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LAYING ON OF HANDS.—This ceremony, of frequent occurrence in both OT and NT, is a piece of natural symbolism with the central idea that through physical contact the person performing it identifies himself with the other in the presence of God. In OT this is done with a view to the transference (a) of a Divine blessing (Gen_48:14 ff.; cf. Num_27:18; Num_27:23, Deu_34:9); (b) of a burden of guilt (Lev_1:4; Lev_4:3 f., Lev_4:24; Lev_16:21 f. etc.). In NT, while it is variously employed, the general idea is always that of blessing.
1. The simplest case is when Jesus lays hands of blessing on the little children (Mat_19:13; Mat_19:15 ||). The fact that the mothers desired Him to do so shows that this was a custom of the time and people. The narrative in Mt. shows further that, as used by Jesus, it was no magical form, but the symbolic expression of what was essentially an act of prayer (Mat_19:13).
2. In His deeds of healing Jesus constantly made use of this symbol (Mar_6:5; Mar_8:23, Luk_4:40; Luk_13:13; cf. Mat_9:18 ||, Mar_7:32)—an example which was followed by the Apostolic Church (Act_9:12; Act_9:17; Act_28:8). In these cases, however, besides its religious symbolism, the act may further have expressed the healer’s sympathy (cf. the hand laid even on the leper, Mar_1:41, Luk_5:13), or have been designed to bring a reinforcement to faith.
3. In the early Church the imposition of hands was used, sometimes in close association with the act of baptism (Act_9:17-18; Act_19:5-6; cf. Heb_6:2, which, however, may include all the various kinds of laying on of hands), but sometimes quite apart from it (Act_8:17; Act_8:19), as an accompaniment of prayer that believers might receive a special endowment of the Holy Ghost in charismatic forms. That this endowment does not mean the essential gift of spiritual life, but some kind of ‘manifestation’ (1Co_12:7), is proved when Act_9:17 (‘filled with the Holy Ghost’) is compared with Act_2:4, and when Act_8:15; Act_8:17 is read in the light of the request of Simon Magus (Act_8:18 ff.), and Act_19:2 in the light of Act_19:6. The case of Ananias and Saul (Act_9:17) further proves that the laying on of hands for this purpose was not a peculiar Apostolic prerogative.
4. In four passages the laying on of hands is referred to in connexion with an act that corresponds to ordination (the word in its ecclesiastical sense does not occur in NT. ‘Ordained’ in Act_14:23 should be ‘elected’ or ‘appointed’; see RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). The Seven, after being chosen by the multitude, were appointed to office by the Apostles, with prayer and the laying on of hands (Act_6:6). The ‘prophets and teachers’ of the Church at Antioch ‘separated’ Barnabas and Saul for their missionary work by laying their hands on them with fasting and prayer (Act_13:3). Timothy received the ‘gracious gift’ which was in him with the laying on of the hands of a body of elders (see art. Presbytery), with which St. Paul himself was associated (cf. 1Ti_4:14 with 2Ti_1:6). Timothy’s ‘gracious gift’ probably means his special fitness to be St. Paul’s companion in the work of a missionary evangelist (see Hort, Chr. Ecclesia, p. 184 ff.).
5. Of the manner in which deacons and elders or bishops were set apart to office no information is given in NT. The injunction, ‘Lay hands suddenly on no man’ (1Ti_5:22), has often been supposed to refer to the act of ordination; but the fact that the whole passage (1Ti_5:19-25) deals with offenders points rather to the imposition of hands in the restoration of the penitent (cf. 2Co_2:6 f., Gal_6:1), a custom that certainly prevailed in the early Church at a later time. The fact, however, that Jewish Rabbis employed this rite when a disciple was authorized to teach, favours the view that it was commonly practised in the Apostolic Church, as it was almost universally in the post-Apostolic, in consecration to ministerial office. But the silence of the NT at this point is against the supposition that the rite was regarded as an essential channel of ministerial grace, or anything more than the outward and appropriate symbol of an act of intercessory prayer (see Mat_19:13, Act_6:6; Act_13:3; Act_28:8; and cf. Augustine, de Baptismo, iii. 16, ‘What else is the laying on of hands than a prayer over one?’). See, further, art. Bishop.
J. C. Lambert.