Acts 19:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The beginning of the sect of John’s disciples, which survived until modern times, should probably be placed as near as possible to the Gospel period. The disciples of John whom Paul met in Ephesus belonged to the second of these groups. It is unknown whether they became John’s disciples in Palestine and received baptism from him himself, or whether they were drawn into the fellowship of his disciples later. In any case, only this must be noted about them. Though they knew little concerning the person and teaching of Jesus Christ, they considered themselves entitled to be called Christians like the others. Luke calls them μαϑητάς in Acts 19:1. Paul indeed expected to find Christians in them. But when he entered into conversation with them, it became clear that they had as yet received nothing from the glorified Lord Jesus. They did not even know of the Holy Spirit. Paul gladly instructed them concerning the relation of John’s ministry to the ministry of Jesus Christ. He also taught them the relation of John’s baptism to the baptism which brought men into communion with Jesus Christ. This baptism made them partakers of the divine life proceeding from Him. Then he gave them Christian baptism, with the laying on of hands and prayer. And in John’s disciples there appeared the same signs of the descent of the Holy Spirit that had once appeared in the apostles.

He asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” That is, when you believed in Jesus Christ. They answered, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” This answer of John’s disciples cannot be understood to mean that they had no notion at all of the existence of the Holy Spirit. First, one must suppose that these disciples were Jews, since there is no evidence that there were then disciples of John among the Gentiles. In that case, although they could not have had a notion of God as triune in Persons, the idea of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God could not have been foreign to them. Second, as disciples of John and even as believers, they had to know his prophecy concerning baptism with the Holy Spirit through Christ; Mt 3:11. Finally, they do not say that they do not know whether there is a Holy Spirit. They say, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” That is, when John’s disciples were brought to faith in Christ, they were catechized only in John’s teaching. They had not been told that believers in Christ receive the Holy Spirit. There had been no mention of the Holy Spirit as the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. Then the apostle revealed to them only the preparatory significance of John’s baptism in relation to Christ. He pointed out that, in order to receive salvation, it was necessary to be baptized with Christ’s baptism. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. By laying hands on them, Paul brought down upon them the Holy Spirit. This was plainly shown to all when they began to speak in other tongues and to prophesy. In all they were about twelve men.

Now, however, directly from Phrygia, after passing through Proconsular Asia with preaching, he arrived in Ephesus and remained there for a long time; verse 10. “Finding there certain disciples.” By the name disciples the writer of Acts usually means disciples of Christ, that is, Christians. Judging by everything, these disciples also belonged to the number of Christians. Yet what follows shows that these disciples had been baptized only into John’s baptism. Therefore the writer of Acts calls them disciples, that is, Christians, only in a broader sense. They were probably Jews, for nowhere is it evident that there were disciples of John among the Gentiles. They were probably newcomers, and recent ones, to Ephesus. On arriving there, they attached themselves to the still small Christian community in Ephesus. They believed in the coming Messiah preached by the Baptist, but did not have a full understanding of Him. In this they were like Apollos for a time. They had not yet managed, or had not been able, to be instructed more accurately in the way of the Lord; Acts 18:25-26. Where and by whom they had been baptized into John’s baptism is unknown. How they became disciples of John is also unknown. But in Ephesus they kept to the Christian community, so that Paul himself at first considered them Christians; verse 2, “when you believed.” Only through conversation and dealings with them did he learn that they were merely disciples of John. From conversation and contact with them, Paul noticed in them a lack of the pure Christian spirit in life. He also saw the incompleteness of their knowledge of the way of the Lord; compare Acts 18:26. As is evident, he was amazed by this and wondered what it meant. Hence precisely this question to them.

And so the apostle performs this difficult work, clearly showing everyone the great difference between John’s disciples and the followers of Christ. “The identities of these twelve disciples are not outlined with special clarity and precision in the book of Acts,” says Hieromonk Gregory, a special investigator of this part of the book. “But the holy writer of Acts calls them disciples, without any other defining word. There is no need to suppose that here Saint Luke uses this term in a broad or improper sense. Rather, in this application of the epithet to John’s disciples, and amid the brevity of the narrative, one should see a desire to preserve a feature of this episode. At first these disciples of John presented themselves as genuine disciples of Christ. The Ephesian Christians, and even the Apostle Paul himself, also took them as such. This is shown by the question put to them: ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ This question presupposes, on the one hand, that the apostle had been informed that these disciples had believed. On the other hand, it shows that either the holy apostle himself, or those who presented them to him, had conceived doubt about their full belonging to Christianity. The apostle doubted the fullness and accuracy of the information about the One in Whom they believed, that is, about Jesus Christ. Therefore he asks them about the final act of every conversion to Christ. This is the reception of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, usually bestowed after baptism. Those questioned declared that they had received only the baptism of John the Baptist. They had not yet heard of the treasury of gracious outpourings of the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon believers, which had come to pass on earth. The first baptism, John’s, gave no positive content for the spiritual life of the one baptized. The second communicated the grace of forgiveness of sins. It had the meaning of a real and essential regeneration of the spiritual nature of the one baptized.”