Acts 8:17

THE FIRST CONFIRMATION

‘Then laid they their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost.’

Acts 8:17

This passage has a particular interest for us, because it is the first instance of what is now known as ‘Confirmation.’ In the earliest days the ‘laying on of hands’ followed baptism immediately, or as soon as possible; indeed, we may say that it was the completion of baptism.

I. The Gift.—‘Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.’ If these words are true of the first believers at their ‘confirmation,’ can they be less true of you? I can only think of one objection, which, no doubt, occurs to many of you. The first believers, we are told, had ‘outward and visible’ as well as ‘inward and spiritual’ signs of the gift of the Spirit. ‘They spake with tongues and prophesied,’ so it is recorded on more than one occasion, To this I would reply that, no doubt, ‘tongues’ and ‘prophecy’ were signs of the gift of the Spirit; but they were not the gift itself; they were not a necessary part of it.

II. Let us not suppose, then, that we are in any different position from that of the first Christians.—We are living under the same conditions; we have all ‘received the Holy Ghost.’ The great question for us at this time is—How have we used or are we using the great gift? We know how some of them used it. We know the story of Ananias and Sapphira. We know the sin and shame of those Corinthian Christians of whom St. Paul said that the Spirit dwelt in them. All history is full of the falls and failures of those who have been ‘endued with power from on high.’

III. Is this the case with any of you?—Have you gradually, insensibly, let your vision fade? Have you sunk to the level of any society in which you might be? Are you conscious that your prayers are cold, that the tide of your spiritual life is slack? Ah, it is to you that the appeal comes—to ‘stir up the gift that is in you’; to realise and use the power in which so many of us are lacking. And yet the power is here; it only needs stirring, reviving, using.

—Rev. H. R. Gamble.