The Holy Spirit in the Acts

of the Apostles
F. F. BRUCE
Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis
The University of Manchester

For Paul and Luke alike, the present age is the age
of the Spirit; for them both, the presence and activity
of the Spirit constituted the great new fact of their time.

I
A L L FOUR OF THE Evangelists, in varying ways, record John the
JLx. Baptist's affirmation that the Coming One would baptize, not (like
John himself) with water, but with Holy Spirit (Mark ι : 8 ; Matt. 3:11;
Luke 3:16; John 1133). A persuasive case has been made out for the
view that Mark, followed by Matthew, identifies the Coming One's
baptismal activity with the ministry of Jesus.1 But the other two
Evangelists understand the Baptist's prophecy differently. "As yet the
Spirit had not been given," says John, with reference to an episode in
Jesus' Jerusalem ministry, "because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John
7:39). When the risen Lord appeared to the disciples on the first Easter
day, then at last, by an act of insufflation, he imparted to them the Holy
Spirit which had descended on himself at the inauguration of his ministry
i . J . E. Yates, The Spirit and the Kingdom (London, S.P.G.K. 1963). But J. A. T. Robinson
points out that in the Fourth Gospel, the future "he will baptize" appears as the present "he
who baptizes'* (John 1 : 3 3 ) : "From Jordan onwards the great baptism of the Spirit began,
even though it was confined till the Gross and Resurrection to the representative figure of
Jesus Himself." "The One Baptism as a Category of New Testament Soteriology," SJT3 6:265
(1953).

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
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(John 20:22). Even if earlier he had impressed on Nicodemus the

necessity of the new birth "of water and the Spirit," this new birth, with
the eternal life to which it was the gateway, could not be experienced
until the Son of Man had been "lifted up" (John 3:5, i4f.).
Luke, for his part, makes it plain that John the Baptist's prediction
was fulfilled at Pentecost. The risen Lord, appearing to the apostles
over a period of forty days after his passion, echoed that prediction and
assured them of its imminent realization : He bade them "wait for the
promise of the Father, which, he said, 'You heard from me,5 for John
baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with
the Holy Spirit55 (Acts i:4f.). 2 When, a few days later, the apostles
"were all filled with the Holy Spirit,5 55 they recognized that Jesus had
inaugurated his baptizing work (Acts 2:33).
Until then, according to Luke, Jesus alone had received the Spirit
of the new age. John the Baptist indeed had been "filled with the Holy
Spirit, even from his mother's womb55 (Luke 1:15), but that was the
Spirit of prophecy. When Jesus was baptized in water by John he was
simultaneously baptized with the Spirit by his Father: It was then
that "God anointed 3 Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with
power55 (Acts 10:38) so that from then on he was enabled to discharge
a messianic ministry beyond the competence of John or of any earlier
prophet. He returned from the place of baptism "full of the Holy
Spirit, . . . and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness55
(Luke 4: if.) ;4 from there he "returned in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee55 (Luke 4:14) and preached his programmatic sermon in the
Nazareth synagogue on the words of Isaiah 61 : if., which he applied to
his own ministry: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor . . .55 (Luke 4:17 ff.). In
the Old Testament context "the Spirit of the Lord Yahweh55 was prob-
ably the Spirit of prophecy, but in the context in which the prophet5s
words are read, expounded, and appropriated by the Preacher in Naza-
reth it is evident that Luke has in mind that outpouring of the Spirit
2. This, it is implied, is part of the "commandment" which the risen Christ gave "through
the Holy Spirit to the disciples whom he had chosen" (Acts 1:2).
3. Gk. chrid as in the apostles' prayer in Acts 4:27, "thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou
didst anoint," and in the reproduction of Isa. 61:1 in Luke 4:18, quoted a few lines below.
4. Gf. the stronger language of Mark 1:12, "the Spirit immediately drove him out (auton
ekballei) into the wilderness."

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on Jesus at his baptism which constituted him the Messiah, the Lord's
Anointed, and imparted to him all the endowments necessary for the
fulfillment of his messianic task.
In Luke's following narrative the presence and activity of the Spirit
in Jesus5 ministry are seldom explicitly mentioned, but they are implied
throughout. The places where we do find express mention are Q pas-
sages, but in these there is often a divergence between the Lukan and
Matthaean wording, particularly in references to the Spirit. In Luke
12:10, where Jesus says that (in contrast to speaking against the Son of
Man, for which pardon is possible) there is no forgiveness for anyone
who "blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,55 the wording is quite similar
to that of the parallel in Matthew i2. # 32. 5 How Luke may have under-
stood such blasphemy may be gathered from certain episodes in Acts,
such as those of Ananias and Sapphira (5:1-11) or Simon Magus
(8:9-24).
Again, the logion in Luke 12:12, where Jesus tells his disciples not
to plan their defense in advance when they are put on trial for their
faith, because "the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what
you ought to say,55 has its counterpart in Matthew 10:19, "it is not you
who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.55 (The
parallel in Mark 13:11, however, "it is not you who speak, but the Holy
Spirit,55 is altered in Luke 21:15 to a form in which Jesus takes the place
of the Spirit: " I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your
adversaries will be able to withstand 6 or contradict. 55 )
But occasionally Luke's version of a Q-passage includes mention of
the Spirit which is absent from the Matthaean parallel. For example,
Luke's version of the "meteorite from the Johannine heaven55 is intro-
duced by the words "In that same hour he [Jesus] rejoiced in the Holy
Spirit and said55 (Luke 10:21) against Matthew's "At that time Jesus
declared 55 (Matt. 11125). T h e addition is probably Lukan; the logion
which follows is recognized as a prophetic oracle.
Again, in Luke 11:13, in a "how much more55 argument from the
natural care of sinful men for their sons to the perfect care of God for
his, Jesus says that the heavenly Father will give "(the) Holy Spirit55 to
5. Matt. 12:31 reproduces the Marcan version of this saying (Mark 3 : 2 9 ) .
6. Gf. Acts 6:10, where Stephen's opponents "could not withstand (antistënai, as here) the
-wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke."

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
Interpretation

those who ask him, whereas in Matthew 7:11 he will give them "good
55
things. If Luke takes the view that the gift of the Spirit to the people
of Christ was not made until Pentecost, when the Coming One adminis­
tered the baptism foretold by John, does he here interpret the future
55
"will give with reference to the post-pentecostal situation? This is at
55
least a less precarious suggestion than that the anarthrous "holy spirit
denotes not the personal Spirit but one or more of the gifts of the Spirit.
It is difficult to dissociate the spiritual gifts from the Spirit himself.
55
Here too may be mentioned the variant for "Thy kingdom come in
the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer: "Let thy holy spirit come upon
55 55
us and cleanse us (Luke 11:2). This "spiritualization of the Kingdom
of God is widely believed to be a Marcionite alteration of the original
7 8
text. It has affinities with Christian liturgical language, and it may
properly be mentioned along with the other passages where Luke seems
to have added to his source a reference to the Spirit, even if the addition
or alteration here is not Lukan.
There is, on the other hand, a well-known Q passage where Luke lacks
a reference to the Spirit which is present in Matthew. In Luke 11:20
55
Jesus speaks of his casting out demons "by the finger of God (cf. Exod.
55
8:19), as against Matthew's phrase "by the Spirit of God (Matt.
12:28). We cannot be sure which was the wording of the Q original;
55 55
if Luke has changed "Spirit to "finger, his motive is not easy to dis­
9
cern.
55
Luke occasionally uses the word "power (dunamis) as a synonym
55 55
of "Spirit or "Holy Spirit —possibly in Luke 4:36 ("with authority and
55
power he commands the unclean spirits ) and 5:17 ("the power of the
55
Lord was with him to heal ) and certainly in 24:49, where the risen
Christ says to his disciples: "behold, I send the promise of my Father
7. This reading is attested by Gregory of Nyssa ( M P G 44, 1158 C, D ) , followed by Maximus
Confessor ( M P G 90, 884!$), and by the cursive 700 (with 162). A similar form of words is
implied by Tertullian (Marc. iv. 26) for Marcion's edition of Luke (and possibly for the text
known to Tertullian himself). T h e originality of this reading is held to be supported by the
mention of the Holy Spirit as an object of prayer in Luke 11:13 ; so A. R. G. Leaney, A Com-
mentary on the Gospel According to Luke (London, 1958; New York, Harper & Row, Pub­
lishers, 1958), p . 188. Gf. also Β. H . Streeter, The Four Gospels (London, 1924; New York,
T h e Macmillan Company, 1925, 1951), p . 277.
8. Gf. the petition in the Roman Missal and Anglican Communion Service: "Cleanse the
thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit."
9. "Luke is linking the work of the Lord with that of Moses," which is described in these
terms in Exod. 8:19. Leaney, Luke, p . 189.

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upon you; but stay in the city [Jerusalem], until you are clothed with
power from on high." These words are repeated in Acts ι :4f., 8, where
55
"the promise of the Father is related to John's prophecy concerning
baptism with the Holy Spirit : "you shall receive power when the Holy
5510
Spirit has come upon you.

II
This survey of the Gospel evidence will serve as background for the
place given to the Spirit in Acts. If the Gospel is concerned with the
55
"time of Christ, Acts is concerned not so much, as Hans Conzelmann
55 11
has it, with the "time of the church as with the age of the Spirit.
Jesus of Nazareth, anointed in the earlier phase "with the Holy Spirit
55
and with power (Acts 10:38), has now been raised from the dead and
exalted to the Father's right hand, whence he has poured out the Spirit
on his followers. In Acts 114 this outpouring is called "the promise of
55
the Father, because the Father is the ultimate giver of the Spirit and
the author of the promise; the idea is expanded in 2:33, where the
exalted Christ is described as "having received from the Father the
55
promise of the Holy Spirit and as having "poured out this which you
55 55
see and hear. In the phrase "the promise of the Spirit we have an
example of the objective genitive or possibly the genitive of definition:
It is the Spirit that is promised; indeed, the Spirit is the promise. The
promise was given not only in John the Baptist's words about the
mightier one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit (echoed by the
12
risen Christ in Acts 1:5) but earlier still, in the oracle of Joel 2:28-32.
In the narrative of Pentecost, it is Joel's oracle that is quoted by Peter
in partial explanation of the phenomena : "This is what was spoken by
55
the prophet Joel (Acts 2:16ff. ). The vindication and enthronement of
Jesus have unleashed the new age of the Spirit of which that oracle
5
spoke; and it is the vindicated and enthroned Christ who is God s agent
in the fulfilling of the promise, the outpouring of the Spirit.
The narrative of Pentecost is presented in such a way as to recall
earlier biblical motifs and to suggest that the coming of the Spirit is
10. Gf. Acts 10:38 for the collocation of "the Holy Spirit and power" (dunamis).
11. The Theology of Saint Luke. Trans, by Geoffrey Buswell (London, i 9 6 0 ; New York,
Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961), pp. 13fr. et passim.
12. Echoed also by Peter in Acts 11:16, where he relates the promise to the outpouring of
the Spirit in the house of Cornelius.

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
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their fulfillment. The "mighty wind" and the "tongues as of fire" which
accompanied his coming (Acts 2:2f.) remind us of the wind and fire
which, in John the Baptist's preaching, were to be the instruments of
the Coming One's purifying work (Luke 3 : i6f ) .13 In its earlier setting,
the festival of Pentecost marked the presentation of the first-fruits of
the wheat harvest (Exod. 23:16; 3 4 : 2 2 ) , but by the beginning of the
Christian era it had come, in some Jewish circles at least, to be cele-
brated as the anniversary of the giving of the law from Mount Sinai. 14
As on that occasion, according to one rabbinical tradition, the voice of
God "went into seventy tongues, so that every nation heard the law in
its own language," so now visitors "from every nation under heaven"
heard the praises of God from the apostles' lips, "each . . . in his own
native language" (Acts 2 : 5 , 8 ) .
Possibly also—though there is no direct evidence for this—the reversal
of the curse of Babel was in the narrator's mind.
It soon became evident that the gift of the Spirit was not to be con-
fined to the apostles and their associates: All who listened to Peter's
preaching were assured that the gift might be theirs too: "Repent and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgive-
ness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts
2 : 3 8 ) . As in the ministry of John the Baptist, baptism in water was
still the sacrament of repentence, it was still "a baptism of repentence
for the forgiveness of sins" (cf. Luke 3 : 3 ) ; but now it became the
vehicle for something further. T h e Coming One had inaugurated his
baptism with the Holy Spirit. T h e outward form of baptism in water
remained unchanged, but its significance was now immeasurably en-
hanced. The Spirit's work of inward purification is assumed rather than
expressed here, but it is explicitly stated later in the narrative when
Peter at the Council of Jerusalem, comparing God's acceptance of Gen-
tile believers with what he himself and his colleagues had experienced
of the divine grace on the day of Pentecost, describes God as "giving
13. en pneumati hagiö kai puri (Matt. 3 : 1 1 , par. Luke 3:16) is probably a conflation of
pneumati hagw (Mark 1:8) and en pneumati kai puri. ( Q ) . Wind and fire together symbolized
judgment, as in the immediately following Q passage where the wind blows the chaff away
and the fire burns it up (Matt. 3:12, par. Luke 3 : 1 7 ) . Gf. G. W. H. Lampe, "The Holy Spirit
in the Writings of St. Luke," in D.E.Nineham, ed., Studies in the Gospels (Oxford, B. Blackwell,
β
1955). Ρ· ι 2 .
14. Gf. Jubilees 1:1 with 6:17. T h e earliest rabbinical references are Midrash Tanhuma 26a
and TB Pesarim 68b.

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them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; and he made no distinction
between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith55 (Acts 15:8f.).
And it is evident in the last paragraph of Acts 2 that all those who shared
the pentecostal experience were united thereby into a new community,
worshiping, witnessing, eating, and sharing their goods together.

Ill
It is by now a truism to say that in more-or-less contemporary Judaism
the closest relationship to the New Testament doctrine of the Spirit is
found in the Qumran community. One aspect of this relationship is the
fact that the phrase "holy spirit,55 which is relatively infrequent in the
Hebrew Bible, is a familiar expression both in the Qumran texts and
in the New Testament. But more important is the fact that in both
bodies of literature the special outpouring of the holy spirit marks the
inauguration of the new age. At that time, according to the Qumran
Rule of the Community:
God will purify by his truth all the deeds of man, and will cleanse for himself
some of mankind, so as to destroy every evil spirit from the midst of his flesh and
cleanse him by the holy spirit from all his wicked deeds. He will sprinkle the spirit
of truth upon him like water of purification from every false abomination. 15

Thus translated, the passage might be regarded as a rewording of Old

Testament prophecy—not so much of Joel 2:28-32 as of Ezekiel
36:25fr., where the sprinkling with cleansing water and the impartation
of a new spirit—Yahweh5s spirit—are promised in the same breath.
But it is possible to render the opening words of the Qumran quotation
"God will purify by his truth all the deeds of a man, and will cleanse
him for himself more than (the rest of) mankind.5516 Adopting this
rendering in a paper first published in 1957, J. A. T. Robinson pointed
out that it provides a striking affinity with John the Baptist's language
about the ministry of the Coming One in the Fourth Gospel and that
in fact it could make "surprising sense as an interpretation of John's
15. 1 QS lv. 2of.
16. In the phrase mibbene 'adäm the preposition min may be partitive ("some of the sons of
m a n " ) or comparative ("more than the sons of m a n " ) . Yet another possibility is to interpret
the phrase as a varient spelling of mibnëh 'ädärn, "the human frame" (G. Vermes) or "the
(bodily) fabric of every m a n " (A. Dupont-Sommer).

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
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work.5'17 The affinity with the Lukan presentation would be less close,
but here too it is one who has himself already been endowed with the
Spirit who in due course imparts the Spirit to others. One recognizable
difference, however, is that in the Qumran texts the "holy spirit55 can
hardly be said to be personal, whereas his personality is clearly to be dis-
cerned in Acts (as elsewhere in the New Testament).
The incident of Ananias and Sapphira brings out a further aspect of
the place of the Spirit in the believing community. When Ananias, hav-
ing sold some landed property, hands over part of the price to the
apostles as though it was the whole price, Peter confronts him with his
deceit: "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy
Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land55 (Acts 5:3)?
Later he uses similar language to Sapphira: "How is it that you have
agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord55 (Acts 5:9) ? This im-
plies an association of the Spirit with the community amounting in some
sense to identity: it is the Spirit that informs and animates the com-
munity, which indeed, apart from the Spirit, would not be a community
but an aggregate of individuals.
Here, too, the Qumran texts provide a parallel. The holy spirit is de-
filed when the people of God are guilty of sin: Members of the covenant
community promise that each of them will avoid all uncleanness "and
not defile his holy spirit.5518 If the "holy spirit55 here is the spirit of the
person concerned, it is holy because it is the spirit which God has placed
within him, and its holiness can be polluted by disobedience to God. But
the community itself seems to be envisaged as a shrine for God5s holy
spirit : the Rule of the Community envisages a time "when these things
take place in Israel according to all these ordinances for a foundation
of holy spirit, for eternal truth, to make atonement for the guilt of rebel-
lion and the work of sin, and to procure divine favour for the land more
than the flesh of burnt-offerings and the fat of sacrifice.5519 The most
obvious New Testament parallel to this conception is Paul's presentation
of the church as the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, but the nar-
rative in Acts 5:1-11 could well serve as an illustration of his warning:
17. "The Baptism of John and the Qumran Community," HTR 50 (1957), pp. 175ÎÏ.,
reprinted in Twelve New Testament Studies (London, SGM Press, 1962), pp. uff.
18. CD vii. 3f.
19-1 Q S ix. 3f. An alternative rendering to "more than the flesh . . ." is "apart from the
flesh . . . " (so Dupont-Sommer and Vermes).

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"If any one destroys God5s sanctuary, God will destroy him; for God5s
sanctuary is holy, and you are that sanctuary55 (I Cor. 3:17).
The language of the apostolic decree in Acts 15:28f. suggests a similar
understanding, for the decision of the community, or of its leaders, is
the decision of the Holy Spirit : "it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit
and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary
things. . . .55 One could, of course, infer from this that a prophetic
utterance had given the ruling, but this is not suggested in the narrative.
Rather it is James, in the course of his summing up, who gives it as his
judgment that Gentile converts should be directed to observe "these
necessary things55 (Acts 15:19^). The direction of the Spirit may be
received through the judgment of wise leaders as well as by the un-
premeditated utterances of prophets.

IV
Special interest attaches to some of the recorded instances of the re-
ceiving of the Spirit after his initial outpouring at Pentecost.
The first of these concerns the Samaritans who believed and were
baptized during the preaching of Philip in the situation that followed
Stephen5s martyrdom. The preaching was attended by "signs and great
works of power55 which made an impression in particular on Simon
Magus, although as yet the Holy Spirit "had not fallen on any of them;
they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus55 (Acts 8:16).
Not until the apostles Peter and John came down from Jerusalem and
laid their hands on them did they receive the Spirit. And when they
received him, the effect was immediately manifest: Simon Magus
"saw55 (8:18) that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the
apostles5 hands. But the time-lag between baptism and the reception of
the Spirit invites some comment, though Luke does not supply it: It
may be that the Samaritan converts, so long the objects of Jewish dis-
approval, needed this special gesture from the leaders of the Jerusalem
church to incorporate them into the Spirit-possessed fellowship of the
new people of God.20
The next significant bestowal of the Spirit in the narrative forms part
20. Gf. G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit: A Study in the Doctrine of Baptism and
Confirmation in the New Testament and the Fathers (London, New York, Longmans, Green,
i 9 5 0 > PP. 7off.

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
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of the account of Saul's conversion: Ananias of Damascus came to visit

him on the third day of his blindness "and laying his hands on him he
said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus . . . has sent me that you may regain
your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit5 55 (Acts 9:17). Ananias5
gesture of fellowship to the former persecutor was to much the same
effect as the apostles5 imposition of hands on the Samaritans: to be thus
accepted and to be called "brother55 by someone who confessed Jesus as
Lord assured Saul of his welcome into the community which he had so
recently been endeavoring to extirpate. Ananias had no official status
such as Peter and John: He was, for the moment, the risen Lord's
messenger and mouthpiece to Saul. Peter and John themselves could
discharge no nobler function—and it is apposite to recall T. W. Man-
son's insistence that it is function and not status that is of the essence of
the Christian ministry.21 Recovering his sight, Saul got up and was
baptized.
The pattern is changed when we come to the reception of the first
Gentile believers into the church. Cornelius, with his family and friends,
received the Spirit without having received either baptism or the impo-
sition of hands. While Peter was telling them the story of Jesus and
announcing forgiveness of sins in his name, "the Holy Spirit fell on all
who heard the word55 (Acts 10:44). The Jewish believers who had
accompanied Peter to Caesarea "were amazed55—and Peter himself, we
may suppose, was taken by surprise—"because the gift of the Holy Spirit
had been poured out even on the Gentiles; for they heard them speaking
in tongues and extolling God,55 just as the people in Jerusalem had heard
the apostles doing on the day of Pentecost. If Peter then gave instruc-
tions that these new converts should be baptized, baptism in water was
not on this occasion the vehicle of their baptism with the Spirit, which
they had already received. Rather, it marked Peter's practical acquies-
cence in the divine fait accompli, for, had he not been faced with such
a fait accompli, he might well have hesitated to welcome them into the
beloved community otherwise than by the well-established procedure
21. E.g. in the closing sentence of his presidential address to the Society of New Testament
Studies: "If our attention can be directed away from status and privilege to function and
ministry, it is conceivable that we may discover there the true nature and basis of the Church's
unity." "The New Testament Basis of the Doctrine of the Church/' JEH i : i - n (1950).
Cf. Hans Küng, Why Priests? A Proposal for a New Church Ministry. Trans, by Robert C.
Collins (London, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday & Co., 1972), pp. 25fr.

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for admitting proselytes into the commonwealth of Israel.22 But if we
think of the separate elements in Christian initiation—repentance and
faith, baptism, laying on of hands, reception of the Spirit—Luke does
not seem to regard any one sequence as normative.23
The last instance of receiving the Spirit which calls for our attention
in the narrative of Acts is that of the twelve Ephesian "disciples55 who
had received the baptism of John and had heard nothing of the Holy
Spirit (19:1-7). When Luke uses the term "disciples55 without qualifica­
tion, as he does of these men, he elsewhere means disciples of Jesus; and
Paul appears to have recognized them as Christian believers since he
asks them if they received the Holy Spirit when they believed. Luke
does not bring them into direct relation with Apollos, to whom he
has devoted the preceding paragraph (probably he derived this inci­
dent and the Apollos episode from two different sources), but since
Apollos also is said to have known "only the baptism of John,55 for all
his accurate knowledge of the story of Jesus (18:25), it is natural to
conclude that they had learned of the Christian way along a similar line
of transmission, deviating from that acknowledged by both Luke and
Paul. However, when Paul realized the defective character of these
disciples5 faith and practice, he gave them further instruction and they
"were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus55—the only instance of
rebaptism in the New Testament. (It is nowhere suggested that others
who had received John's baptism, like some of the original apostles
themselves, submitted to water baptism a second time; rather, having
been baptized in water by John, they were in due course baptized with
the Spirit by the mightier than John. 24 It may be that the Ephesian
disciples had received John's baptism more recently, when the age of the
Spirit had already been inaugurated, in which case John's baptism might
have been thought to be no longer valid. We can only speculate. ) After
22. Cf. J . A. T . Robinson, " T h e One Baptism as a Category of New Testament Soteriology,"
SJT 6 (1953)5 P· 266 with η . i.
23. I t is unlikely that this variation in initiatory sequence in Acts is directly related to
variations attested for different areas in the early church. The Cornelius incident, for example,
has probably no direct relation with the pattern which seems to have been observed until the
fourth century in Syria, where the impartation of the Spirit in unction preceded baptism in water.
Cf. T. W. Manson, "Entry into Membership of the Early Church," JTS 48 (1947), pp. 25fr;
S. P. Brock, "Studies in the Early History of the Syrian Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy," JTS,
n.s., 23 (1972), pp. 16ÍF. Acts may incidentally show all the variations to have apostolic
precedent, but it would be precarious to conclude that Luke had this purpose in mind.

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
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their rebaptism, "when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy
Spirit came on them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied."
V
G. W. H. Lampe points out that, for Luke, Paul's arrival in Ephesus
marks "another decisive moment in the missionary history" (comparable
to the moments in Samaria and at Caesarea) and that this is emphasized
in his narrative by the exceptional bestowal of the Spirit on those twelve
"disciples" who were, presumably, to be the nucleus of the Ephesian
church.25 Another observation with regard to this incident was made
by the late Arnold Ehrhardt, to the effect that Paul "was one of the
greatest assets for the Church at Jerusalem" because of his bringing non-
Jerusalem versions of the gospel into line with that which stemmed
from there, more particularly on this occasion in that he "joined, ac-
cording to Luke, Christians to the Jerusalem 'Catholic5 Church who up
to that time had not belonged to it." ^ That, of course, is not the way
in which Paul himself would have expressed it, but it is clear from his
major letters that, for all his asserted independence of Jerusalem, he
attached high importance to maintaining himself and his converts in
fellowship with the mother church. For Paul and Luke alike, the
present age is the age of the Spirit: For them both, the presence and
activity of the Spirit constituted the great new fact of their time.27 And
if, for Luke, the receiving of the Spirit is commonly attended by miracu-
lous signs, Paul as a matter of course associates God's bestowal of the
Spirit on his converts with his accomplishment of mighty works among
them—both being the effect of the "hearing of faith" (Gal. 3:5).
Yet we may discern a difference of perspective between the Pauline
letters and Acts. In Acts the Spirit may come in consequence of re-
pentance and baptism, as on the day of Pentecost; after baptism and the
laying-on of hands (with some lapse of time between these two), as in
Samaria; after baptism accompanied immediately by the laying on of
hands, as at Ephesus; before baptism, as the divine response to inward
24. See Robinson, SJT 6 (1953), p. 266.
25. The Seal of the Spirit, p. 76.
26. The Framework of the New Testament Stories (Manchester, 1964; Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1964), pp. 941".
27. Gf. J. Denney: ". . . to understand what is meant by the Spirit is to understand these
two things—the NT and the Christian Church. . . . in Acts, as elsewhere in the NT, the recep-
tion of the Spirit is the whole of Christianity" ("Holy Spirit," DCG I, pp. 731, 738).

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faith, as at Caesarea. Paul, on the other hand, regularly uses language
which implies that all Christians ipso facto have the Spirit : The Gala-
tian Christians, as we have seen, are assumed to have received him; the
same is true of the not particularly spiritual Corinthian church (II Cor.
ι : 22 ), to which he can say, "in one Spirit we were all baptized into one
55
body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free (I Cor. 12:13); while to the
Romans he says flatly, "Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ
55
does not belong to him (Rom. 8:9) — I will not go so far as to adopt the
New English Bible rendering, "if a man does not possess the Spirit of
55
Christ, he is no Christian (although I do not think it can be faulted
as an interpretation). It may be that Luke thinks regularly of some
outward manifestation which attests the reception of the Spirit, whereas
Paul, while familiar with such manifestations, does not regard them as
indispensable and holds that all Christians have, on believing, been
55
"sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 1:13), whether this
sealing is accompanied by external phenomena or not.
55
The term "sealing reminds us, too, of an important aspect of Paul's
5
doctrine of the Spirit which is not paralleled in Luke s writings—the
concept of the indwelling Spirit as the present pledge of immortality, as
28
the seal, firstfruits, or guarantee of the coming heritage of glory. This
concept is peculiarly Pauline; it finds no place in Luke's perspective.
Luke is perhaps more concerned with the Spirit's direction of the Chris­
tian advance on earth.
There is, however, another theologian of the Spirit among the New
Testament writers whose presentation of the doctrine exhibits some im­
pressive features of affinity with what we find in Acts. In an article
29
published over thirty years ago, the late W. F. Lofthouse examined the
five passages concerning the Spirit in the upper-room discourse of John
14—16, and concluded that their emphasis "is precisely that which
underlies the conception of the Spirit in Acts 1—15." He amplified this
statement as follows:
4
The Spirit is sent by Jesus or by the Father in Jesus' name; He is given to the
disciples as their special possession; He reminds them of Jesus; witnesses of Jesus,
c
as they do themselves; guides them, glorifies Him. I-ye-He' form a kind of motif
28. Cf. II Cor. 5:5 ; Rom. 8:9-25 ; Eph. 4:30.
29. "The Holy Spirit in the Acts and the Fourth Gospel," ExposT, 52 (1940-41), pp. 334η.

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
Interpretation

throughout. The Spirit is linked as closely to the company of the disciples in the
life which awaits them as He is linked to Jesus. He is to do for them all that the
Master had done on earth. He is to be, so to speak, the Master Himself en
permanence.

Certainly we get the impression in Acts that when the Spirit descended
on the disciples at Pentecost they were not taken by surprise. They were
prepared for his coming and were ready with an explanation for the
amazed bystanders. Luke himself says that the risen Lord prepared
them for such an experience in a few days5 time (Luke 24:49; Acts
1:4f.), but the risen Lord's reference to impending fulfillment of "the
promise of the Father, which, he said, cyou heard from me'," suggests
some earlier teaching on the subject. For such teaching we look in vain
in the Synoptic record, but the upper room discourse in the Fourth
Gospel includes teaching very much to this effect. If we infer from this
that Luke had access to the Johannine tradition in an earlier stage than
that represented by its final written form, our inference is corroborated
by other evidence in Luke's writings.30
One specially close affinity between the account of the Spirit in John
14—16 and that in Acts is found in the part he plays in the disciples5
witness. "When the Paraclete comes . . . ," says Jesus in the upper
room, "he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because
you have been with me from the beginning55 (John 15:26Í.). With these
words we may compare the apostles5 reply to the Sanhédrin in Acts
5:32. After reaffirming the vindicating act of God in the resurrection
and exaltation of Jesus, they add: "And we are witnesses to these
things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who
obey him.55 31
Paul speaks of the confirmatory testimony of the Spirit in the believers'
own life: "When we cry 'Abba! Father!5 it is the Spirit himself bearing
witness with our spirit that we are children of God55 (Rom. 8:i5f.).
But it is Luke and John who speak of the Spirit bearing witness in and
with the disciples5 public witness before the world.
30. For example, the references to John the Baptist's preaching in Acts 13:25 and 19:4 are
closer to the account in John 1:1 gff. than to the Synoptic accounts.
31. Gf. the united testimony of "the Spirit and the Bride" in Rev. 22:17—tantamount^ says
H. B. Swete {ad loc), to "the prophets and the saints".

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 VI
There are in Acts occasional references to the Spirit of prophecy
speaking in the Old Testament scriptures. In Acts ι : 16-20 the language
of Psalms 69:25 and 109:8 is quoted as what "the Holy Spirit spoke
beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas.55 In Acts 4:24fr.
the opening words of Psalm 2 are said to have been spoken by God
through "our father David, thy servant, the mouthpiece of the Holy
Spirit,55 with reference to the attack launched on Jesus by Herod Antipas
and Pontius Pilate, "with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.55 And
at the end of the book (Acts 28:25fr.) Paul quotes Isaiah 6:9f. against
the Jews of Rome as what the Holy Spirit said to their fathers through
the prophet. There is nothing distinctive about this practice: We may
observe that on each occasion the human author is named alongside the
Spirit (even if only as the Spirit's "mouthpiece 55 ), and that the Spirit
of Hebrew prophecy is identical with the Spirit now at work in the
church: "you always resist the Holy Spirit,55 says Stephen to the San­
hédrin; "as your fathers did, so do you55 (Acts 7:51).
As in the Old Testament certain persons have in a special degree the
fullness of the Spirit for various forms of activity, like Bezalel (Exod.
31:3) and Micah (Micah 3:4), similar language is used in the New
Testament in a post-pentecostal setting. After the initial receiving of the
Spirit or filling with the Spirit, individuals may be described in a dis-
tinctive sense as being "full55 of the Spirit, like the seven almoners of
Acts 6, especially Stephen (6:3, 5; 7:55),^ or like Barnabas (11:24) ;
or they may be "filled55 with the Spirit for a particular purpose, especially
for authoritative or oracular utterance, as when Peter made his reply
to the Sanhédrin when he and John were being examined for their part
in the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (4:8) or when
Paul rebuked Elymas the sorcerer (i3:9). 3 3 Such incidents might be
regarded as fulfillments of the Gospel promise of Luke 12:12 and paral-
lels to which attention has been paid already. This kind of language
for inspiration is not, of course, confined to a Jewish or Christian con-
text: The Cumaean Sibyl, for instance, makes her oracular responses
32. Cf. Acts 6:8, "Stephen, full of grace and power."
33. Cf. the apostles in Acts 4:31 ; Saul of Tarsus in 9:17; the "disciples" of Pisidian Antioch
in 13:52; Judas and Silas in the D-text of 15:32.

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
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when plena deo^

As for the prophets of the new age who appear from time to time in
the narrative of Acts, they too speak under the impulsion of the Spirit,
but their utterances are directed to ad hoc situations instead of con-
veying the more far-reaching purpose of God. Paul rates the gift of
prophecy highly, meaning by it apparently the declaration of the mind
of God in the power of the Spirit, but the instances given by Luke imply
a lower level of inspiration. The outstanding prophet in Luke's nar-
rative is Agabus of Jerusalem. In the early days of Gentile Christianity
he pays a visit to Syrian Antioch and predicts the famine of Claudius'
principate; in consequence of his prediction the Antiochene church
organizes famine relief for Jerusalem and sends it there "by the hand of
Barnabas and Saul" (Acts n : 27-30). Later, on the occasion of Paul's
last journey to Jerusalem, he comes down to Caesarea and by means
of a piece of prophetic symbolism foretells the trouble that awaits Paul
in Jerusalem (Acts 2i:iof.). Unless we are to dismiss the deviations
in his prediction from what actually happened as due to stylistic varia-
tion on Luke's part, we observe that his prediction (which may be in-
fluenced by the sequence of the passion narrative in the Gospel) was
not fulfilled to the letter: The Jews of Jerusalem did not bind Paul and
hand him over to the Gentiles, but the Gentiles (Romans) rescued Paul
by force from a Jewish crowd which was on the point of lynching him,
and it was the Romans, not the Jews, who bound him (Acts 21:30-33 ).
Agabus' prediction on this occasion was the climax of others which Paul
had been given in the course of his journey. "The Holy Spirit testifies
to me in every city," said Paul to the elders of the Ephesian church when
he broke his journey for a short time at Miletus, "that imprisonment
and afflictions await me" in Jerusalem (Acts 20:23). But Paul did not
regard these predictions as indicating that he ought not to persevere in
his journey—not even when the disciples at Tyre told him "through the
Spirit . . · not to go on to Jerusalem," and not even when Agabus pre-
faced his oracle with "Thus says the Holy Spirit" (21:4). Paul under-
stood well enough that danger lay in store for him in Jerusalem, but this
was no reason for turning back: He might have said to those friends,
as he said to the Corinthians, "And I think that I also have the Spirit
34. According to a text of Virgil no longer extant but known in the first century A.D. (Seneca
the elder, Suasoriae iii. 5 ff.) and imitated by other Latin writers.

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of God" (I Cor. 7:40). He knew himself to be "bound by the Spirit" to
go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22) ; this phrase probably indicates the driv-
ing power of the Spirit of God and not simply a sense of inward spiritual
constraint. And when at Caesarea his friends, following up the prophecy
of Agabus, begged him not to go up to Jerusalem, they desisted when
his reply indicated his firm resolve not to be deflected from his chosen
course and when they apparently recognized that he might be more
sensitive to the Spirit's guidance than any of his well-wishers: "The
Lord's will be done," they said, acquiescing in Paul's purpose (Acts
21:9)·
Although the direction in Acts 13:2 to the leaders of the church in
Syrian Antioch to release two of their number for a more extended
ministry is not expressly said to have been uttered by a prophet, this is
implied by the context. The five leaders mentioned were prophets as
well as teachers, and if in the course of their devotions they heard the
Holy Spirit say, "Come, set Barnabas and Saul apart for the work to
which I have called them," we are most probably to understand that he
used one of them as his mouthpiece.35
Some of the other instances of the Spirit's guidance in the narrative
may similarly imply prophetic utterance, but we cannot always be sure.
There is, for example, the familiar sequence of negative and positive
guidance experienced by Paul and his companions in Acts 16:6-10 on
their northwestern path through Asia Minor which terminated at Troas.
The positive guidance at Troas to take ship and cross to Macedonia was
given in a night vision, but the twofold negative guidance which pre-
ceded their coming down to Troas is explicitly linked with the Spirit.
According to Luke, "they went through the Phrygian and Galatic region,
having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and
when they came opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but
the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they came
down to Troas" (16:6-8). With regard to the former prohibition, we
may conclude that it had been their intention, before they received it,
to proceed west through proconsular Asia to Ephesus, and we may
observe that they received ample notice that they had to change their
35. In Acts 13:4 they are said to have been "sent out by the Holy Spirit." Similar prophetic
activity may be implied in Acts 20:28, where Paul tells the Ephesian elders that the Holy
Spirit has made them "guardians" (episkopoi) of the flock.

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 The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
Interpretation

travel plans: The prohibition was perhaps communicated to them at

Lystra (the pastoral epistles preserve reminiscences of prophetic utter-
ances given on the occasion when Timothy joined the apostolic com-
pany) ,36 But if this prohibition was communicated by a prophetic utter-
ance, is there any significance in the change of wording when they
attempted to enter Bithynia: "the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them"?37
We cannot be sure; there may be nothing more than a stylistic variation
here, or this prohibition may have been conveyed by some other means
than prophetic utterance.38

VII
In one way or another, Acts describes the gospel as making its way
through the world under the constant direction of the Holy Spirit.
When, at the end of the book, Paul has been brought to Rome and
spends his two years under house arrest "preaching the kingdom of God
and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered"
in the heart of the Roman Empire, the impression with which we are
left is not that the Holy Spirit has finished, or nearly finished, his work
in the world. Rather, having brought the gospel thus far from its earlier
bases in Jerusalem, Syrian Antioch, and Ephesus, he will continue to
advance it in increasing measure from its new base in Rome. The future
belongs to the Spirit, and thanks to him the gospel cannot be stopped.
Some Christians, contemplating the world of today, are most con-
scious of the signs of irreversible dissolution. Others are more impressed
by the growing abundance of evangelistic opportunities. It is not sur-
prising that men and women of the latter outlook have always found
the Acts of the Apostles—or, as it has been called "The Acts of the Holy
Spirit"—a specially congenial book.
3 6 . 1 Tim. 4:14, cf. II Tim. 1:6f.
37. According to R. B. Rackham {ad loc), "Paul might speak of the Lord appearing to him
in a vision as 'the Spirit of Jesus' " (but this language is not used in verse 9, where it is by
means of a vision that the next guidance is given).
38. It is presumably by inward prompting that the Spirit tells Philip to join the Ethiopian's
chariot (Acts 8:29) and Peter to accompany Cornelius's messengers to Caesarea (10:19 f.;
11:12). Something more strenuous, akin to Old Testament phenomena (cf. I Kings 18:12), is
implied in Acts 8:39, where "the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip." (In the D-text "the
Holy Spirit fell upon the eunuch and the angel of the Lord caught up Philip.") It should be
added that in the D-text of Acts the rôle of the Spirit is amplified: thus in 15:7 Peter stands
up "in the Spirit" to address the Jerusalem council; in 15:29 "being carried along in the Holy
Spirit" is added to "you will do well"; in 19:1 Paul is told by the Spirit to return to Asia; in
20:3 he is similarly told by the Spirit to return through Macedonia.

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