While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.
4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all. (Acts 19:1-7 NIV).
Today, we want to talk about what is missing in the church today. The missing ingredient in many churches is the Holy Spirit. That is why we don’t we have the power of God in our churches.
You can have all kinds of things in your church. You can have a big building, a huge congregation, a rock band, and a fiery preacher but it all amounts to nothing if the Holy Spirit is not there.
The great preacher Leonard Ravenhill once said if the Holy Spirit left the church, most churches wouldn’t even notice. They would not even know that He was gone and would carry on as usual. Nothing would change.
Many Christians know very little about the Holy Spirit. Many preachers rarely talk about the Holy Spirit. Some Christians are afraid of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul met some people who claimed to be believers who didn’t know anything about the Holy Spirit in Acts 19.
The twelve men that Paul encountered in Ephesus were moral men. They were religious men. They were sincere men. They were zealous men, but they were also ignorant men.
They were ignorant of some basic doctrines. They were disciples but they were ignorant disciples. We have churches full of them today. What is going on in this passage?
Paul is on his missionary journey in Acts 19 in Ephesus in modern-day Turkey. He had been to Ephesus before but felt led to leave it. He said, “I will return to you if God wills” (Acts 18:21 ESV).
The Context
In Acts 19, he returned to the city. He returned by land and, when he got to Ephesus, he encountered twelve men.
These twelve men would become his first converts in the city of Ephesus and became part of the Church of Ephesus which met in the home of Aquila and Priscilla.
As the chapter begins, we have a conversation between Paul and twelve men in Ephesus. They have a dialogue. Paul asks them two questions, and they give him two answers. What was the first question he asked?
The First Question
“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” The first question was about the Holy Spirit. It was not a doctrinal question but practical question.
If everyone gets the Holy Spirit when they believe, why would Paul ask that question? It is a given.
He did not ask them what they believed about the Holy Spirit. He asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit. That seems like a strange question.
When was the last time you asked anyone that question? Have you ever asked anyone that question? Probably not.
You may have asked people if they know Jesus or if they are born again. Have you ever asked anyone if they received the Holy Spirit when they believed?
Pentecostals ask this question all of the time. This is one of their favorite proof-texts. According to Pentecostals, you believe and get the Holy Spirit later sometime after you believe when you get the Second Blessing.
Whether you are Baptist or Pentecostal, this question that Paul asked is a very important question. F. B. Meyer, who was a friend and contemporary of D.L. Moody, pointed out that this is a question that every Christian should ask themselves.[1]
If you ask someone how long they have believed, and they say thirty years, it is valid to ask how you have seen the Spirit work in your life during that time.
You may not have cast out demons or walked on water but there should be some evidence of the Holy Spirit working in your life during that time. There should be some evidence that you have experienced the Holy Spirit.
You should have some of the fruit of the Spirit in your life. You should feel conviction by the Spirit over sin. You should be filled with the Spirit and be led by the Spirit. You should display the gifts of the Spirit.
Why did he ask that question? Apparently, there was something not quite right about these men. You can tell when someone has the Spirit and when someone does not.
Paul certainly thought they were genuine Christians at first. They looked like Christians. They said they were Christians but there was something missing in these twelve men.
If Paul saw the way some professing Christians lived today, he would ask them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian. Not everyone who attends church is a Christian. Not everyone who has been baptized is a Christian.
We assume that everyone who comes to church is saved but they are not. Some have come to church for years and even decades and have never been saved.
When we meet people who claim to be Christians but have with questionable beliefs or lifestyles, we should ask them some questions, like Paul did. He asked these twelve men a diagnostic question. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:1-2 NIV)
What was their answer to the first question? They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:2 NIV). That was an immediate red flag. That answer confirmed Paul’s suspicion, so he asked another question.
The Second Question
The second question was about baptism. So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” (Acts 19:3 NIV). Why did he ask that question? What is the connection between water baptism and the Holy Spirit? Let’s go back and look at the Great Commission.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:18-19 ESV)
Jesus said to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you received Christian baptism, you would have heard about the Holy Spirit.
That was an indication that they had never received Christian baptism. That was an indication that they were never saved. They had never heard the gospel.
What was their answer to Paul’s second question? Paul asked them what baptism they received, and they said, “John’s baptism.”
They had only heard the message of John. They had not heard the gospel before, so Paul preached it to them. They accepted the message and Paul baptized them. They expressed that faith in water baptism.
4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 19:4-5 NIV).
Rebaptism Today
These men had already been baptized but Paul baptized them again. Why did he do that? Was there something wrong with their baptism? Did it not count? Should we rebaptize Christians today?
Some churches believe in rebaptism. If you were baptized in the wrong church in the wrong way by the wrong people, they would say that you should get rebaptized. You didn’t have scriptural baptism.
Some believe that you can only baptize people in the name of Jesus. They are called Oneness Pentecostals. They believe that if you got baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you have to get rebaptized, if you want to join the church.
Oneness Pentecostals are a cult. They teach that you have to speak in tongues to be saved and deny basic doctrines of the Christian faith (e.g., the Trinity).
Is rebaptism of Christians biblical? There is no example in the NT. What about Acts 19? These twelve men got rebaptized because they were not saved before.
They did not know who Jesus was. They were baptized in Jesus’ name, after accepting him as Savior. Paul did not rebaptize them because they were baptized in the wrong formula. They did not know who Jesus was before this.
This was not a case of Christians getting rebaptism.[2] It was their first Christian baptism. If you were baptized before you were saved and you come to faith, you might want to get rebaptized because the first one did not count. You went not saved.
Pentecostal Theology
The real question that is raised from this passage has to do with the second blessing? Are the Pentecostals right? Does Acts 19 Teach a Second Blessing? It is not hard to answer. What do Pentecostals believe?
There are three major parts to classic Pentecostal theology (e.g. Assemblies of God). There are three important parts to it.
1. Salvation.
Salvation is by grace through faith. You have to be saved to go to heaven. Salvation is your ticket to get into heaven.
2. Spirit Baptism
They believe that Spirit Baptism is a special empowerment for service and it is separate from salvation. They believe that it happens after salvation. It takes believers who were powerless and gives them supernatural power. They believe that it does not happen to every Christian but only some of them.
3. Speaking in Tongues
According to Pentecostals, speaking in tongues is the physical evidence of Spirit Baptism. They believe that is the initial sign of Spirit baptism. They believe that all people who are baptized in the Spirit speak in tongues. Are they right?
Biblical Evaluation
Is this idea correct? The only way to know is to compare it to Scripture. We have to look at what Acts 19 teaches. We have to look at the rest of the Book of Acts, and we have to look at the rest of the NT to find the answer. Today, I want to look at what the Pentecostals got right and what they got wrong.
1. There are dramatic signs when the Spirit falls.
The Pentecostals are right about that. We see it in Acts. That’s what happened in Acts 19. People accept Christ, get baptized. The Spirit falls and people start speaking in tongues and prophesying. There is no question about it and this is not the only time that it happens in Acts.
The Spirit falls four times in Acts. It happens in Acts 2, 8, 10 & 19. The Spirit falls on four different groups of people. There is the Jewish Pentecost, the Samaritan Pentecost, the Roman Pentecost and the Greek Pentecost.
There is a Jewish Pentecost. There is Samaritan Pentecost. The Samaritans were half Jews. There is a Gentile Pentecost. Cornelius was Italian. He did not have a drop of Jewish blood in him.
There is a half-Christian Pentecost. Lastly, there is an Ephesian Pentecost. John’s disciples in Acts 19 were half-Christians, but they were not Christians yet.
Every time the Spirit fell in Acts, there was some kind of dramatic evidence or visible sign that the Spirit arrived. People could see it happening. There were supernatural signs taking place. People spoke in tongues. They prophesied.
2. The Spirit comes in many different ways.
There are visible signs when the Spirit comes but there is not a clear pattern of events. You can’t use the Book of Acts to insist that everyone have the same conversion experience or Holy Spirit baptism, because the Holy Spirit comes many different ways.
Sometimes, the Spirit was given before baptism. In Acts 10, Cornelius just believed and got the Spirit and he was baptized. Sometimes, the Spirit was given after baptism. In Acts 8 & 19, the Spirit came after baptism.
Sometimes, the Spirit was given through human touch and sometimes the Spirit was sovereignly given without hands. In Acts 19, Paul laid his hands on the men and the Spirit was given.
In Acts 10, Peter preached, Cornelius believed and the Spirit was given. Nobody touched him. He just heard the word preach and responded in faith.
Sometimes, people had to wait for the Spirit to come. We see that in Acts 2 & Acts 8. Before Pentecost, Jesus told the disciples to wait. He said, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised” (Acts 1:4 NIV). In other cases, there was no waiting for the Spirit. He just came on people.
Sometimes, speaking in tongues came with the Spirit. In other cases, it did not. Acts 2:4 says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” (NIV). Lots of people were filled with the Spirit but never spoke in tongues.
John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from birth but never spoke in tongues. Jesus was filled with the Spirit but never spoke in tongues. Samson was filled with the Holy Spirit and never spoke in tongues. He just had superhuman strength.
The Samaritans got the Holy Spirit and did not speak in tongues. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:17 NIV).
Paul got saved. He was blinded on the Damascus Road. Ananias laid his hands on him. He received his sight, was filled with the Spirit (Acts 9:17-18) and yet not a word in the text about him speaking in tongues
3) The baptism of the Spirit is not a second blessing
We can see this from several passages, including Acts 19.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession–to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14 NIV)
This verse says that we get the Holy Spirit when we believe and are sealed with the Spirit who is a guarantee of our inheritance. He did not say that some Christians get the Spirit at salvation.
For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body–whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. (I Corinthians 12:13 NIV)
The Church of Corinth was a carnal church. It was a worldly church. These were not all spiritual Christians and yet Paul said that all of them were baptized in the Spirit. Spirit baptism is not limited to some Christians. All Christians are baptized by the Spirit
What about Acts 19? Isn’t that proof of the idea of a second blessing. What about the question, “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?” The people Paul talked to were not saved. He found that out very quickly.
They did not know who the Holy Spirit was. They had never heard of the Holy Spirit. They did not know who Jesus was. They had never heard the gospel.
Their problem was not that they were believers who needed a second work of grace. They were unbelievers who needed a first work of grace. Once they believed, it resulted in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[1] F.B. Meyer, Great Verses Through the Bible, 409.
[2] Barclay M. Newman and Eugene A. Nida, A Translators Handbook on the Acts of the Apostles, 363.