV]
• and a more active love for Christ, for His Word and for the lost, Mark 16:20 [KJV/ NIV]
8. THE INITIAL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF THE BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
The baptism of believers in the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance.
• Acts 2:4 [KJV/NIV]
The speaking in tongues in this instance is the same in essence as the gift of tongues, but is different in purpose and use.
• 1 Corinthians 12:4–10 [KJV/NIV]
• 1 Corinthians 12:28 [KJV/NIV] 1
There are three crucial elements in this view. First, there is the doctrine of subsequence. Spirit baptism is always subsequent to and therefore distinct from conversion. The time intervening between the two events may be momentary or conceivably years. Second, there is an emphasis on conditions. Depending on whom you read, the conditions on which Spirit baptism is suspended may include repentance, confession, faith, prayers, waiting (“tarrying”), seeking, yielding, etc. The obvious danger here is in dividing the Christian life in such a way that salvation becomes a gift to the sinner whereas the fullness of the Spirit becomes a reward to the saint. Third, and most controversial of all, they emphasize the doctrine of initial evidence. The initial and physical evidence of having been baptized in the Spirit is speaking in tongues. If one has not spoken in tongues, one has not been baptized in the Spirit. Those in the Assemblies do not deny that a person may be saved without speaking in tongues. But tongues is itself the evidence that one has also been baptized in the Spirit. 2
3. Does the gift of tongues always and invariably follow Spirit baptism as its initial physical evidence? 3
So does the New Testament, and especially the Book of Acts, support the answer given by the Assemblies? In other words, does Spirit baptism happen for all Christians at the moment we first come to faith in Jesus, or does it occur as a separate event, sometime subsequent to conversion? We might as easily ask: Is Spirit baptism an initiatory experience for all Christians or a second-stage experience that only some receive? 4 And is speaking in tongues the initial physical evidence of this experience?
Non-Charismatic evangelical believers are almost unanimous in insisting that Spirit baptism is simultaneous with conversion and therefore is the experience of all Christians. The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who for many years served as pastor at Westminster Chapel in London, identified Spirit baptism with the “sealing” of the Holy Spirit described in Ephesians 1:13. He believed this was an experiential or “felt” event that occurs sometime after regeneration. Its purpose was to impart a profound, inner, direct assurance of salvation. It also produces power for ministry and witness, joy, and a sense of God’s glorious presence. But neither Lloyd-Jones nor others who take this view make any connection between the “sealing” of the Holy Spirit or Spirit baptism and the impartation of spiritual gifts, including tongues. 5
Generally speaking, many Charismatics today, and certainly all who self-identify as classical Pentecostals, endorse the two-stage doctrine of subsequence. Not all of them, however, believe Spirit baptism is suspended on conditions that the believer must fulfill. And not all believe every Spirit-baptized Christian will necessarily speak in tongues.
The late C. Peter Wagner was perhaps the first to speak of yet another movement that he called the Third Wave. The “first wave” of the Holy Spirit was the revival at the turn of the twentieth century that occurred at Azusa Street. This outpouring resulted in the formation of most classical Pentecostal denominations, such as the Assemblies of God. The “second wave” of the Spirit is typically dated to the early 1960s, when Charismatic experience spread beyond classical Pentecostal groups into more mainstream Protestant denominations such as Southern Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians, just to mention a few. According to Wagner, the “third wave” refers to the spread of Charismatic gifts into nondenominational or independent Evangelical churches. The Association of Vineyard Churches, led by John Wimber until his death in 1997, is a good example of Third Wave Christianity. 6
Most Third Wave believers insist that all Christians are baptized in the Holy Spirit at the time of their new birth. However, they would also insist on multiple, subsequent experiences of the Spirit’s activity. At any time following conversion the Spirit may yet “come” or “fall upon” the believer with varying degrees of intensity. The person who has been a Christian for years may still experience an empowering or anointing of the Spirit that is typically referred to as a “filling.” This filling of the Spirit may lead to the impartation of a new spiritual gift or extraordinary boldness in witnessing to unbelievers, or even, as Lloyd-Jones said, a deeper and more emotionally intense assurance of salvation. 7
THE APOSTLE PAUL ON SPIRIT BAPTISM
The apostle Paul explicitly refers to Spirit baptism only once, in 1 Corinthians 12:13. Here is the English Standard Version translation of this text: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” Others prefer to translate the opening phrase as “by one Spirit,” suggesting that the Spirit Himself is the One who baptizes believers into Christ or unites them with Him for salvation. This view can be portrayed as follows:
Most Pentecostals and many Charismatics then argue that at some time subsequent to conversion Jesus baptizes some, but not necessarily all, believers in the Holy Spirit to empower and equip them for ministry. This scheme would look like this:
After conversion → Jesus Christ → baptizes SOME → “in” Holy Spirit → power
Some justify drawing this distinction by pointing to the seemingly awkward phrase in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “in one Spirit . . . into one body.” But what may sound strange in English makes perfectly good sense in the original Greek text. Paul is simply saying that every believer has been baptized by Jesus in the Spirit, the result of which is that every believer is now a member of the same spiritual body.
We see this same use of terminology in 1 Corinthians 10:2—“all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (emphasis added). The “elements,” as it were, in which the people were immersed or with which they were surrounded and overwhelmed are the cloud and the sea. The reference to Moses indicates the new life of participation in the old covenant, of which he was the leader, and the fellowship of God’s people during that time of redemptive history.
There is an important point of Greek grammar that needs to be noted. In every other text in the New Testament where Spirit baptism is mentioned, the preposition en is used, typically translated as the English word in. This directs our attention to the element in which one is, as it were, immersed or with which one is inundated. The Holy Spirit is never said to be the agent or cause of this baptism. The Holy Spirit is He in whom we are engulfed or the “element” with which we are saturated. 8 Jesus is always the One who does the work of baptizing, and the Spirit is always the One in whom or with whom we are immersed and saturated.
Some have tried to argue that whereas 1 Corinthians 12:13a refers to conversion, 1 Corinthians 12:13b describes a second, post-conversion work of the Holy Spirit. But this is more likely an example of the sort of parallelism that is a common literary device employed by the biblical authors. The same reality (immersion or baptism in the Spirit) is portrayed by the use of two different metaphors. Furthermore, the activity portrayed in the two phrases extends to the same group of people. It is “we . . . all” who were “baptized into one body” and “we . . . all” who “were made to drink of one Spirit.” All believers, therefore, were baptized, or immersed, in the Holy Spirit and were “made to drink of one Spirit” when they first came to faith in Jesus. And this work of being baptized in the Spirit and given of Him “to drink” was brought about by Jesus Himself.
What is it, then, that effects our incorporation into the spiritual organism of the body of Christ, the church? It is our experience of being immersed in the Spirit, being engulfed or inundated by His abiding presence in our hearts. Some have suggested that this experience described by Paul is an allusion to several Old Testament texts that portray the outpouring of the Spirit on the land and its people in the age to come. For example:
. . . until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
—ISAIAH 32:15
For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
—ISAIAH 44:3
And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.
—EZEKIEL 39:29
Thus our conversion or reception of the Spirit when we trust Christ for salvation is analogous to the outpouring of a sudden flood or rainstorm on parched ground, transforming dry and barren earth into a well-watered garden (cf. Jer. 31:12). Gordon Fee points out that
such expressive metaphors (immersion in the Spirit and drinking to the fill of the Spirit) . . . imply a much greater experiential and visibly manifest reception of the Spirit than many have tended to experience in subsequent church history. . . . Paul may appeal to their common experience of Spirit as the presupposition for the unity of the body precisely because, as in Gal. 3:2–5, the Spirit was a dynamically experienced reality, which had happened to all. 9
In light of this I feel confident in drawing this conclusion. To be baptized in the Spirit by the Lord Jesus Christ is a metaphor designed to portray our reception of the Spirit at the point of conversion. All believers in Jesus are, as it were, submerged in the Spirit, who subsequently indwells each of us permanently. This is an experience that happens to all Christians, not some, and it happens at the time of our new birth. However, as noted earlier, this does not mean the activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives is restricted to the time of our conversion. The New Testament clearly describes a multitude of post-conversion encounters with the Spirit that are transforming, empowering, and designed to equip us for ministry. As I have often said, Evangelicals are right in affirming that all Christians have experienced Spirit baptism at conversion. They are wrong in minimizing (sometimes even denying) the reality of subsequent, additional experiences of the Spirit in the course of the Christian life. Charismatics are right in affirming the reality and importance of post-conversion encounters with the Spirit that empower, enlighten, and transform. They are wrong in calling this experience “Spirit baptism.”
This conclusion has significant repercussions for an issue that I addressed earlier in this book, namely whether speaking in tongues is the invariable, initial physical evidence of being baptized in the Spirit. We must remember that in 1 Corinthians 14:5 Paul expressed his wish that all would speak in tongues. This doesn’t make much sense if he believed they did. Why wish for something that is already and always true? But if all believers in Corinth (and elsewhere) had been baptized in the Spirit but not all believers in Corinth spoke in tongues, it would rule out the idea that tongues is always the initial physical evidence of Spirit baptism. 10
THE DOCTRINE OF SUBSEQUENCE
I am often asked why those in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions came up with the doctrine of tongues as an experience that is separate from and subsequent to conversion. The best explanation I’ve seen is provided by Gordon Fee. 11
First, Fee points to the dissatisfaction of many with the lethargy and lifelessness of their own Christian experience and that of the church corporately. The coldness, cowardice, and routine of religion sparked in them a passion, thirst, and hunger for more of God, for more of what they saw New Testament Christians experience. Second, this in turn evoked a desire for a deeper and truly transformative experience. Many were thus undeniably touched by the presence of God. A life-changing encounter with God brought new power, renewed commitment, a zealous rededication to holiness of life, and deepened love. Third, this experience was clearly subsequent to their conversion (often years after they were saved). Therefore, it was something different from the new birth or justification or anything else associated with their initial saving encounter with Christ. Fourth, as has often been said, these were a people with an experience in search of a theology. Turning to the Bible to identify and justify what had occurred, they found what they believed was a threefold precedent for what had happened to them (which will be discussed in this chapter). The final step was simply to identify what happened to them as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
So where in the Bible, if at all, do Pentecostal believers find support for the idea that Christians may receive a greater fullness and more expansive power of the Holy Spirit that occurs separately from and sometimes long after the moment of conversion, an experience that they feel justified in labeling Spirit baptism? There are generally three instances to which they point. We will look at each in chronological order.
The experience of Jesus
This argument may strike some as odd, and rightly so. The point is that the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary and His subsequent physical birth supposedly correspond with or are analogous to the born-again experience of a child of God. And since it was some thirty or more years later that Jesus was anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 10:38 and the other descriptions of His baptism by John), we should likewise expect to receive the Spirit’s power following, but not simultaneous with, our spiritual birth or regeneration. In other words, it seems that Jesus was “baptized in the Spirit” when the dove descended upon Him in the River Jordan in order to equip and empower Him for His public ministry. So shouldn’t the same reality apply to us? Shouldn’t we experience this spiritual baptism subsequent to our conversion to equip and empower us for ministry as well?
There is an important truth in this suggestion that we shouldn’t overlook. Although the Holy Spirit surely indwelled Jesus before His public ministry, there was an extraordinary anointing that occurred when John the Baptist immersed Him in the water of the River Jordan. This is clearly asserted by Luke in Acts 10:38. But we can’t overlook the fact that Luke refers to this as an anointing with the Spirit, not a baptism. John the Baptist himself made it clear that whereas he baptized in water, Jesus “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt. 3:11; see also Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; and John 1:33). In other words, far from being “baptized in the Spirit,” Jesus is Himself the One who does the baptizing!
This argument also breaks down when we remember that Jesus, unlike you and me, didn’t stand in need of salvation. In fact, He alone is the Savior! Jesus didn’t need to be born again. There was never a time in His earthly experience when He was “dead in . . . trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Simply put, Jesus never experienced anything remotely similar to our conversion. That is why it is unbiblical to speak of any particular incident in His life as being separate from and subsequent to conversion. God the Father “anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” to enable Him to do “good” and to heal “all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38).
We also stand in need of this empowering presence, but the New Testament never portrays the empowering of Jesus by the Spirit as analogous to our being baptized in the Spirit. As best I can tell, there is no biblical evidence to suggest that what the Father did for the Son at the inauguration of His public ministry reflects a normative, divinely ordained will for “subsequence” in the lives of Christ’s followers. I’m happy to acknowledge that there is an analogy between the experience of Jesus and the experience of the Christian: we desperately stand in need of the power of the Holy Spirit to do the works of Jesus. But there is no biblical justification for identifying this with Spirit baptism. In Acts it is more appropriately called the “filling of the Spirit.”
The experience of the first disciples
A similar argument is made based on the experience of the first disciples of Jesus. According to this view, the disciples were born again or regenerated (i.e., they were saved) when they received the Spirit on the day Jesus appeared to them following His resurrection. But it wasn’t until the day of Pentecost, a day that was separate from and subsequent to their new birth, that they were baptized in the Spirit. Here is the text in question:
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
—JOHN 20:19–23
The problem with this argument is that this experience following the resurrection of Jesus was not their conversion. It was not the moment when they were first saved. Jesus told them while in the Upper Room that they were already “clean” (John 13:10). He earlier exhorted them to rejoice that their names were already written down in heaven (Luke 10:20). Peter had openly testified that Jesus was the Christ (Matt. 16:16–17; John 16:30). In His high priestly prayer in John 17:8–19 Jesus described them as already belonging to the Father. And it would seem that John 20:21–22 is more concerned with the disciples’ commission to ministry than with their new birth experience (“even so I am sending you,” v. 21).
We must acknowledge that John 20:22 is a difficult passage. Some believe that this constituted a preliminary impartation of the Spirit in anticipation of the complete gift that would come at Pentecost. We know from Luke 24:49 that the followers of Jesus would not receive the fullness of divine power (i.e., the Holy Spirit) until the day of Pentecost. Perhaps, then, John 20 is describing a transitional empowering of the disciples to sustain and energize them during the interval between Christ’s resurrection and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. The case has also been made that no impartation of the Spirit literally occurred in John 20; this was simply an acted parable, that is to say, a symbolic promise of the coming power of the Holy Spirit that would finally occur on the day of Pentecost.
So it does not seem the experience of the disciples provides us with a normative pattern for our own personal baptism in the Spirit. How could it, given the fact that the disciples’ experience could not have been other than it was? The fact of the matter is that they couldn’t have been baptized in the Spirit when they believed, because they believed long before Spirit baptism was even possible. Henry Lederle put it this way:
This conclusion is . . . underscored by the fact that the apostles began believing in Jesus (in some or other form at least) before the Spirit was poured out on the church on the day of Pentecost. This places them in a situation different to every Christian living after Pentecost. It was thus necessary that the apostles experience the new freedom and life in the Spirit which came with Pentecost in a unique way because they could not experience it before it had come (prior to Acts 2). 12
Wayne Grudem concurs and explains it this way:
They [the first disciples] received this remarkable new empowering from the Holy Spirit because they were living at the time of the transition between the old covenant work of the Holy Spirit and the new covenant work of the Holy Spirit. Though it was a “second experience” of the Holy Spirit, coming as it did long after their conversion, it is not to be taken as a pattern for us, for we are not living at a time of transition in the work of the Holy Spirit. In their case, believers with an old covenant empowering from the Holy Spirit became believers with a new covenant empowering from the Holy Spirit. But we today do not first become believers with a weaker, old covenant work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and wait until some later time to receive a new covenant work of the Holy Spirit. Rather, we are in the same position as those who became Christians in the church at Corinth: when we become Christians we are all “baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13)—just as the Corinthians were, and just as were the new believers in many churches who were converted when Paul traveled on his missionary journeys. 13
The experience of individuals in Acts
Advocates of the doctrine that Spirit baptism is separate from and subsequent to conversion will then appeal to three groups of people in the Book of Acts: the Samaritans, Cornelius and the Gentiles, and the Ephesian disciples.
Although the precise terminology “Spirit baptism” or “baptism in the Spirit” is not found in Acts 8:4–24, this text is often cited as providing us with a precedent for what we can experience. There we read of how Philip the evangelist traveled to Samaria and preached the gospel with wonderful results. Signs and wonders were performed, and many “believed” in Jesus. But something in their experience was missing. We are told that Peter and John traveled to Samaria and prayed for these people “that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” (vv. 15–16).
Everyone concedes that Acts 8:16 is one of the most unusual statements in the entire book. It is the only record in the entire New Testament of people believing in Jesus Christ, being baptized in water, and yet not receiving the Holy Spirit. Was this normative for all Christians in the early church? And is it something we should expect to happen in our day as well?
Of all the texts cited by classical Pentecostals to support the reality of a second reception of the Holy Spirit, separate from and subsequent to the initial work by which people become believers in Jesus, this one is the most explicit. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that they identify this second experience as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” despite the fact that Luke nowhere uses that terminology. However, we have to reckon with the fact that Luke appears to suggest that the Holy Spirit had not fallen on them at all (Acts 8:16). Thus, would not what occurs in verse 16 be their first reception of the Spirit, not the second? My point is simply that the Samaritans had not as yet experienced a first coming of the Spirit, something prerequisite to their experience of a subsequent or second coming.
Another view is that the Samaritans had truly received the Holy Spirit but had not experienced His charismatic gifts or manifestations. It isn’t the Spirit Himself they lacked, so goes the argument, but only His supernatural gifts. Much has been made of the fact that the words “Holy Spirit” in this narrative lack the definite article, thus pointing not to the person of the Spirit per se but to the power or operations of the Spirit, i.e., His gifts. However, James Dunn and others have demonstrated that no significant theological conclusions can be drawn from the presence or absence of the definite article. 14 Furthermore, we read in Acts 8:15–19 that it is the Holy Spirit, not His gifts, who comes when the apostles lay on hands.
A few have suggested that we should account for this unusual scenario by recognizing that the Holy Spirit only comes through the laying on of hands. But this would not account for Acts 2:38, where no mention is made of anyone’s hands being laid on anyone else. If it were only a matter of the laying on of hands, couldn’t Philip have done it? When Paul was converted (Acts 9), there was no reference to anyone laying hands on him to receive the Spirit. The same is true in the story of Philip leading the Ethiopian eunuch to the Lord (Acts 8:26–40). Finally, the coming of the Holy Spirit is nowhere else connected in Acts with the laying on of hands (aside from the incident in Acts 19, which will be discussed later in this chapter). But perhaps the difference here is the presence of “apostolic” hands. But if that were the case, why do we not see in Acts a record of the apostles travelling from city to city and church to church in order to lay hands on everyone who had come to faith in Jesus? The notion that the experience of Spirit baptism was somehow suspended on the imposition of apostolic hands is simply not found in Acts or elsewhere in the New Testament.
There is one final view found in the writings of only a minority of scholars. Some argue that the reason the Samaritans had not received the Holy Spirit is because they were not yet saved. Conversion had not yet occurred. Simply put, they weren’t born again. Their response to the preaching of Philip was one of mass hysteria as they were caught up in the euphoria and spiritual excitement of the moment. They may have given intellectual or mental assent to the truth of the gospel, but they had not trusted Jesus in heartfelt commitment.
This view stumbles on the clear assertion of Acts 8:14 that they had “received the word of God.” The same wording is found in Acts 2:41 and Acts 11:1, where genuine conversion is in view. Also, Acts 8:12 is quite clear about the nature and object of their faith: “they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.” Again, Luke uses the same terminology in Acts 16:34 and Acts 18:8 to describe genuine, saving faith in God. And if the Samaritans were not saved, why didn’t Peter and John preach the gospel upon their arrival? Instead they prayed for the Samaritans to receive the Spirit.
And if Philip had failed to make clear the precise nature of the gospel, we would have expected the apostles to correct the problem through additional teaching (as Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos in Acts 18:26). One more point noted by several commentators is that they were baptized into the name of Jesus (Acts 8:16). This phrase was common in commercial transactions when a property was transferred or paid “into the name” of someone else. Thus a person baptized “into the name of Jesus” is saying: “I have passed into His ownership; Jesus owns me lock, stock, and barrel. He is my Lord.”
There is, I believe, a much more cogent explanation for this admittedly unusual scenario. The answer is found in the hostility that existed between Jews and Samaritans. Let’s not forget that Acts 8 records the first occasion when the gospel extended not only outside Jerusalem but inside Samaria. Sadly, we are all familiar with the racial hostilities that too often mar our existence today. It wasn’t much better in the ancient world when it came to the relationship between Jews and Samaritans.
There were several reasons for the mutual disdain in which they held each other. The Jews accused the Samaritans of disrupting the unity of God’s people following the death of Solomon in 922 BC. Samaritans were considered “half-breeds” for having intermarried with Gentiles. Upon the Israelites’ return from exile in Babylon, the Samaritans resisted Jewish efforts to rebuild the temple. In fact, the latter chose to erect their own temple on Mount Gerizim. (You may recall the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman on the proper place to worship in John 4:20.) There was also an incident around AD 6, during the Passover, when certain Samaritans scattered the bones of a dead man in the court of the temple in Jerusalem, an act of defilement that enraged the Jews and only intensified their animosity. 15
The situation had degenerated so badly that Jews publicly cursed Samaritans and prayed fervently that God would never save any of them. All of us are familiar with what has come to be known as the parable of the good Samaritan. To Jewish ears “good Samaritan” would have been a shocking contradiction in terms. And then there was the occasion when the Jewish leaders addressed Jesus in this manner: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (John 8:48). I suspect that if the Jews themselves had a choice between the two, they might prefer to be demonized rather than be a Samaritan!
Finally, it’s important to remember that Samaria was located between Galilee to the north and Judea to the south. The Jewish disdain for Samaria was so bitter that when they had to travel from Galilee to Judea, or vice versa, they would first travel due east and then south (or north, as the case may be) in order to avoid even having to set their feet on Samaritan soil!
Now try to imagine the chaos and uproar that would have been provoked had the Samaritans believed in the gospel independently of the church in Jerusalem. Something needed to be done to ensure unity, lest schism or division emerge. Frederick Bruner explains:
The Samaritans were not left to become an isolated sect with no bonds of union with the apostolic church in Jerusalem. If a Samaritan church and a Jewish church had arisen independently, side by side, without the dramatic removal of the ancient and bitter barriers of prejudice between the two, particularly at the level of ultimate authority, the young church of God would have been in schism from the inception of its mission. The drama of the Samaritan affair in Acts 8 included among its purposes the vivid and visual dismantling of the wall of enmity between Jew and Samaritan and the preservation of the precious unity of the church of God. 16
All this suggests that the otherwise unprecedented withholding of the Holy Spirit from these Samaritan believers was orchestrated by divine providence. The delay was designed to give the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, specifically Peter and John, time to make the journey into Samaria so they might visibly and personally place their imprimatur or stamp of approval on the preaching of the gospel there (Acts 1:8). Given the long-standing racial and religious animosity between Jews and Samaritans, God determined that steps should be taken to prevent a disastrous split in the early church. This would easily account for the temporary and altogether unusual delay of the coming of the Spirit. An unprecedented situation demanded quite exceptional methods.
That being said, honesty demands we admit this incident poses questions about the reception and experience of the Holy Spirit that may have to remain unanswered. Although I believe my explanation for the suspension of the Spirit in the case of the Samaritans is cogent, and more likely than any other account, we are still left with the undeniable fact that certain individuals were born again, trusted in Jesus, were made members of the body of Christ, and yet had not received the Holy Spirit.
The second example cited from the Book of Acts concerns the story of Cornelius and the Gentiles (Acts 10; 11:12–18). Following the events in Acts 8, this is the second monumental extension of the gospel beyond the boundaries of Jewish exclusivism. Those who would find in the experience of Cornelius an example of Spirit baptism, separate from and subsequent to salvation, point to the fact that he appears at first glance to have already been converted when Peter arrived at his house. (See Acts 10:2, 35.) If this were the case, his reception of the Holy Spirit in Acts 10:44–48 might well constitute a second blessing, or a post-conversion baptism in the Holy Spirit. But I’m persuaded that Cornelius was not truly converted before Peter’s arrival.
One reason for this is found in Peter’s retelling of the incident in Acts 11:14. The angel who appeared to Cornelius told him that Peter “will declare to you a message by which you will be saved” (emphasis added). In order to be saved, Cornelius had to hear the message Peter would proclaim. Note also the future tense: “will be saved.” If Cornelius and others in his household would believe, they would be saved, a clear indication that they were not yet truly converted. God granted these Gentile believers the “repentance that leads to [eternal] life” when they believed Peter’s proclamation, not before.
One possible objection to this is in Acts 10:35. There we read that before Cornelius had heard the gospel, he was regarded as “acceptable” to God. How do we account for this? John Piper’s explanation is the best:
My suggestion is that Cornelius represents a kind of unsaved person among an unreached people group who is seeking God in an extraordinary way. And Peter is saying that God accepts this search as genuine (hence “acceptable” in verse 35) and works wonders to bring that person the gospel of Jesus Christ the way he did through the visions of both Peter on the housetop and Cornelius in the hour of prayer. . . . So the fear of God that is acceptable to God in verse 35 is a true sense that there is a holy God, that we have to meet him some day as desperate sinners, that we cannot save ourselves and need to know God’s way of salvation, and that we pray for it day and night and seek to act on the light we have. This is what Cornelius was doing. And God accepted his prayer and his groping for truth in his life (Acts 17:27), and worked wonders to bring the saving message of the gospel to him. Cornelius would not have been saved if no one had taken him the gospel. 17
My sense, then, is that Cornelius and the other Gentiles who accompanied him were not saved until they heard Peter preach the gospel to them. It was then, at the time of their conversion, that they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, not at some time subsequent thereto.
THE EPHESIAN DISCIPLES
Our last example comes from Acts 19:1–10 where Paul encountered “some disciples” at Ephesus. The argument of most Pentecostals is that these were born-again, Christian believers who quite obviously had not yet received the fullness of the Spirit’s presence and power. Paul prays for them, “the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying” (Acts 19:6). I argued in the previous chapter that this explanation is highly unlikely, given the fact that this story pertains to a unique group of disciples of John the Baptist whose experience cannot be repeated beyond the time of the transition from the old covenant into the new covenant.
It should be obvious by now that I don’t believe any of these events in Acts contradicts or undermines the truth that Spirit baptism occurs for all Christians at the time of conversion. Likewise, speaking in tongues is not the invariable sign that a person has been baptized in or filled with the Holy Spirit. I should probably also direct your attention to numerous other instances in Acts where true conversion is portrayed and yet neither Spirit baptism nor tongues is mentioned (2:37–42; 8:26–40; 9:1–19; 13:44–52; 16:11–15, 25–34; 17:1–10, 10–15, 16–33; 18:1–11, 24–28).
However, we have not yet determined whether tongues is a gift that God wishes to grant to all believers. Even though tongues may not be the expected experience of everyone who is baptized in the Spirit, perhaps speaking in tongues is a spiritual reality that all followers of Jesus should expect to receive. I will address this specific question later in chapter 11.