Acts 8:14-17 14Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, 15who, after coming down, prayed for them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Word had spread about the great harvest in Samaria and had gotten to the “headquarters” of Jerusalem, where the apostles still were. Many of the growing number of believers had fled with the growing persecution, but for some unstated reason, the apostles remained in the city. Going to Samaria for the apostles was a step of faith and a breakdown of old cultural prejudices. The church in Jerusalem sent the highest authorities, Peter and John, the two who went to Jesus’ tomb and who had become the leaders of the movement. This situation was significant, so these two key apostles could assess how God was moving in the lives of the Samaritans.
Luke does not write that Peter and John went with the intent of criticizing Philip or the Samaritans but to pray that the Samaritans might also receive the Holy Spirit. A two-part aspect to their faith development was evident at this point. In the first stage, they had become believers in Jesus, evidenced by their being baptized in his name. They had experienced justification through seeking God’s forgiveness. They had basic faith but lacked the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost already set the paradigm and goal for discipleship based on the words of Jesus in 1:5 about the deeper baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Samaritans needed to experience the cleansing, purifying, and empowering work of the Holy Spirit through sanctification.
When Peter and John arrived, they prayed with the new believers and laid their hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit. This experience raises some difficult questions. One is the connection between the apostles’ laying on of hands and the Samaritans’ receiving the Holy Spirit. The laying on of hands was a visible experience of the time of prayer. It also represented the presence of the whole church and the authority vested in Peter and John. Another issue is why the Holy Spirit did not come with Philip’s preaching and the new Samaritans’ baptism. Something was missing in their experience, either due to Philip’s method, the Samaritans’ lack of understanding or faith, or the movement of God as the church expanded into new territory. Since Luke did not record the number of Samaritan believers, this passage could also simply be a summarizing stage in fulfillment of 1:8 as the gospel went into new territory.
The goal for people, as shown in Acts, is to come to believe in Jesus and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Different experiences of this are given throughout the book, with no set pattern. Baptism was included as part of the testimony of commitment to Jesus. Faith in Jesus was confirmed by the filling and empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. In a sense, the salvation process was incomplete until the Holy Spirit had done the deeper work of sanctification. In this story, the Samaritans needed that deeper presence of the Spirit in them, and Peter and John helped them understand and experience that.
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