March 10

Read: Acts 19:1-7

Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? (Acts 19:2)

Have You Received The Holy Spirit?

Yesterday we saw the concern of Peter and John for the sanctification of believers. Paul was also concerned that followers of Christ should receive the Holy Spirit.

Finding a little group of about a dozen believers in the city of Ephesus, he inquired concerning their spiritual life, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” This verse has been a favorite text for second-blessing sermons and its phrasing is exactly true to the time sequence of Christian experience. However, the Revised Version renders Paul’s question, “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?” Some critics of second-blessing truth assume that this more accurate translation nullifies the passage as evidence for the doctrine.

Even in this form, the passage is the clearest kind of evidence for a crisis experience of holiness. These new Christians were baptized with the Holy Spirit in a moment of time. Moreover, when the entire incident is considered, there is still conclusive evidence for entire sanctification as a second blessing, following the experience of conversion. Whatever John’s baptism had done for these men, it had not given them the Holy Ghost. Even when they learned more about Christ, walked in the light, and were baptized as Christians, they were not yet sanctified. It was only alter this experience that Paul “laid his hands upon them, and the Holy Ghost came on them.”

It is a searching scriptural question with which God confronts me:

Have ye received, since ye believed, The blessed Holy Ghost? He who was promised, Gift of the Father-­ Have ye received the Holy Ghost?

— Mrs. C. H. Morris