James Nisbet Commentary - Acts 19:2

James Nisbet Commentary - Acts 19:2 - 19:2

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James Nisbet Commentary - Acts 19:2 - 19:2

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

THE GOSPEL OF THE HOLY GHOST

‘Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?’

Act_19:2

The Acts of the Apostles has been called ‘The Gospel of the Holy Ghost.’ It shows us that the Holy Ghost is the life of the Church, Who stands behind every ordinance of the Church, Who works in the sacrament of baptism, Who works in the sacrament of Holy Communion, Who is given in the laying on of hands though we see Him not. No tongues of fire leap forth. Still there He is, working in the Church. And more than that, He lives in every baptized soul, He has a work to do in every individual man and in every individual woman. The Church has in times past gone through very deep waters. But through it all she has over and over again arisen, over and over again she has put away abuses, she has recuperated her strength. Why?

I. In the Church there dwells the Divine Spirit.—‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.’ Depend upon it, that very serious problems are already arising. They stare us face to face, and we have got to solve them somehow or other; problems more particularly of a social character, problems affecting labour and capital, problems affecting men and women. We must look for and ask for the living voice of the Church, the living voice of the Holy Ghost working and acting in the Church to-day, and then we may depend upon it that the Church of England, whatever her future may be, whatever her future relation with the State may be, whether disestablished or established, will have something to say in these matters to which it will behove the nation to give ear and attend.

II. Faith in the Holy Ghost.—‘I believe in the Holy Ghost.’ What does it mean for each one of us? It means—

(a) That I carry about with me wherever I go and whatever I do, in me as a temple, the eternal Spirit of Almighty God. When temptation assails me and I am inclined to give way, there is a personal presence within me that is watching the struggle, and only too eager and anxious to lend me the power of His might if I will ask Him.

(b) That when I kneel down and say my prayers, and hardly know what to say and hardly know what to ask for, there is within me a Divine Spirit that maketh groanings which cannot be uttered, a Divine Spirit that will take even my inarticulate whispering, and even my unuttered desires, and lay them before the mercy-seat.

(c) That when I am perplexed and in trouble, and scarcely know which way to turn or what to do, because there seem to be equally good reasons for one course as for the other, close beside me there is the Divine Presence Who will be, if I ask Him, my guide, and will say, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’

Let us examine ourselves on this question. Let us remember that if a man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Let us ask ourselves whether His presence is really with me in such a way that I am listening for His voice and for His guidance.

Rev. Prebendary Storrs.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

SPIRITUAL DEFECT

Those disciples to whom St. Paul put this question were probably the result of the work of Apollos before he was instructed by Aquila and Priscilla.

I. Defective teaching is sure to leave its impression on the taught.—But they were not wilfully rejecting truth; hence are called ‘disciples.’

II. St. Paul’s question, as in our version, conveys a wrong impression. It is a mistake to regard the reception of the Holy Ghost as being of necessity subsequent to believing. In the R.V. the question is, ‘Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?’ For the Scriptural teaching is that the two should be inseparable. (See Act_2:38.) The fact that St. Paul asks the question suggests that he noticed some defect in their character or service. Wherever there is an absence of spiritual joy, of deliverance from the power of sin and the world, of liberty in the service of God, there St. Paul would perceive the same lack. The answer of these twelve should be read in the R.V. They could not be acquainted with the Old Testament without knowing that there was a Holy Ghost, for he is frequently mentioned there. Nor could they know the preaching of John the Baptist without knowing something of the promised Baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire. But they did not know that the Spirit was given. After their baptism by St. Paul they received the Holy Ghost through the laying on of the apostle’s hands, and began at once to exercise some of his extraordinary gifts.

III. The incident teaches

(a) That we may be disciples yet defective.

(b) That defective teaching will result in defective life.

(c) That it is possible to live in this dispensation of the Spirit without knowing what His fullness means.

(d) That when the mind is instructed concerning the Spirit the heart needs to yield to it.

Illustration

‘There was nothing unusual in this question, which St. Paul put to the disciples at Ephesus. It was perfectly in accordance with the general custom of the early Church. For, after any person had “believed,” and been “baptized,” it was the habit of the apostles to go down to them, and to communicate to them “spiritual gifts.” Thus St. Paul, writing to the believers at Rome, says, “For I longed to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gifts, to the end that ye may be established.” And, in like manner, when some had “believed,” and been “baptized,” in Samaria, after a little while, Peter and John were commissioned by the Church to go to them, and after they had prayed for them, “they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.” ’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST

The Christians of to-day are in a much happier position than were those at Ephesus. We, at any rate, profess our belief in the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity when we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost.’ But, alas! I fear that many of us have but very imperfect ideas as to the work and position of the Holy Ghost. What do you mean when you use the words of the Creed?

I. The Holy Ghost is a Person.—If you take the Old Testament you will not find that this doctrine is clearly put forth, but the Old Testament is preparatory to the New. If we take the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament we find that it is almost invariably spoken of as a kind of energy or influence. But in the New Testament we find this, that the doctrine of the Spirit has advanced from the conception of an energy or an influence to that of a Divine Person. If you take the first three Gospels you will find that the Holy Ghost is spoken of as an agent in the Incarnation. We are told that One would come after John Baptist to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. We are told that John Baptist was full of the Holy Ghost. We are told that the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove when our Lord was baptized. And our Lord in His last words told us to baptize ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,’ in which formula there is no distinction to be seen between the equality of Father, Son, and Spirit. But it is in John’s Gospel where this doctrine is put forth by our Lord with the utmost clearness, and especially in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters.

II. The most real thing in the world.—Our Lord Jesus Christ in those chapters is leading to the time of separation from Him. He would send the Comforter, ‘that He may abide with you for ever.’ We are apt to regard everything as unreal, excepting the material, but, after all, the most real thing in this world is immaterial. What is the centre of all this world? Why, God. And what is God? God is a Spirit. A spirit therefore is the most real thing in this world. And when we speak of the presence of the Holy Spirit, we do not mean an unreal thing, we do not mean a subjective imaginative presence, but a real presence of the Holy Spirit, a presence more real in one sense than the presence of Christ Himself when He was on earth. When therefore we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost,’ we mean, ‘I believe in a Divine Person, not merely a gift, not merely an influence, not merely an energy. I believe in a Divine Person, a Person Who speaks, Who teaches, Who guides, Who intercedes; and I believe that that Divine Person lives in and informs and illuminates the Church.’

Rev. Prebendary Storrs.

Illustration

‘ “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” The question was not affected by the circumstance that was afterwards discovered, that the Ephesians had only received “John’s baptism,” for St. Paul did not speak so much of “baptism” as of “belief,” for it was evident he meant “belief” when he says, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” We find it, then, to be a recognised and an established principle, that, after “belief” and “baptism,” there was another distinct and decided “communication of the Holy Ghost,” and that this “communication” was considered, if not absolutely necessary, yet highly desirable, and exceedingly important.’

(FOURTH OUTLINE)

TOKENS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

I ask you the question—every one—‘Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?’ I do not mean to ask, when or where?—but a simple fact, ‘Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?’ It means a certain inward ‘sealing’ and ‘assuring’ of a believer’s mind. Have you found this? Do you know, by evidence that you cannot mistake, that you are the Lord’s? Could you put your hand upon your breast and say, ‘I feel a humble confidence that God loves me?’

Let me help you, by three marks, which may enable you, to a certain extent, to discern the ‘sealing of the Spirit.’

I. The study of the Bible.—As soon as a man has received this ‘confirming’ influence of the ‘Holy Ghost,’ he begins to read his Bible in a different way from what he was accustomed to before. Things which used to lie hidden from his eye begin to open beautifully before his admiring contemplation. He begins to understand the great scheme of Divine grace. He finds his own case again and again written upon the sacred page. As he goes along, he has to appropriate now this and now that verse—till, one after another, all the promises become the food and the delight of his soul.

II. In prayer.—For this Spirit, dwelling with you, will ‘help your infirmities’ in prayer—as something in you, and of you, and still not you, it will raise you above yourself, and will speak in you, ‘making intercession’—with power of thought beyond language; that is the meaning—‘with groanings which cannot be uttered,’ power of feeling beyond language. And this prayer will gradually become, what all prayer ought to be—communion, which is more than prayer.

III. Inward witness.—‘Witnessing with your spirit that you are a child of God.’ A voice very still, but quite intelligible—will sometimes tell you of this. It will tell you chiefly in your bright hours. A power, hidden, but irresistible, will be pointing you to the cross of Jesus. You will be able to look on that cross, and you will be able to say, ‘Abba, Father.’ You will oftentimes find the foretaste of heaven in you, giving you ‘joy and peace in believing.’

—

Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘I believe that you may lay down, as a general truth, that, what God did by “gifts,” i.e. by supernatural bestowment, in the beginning of the Church, He now effects by “grace,” i.e. by ordinary communication. God has not withdrawn—God has not diminished His love, or His superintendence, or His largesses to His Church—only He has changed His channels. Nay, I do not know whether the “gift” has not grown greater. For, bright and beautiful as the first miracles were, St. Paul himself, speaking of the “grace” that we might all find, says, “It is a more excellent way.” ’

(FIFTH OUTLINE)

THE RECEIVING OF THE COMFORTER

The first receiving of the Holy Ghost, the baptism of the Spirit (surely the use of the word suggests a single experience, Christian baptism is never twice administered in the New Testament), is generally a definite, tremendous, and never-to-be-forgotten experience.

I. It comes in no stereotyped way.—To some as ‘the seal’ for the confirming of our faith, giving assurance not only as to present and eternal acceptance, but as to the full meeting of the needs of the daily walk, the momentary cleansing and keeping and strength; the Spirit-given conviction, ‘The Lord is my Keeper,’ dispelling doubt, and turning all paralysing fear into a strong confidence of rest and victory.

II. With others there is the ‘fullness of joy.’—The Lord does definitely ‘anoint and cheer our soiled face with the abundance of His grace.’ There is a new ‘making melody to the Lord’ in the heart. Yea, our mouth is ‘filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing,’ because the Lord hath turned again our captivity. Thus the Holy Spirit becomes ‘the earnest’ of our future inheritance, and we know something of heaven on the way to heaven.

III. To others it comes as a ‘baptism of fire,’ a burning up of worldliness, indifference, selfishness, and sloth, a setting the whole man on fire with love to Christ and perishing souls.

But always surely it is the advent of the Comforter, the Advocate of Jesus in our hearts; and the chief and most lasting result is that Jesus becomes more real and precious to us, and we are able to make greater use of Him in the battle of life.

Rev. F. S. Webster.

Illustration

‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, He who is able to make the confession recognises the action of One Who is moulding his single life. Each believer is himself a temple to be prepared for the Master’s dwelling. The same Spirit Who shapes the course of the whole world, hallows the soul which is offered to Him for a Divine use. The Christian believer is in one sense alone with God, and God alone with him. He has a work to do—definite, individual, eternal, through the ordinary duties and occupations and trials of common business; and this the Spirit sent in Christ’s name, bringing to him the virtue of Christ’s humanity, will help him to perfect.’

IGNORANCE INDEED

‘And they said unto him, We Have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.’

Act_19:2

Such is the condition of many at the present day in Christian England, and that not by reason of the practical heathenism in which too many of our children grow up in our large cities, but because, sweep as she may, search as she will, the Church is unable to find all those lost coins which belong to the King, which lie hidden beneath the dust and rubbish of a material age. This is sad enough. But there is a sadder fact even than this. Many of our children are being deliberately brought up in ignorance of the Holy Spirit, of His grace and work, because some are pleased to call this great doctrine which God Himself has revealed ‘denominational.’

I. Modern panaceas of regeneration are more extravagant than the Divine remedies of heavenly medicine.—It is power that we want, and in the spiritual world knowledge is not necessarily power. We have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: our sufficiency is of God. What we need for our advance, what England needs in her system of education, is place for God, place for that power from on high, which God is willing to bestow on a nature which, left to itself, is very much as if we surrounded our fires with muslin, or deposited gunpowder on our hearths. This world makes short work of the unprotected, unassisted nature. If we are sinking back, baffled and disheartened, because our hereditary taint is too much for us, listen to the advice which the Apostle gives you: ‘Stir up the gift of God that is in thee.’

II. Temples of the Holy Ghost.—That is what God designed us to be, temples in which the presence of God should drive away what was bad, and attract what was good.

III. All life is one.—We cannot divide up our lives into sacred and secular. What God desired was that religion should be supreme. We need to exhibit the sacredness of secular knowledge, not to secularise religion. Religion is what we want; progress, development, science—all part of the one life of man as God designed it to be. That is what makes the Bible such a wonderful book. The Bible displays to us all life viewed on the side of God—national life, family life, intellectual life, viewed on the side of God in its oneness and in its fullness. That is one meaning, surely, of that wonderful saying, ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’ Without the Spirit of the Lord it is impossible to live in an environment like this. Unify your lives, brethren, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Seek to know the religion of common life and the fullness, and not the deadliness, of an advancing civilisation. Union with Christ, high effort, noble desires. Sacramental indwelling—these are the necessities, not the luxuries, of life.

IV. Let us rouse ourselves to the realisation of the purpose for which we were created.—‘I believe in God the Father Almighty’ means a great deal in the purpose of a life. ‘I believe in Jesus Christ’ means an acceptance both of His salvation wrought for us and of His sanctification offered to us. ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost’ means a living co-operation with that saving influence which alone can keep us safe in view of our heredity and environment. So full of peril is our life, and it is this that the Church has in view when she so mercifully warns us. Without God you cannot be the man you might be here. It is to fail of our great end to be left without God, hereafter to be left to ourselves, to be left to our own choice. What does that mean? Will any expurgation of creeds, will any closing of the Bible, alter the result? To be without God is that eternal loss which is hell. To be with God is that eternal gain which is heaven.

—

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

Illustration

‘What, as a Christian, has the Holy Ghost been to me? What do I owe to that pledge so manfully made, to that vow so courageously renewed: “Dost thou believe in God the Father, Who made thee and all the world? Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ, Who redeemed thee and all mankind? Dost thou believe in God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifieth thee and all the elect people of God?” Yes, all this I steadfastly believe. It is true of each one of us that, if we wish to be saved, if we wish that body of our humiliation to be preserved blameless and entire unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, if we wish to keep that mind with all its powers unspotted and clear, if we wish to guard the spirit as the unsullied mirror of God’s holiness, the unstained dwelling of His majesty, we must believe in the Holy Ghost.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE SPIRIT OF LIFE

No wonder that they had no firm hold on spiritual realities; no wonder that duty was little better than drudgery, that faith was torpid, that endeavour was but half-hearted! No wonder that it is so with us! What did Paul do for them when he brought them the knowledge of the Holy Spirit? Just what the same knowledge shall do for us. ‘He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you,’ Jesus had said. Yes, the work of the Spirit is to make Jesus vividly real to men.

I. He makes our beliefs real and vital.—We realise what Christ was and is, and as we realise power is added to us, the truth of the message of Jesus, ‘Ye are the sons of God.’

II. He makes our duties no longer the drudgery of compulsion, but glad service done as unto the Friend and Saviour Himself. Behind duty he sets the Christ, so that every labourer has the strength, the courage, the incitement to fidelity, which comes from working for One Whom the worker knows and loves.

III. It is for this knowledge that we pray, for this power of enthusiasm, this power without and above, that comes to reinforce the capacities that are within, ensuring their effectiveness, guaranteeing their permanence. For this—that we may know God, not only as our Creator and Preserver, as our Saviour and Redeemer, but as the inspirer and sanctifier of our souls.

—

Rev. F. Ealand.

Illustration

‘Perhaps the most helpful interpretation of the working of the Holy Spirit is that given in Ecce Homo. It is the enthusiasm of humanity. “A single conception enthusiastically grasped is found powerful enough to destroy the very root of all immorality within the heart. As every enthusiasm that a man can conceive makes a certain class of sin impossible to him and raises him not only above the commission of them, but beyond the very temptation to commit them, so there exists an enthusiasm which makes all sin whatever impossible” (and all goodness possible). “This enthusiasm is emphatically the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is called here the enthusiasm of humanity, because it is that respect for human beings which no one altogether lacks, raised to the point of enthusiasm. Being a reverence for human beings as such, and not for the good qualities they may exhibit, it embraces the bad as well as the good, and as it contemplates human beings in their ideal—that is, in what they might be—it desires not the apparent but the real and highest welfare of each; lastly, it includes the person himself who feels it, and loving self only in the ideal, he differs as much as possible from the selfish man, for it produces self-respect, humility, independence, while selfishness is allied with self-contempt, with arrogance, and with vanity.”