14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John,
15 who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit,
16 for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. – Acts 8:14-16
Is receiving the Holy Spirit always a matter of being prayed for by a leader? Is it always marked by an outward manifestation of the Spirit?
Philip, the deacon, had preached to the Samaritans and they believed. They were even water baptised in the name of Jesus. But there was something missing. The Holy Spirit had not fallen on them. How would Philip have known? It must have been because the early Christians believed that the receiving of the Holy Spirit in a person is always marked by an outward manifestation. This could be speaking in tongues, prophesying, boldness or zeal to preach the word and witness, an emotional response to God. Luke records some of these manifestations in Acts.
Indeed, when the apostles laid hands on the Samaritan people and prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit, Simon the Magician could see something visible as the coming of the Spirit on them. Yet, it should be noted that in many other records of people believing in Jesus, and in the other letters in the New Testament, there was no assumption of normalisation of the Spirit being made visibly, dramatically, tangibly manifest when a person believes.
We cannot limit the ways the Spirit manifest. John Wesley experienced his strangely heart warming experience at Aldersgate. George Muller was convicted to throw aside all his commentaries and study and preach the Bible alone, and experienced a new ability to do so quickly and powerfully. I remember when I first became convicted as a Christian and submitted my life to Jesus, I could spout Bible verses freely without even trying to memorise them, and I was excited to teach the Word whenever possible. I was empowered to overcome my sins. Contrast this with an earlier time two years back when someone led me to say the Sinner’s Prayer and I did but nothing changed in my life. I had remained bonded to sin.
So I think the receiving of the Holy Spirit in a believer is marked primarily by some manifestation in the person’s life. This may or may not be immediate, dramatic, or obvious.
Yet, must it always be that a leader must pray specifically for a person to receive the Holy Spirit? I do not think so.
First, the Bible does not show this to be a universal norm. In Acts 8, Philip preached the gospel to an Ethiopian eunuch and baptised him. No specific prayer by the apostles or even Philip for the receiving of the Holy Spirit. The story left off with the eunuch rejoicing.
Second, there is a strong case to be made that the instances recorded in Acts where an apostle personally goes to pray for a group of believers to receive the Holy Spirit suggest that this was needful because these new groups of people entering into God’s Kingdom were non-Jews. Up until this time, it’s shown that the Holy Spirit came upon Jewish believers. The Jews had always been separatist vis-a-vis Samaritans and Gentiles (non-Jews). The Samaritans had mixed ancestry of Jews and Canaanite ethnicities, and had syncretic religion mixing Judaism with other religions. In a sense, they were still closer to the Jews than the Gentiles.
Here in Acts 8, Philip preached the gospel to the Samaritans for the first time. They believed and got baptised. That’s a first too. However, it seems that God in His sovereign will and wisdom wanted to make sure that the apostles based in Jerusalem would personally witness the falling of the Holy Spirit on the Samaritans. This way, there would be no doubt at all that the Samaritans could be included, and were meant to be included, in the Kingdom of God.
This is the same reason why in Acts 10, apostle Peter was directed by God to personally go and pray for a gentile Roman centurion Cornelius to receive the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit was made manifest on all the gentile believers there in the same way as during Pentecost on the Jewish believers. This is significant because when Peter later went back to Jerusalem, a faction of Jewish Christians known as the circumcision party (because they insist on all Christians being circumcised like the Jews) criticised him. Peter highlighted this point to them saying that he himself witnessed the Holy Spirit fall on the gentile believers as did on the apostles and Jewish believers. Peter declared, “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” – Acts 11:17. His critics fell silent.
I believe this is also the reason why the manifestation of the coming of the Holy Spirit for the first time on the Samaritans and the Gentiles, as described in Acts 8 and 10, are so dramatic and visible. In contrast, this is not mentioned or highlighted in subsequent stories of people believing in Jesus. There’s no mention of laying of hands or dramatic manifestation of the Spirit in the Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion, save that he went away rejoicing.
So I think all who truly believe in Jesus receives the Holy Spirit. The Spirit may or may not come in visible, dramatic, tangible ways. But there will certainly be transformation in the believer’s life. Indeed, the Bible says that it is the Spirit who convicts people to guilt, repentance and thus faith in Jesus. Without the Spirit, no one can truly declare God as Heavenly Father, Abba, Daddy, Papa.
Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to continue His work of turning hearts to Jesus. For those of us who have been believers for some time, may we ask God to show us how the Holy Spirit was made manifest around the time when we believed in Jesus.