The Narrow Path Ministries

In Acts 2:38 Peter promises the "receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit" to persons who repent and are baptized. Why is it commonly understood that the Holy Spirit is the gift, rather than receiving a gift the Spirit gives? When we read of "the gift of God" (examples: John 4:10, Acts 8:20) we understand it as a gift God gives, rather than God being the gift. The Greek words appear to be exactly the same regarding the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of God.

In Peter's second sermon, Acts 3:19, seen by many as parallel to Acts 2:38, the promise is "times of refreshing....from the Lord" which might (should?) be seen as an empowering by the Spirit, rather than the Spirit himself.

Hi Homer-

The gift of the holy spirit IMO you get from praying to see & know Him, a gift from Him could be like a vision of an angel or angelic being if that's what they call that, and then for the money part of the Acts question I tried not paying tythes too much for a year and things get rather quiet in the community. Without paying tythes during that time, for instance, about all I heard the
Lord say to me when I talked to Him was "I am here."

Blessings,

Amyfree

I am sure there are many other places in the book of Acts, where it is the Holy Spirit which is received. Here are a few of them:

Acts 2:33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this which you see and hear.
Acts 8:17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Acts 10:47 "Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"

Hello Homer,

I think the entire context of Acts 2 makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is the gift. Verse 4 says that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, at which time they began to prophesy in different tongues. Peter goes on to say that this is what Joel wrote about and quotes him in vs. 17 and 18 speaking of God pouring out of His Spirit on all flesh and the menservants and maidservants prophesying. In verse 33, speaking of Christ, Peter says, "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear." So clearly, the "promise" and the "pouring" are directly related to the being "filled" with the Holy Spirit. I think we are forced to see "the promise" of verse 39 as the promise made by Joel that the Spirit would be poured out and Peter uses verse 39 as the basis for why he is telling his audience that if they repent, they will recieve the gift of the Holy Spirit, "For" he says, "the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." Anyway, those are some of my thoughts.

l2j

Hi Paidion & l2j,
My inquiry was prompted by something I read by Guy N. Woods where he stated that the common rendering of Acts 2:38 is ungrammatical, the verb "receive" is transitive and its direct object is "gift", not Holy Spirit. What I was thinking was that perhaps what is meant is the gift is an attribute (power) of the Holy Spirit that dwells within. How else are we to understand the following:
Ephesians 3:16-17 (New American Standard Bible)
16. that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
17. so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
In this passage, surely we are not to understand that Christ literally dwells in us. He has said that He was going away so the Spirit could come so it does not seem possible for both to literally dwell in us. Furthermore, the passage indicates that it is power through the Spirit that is (dwelling?)"in the inner man".

Romans 8:11:

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

It seems clear that the HS indwells us- of course I have no idea how what works.

TK

The Holy Spirit mostly is invisible unless God wants you to see something. I was walking one Sunday morning last year as I was going to turn the corner, a transluscent dove zoomed down and over to my right arm, lighted there for less than a split second then disappeared. That was a gift.

We ask God for protection, healing or whatever, and gifts we receive are unexpected. Thanks for posting Homer, those pages are interesting and TK and others!

Amyfree