Acts 19 - Introduction

XIX: 1-7. Having sketched briefly the visit of Apollos to Ephesus, and thus prepared the way for an account of Paul's labors in the same city, the historian now reaches the point for which he had so hurriedly passed over the apostle's journey from Antioch through Galatia and Phrygia and around to Ephesus. The appointment which he left in Ephesus, as he passed through on his way to Jerusalem, is now to be fulfilled. (1) " Now while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper districts, came to Ephesus, and finding certain disciples, (2) said to them, Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? But they said to him, We have not so much as heard that the Holy Spirit is given. (3) He said to them, Into what, then, were you immersed? They said, Into John's immersion. (4) Then Paul said, John indeed immersed with the immersion of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on the Christ Jesus. (5) And when they heard this they were immersed into the name of the Lord Jesus. (6) And when Paul laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. (7) All the men were about twelve. "

This passage is valuable chiefly because it shows how the apostles dealt with parties who, at that time, were immersed with John's immersion. This, no doubt, was Luke's object in introducing it. In order to understand the case, it is necessary to keep distinctly in view the facts stated of the parties previous to and subsequent to their immersion by Paul. They are called disciples, and were known as such when Paul found them; for it is said "he found certain disciples." They were disciples, not of John, but of Jesus; for the uniform currency of the term disciple, throughout Acts, requires us to so understand it. This is further evident from Paul's question, "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? " The term believed evidently refers to Jesus as its object. They were known, then, as disciples of Jesus, and were so recognized by Paul.

Up to the moment of his conversation with them, Paul knew nothing of any irregularity in their obedience; for this was made known, to his surprise, during the conversation. When, therefore, he asked the question, "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" he could not have referred to that gift of the Spirit which all disciples receive; for he would take this for granted, from the fact that they were disciples. He must, then, have had reference to the miraculous gift, which some disciples did not receive.

It is inconceivable that these disciples were ignorant of the existence of the Holy Spirit, hence a literal rendering of their reply, "We have not so much as heard that there is a Holy Spirit," would convey a false idea. The supplement given is necessary to complete the sense, as it is in John 7:39, where it is said, "The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet risen." The term given must be supplied, in the latter case, in order to avoid the denial of the existence of the Spirit previous to the resurrection; and, in the former, to avoid the declaration of an ignorance on the part of these men inconsistent with the fact that they were disciples.

This answer at once revealed to Paul that there was some irregularity in their religious history; for no one could be properly discipled without learning that the Holy Spirit was to be given. He at once perceived, too, that the irregularity must have been connected with their immersion; for he inquires, "Into what, then, were you immersed?" If the gift of the Spirit had no connection with immersion, this inquiry would have been inapposite, and Paul would not have propounded it. But the apostles taught as Peter did on the day of Pentecost, when he said, "Repent and be immersed, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." It is only on the supposition that Paul knew this to be the universal teaching of rightly-informed brethren, that he inferred something wrong about their immersion, from their ignorance of the gift of the Holy Spirit. This supposition, however, which is a necessary, not an optional one, makes the whole matter very plain. Paul's first question had reference to the miraculous gift of the Spirit; but when they said they knew not that the Holy Spirit was given, he saw that they were ignorant of even the ordinary gift, which is promised to all who repent and are immersed, and that they were immersed without proper instruction.

Their reply, that they were immersed into John's immersion, relieved the case of all obscurity, and Paul then understood it perfectly. He explained, that John's immersion was one of repentance, to be followed by faith in the Messiah when he should come. Those immersed by him believed that the Messiah was coming; but they did not, until after their immersion, believe that Jesus was the Messiah, nor did they have a promise of the Holy Spirit. They were not, therefore, immersed into the name of Jesus or that of the Holy Spirit. This is further evident from the fact that Paul commanded these twelve to be "immersed into the name of the Lord Jesus," which the authority of the commission requires us to understand as equivalent to the expression, "into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." These points of defect, however, were not peculiar to the immersion of the twelve, but attached also to that of the twelve apostles, the hundred and twenty disciples, and the five hundred who saw Jesus together in Galilee after the resurrection, none of whom were reimmersed. What, then, led to the immersion of these parties? If their immersion had taken place, like that of all the others just named, while John's immersion was still an existing institution, no reason could be given for their reimmersion. This, then, forces us to the conclusion that they had been immersed with John's immersion after it had ceased to be administered by divine authority. Apollos had been recently preaching this obsolete immersion in Ephesus, and these persons may have been immersed by him. If so, they submitted to an institution which had been abrogated more than twenty years, and this was the defect that led to their reimmersion. The general conclusion, from all the premises, is this: that persons who were immersed with John's immersion, while it was in lawful existence, were received into the Church of Christ without reimmersion. But persons who were thus immersed, after the introduction of apostolic immersion, were reimmersed. The reason why Apollos was not reimmersed as well as the twelve, was, doubtless, because, like the apostles and the other original disciples, he was immersed during the ministry of John.