In Church His Whole Life and Could Not Say Who the Holy Spirit Is

Somebody asked him at work and he could not answer.

Not a hostile question. A colleague had been to a wedding, had heard a phrase, and asked him casually across a desk, and he opened his mouth and produced about eleven words that he knew, while he was saying them, were not an answer.

He is thirty-four. He has been in that building three times a week his whole life. He can recite things in two languages. He has sung about this specific subject probably a thousand times.

And what he discovered at that desk was that he had a gap, in the middle of something he has been inside since before he could walk, and that he has never once admitted it to anybody because in his community not knowing that would be extraordinary.

Paul meets a group of people with exactly that gap and the way he handles them is the reason this passage is here.

The first thing Paul does is ask

Here is the scene, and the opening move is a question rather than an assessment.

And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. (Acts 19:1-2, King James Version)

Finding certain disciples. Luke calls them disciples. Before anything is discovered, before the gap is found, they are described as belonging.

And have ye received. Paul asks. He does not test them, does not preach at them, does not open with a correction. He asks a direct question and waits for the answer, and the answer is startling.

You are called a disciple before any gap is discovered. Acts 19:1 uses that word about them before verse 2 finds out anything, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:16, that the witness about a person is borne rather than earned by their knowledge.

Their answer is completely honest

We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.

Read how flat that is. No embarrassment, no attempt to cover, no manufacturing of an answer. They simply say that they have never heard of it.

And they were disciples. They had been baptized, they were following, they believed something real about Jesus, and there was a large gap in the middle of it and they had not known there was a gap until somebody asked.

That is a difficult sentence for a man from a background like mine, because in my community the pressure is enormous to have an answer, and the honest reply in Acts 19 would be almost impossible to say out loud at a Sunday table.

But it is what they say, and Luke wrote it down, and nothing bad happens to them for saying it.

You are able to say the honest version, and Scripture recorded people doing exactly that. Acts 19:2 has them answering flatly and nothing bad following, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who guides into truth rather than shaming anybody toward it.

Who He is, said plainly

Since the article is about a gap, it is worth putting the answer in, plainly, without assuming anything.

The Holy Spirit is not a force and not an influence. He is spoken of as a Person, with a will, who can be grieved, who teaches, who intercedes, who was promised.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. (John 14:16)

Another Comforter. The word for another there means another of the same kind rather than a different sort of thing, which is the first thing to know. What was promised is a Person of the same order as the one making the promise.

That he may abide with you for ever. Which is the second thing: the arrangement is permanent, not occasional.

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance. (John 14:26)

He shall teach you. Which is the third thing, and it is why a gap of this kind is answerable: teaching is one of the named functions.

You have been promised a Person of the same kind, permanently. John 14:16 says another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever, and it is that same Holy Ghost, John 14:26, who is named as the one who teaches.

What He is described as doing about the exact question in this article

The most useful thing to know, for somebody whose real worry is whether any of their faith is genuine, is what He is described as doing about that.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. (Romans 8:16)

Beareth witness with our spirit. He gives evidence, internally, about a person's standing.

And Paul says something about the mechanics elsewhere that is worth having.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. (1 Corinthians 2:12)

That we might know the things that are freely given. The purpose clause is about knowing what has been given, which is the exact problem of a man with a gap in the middle of his faith.

So the answer to not knowing about Him is, in part, Him.

You have a witness given specifically so that what was given would be known. 1 Corinthians 2:12 names that as the purpose, and it is the Spirit which is of God, in that same verse, who does it.

What Paul does about it, and how quickly

The rest of Acts 19 is short, and the speed is the point.

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them. (Acts 19:5-6)

It takes two verses. There is no course, no probation, no requirement that they explain how the gap arose, and no discussion at all of how twelve disciples came to be in that condition.

That is worth having by anybody who has been carrying a gap for years and assumes the closing of it would be a large and humiliating process. In Acts 19 it takes about a paragraph and nobody is embarrassed.

And they had to be asked. That is the other half. Nobody in Ephesus had noticed, and the twelve had not known to say anything, and it took a man walking in and asking a direct question.

You are two verses from a gap being closed rather than a course. Acts 19:5-6 takes a paragraph with no probation of any kind, and it is the Holy Ghost named in verse 6 who came on them rather than a qualification they completed.

Nothing here is a criticism of the room

I want to say this plainly, because this article could be read as a complaint about how anybody was taught.

Nobody in Ephesus is criticized. Apollos, who had taught in that region with the same gap, is described elsewhere as eloquent and mighty in the scriptures and fervent in spirit, and when he is corrected it is done privately by two friends and he goes on being useful.

There is no scene in Acts 19 where anybody is blamed for the gap, and I am not going to construct one about my own upbringing or anybody's. The people who taught me taught me what they had, faithfully, at cost, and a gap is not a betrayal.

What Acts 19 offers is not an indictment. It is a question, asked directly, that nobody had thought to ask, and an answer that took a paragraph.

You are not holding an indictment of anybody, and Scripture did not write one. Acts 19 records the gap and blames nobody for it, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who guides into truth rather than into a case against a family.