“Must we lay hands on a person for him to receive the Holy Spirit?”

June 2020 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: What is the meaning of Acts 19:6 and Acts 8:15-17? Must we lay hands on a person today for him to receive the Holy Spirit? How can a Christian today receive the Holy Spirit? What are the doctrines of baptism and of laying on of hands?

And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. —Acts 19:6 NKJV
[Peter and John], when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. —Acts 8:15-17

ANSWER:It may be well to look at these questions in a somewhat different order. For that matter, let’s take a brief but more comprehensive look at this subject of receiving the Holy Spirit.

Four times in Acts we read of people receiving the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of Acts 2 the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 who were gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem, as the Lord Jesus had commanded them, waiting for Him to come. At the end of Acts 10 the Holy Spirit fell upon the friends and relatives of Cornelius, who had been gathered and were listening with believing hearts to Peter preaching Christ to them. No laying on of hands or human assistance was involved. The Holy Spirit is God. He is a divine person, co-equal in every respect with God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the two instances our questioner mentioned, apostles laid their hands on individual believers, who received the Holy Spirit. These were special situations and no command or instruction is given us to do this today. In fact, we have no apostles today to do the laying on of hands as they did in these chapters. It is important to note that imitating what is of God without any directions from Him to do so has very serious consequences, as we see in both of these chapters.

For hundreds of years the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans (Jn. 4:9), who from their origin in 2 Kings 17 had mixed heathen idolatry with the worship of the true God. God did not accept such worship. He made this plain in many passages of His Word. Now Philip had gone to Samaria and preached Christ to them. Many believed and were baptized, and there was danger, humanly speaking, of an independent Samaritan church being formed. To prevent this, the apostles sent Peter and John to Samaria to show fellowship with these new believers by laying their hands on them. This act in Scripture shows identification with someone or something. The apostles also prayed that these believing Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit. Jewish believers and Samaritan believers were one in Christ.

Simon, who had been a sorcerer, professed to believe and was even baptized. He wanted to purchase the ability to lay hands on people and cause them to receive the Holy Spirit. Simon completely misunderstood the significance of what the apostles had done. Like many people today, he attached a completely wrong significance to the laying on of hands, thinking that this was a power to bestow the Holy Spirit. He was ready to pay to have such power, showing thereby that his heart was not right with God at all.

Paul’s contact some years later with certain disciples at Ephesus has similar lessons for us. It was strange to the apostle that these men had not received the Holy Spirit when they believed and were baptized. Their confession to him of what they had believed showed that they were not Christians at all. They had believed what John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus, had preached, but had not heard that the One whom John had preached as coming had indeed come. These disciples knew nothing of the Holy Spirit’s coming, and they were even ignorant of who the Holy Spirit is.

When Paul told them about the Lord Jesus, they accepted this and were baptized in His name. They were now truly Christians, and Paul could identify himself with them, laying hands on them. The Holy Spirit came on them just as He had come upon the Samaritans who had accepted the Lord in Acts 8.

We see in Acts 19 that Paul was as truly an apostle as Peter and John and the rest who had walked with the Lord before He was crucified. Also, the Word teaches that we cannot fellowship with people who may be sincere believers in someone or something but have not accepted the Lord Jesus and the work He accomplished at Calvary as the basis of their faith.

Years later Paul wrote a letter to the believers at Ephesus. Obviously, what we have just looked at in Acts 19 was something exceptional, for the ordinary way in which believers receive the Holy Spirit today is not by laying on of hands at all. In Ephesians 1:13-14 we read: “In Him [Christ] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” Notice, “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.” This is how a Christian receives the Holy Spirit. When he hears and believes the gospel, trusting Christ as His Savior, he receives the Holy Spirit. Laying on of hands is not required, nor is prayer.

Receiving the Holy Spirit is the normal consequence of placing one’s faith in Christ. God gives the Spirit. It is not something that man can do. Neither Simon the sorcerer nor any other man or woman can bestow the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. We cannot give Him to anyone. He is sovereign. The Lord Jesus said the Spirit would be with us and in us (Jn. 14:17). He comes to indwell us when we are saved and He will stay with us forever. He seals us, meaning that it is His presence in us that marks us out as belonging to God. Not only that, but the seal of the Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee of all He has promised to give us in the future – our inheritance. One day soon, we trust, we will be taken to glory and receive all that God has promised us.

A brief note about the expression “the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands,” found in Hebrews 6:2. Some translations render the first part of this “the doctrine of washings.” The writer of Hebrews sought in verses 1 and 2 of this chapter to lead his readers away from occupation with things that characterized Judaism. These things still occupied the thinking of some when they should have grown from this “milk” to the meat, or “solid food,” of the higher things characterizing Christianity (consider 1 Cor. 3:2, Heb. 5:12-14).

There were many washings in the Jewish rituals. The priests had to be ritually washed when inducted into their priesthood, they had to wash hands and feet when passing between the laver and the altar of burnt offering, and much more. These washings or baptisms had become an empty ritual. So had the laying on of hands, which was a part of many ceremonies and was required when a person brought an animal sacrifice. Numerous Christians make much of rituals, ceremonies, musicians and all kinds of other things that are impressive to the natural man. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, pointed out that the Father seeks worshipers who worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4:23-24). May we give Him what He desires!

Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.