Acts 19:2

Acts 19:2. Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? The more accurate rendering is far more emphatic and clear, ‘Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?' Did its mighty influence in any way affect you at the time of your baptism? ‘We are left to conjecture what prompted the question. The most natural explanation is, that St. Paul noticed in them, as they attended the meetings of the church, a want of spiritual gifts, perhaps also a want of the peace and joy and brightness that showed itself in others; they presented the features of a rigorous asceticism like that of the Therapeutae, the outward signs of repentance and mortification, but something was manifestly lacking for their spiritual completeness' (Prof. Plumptre).

We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. Again here the more accurate translation of the original Greek guides us to the true interpretation of the answer of these followers of the Baptist, ‘On the contrary, we did not' (at the time of our baptism) ‘so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given.' Dean Alford renders, ‘We did not so much as hear Him mentioned.' The words as rendered in the English Version are certainly likely to mislead. No Jew and the majority, though perhaps not all, of John's disciples would have been Jews but had heard of the Holy Spirit (see, for instance, such well-known passages as 2 Samuel 23:2-3, where the ‘Spirit of the Lord' and the ‘God of Israel' are interchangeable terms; compare, too, Isaiah 63:10-11; Isaiah 63:14; Isaiah 61:1, and a vast number of similar passages). No Israelite could possibly have been unfamiliar with the name of the ‘Holy Spirit.' ‘They could not have followed either Moses or John the Baptist,' says Bengel, ‘without hearing of the Holy Ghost. But they were doubtless ignorant that the Holy Ghost was already given, that His mighty influence was no longer confined, as under the old dispensation, to a few favoured individuals. They were ignorant of the first Christian Pentecost and its marvels! They knew nothing of His miraculous influences. It is not probable that they shared at all in the life of the Christian brotherhood. It was as Jews Paul found them out, members of some Ephesian synagogue, though, no doubt, his attention had been specially called to them as having been hearers of the famous Baptist or his disciples. It has been suggested that these men were the results of Apollos' preaching at Ephesus before Priscilla and Aquila found him. This is unlikely. There were, we may well conceive, followers of the Baptist in many foreign lands. His stirring call to repentance, his burning summons to Israel with the old prophetic fervour to turn again to their Lord, found a response in many a world-weary heart far beyond the desert where he preached; and as we have stated above, this whole narrative, first concerning Apollos, and now of these unknown ones, is introduced to tell us that in ways similar to the one here narrated, through the instrumentality of believers like Priscilla and Aquila and Paul, the great majority of the heaters of the Baptist were brought to the full knowledge of the faith of Christ