Study Helps 2


The Holy Spirit & Acts

The Acts of the Apostles might as accurately have been named
The Acts of the Holy Spirit.

While the Gospels describe the ministry og God the Son, Acts describes the ministry through the church of God the Holy Spirit. Rather than a strict contrast between the work of Son and Spirit, howerver, Acts shows the community of the work of the incarnate God through His Holy Spirit. Christ Himself is present in His church through His Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not an "it", but the very presence of God in the life of a Christian. Peter made the understanding clear in the episode of Ananias and Sapphira. Peter charged them with lying to the Holy Spirit, with lying to God, and with tempting the Spirit of God. He did not refer to 3 things they had done. He spoke of the Spirit in 3 ways, but he meant the one Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Likewise, the "Spirit of Jesus" is used to refer to the Holy Spirit when Paul and Timothy were not allowed to go into Bithynia.

The Book of Acts begins with the resurrected Lord promising the gift of the Spirit to His disciples. With the Spirit would come the power to carry out the mission of taking the gospel to the world. Jesus declared the mission in a geographic progression beginning in Jerusalem, spreading to the region of Judea, crossing the cultural barrier to Samaria, and go to the rest of the world. As the book unfolds, the Holy Spirit bore testimony to the advance of the church at each of these crucial stages.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell on the church in power. As a result of that day's preaching and witnessing by all the church, about 3,000 people were added to the church. The early church understood the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the fulfillment of the promise of God through the prophets. Peter preached the first gospel sermon based on the prophecy concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit in Joel 2:28-32. Futhermore, Peter stressed the gift of the Holy Spirit as a central element of salvation.

When Phillip carried the gospel to Samaria, the church in Jerusalem sent Peter and John to pray for the converts to receive the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the conversation of Paul reached its climax when Ananias came to him that he might regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit to Cornelius and other Gentiles as they heard the gospel convinced Peter and the other apostles that God had granted salvation to the Gentiles.

When he met a group of disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus, Paul asked them about the Holy Spirit as a diagnostic question. The fact that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit demonstrated to Paul the need to preach the gospel of Jesus to them. Paul baptized those who believed, and when he laid hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit.

Acts contains no fixed order of sequence related to baptism, laying on of hands, and the reception of the Holy Spirit. The governing principle seems to be that those who have faith in Jesus
receive His Holy Spirit to apply the benefits of salvation.

© 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 jlc@ix.netcom.com

"Refuge"
Courtesy of Tans' Homepage

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