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Laying on of hands, part 3 (final)

Pentecost is the transition between Passover and Tabernacles. One of the foremost purposes of the feast of Pentecost is to empower people with an anointing of the Holy Spirit, so that they may begin to live their lives in accordance with the nature of God. The nature of God is expressed in His laws, and so we see that Pentecost originated at Mount Sinai where God revealed the law to the people.

Under the Old Covenant, the law was an external revelation written on tablets of stone. Under the New Covenant, the law is written internally upon our minds and hearts. In either case, the law is present, but if it remains external, it can only change one’s behavior to some extent. This leads to legalism, a condition where men present their works to God as a condition of their justification. The New Covenant begins with faith and then empowers that faith with the Holy Spirit so that their behavior (works) begins to conform to the law/nature of God.

God’s Hand of Fire

When the Holy Spirit came down on Mount Sinai manifesting as fire (Deuteronomy 5:23), there was no command to lay hands on anyone to receive the Spirit. The same was seen in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit came down as fire upon the heads of the disciples. In both cases, God initiated this without any man laying hands on another. In fact, the fire itself was God’s hand being laid upon the disciples.

This might have occurred at Mount Sinai as well, if the people had been able to receive it. But they ran in fear, sending Moses up the Mount to receive the revelation of the law (Exodus 20:19). Hence, the people as a whole did not receive God’s hand of fire that might otherwise have been laid upon their heads.

Transmitting the Holy Spirit

After initiating this baptism of the Holy Spirit, God left it to Spirit-filled men to lay hands on those believers who were willing to receive the Spirit. When Philip evangelized Samaria, he called for Peter and John to administer the Spirit to the Samaritans. Acts 8:17 says,

¹⁷ Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.

Later, when Saul was converted on the road to Damascus, he was blinded temporarily and was led to the house of Judas (Acts 9:11). There Ananias found him, as God had instructed. We read in Acts 9:17,

¹⁷ So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Laying hands on others to receive the Holy Spirit is thus the norm, but it is not always necessary, because God will do what He will do. When Peter was led to preach the gospel to the Roman believers in the house of Cornelius, the centurion, the Holy Spirit came upon them without Peter laying hands on any of them. Acts 10:44 says,

⁴⁴ While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.

In fact, these people were baptized by the Holy Spirit even before being baptized with water. In Acts 10:47, 48 Peter says,

⁴⁷ “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” ⁴⁸ And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.

It is clear that God does not care so much about the order of sacraments. The original pattern was established with Israel, which was justification at Passover, baptism at the Red Sea, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Mount Sinai. But He has no problem reversing the order when He sees fit. I have personally witnessed people receiving the Holy Spirit when they were being baptized in water.

In the case of the Roman believers, we read in Acts 10:45, 46,

⁴⁵ All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. ⁴⁶ For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God…

This event clearly surprised “all the circumcised believers” (six men plus Peter, Acts 11;12), who had assumed that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was for biological Israelites only. In fact, later, when Peter reported back to the church in Jerusalem, some took issue with him for eating with uncircumcised men (Acts 11:2, 3). Peter then told them the story, how he had been given a vision of a large sheet coming down from heaven, filled with unclean animals. The Spirit told him to “kill and eat” (Acts 11:7).

Then the messengers arrived from Cornelius, and Peter realized that the vision spoke of men, not animals. The full revelation was that the feasts of the Lord were meant for everyone, not just biological Israelites or Judahites. It seems strange that they would have missed this revelation, since Deuteronomy 16:10, 11 expressly commands that aliens should keep the Feast of Weeks, i.e., Pentecost.

Likewise, Deuteronomy 16:13, 14 expressly commands that aliens should keep the feast of Booths (Tabernacles).

These feasts were not restricted to biological descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So it should not have surprised Peter that the Holy Spirit would come upon the Samaritans and the Roman soldiers. The Holy Spirit has come upon many other ethnic groups throughout church history, and we will soon see a great worldwide outpouring of the Spirit.

It seems likely that the coming outpouring of the Spirit will often come spontaneously without the need for anyone to lay hands on the people. Nonetheless, we ought to be ready to lay hands on people to transmit the baptism of the Spirit, as well as to heal the sick, the deaf, and the blind.

In doing this, we should keep in mind that laying on of hands is an act of consecration, where God separates people for divine service. He lays hands on those people to lay claim to them as His own—that is, His servants. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the primary benefit of becoming “a bond-servant of Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:1) that empowers them to fulfill the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, 20,

¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.