The Gift of the Holy Spirit

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

In Acts 2:38; 39, Peter speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit being for his present audience, their children those who are far-off, and as many as the Lord shall call. In Greek the gift of the Holy Spirit means the Holy Spirit is the gift. And we see at least two ways God provided the Holy Spirit in Acts.

In the Jewish outpouring God provided the Holy Spirit to the Apostles as they spoke in tongues. And he provided the Holy Spirit to those who heard the message in their own native tongue. Jesus says his words are Spirit and they are life. So the Apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit through the words they spoke, as did the Jews who heard and understood in their native tongues.

Many think the gift of the Holy Spirit consists of the tongues and prophecy gifts. But tongues and prophecy were the packages the Gift of the Holy Spirit came in. As people hear the word, the Holy Spirit enters their hearts and fills them more and more as they hear the word. Peter says we experience the new birth through the word of God (1 Peter 1:23).

And faith or faithfulness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). And Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). And faith comes by hearing the word (Romans 10:17). And above all, Jesus is the word of God (John 1:1; 1:14). And so it is, the Holy Spirit brings all that Jesus taught the disciples to our remembrance too, through the written word today (John 14:26).

The gift of the Holy Spirit remains for all believers of all-time, but the package through which God provided it changed. In Acts, God gave the gifts of the Spirit to as a means to provide the Gift of the Holy Spirit. He poured out the Spirit first on the Apostles who spoke in tongues. Thus giving the Gift of the Spirit to them and to the devout Jews who understood them. And seven years later he poured out the Spirit on the gentiles. These would then give the Gift of the Holy Spirit to others through the spoken word from God.

Beyond these two outpourings, God also poured out the Spirit through the Apostle’s hands. Perhaps thousands received the gifts of the Spirit, speaking in tongues and prophesying as the Apostles baptized them. And these would speak the Gift of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of others as they interpreted and spoke God’s word.

But by the end of the first century we see the means of gifting the Holy Spirit changed. The fragments of prophecy and tongues became collected and copied as scripture as they circulated throughout Christendom. And the fragment became the collected and completed word of God now called the scriptures.

Today we have the same Gift the Apostles had, but not the same gifts. We have tongues and prophecy once spoken in fragments, now preserved in the Holy Bible. The early New Covenant church became full of the Holy Spirit through the same prophetic utterances and Tongues we now have preserved in the scriptures.