Does the Holy Spirit come later?

The short answer Settled

No. He comes to live in a person when he believes. Every believer has the Holy Spirit, and He is received by believing. The two accounts in Acts where the Spirit came after believing do not make Him a later gift.

Every believer has Him

Paul says, "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Romans 8:9). There is no believer without Him.

He wrote to the Corinthians, many of whom were living badly, and warned them against sexual sin. Even then he did not say they had lost the Spirit or never had Him: "your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God" (1 Corinthians 6:19). And "because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts" (Galatians 4:6). No child of God is without Him.

Received by believing

Jesus spoke "concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive" (John 7:39). Paul asked the Galatians, "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Galatians 3:2). He tells the Ephesians, "having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13). The believing and the sealing belong to the same moment.

The disciples at Ephesus

Paul once asked some disciples in Ephesus, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" (Acts 19:2). The question assumes the Spirit comes with believing. Their answer showed that something was missing: they had received only "John's baptism" (Acts 19:3).

Paul explained that John had told the people "that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus" (Acts 19:4). They had followed John, but they had not yet believed in Jesus. "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 19:5), and the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 19:6). They received the Spirit when they believed in Jesus.

The believers in Samaria

The account in Samaria is different. These people had believed: "when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized" (Acts 8:12). The apostles in Jerusalem heard "that Samaria had received the word of God" (Acts 8:14), and sent Peter and John, who prayed for them to receive the Spirit.

Luke explains why: "For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8:16). As yet and only tell the reader that something expected was missing. It was expected because Peter had promised the crowd at Pentecost, "you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38), and in every other account the Spirit came with believing.

This was the first time the gospel crossed into Samaria, a step Jesus had named: "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria" (Acts 1:8). Jews and Samaritans kept apart; John says, "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans" (John 4:9). Luke does not say in so many words why God waited. What he does say is that it was an exception, and one exception that Luke marks as one does not overturn what the letters say of every believer.

The usual objection

In Samaria people believed and were baptized, yet the Holy Spirit "had fallen upon none of them" until Peter and John came and laid hands on them (Acts 8:16-17). In Ephesus Paul asked some disciples whether they had received the Spirit when they believed, as if a person could believe without receiving Him. Many conclude that the Spirit is a second gift, received after salvation through the laying on of hands or a later experience.

The disciples at Ephesus had not yet believed in Jesus at all; they received the Spirit when they did. In Samaria the believers had to wait, but Luke calls it something missing, the first time the gospel reached a people the Jews kept apart from. And the letters say plainly that the Spirit is in every believer: "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."

The words behind it