Question: Please explain Acts 2:38; 10:44; 19:6, in connection with sealing, or receiving the Holy Spirit? A. S.
Answer: In Acts 2:38 we find Peter’s answer to the question of the Jews who were pricked in their hearts, and anxious to know what to do. They had to separate from that untoward generation that crucified the Lord. They show their repentance by doing so, and owning the Name of the crucified One. They are baptized unto Him, then God, through the apostles, gives them the Holy Spirit, and the forgiveness of their sins. This is administrative, as in John 20:23.
In Acts 8:14-17, we see that the Samaritans were not sealed, though they were truly saved believers, till Peter and John came down from Jerusalem, and with prayer, laid their hands on them. This was evidently God’s way of securing the unity of the Spirit, and thus healing the schism between the Jew and the Samaritan, and manifesting that the Church is one in Jerusalem and Samaria. Laying on of hands expresses this unity.
In Acts 10:43, 44, it is Gentiles, and God, in this way. compelled Peter and the Jews to receive them. He teaches Peter to say, “Whosoever,” and the Gentiles heard and believed, and God sealed them. Then Peter demanded, who could forbid their reception into the House of God on earth, seeing God had made them members of the body of Christ? (1 Cor. 12:13). So Peter, in the name of the Lord, commanded their baptism.
The Lord gave this authority to Peter. (Matt. 16:19).
In Acts 19:6, we have believers, who did not know the Holy Spirit had come. They were disciples according to John’s baptism. Paul instructs them in the truth of Christ glorified, and that the Holy Spirit had come. (John 7:39). John’s baptism did not put them under the name of the Lord Jesus; this had to be done, and Paul, as an apostle, identified them thus with the church by laying his hands upon them. It was a complete change in their position from Jew to church of God. Then the Holy Spirit came upon them.
Now, Jew and Gentile are concluded in unbelief. (Rom. 11:32). We treat them both alike; we would baptize either Jew or Gentile, on seeing them happy in the Lord. We could not now baptize them to get the forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Ghost.