Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

company " as well as the one hundred and twenty. See verses 1 and 23. This may have been the
Pentecost of the five thousand who were added to the Lord within a few days.
But the cases of others noticed later on are believed by many interpreters to be more clearly in
proof.
(1) Take that of the disciples at Samaria, converted under the ministry of Philip, an account of
which we have in Acts viii. 5-17. Under this evangelist's preaching, these people are said to have
given "heed unto those things which Philip spoke," to have " received the word of God," to have
been "baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," and to have been the subjects of "great joy" because
of what Philip said and did in their midst. All this occurred before the apostles came down from
Jerusalem to "pray for" and most probably further instruct them, in order that they might "receive
the Holy Ghost" in His fullness. They were doubtless regenerate and in the dispensation of the Son
before the apostle's coming to induct them into that of the Holy Ghost, at which time they seem to
have come into possession of the same measure of the Spirit that was given to the "upper room"
disciples.
(2) The case of Cornelius, recorded in the tenth of Acts, has already been noticed. We refer to it
again to say that, before he sent for and heard Peter, under whose instruction the "Holy Ghost fell
on" him as he did on the disciples at Pentecost, Cornelius was most probably in a regenerate state.
At any rate he was "devout," prayerful, charitable, and in a state of acceptance with God. And if he
had died before he saw and heard Peter, we are sure that he would have been saved. He lacked the
baptism of the Holy Ghost the being filled with the Spirit -- to put him in the same spiritual state
with the "upper-room" disciples. This, Peter tells us in Acts xv. 7-9, was done for him at the time
indicated in Acts x. in that he was filled with the Holy Ghost and His heart was purified by faith.
(3) We cite the oft-noticed case of the Ephesian disciples, given in Acts xix. 1-7. Now let us note
that these men were "disciples" who "believed" on Christ and had been "baptized" with John's
baptism. They had most probably been introduced by the Baptist or some other preacher into the
dispensation of the Son, and had, hence, been regenerated. But they had not received the Holy Ghost
in His fullness, either at their conversion or afterwards. Paul proceeded to instruct them as to their
privileges, and to induct them into the dispensation of the Spirit, they being then baptized with the
Holy Ghost. For it seems that at the time they believed on Christ and were baptized they were not
told of "the gift of the Holy Ghost," and that it was their privilege to receive him in the fullness of
His blessing, as is unfortunately the case with most preachers and their congregations in the present
day.
As we know but little, if anything, of the subsequent history of those Samarian, Cornelian, or
Ephesian disciples, we cannot determine from that history, as we did in the case of the apostles, what
changes were wrought in their experience and lives by the gift or baptism of the Spirit, which came
to them after their regeneration. The presumption from the circumstances, however, is that they were
substantially if not identically the same with those of the one hundred and twenty in the upper room.
And that is the opinion of such interpreters as Drs. Gordon and Steele, Messrs. Murray, Meyer, and
others, already referred to.