Word of Salvation – Vol. 33 No. 24 – June 1988
“Did You Receive The Holy Spirit When You Believed?”
Sermon: by Rev. D.J. van Garderen on Acts 19:2a
Reading: Acts 18:24-19:8, Titus 3:1-11
Singing: 393; 196; 36: 1,2,3; 386; 321.
Dear Congregation,
“DID YOU RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT WHEN YOU BELIEVED?”
It was and still is this question, as found in Acts 19:2, that Christian people ask and are asked again and again. It is also a question which, as some of you will know from very personal experience, is liable to divide, to alienate and even cause real hurt and pain. At the same time, it is a question which you must answer fully without needing to waver or doubt one jot.
I. The Original Context of the Question.
The context or setting in which this particular question was first asked is recorded in Acts 18 and 19. Let us look at it and see what was going on.
1. Paul, on his second missionary journey, continued to travel from place to place. He had, at this point of time, not been to the city of Ephesus. But word of some events that had taken place in Judea had come to his attention. A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. What he did there is described in 18:24,25.
“He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervour and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue.”
2. Eventually Paul arrived in the city of Ephesus himself.
Meanwhile, Apollos was in Corinth being instructed by the famous couple, Priscilla and Aquila. Paul and Apollos missed each other on this occasion. However, the disciples or converts of Apollos were there. Possibly having heard about these people already, Paul sought them out. He spoke to these men before anyone else in Ephesus.
3. As it turned out, their knowledge of Jesus as received from Apollos was accurate and true. The problem was that it was only in part. At best we can only guess at what this partial knowledge consisted of. We may be fairly sure that:
a) There was a real belief in the fact that every creature is a sinner before God and in need of repentance. They had received the Baptism of John (the Baptist) to indicate their genuine sorrow for sin.
b) There was a real belief in doing what Jesus did, imitating or copying Him. You can imagine Apollos teaching this little band of disciples the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5,6,7). Here was the essence of what followers of Jesus believed and did!
4. What they did not know was that Jesus died and rose again as the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice for sin. They did not know that the blood of the Lord Jesus would make them clean people. They did not know that there was everlasting life in Jesus. They did not know that to be in Christ Jesus means to be clothed with His power, filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ! They did not really know about Pentecost!
Therefore the question: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
5. No they did not! They did not even know about this outpouring of the Holy Spirit as a fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy! They did not know that being a disciple of Jesus involves becoming a new, twice-born and Spirit-filled creature. They did not know that in Christ, everyone whom the Lord calls receives the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They knew about being a disciple, but not about salvation and new life in Christ.
6. Therefore, since they lived and believed in the era of John the Baptist, before the cross and resurrection, they needed to be transported into a new era, the post-Pentecost Church where believers are baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus!
7. On hearing the full gospel, the whole story about all that Jesus said and did from the lips of Paul, these men believed it. They received the news! Yet a tremendous leap had to be made on their part too! They were called to receive baptism into the name of Jesus instead of John the Baptist. They were told to believe that being a follower of Jesus was not just sorrow for sins, believing what Jesus taught and trying to imitate Jesus. They were told that in Jesus there was a brand new principle of life. There was a Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered life. They were told that they could be fellow-heirs with Christ; of sonship with God!
Dare they believe and know this to be true for themselves? They believed! And therefore they submitted themselves to a new baptism into the name of Jesus.
They believed and bowed before Paul and he laid his hands upon them. All at once heaven confirmed the truth of what they believed:
“When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues (other languages) and prophesied.” (19:6)
II. The Question As Directed to Us Today.
“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” When someone asks you this today, is it a question that demands an answer? If so, is it a question that requires the same the same answer as was given and experienced in Acts 19? More, is the answer given to this question to be accompanied by the same signs as listed in Acts 19:6?
These are very important questions which you, the moment you confess Christ, should be able to consider and answer very definitely for yourself.
1. Let us begin with the first question: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
a) Note first of all, that what you as a Christian believe and what the 12 disciples of John the Baptist believed was different. They had only ever heard half of the Gospel! They had never heard of the cross, the resurrection, and above all, of the power of Christ, the Spirit of Christ! They had never heard that Jesus said:
“It is good for you that I am going away. Unless I go away the Counsellor (Paracletos, Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you…!” (John 16:7)
Your belief is different. The Gospel which you have heard preached is the full Gospel. It is that Gospel which Paul summarised in, for example, 1Cor.2:1 as “Christ and him crucified”. It is the Gospel Peter preached at Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2!
b) You believe the whole Gospel? If you are able to say, “Yes!” to that, then what you believe includes the Good News and facts about the work of the Holy Spirit too.
What facts?
The fact that believing in the Gospel of Christ in its fullness necessarily includes receiving the Holy Spirit! Acts 2 proclaims that the promise of God to Joel is now a reality! Believing includes receiving the Holy Spirit. The two cannot be separated. Listen to the promise given by Peter to those who repented:
“Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38).
Also Titus 3:4-6 (read it). Here there is surely a wealth of revelation. First it describes the reason for our salvation: The kindness and love of God… not because of things we had done, but because of his mercy.
Second, it describes what salvation consists of: “the washing and birth of renewal” (Think of John 3:3ff where Nicodemus was told that unless a man is born again he cannot see (let alone enter!) the Kingdom of Heaven!). “Renewal”, think of becoming at new creature, of the old man being put to death and the new created in his place.
Third, think of how this miracle of salvation is possible: “by the Holy Spirit.’
And I challenge you, in the name of Christ to see if it is possible to be saved, to come to believe in Christ, except through the power of the Holy Spirit!
Remember how Jesus spoke about this to Nicodemus? Nicodemus, along with all the Pharisees of that age, believed that your work, your contribution, led God to reward you with the gift of salvation! No, Nicodemus! Unless you are born of the Spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Nicodemus could do many things, but he could not give birth to new life in and of himself. That was exclusively and totally the Spirit’s work.
Except a man is born again through the power of the Spirit, he cannot see or enter the Kingdom… or, as we could also put this, become a Christian.
In that great chapter on the proof of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church and its members (1Cor.12) the apostle testifies saying:
“Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed’, and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit (1Cor.12:3).
To summarise: If someone asks you: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”, what does the very Gospel you believed force you to say?
‘Yes!’ and no ifs or buts unless you want to commit the sin of doubting the testimony of the Word of God itself!
2. What is the sign of receiving the Holy Spirit today? Congregation, many people conclude from their reading of Acts 19:6, and also from Acts 2:1-4, 10:45,46, that the sign of being filled with the Holy Spirit is something miraculous like tongue speaking, prophesying or experiencing miraculous faith-healing.
For, and in, the examples listed such supernatural signs were indeed the sign of having received the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, I do not believe that this is the time or place to deny or affirm that these are the sign of the Holy Spirit as many would earnestly contend today. But what I do want to contend is that there are greater and much more glorious signs of being Spirit-filled or baptised today. What? Is it not the very presence of faith in Christ as Saviour and Lord itself? That is the one sign that the devil, disguising himself even as an angel of light, can never hope to begin to imitate.
In 2Thess.2:9,10 we read:
“The coming of the lawless one (read anti-christ’ if you want) will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.”
And why refuse to love the truth? Because of the powerful delusion God sends on them?
What that delusion is? Counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders! Satan can imitate that but he cannot imitate the truth! Furthermore, in Matthew 7:21ff we have one of the so-called hard sayings of our Lord.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers.”
Note how spectacular their deeds were, and how spectacularly misleading!
The sign of being Spirit-filled is belief in Christ. All else is secondary by miles! I would suggest that it has been our forgetting that basic truth that has, from the beginning of the history of the church till now, been such a great reason for weakness!
III. The Compulsion to Ask the Question.
One other aspect still needs to be considered with respect to the question. Whereas all who believe must answer ‘yes’ here and must look to the sign which cannot be counterfeited, the faith in Christ as confessed, there is nevertheless often extremely good reason for asking this question.
The reason? Simply that many, many Christians show far too little if any real evidence of the spiritual power, fire and grace that accompanies faith in Christ. Many Christians lack that being aglow with the Spirit. So often, instead of being burning torches on fire for Christ, people who confess Christ are no more than smouldering logs, the only evidence of fire being a vague wisp of smoke (if you look real close).
That was true in the New Testament Church and still is today. The Thessalonians are told:
“Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good.” (1Thess.5:19ff)
Obviously there would have been quite a few people there who warranted the question, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” The fruit was lacking! The Ephesians are told:
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
How they grieved? The next verse says:
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave you.” (Eph.4:30,31f).
Note how the life they lived in Christ either denied or displayed the power of Christ and His Holy Spirit!
It is the very lack of fruits that causes people, inside and outside the Church to ask the question, isn’t it? Indeed, if someone is compelled to ask you, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you grieved?” or if you are asking this of yourself at this moment, is that necessary because of the grieving, quenching, yes, ultimately, denying of Christ that you are doing?
The Lord Jesus calls us to believe in Him and to abide in Him. “Without me you can do nothing,” He said. “But if you abide it in me you will produce much fruit.” The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience etc. The fruit that brings glory to God and that assures us that our faith is true.
Amen