“Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost” — Acts 8:14-17.
THE Pentecostal gift of the Spirit was not granted to these Samaritan converts immediately. They came of a schismatic group who were intensely jealous of their own claims to being the chosen people, as were the Jews to the south of them. They must learn definitely that “salvation is of the Jews” as our Lord had declared (John 4:22), so they had to wait until the apostles came from Jerusalem ere they were baptized into the one Body of Christ.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is to be distinguished both from new birth by the Spirit and from the gifts of the Spirit. All believers are born of the Spirit, by the Word of God when they believe the gospel (1 Peter 1:23-25). The gifts of the Spirit are the graces or talents He divides “to every man severally as He will” (1 Cor. 12:11), in order that we may work for God in our various spheres. But the gift of the Spirit is the Holy One Himself, who indwells believers and by whose baptism we are made members of Christ and so added to the Lord.
“‘One spirit with the Lord;’
Oh, blessed, wondrous word!
What heavenly light, what pow’r divine.
Doth that sweet word afford!
‘One spirit with the Lord;’
Jesus, the glorified,
Esteems the Church for which He bled.
His Body and His Bride.
And though by storms assailed
And though by trials pressed,
Himself our Life, He bears us up,
Right onward to the rest.”
— Mary Bowley.