Acts 8:5-25 part 1

April 28, 2002    

Proclamation that Produces Unity

Across the desert rides the Lone Ranger upon the shimmering steed, Silver. Tonto, his trusted Indian guide, is at his side. As they ride through the canyon, the Lone Ranger spots warriors to the north, dressed for battle. The Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and asks, “Who are they?”

 "Uhm, they Sioux warriors. We turn south.”

 As they ride toward the south rim, more braves appear. “Who are they?” the Lone Ranger asks Tonto.

“They Apache, Kimosabe. Turn west through canyon.”

 But soon the dust of the Comanche come toward them, so they headed east. Once again horses come charging through the canyon. The Lone Ranger turns to his trusted guide, “Tonto, what are we going to do!” to which Tonto replies, “What do you mean “we” paleface!”

There are times when even the strongest of bonds are tested, when unity seems impossible. It has been said that there can be union without unity, but the results are disastrous. Tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline and you have union, but certainly no unity. In the church our unity is to be our hallmark, but far too often it is a rarity. Like the new church which split over the choice of the name. One faction wanted it to be the First United Church, the other the United First Church. But while we know we should be united, the means of that unity are often misunderstood. In our passage this morning the unity of the church is illustrated as the Holy Spirit descends on the people of a Samaritan town. But we easily misread this passage if we lack the context of the events and if we do not understand what God’s Word says about the unity produced by the Spirit of God. READ Acts 8:5-25

Stephen’s preaching brought not accolades of praise, but an avalanche of rocks. What began with a single martyr resulted in a citywide persecution of Christians. It appears that the anger was directed toward those Greek speaking Jews who placed their trust in Jesus as the Messiah. One of Stephen’s fellow Hellenists was Philip. Like Stephen, Philip was chosen to aid in the distribution of food to the Hellenist widows in Jerusalem. With Stephen now dead, Philip would likely have been a target, so he flees to the safety of Samaria, a territory considered by some too unclean to enter.

What we have in Acts 8 is the first massive missionary expansion...all done without a missions committee, without support raising. What was commanded in Acts 1:8 is now fulfilled in Acts 8:1. God, in his providence, used persecution to move the church from the comforts of Jerusalem to regions in need of the gospel. Persecution produced proclamation.

Acts 8 tells of two advances of the gospel, both with Philip at the forefront. The first in the north, in Samaria, the second to the south of Jerusalem in the desert of Gaza. The first with the hated half breeds, the Samaritans, then next with a shunned eunuch from Africa.

The Gospel goes where there is division

Israel was divided into three areas. In the north was Galilee where Jesus was raised in Nazareth, where James and John fished as well as towns like Capernaum and Bethsaida. In the south of Israel is Judea where Jerusalem is located, but in between is this third area, Samaria, which stretched from the Mediterranean in the west 40 miles east to the river Jordan. It is about thirty miles from north to south. From Galilee in the north to Judea in the south, the area is about the same as Green Bay to the Illinois border. Samaria would be like Sheboygan, a land of misfits and miscreants (Samaria, that is).

What made Samaria different? One thousand years before the time of Philip the trouble started, but history has a long memory, and old grievances die slowly. After Solomon's reign the land of Israel split into two, with the ten northern tribes breaking away from Judah and Benjamin who remained loyal to Jerusalem. The northern ten made their capital at Samaria. Their subsequent history was one of theological and cultural decline. They were captured by Assyria in 722 B.C. and thousands were deported, while foreigners taken from other countries were forcibly settled in Samaria. There was plenty of inter-marriage, and these newcomers looked on Jehovah as merely the local deity of Samaria. When the people of Judah returned from its 70 years exile in Babylon and began to rebuild the city and the temple of Jerusalem the people of Samaria made an offer to help them, but offended by the Samaritan’s compromise, they were rebuffed.

Two hundred years later the Samaritans actually built a rival temple to Jerusalem's on Mount Gerazim. They also rejected the Old Testament Scriptures except for the five books of Moses. For them redemptive history ended with Moses, thus avoiding the Davidic line in Jerusalem. While the Maccabees in Jerusalem resisted the religious terrorism of Antioches IV of Syria in 167 B.C. and suffered torture the Samaritans gave in and readily rededicated their temple to the Greek god Zeus. So the Samaritans were despised by the Jews as hybrids, heretics and schismatics. (from G. Thomas, The Place God Sent Him  5/2/99)

Later Jewish rabbis said: “Let no man eat the bread of the Samaritans for he who eats their bread is as he who eats swine flesh.” A popular prayer is those days said, “and, Lord, do not remember the Samaritans in the resurrection.” In John 4:9 the Samaritan woman at the well is surprised at Jesus acknowledging her presence and in John 8:48 the Jews insult Jesus by equating him with a demon possessed Samaritan, a repetitive insult.

The Gospel heals division

Despite the historic animosity Philip did what should be done – he proclaimed Christ (v5)

Philip made an important connection with the Samaritans. For them only the Pentateuch was God’s Word, thus avoiding the Davidic line of the Messiah whose throne was in Jerusalem. Instead, they looked for the taheb, the restorer spoken of in Deut. 18:18. So when Philip proclaimed the Christ, he no doubt connected with their desires for the one to come who would restore all things. This restoration is evidence in God’s gracious signs of casting out evil spirits and healing the lame.

Philip, standing before those who, for centuries, were rejected as filthy scoundrels, immoral ner-do-wells, genetic misfits, presented Christ as the only solution. Philip did not preach the law of God to the Samaritans. He did not approach them with an air of moral superiority. He did not begin by telling them how to be good, nor did he rehearse their past perversions. Rather the subject of his message was Christ. His work among the people was that of healing. No wonder the response by the city was joy(v8)!

How different are we. When we see moral decline we want to declare God’s righteous demands. It is easy to imagine that the answer to immorality is increased morality; the solution to our sin is our righteousness. That is like telling a person wasted with disease that poor health is not good (something they know experientially) and that the answer to their illness being healthy. But such an approach often is chosen. The Puritan John Owen wrote of an earlier minister named Daniel Rowland.

"What he preached at first was the law, in its high and minute demands, and in its awful threatenings, He stood, as it were, on Mount Sinai, and loudly proclaimed eternal perdition to a sinful world. Awful and extremely terrific was his message; nothing but the consuming flashes and dreadful thunders of the law, with hardly anything like the joyful sounds of the Gospel" ("Daniel Rowland," by E. Evans, 1985, p.39).

 People were broken and convicted by his messages, but little more. Then a minister also named Philip - Philip Pugh - approached Rowland and kindly helped him: "Preach the Gospel to the people, dear sir, and apply the Balm of Gilead, the blood of Christ, to their spiritual wounds, and show the necessity of faith in the crucified Saviour." Rowland responded, "I am afraid that I have not that faith myself in its vigor and full exercise." So Philip Pugh replied to him, "Preach on it till you feel it in that way; no doubt it will come. If you go on preaching the law in this manner, you will kill half the people in the country."

This simple verse says so much for you and I. In response to persecution, which no doubt was fueled by ethnic hatred against his race, Philip’s response is simple but profound. He went to those who were just as disenfranchised as he ... and preached Christ.

• In v6 we are told they paid attention to what Philip said.

This phrase is used in Acts 16:14 regarding Lydia, but prefaces it with: “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul said.” There is a work of sovereign grace which accompanies the preaching of God’s Word. In 8:10-11 we are told that before they paid attention to Simon, the local soothsayer, but now they are captivated by something else.

• Another evidence of their new birth is seen in v8 – they experienced joy.

This same response is seen later in the chapter regarding the Ethiopian eunuch after his baptism (v39). Joy is an evidence of the new life in Christ, the fruit of the Spirit.

• In v12, we are told they "believed Philip as he preached the good news about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ." They responded by placing their trust, their lives, in Christ.
• The apostles in Jerusalem hear about these results in that the Samaritans had received the Word of God in v14. Not just that they were interested, but received God’s Word.
• Verse 16 says that they were baptized in the name of Jesus, they received the sign of the covenant, the visible pointer to God’s gracious work of salvation. And when the apostles came down to lay hands on them there is no mention that they baptized them again.

The unifying Gospel is the work of God the Holy Spirit

What we are told next seems to say that Philip failed his job, so Peter and John come to finish the work. Is this apostolic validation or micro-management? This raises the obvious question – were the Samaritans regenerate or not? If new birth comes by the power of the Holy Spirit, we’d expect the Holy Sprit to be already present in the Samaritans – how else would they have responded as they did? Doesn’t Paul say in Romans 8:9 that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him?

This passage says much about the nature of the church, its unity. We too easily miss the radical nature of the gospel, the powerful proclamation of God’s Word to transform people if we skip too quickly over this. When we understand why this seeming second stage of grace happens here, but not elsewhere, we learn a powerful lesson for ourselves today.

One hint as to what happens here – notice who arrives? Peter and John. What are their attitudes about Samaritans? Jesus uses a Samaritan in a positive light in his story in Luke 10, not because they were a great people, but to drive home the truth as to who is my neighbor. But John had other ideas about the Samaritans – the only benefit they served was for kindling the fires of hell to a greater temperature. In Luke 9:54 he made a simple request of Jesus – call fire down on them!

Here we have John, no longer calling down fire upon the Samaritans, as he is now here as an Apostle, confirming God's work in their midst. John and Peter’s presence there in Samaria speaks volumes as to the power of the gospel to transform their lives.

While the change in John is wonderful, the giving of the Holy Spirit is perplexing. There are two options before us. If this is normative, if Acts serves to tells us what we should do, then we may conclude that the Christian life is comprised of two distinct stages. This view is held by two rather interesting bedfellows – Roman Catholics and Pentecostals.

• With the liturgical Roman Catholics, the first stage is baptism in which the person is made a Christian and then at confirmation, hands are laid on the person by a qualified priest and the Spirit is more specially imparted. As far back as the third century, Cyprian, commenting on Acts 8 says:

Exactly the same thing happens with us today; those who have been baptized in the church are presented to the bishops of the church so that by our prayer and the imposition of our hands they may receive the Holy Spirit.

• Pentecostals, some Charismatics and Arminians, hold to a second blessings in which a person is at first regenerated and saved, but lack the fullness of the Christian life. At a later point, often in conjunction with a greater surrender or powerful experience they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. For some this latter experience is also accompanied by the laying on of hands. Whereas Roman Catholics and other high church groups express this two stage view as largely outward and ceremonial, the Pentecostal scheme is largely inward and spiritual.

The question we should ask is whether Acts 8 is normative of the Christian life or descriptive of another point? When we are faced with a division as to what a passage means we must compare Scripture with Scripture and judge historical accounts in light of more doctrinal passages. What is said elsewhere?

Peter at Pentecost did not separate faith and repentance with the giving of the Spirit.

This two stage event was not Paul’s experience in Acts 9 nor Cornelius’ in 10.

Rom. 8:9 makes it clear that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is normative for Christians.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 tells us that the Spirit is our seal and a guarantee.

In Ephesians 1:13 there is a connection between belief in the gospel and sealing of the Spirit.

As Scripture interprets Scripture, we must set aside a two stage work of God. That is not taught elsewhere, nor is it taught here.

Some would argue that the Samaritans were not really believers to begin with, as evidenced by Simon’s request, which we will examine next week. But, as we saw earlier, the words used to described what happened with Philip’s teaching is that they did believe. What we see here is a single event of trusting Christ coming from the work of the Spirit. The reason this is so unusual says much about the unity of the Church. The split in experience drives home the unity they have with the Jewish Christians. Peter and John come to confirm and demonstrate their unity.

As we saw earlier, the Samaritan schism had lasted for centuries. But now the Samaritans were being evangelized, and were responding to the gospel. It was a moment of significant advance, which was also fraught with great peril. What would happen now? Would the long standing rift be perpetuated? The gospel had been welcomed by the Samaritans, but would the Samaritans be welcomed by the Jews? Or would there be separate factions of Jewish Christians and Samaritan Christians in the church of Jesus Christ? There was a real danger of their tearing Christ apart, or at least of forming a new and separate church for themselves.

To avoid just such as disaster, God withheld the Spirit from these Samaritan converts. The delay was only temporary, however, until the apostles had come down to investigate, had endorsed Philip’s bold policy of Samaritan evangelism, had prayed for the converts, had laid hands on them as a token of solidarity. And had thus given a public sign to the whole church as well as to the Samaritan converts themselves that they were bona fide Christians, to be incorporated into the redeemed community on precisely the same terms as Jewish converts. There was one body because there was one Spirit.  (from Stott, Acts 157-8)

This reception of the Spirit was evident to all, especially to Simon. We’ll look at him next week, but his request in v18 goes to the point that what is happening here is a unity so overwhelming that even a cynical magician takes notice.

How did Simon know the Spirit was coming upon the Samaritans in v17? Some may guess that there were miraculous signs, but nothing is said. What is more, Philip did some amazing things in v7 and while Simon was amazed (v13) he did not respond with a request for that power. The evidence of the Spirit is the unity that was seen as Peter and John accepted those who were once far off, now to be brothers and sisters in Christ.

This unity came because of the work of God the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was at work when they believed and were baptized. Yet the dispensing of the Spirit had to wait this one time for the Apostles to come from Jerusalem and demonstrate that hatred is demolished when the gospel transforms lives.

Unity was not created or manufactured. There was nothing the Samaritan believers had to do to get the Holy Spirit. There were not supposed 'three steps to receive the Holy Spirit.' They were not given a regimen of mortification, self-denial and nights of prayer until a reluctant Lord relented and poured out the Spirit. The problem was not theirs, nor was the fault Philip's. Philip does not need to attend a week-end conference on "Ministry which Gives your Hearers the Holy Spirit.”

Unity is not created, it is declared and realized by the Holy Spirit. We often wonder what is the role of the Holy Spirit in the church today? Here it is, in the simple but powerful drawing together of different people in one body, all followers of Jesus Christ. Early we heard read Eph 4 and there we see hear the command to maintain what has been done, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Earlier in Ephesians 2 Paul explains that this unity we have is created through Christ’s death (v14). Christ’s death is reason we have access to the Father and the one Spirit is the means (v18), so that we, all of us at Cornerstone, joined with believers through all time and in all places, are part of a holy temple, the dwelling place for God by the Spirit (v22)

What does this mean for us? If unity is not something we create, but which now exists by God’s grace, we can have confidence as a church to be more bold in our outreach, in our relationships. This does not mean that every church must reflect proper racial, ethnic or sociological diversity. But what it does mean is that we must not see what divides us, but that we are already united in Christ. Tony Evans, pastor, once commented on this by saying:

To refer to oneself as a black Christian, white Christian, Mexican Christian, or Chinese Christian is technically incorrect. Our Christianity should never be modified by our culture. Our Christianity should modify our culture. We must see ourselves as Christian blacks, Christian whites, Christian Mexicans, or Christian Chinese. "The Bible teaches . . . that we are Christians who may happen to be black, white, brown, or yellow. If anything changes, it is to be our cultural orientation, not our Christianity. (T. Evans in Good News, Nov/Dec 96)

Jackie Robinson was the first black to play major league baseball. While breaking baseball's "color barrier," he faced jeering crowds in every stadium. While playing one day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he committed an error. His own fans began to ridicule him. He stood at second base, humiliated, while the fans jeered. Then shortstop "Pee Wee" Reese came over and stood next to him. He put his arm around Jackie Robinson and faced the crowd. The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that arm around his shoulder saved his career. (L.Wise Leadership, V11,2)

You are called and equipped by God, to warmly embrace those with whom you may have little in common, but Christ. Yet that bond, made eternally strong by the Spirit, unites you with others, to encourage and be encouraged by those who are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Rather than tell you how to do it, I am pointing you to the One who will do it in you. Trusting Christ, you can know that God the Holy Spirit will create a unity with others for which the world longs to possess.