In my reading today, I came across this passage that is often misconstrued: (Acts 7:14-16) Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them 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.

Explanation:

A standard belief of true Christianity is that when a person receives Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in us and lives through us. Romans 8:9 could not be any clearer about this fact: “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”

Although this teaching is obvious, why does the passage in Acts seem to separate the receiving of Christ and the receiving of the Holy Spirit? Are they two separate events, as some have suggested? Can a person receive Christ without being indwelt by the Holy Spirit?

Absolutely not. As with any single passage, Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture. By that I mean that the more difficult passages can be dealt with more easily by looking at passages that are easy to understand. Once that is done, then an explanation can often (but not always) be found for the difficult passage. A confusing or unclear passage should never be used to materialize a biblical belief. To do that would be to build on a shaky foundation.

The passage in Romans mentioned earlier gives some insight about the relationship between receiving Christ and receiving the Spirit. Notice Paul’s next statement in Romans 8:10: “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Aha. There is no wiggle room there! Paul clearly links the presence of Christ with the presence of the Spirit in a believer. Paul is using these two truths interchangeably. Paul says that Christians are not of the flesh if the Spirit resides in them. Interestingly, Paul then immediately states that having Christ within means being dead in the flesh but alive in the Spirit.

In other words, if you’ve received Christ, you’ve received the Spirit. If you’ve become a true follower of Christ, then you already have the Spirit within you. These are not two separate events.

So what then is to be done about the Acts passage which clearly separates the two events? It must be realized that the book of Acts records the events leading to the message of salvation being brought outside the people of Israel and into the whole world. Amazing events were occurring as never before. One of those amazing events was the supernatural distribution of the gospel, seen in Acts chapter two. This event occurred through the astonishing phenomenon of Pentecost. And what was Pentecost? It was the coming of the Holy Spirit in a way never seen before.

More particularly we see that even though the Spirit was present before Pentecost (i.e., Ex. 31:3, Num. 11:17, etc.), the Spirit had never before worked in the way that He did at Pentecost. Here it is seen the apostles receiving the Spirit in the form of tongues of fire, then supernaturally proclaiming the gospel so that people of mulitiple dialects simultaneously understand men speaking in only one language!

This event is crucial, because it clearly distinguishes one act of the Holy Spirit from another act of the Holy Spirit. On one hand, the Spirit dwells within the believer, changing him and guiding him to live in Christ and not according to the flesh (Rom. 8:9-10). On the other hand, the Spirit brings about the incredible proclamation of the gospel to peoples of many different languages at one time (Acts 2:1-4). These are two separate events of the Holy Spirit’s work.

In other words, the Holy Spirit was working in a way that He had never worked before. No one had seen anything like it. It is almost as if the Spirit was working through Christians by giving them special “superhero” powers to accomplish the proclamation of the gospel in a special way. We see that even the famous magician Simon (Acts 7:18-19), who had amazed others with his own inferior tricks, was mesmerized by the workings of the Spirit and wanted these abilities for himself.

So the explanation to the puzzle of the passage in Acts is that the Spirit came down in a special ministration, unlike ever before. It can be concluded then, that if Paul, under inspiration of God, says that receiving Christ and the Spirit are one in the same event, the receiving of the Spirit mentioned in Acts 7:16 is a ministration of the Spirit different than the ministration of the Spirit which occurs at salvation. Paul says that when one is in Christ, the Spirit is in him, yet the Acts passage states that some having come to Christ had not yet received the Spirit. Both statements cannot be true at the same time, because they contradict each other. The only explanation, then, is that the Spirit can be received in different ways.

This truth is solidified when Simon’s true motives for wanting the Spirit are examined. Was Simon interested in the power of the Spirit that brings about an inward change of new life in Christ? Is this what he wanted to buy? Not at all. Peter would not have rebuked Simon for wanting to live according to the Spirit. Simon was rebuked because he wanted the special “power” that he had seen in the apostles and others. He wanted it for his own personal gain and profit. He wanted to be able to perform signs and miracles for his own glory.

So then, it is important to distinguish between the different ministrations (or workings) of the Spirit. When the Bible speaks of people receiving the Spirit, we must look at the context of the passage to determine in what way the Spirit is received. In fact, we should consider any biblical passage in this way, no matter the topic.