In this enlightening episode, we explore the complexities of Acts 2:38 with a critical question: How can the Holy Spirit be a gift if it appears tied to actions like repentance and baptism? Katherine Wright and Ken Yates dissect this scriptural conundrum, highlight distinctions between receiving eternal life and forgiveness of sins, and explain why this message was specific to the Jews of that era. Join this deep dive into scripture that seeks to uphold the principle of salvation by faith alone.
The following is a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society. In Acts 2.38, in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the command is to repent and be baptized. If this is true, can receiving the Holy Spirit actually be considered a gift? You are listening to Grace In Focus. We come to you from the Grace Evangelical Society, and we are delighted that you’re with us today. Our website is faithalone.org. And if you are able, we’d love for you to join us next week at our annual national conference, May the 19th through the 22nd. It’ll be held at Camp Copas in Denton, Texas. And perhaps you’re flexible enough to join us. We hope you can. Find out registration details at our website, faithalone.org. Get registered and join us. We’d love to see you there. Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Katherine Wright and Ken Yates.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ve got to be honest with you. I have looked at Acts 2.38 many, many times, been in many, many discussions on Acts 2.38, and we have a question from one of our listeners on Acts 2.38, and I’ve never been asked this one.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know. It’s a really good question.
SPEAKER 03 :
Go ahead and tell us who’s the question from and what is the question.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Okay. This question comes from Charlie. And as you mentioned, Ken, it’s coming from Acts chapter two. And his question is, if the gift of the Holy Spirit is not given to the Jews in Israel at the time of Christ until they repented and were baptized, is that still considered a gift? If something is a gift, it cannot be earned. But repentance and baptism are certainly works. Can you clear this up, please? I think maybe we should do a little bit of introduction to Acts 2 and maybe clarify some of the issues there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, in Acts 2.38, first off, let’s read the verse. Peter is talking to Jews who have believed. That’s right. They believe in verse 37. They’re cut to the heart. Yeah, they believe it. And they asked Peter what they should do.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, and specifically, these are the Jews that crucified the Lord.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
And that’s what Peter says to them. You crucified him.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he says that in the sermon. So now they believe that Jesus is the Christ, even though the nation a few weeks earlier had killed him, which is what Peter tells them. And like you said, they’re pierced to the heart. They believe. And they ask, what do we do? And this is Charlie saying, well, Peter’s going to tell them to do a work. That’s right. Here’s what he says in verse 38. Peter said to them after they say, what shall we do? So here’s the work. And so Peter said to them, here’s what you need to do. Repent. You need to turn from your sins and let every one of you be baptized. That’s certainly a work. Right. In the name of Jesus Christ. for the remission of sins. And then here’s the point of the question that Charlie asked. And then Peter said, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well, if Peter is telling them to do a good work and he tells him to do two things, you got to repent and you got to be baptized in the name of Christ. Okay. And then he goes, you will receive the gift. How could that be a gift? right? How would we respond to that? It seems that Peter is indeed saying, okay, I’ll give you this gift if you do this, but if you do this, if you have to do something, then it’s not a gift.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. And so a couple just free grace issues, because like you mentioned at the top that this is a passage we get asked about a lot because it will be used in evangelistic settings quite a bit. And so just a quick thing that, as you mentioned, Peter’s speaking to believers. These are already born again individuals, but when they ask, what must we do? They’re not asking, what must we do to be saved from the lake of fire? They’re asking, okay, we crucified the Lord. What do we do now in terms of fellowship? How do we fix this?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s a good point. This is a fellowship issue here in verse 38.
SPEAKER 02 :
Which I think is key to answer Charlie’s question. Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
And this repentance… It doesn’t lead to them receiving eternal life. It leads to them receiving the remission of sins.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. It seems clear to me that the repentance and be baptized for the remission of sins goes back to John the Baptist, right? This was John the Baptist’s message. Repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins, right? That was the same message that John preached… To the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER 02 :
Which makes sense because Peter is speaking to Jews.
SPEAKER 03 :
Peter is picking up where John left off, except now they know who the Christ is. Here he is. You crucified him. What do we do? And so this forgiveness of sins is offered to the Jews if they do these things.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. So basically our point is that an unbeliever doesn’t have to repent and be baptized in order to receive eternal life. Those are not requirements. It’s always, and this is our whole mission, right? For GES is that it’s always a message of eternal life by faith alone as a gift. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And what we see in the first few chapters of Acts is a re-offer of the kingdom to the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 03 :
We see it in chapter three, right? Times of refreshing may come upon you. And so before the kingdom would come,
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
the nation of Israel needed to repent of its sin. In this case, repent for crucifying the Lord, the King now, and be baptized in his name. Obviously, this is not the same baptism as John’s baptism, because now Jesus has died and rose to be baptized in his name. They know who he is, but it is offering the forgiveness of sins. And as Catherine mentioned a few minutes ago, the forgiveness of sins here is a fellowship issue.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s not eternal life. It’s right. It’s something else.
SPEAKER 03 :
As many grace people have pointed out, people do not go to the lake of fire because of their sins. They go to the lake of fire because they don’t have eternal life. And so Peter is starting with these believers offering the nation here. Judgment is about to fall upon this nation.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you can have the forgiveness of sins. If they didn’t get baptized, they would still have eternal life since they’re believers. But in order to have the forgiveness of sins, which results in fellowship, this is what they needed to do. Okay. John was calling the nation. to this in anticipation of Christ’s coming. If they would do this and then believe in the Christ, then the kingdom would have come to that nation. They would have been a believing nation in fellowship with the Lord. And Christ would have brought the kingdom to that first generation.
SPEAKER 02 :
So this message, I think one of the main points to say here is that this is not for us today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. He recognizes that in the question.
SPEAKER 02 :
He does.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, this is for the Jews. Got it.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Later in the book of Acts, we do see that, for example, Acts 10, when Cornelius comes to faith, he receives the Spirit immediately. Right. So there’s a distinction between Israel, the Jews at that time, and Gentiles that are coming to faith at that time.
SPEAKER 03 :
It also says in Acts 10.43 that those who believe in him receive the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
They don’t have to repent and be baptized.
SPEAKER 02 :
So this, like I said before, is a specific message to that generation of Jews and is not applied to us today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so to answer Charlie’s question here, so John the Baptist comes to the nation. He says, hey, listen, there’s one coming after me who’s stronger than I am, and he is coming, and he is obviously the king. He is going to offer the kingdom. If you will repent. and be baptized, not only will you receive eternal life when you believe in him, but you will receive the forgiveness of sins, you will be in fellowship with him, and he will bring in the kingdom to this generation of Jews. Peter is saying the same thing here, fellowship with these guys. But now they know who it is that they have to believe in. They know that they’ve crucified Christ. So here’s the question. Then why does Peter then say, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER 02 :
Which was not part of John the Baptist’s message. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
That was not part of it.
SPEAKER 02 :
So we’re adding to it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. So what is it that we would say, and how is this a gift? In other words, what Charlie is saying is these people had to do something to receive a gift. That’s his question, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Which is contradictory.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. So how would we respond to that? Well, Charlie, here it is. Here’s what I would say. The promise Peter gives them is if they repent and are baptized, then they will have their sins forgiven. It seems to me that the simplest way to take this is that what Peter is saying is, but God’s going to do more. John the Baptist said you’d receive the forgiveness of sins. Okay. And you will too. Now you know who he is. If you believe in him, you receive eternal life. Okay. You’re going to receive the forgiveness of sins, but God’s going to give you something. In addition to that, in other words, it’s not the repentance and the baptism that leads to the gift.
SPEAKER 02 :
Or that you can earn, right? It’s not that they’re earning it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. I’m going to give you this gift. And we could come up with a number of illustrations. Let’s say I have a daughter in school and I say, hey, listen, if you get straight A’s, I’m going to buy you a car.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s a nice gift.
SPEAKER 03 :
I never got that.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, that’s not a gift.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m promising you something. If you get straight A’s, I’m going to buy you a car. And let’s say she does it and I buy her a car. But then what if I also say, I didn’t promise you this, but I’m also going to pay all your tuition for your college. That’s a gift.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
That wasn’t part of the offer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
And so it seems to me that the simplest way to take Acts 2.38, and again, I’ve never been asked this before, would be, if you do this, I’m going to forgive your sins. We’re in fellowship together. You already have eternal life. We’re in fellowship. But I’m also… Going to give you a gift, which is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER 02 :
We talked about the example of the prodigal son who was always a son, right? He’s a picture of a believer who repents and he is restored to fellowship with his father. But what does his father do once he gets there? He starts showering him with all of these gifts, the robe and the sandals and the ring and the feast and the… And the fatted calf. And the fatted calf.
SPEAKER 03 :
And in fact, isn’t that what the older brother says? You never gave me any of these things.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And the father didn’t have to do that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Okay. The promise with repentance is that there will be restored fellowship. But like you said earlier, the Lord does so much more before us than that.
SPEAKER 03 :
And what we see in this, when we come to the topic of eternal life, there are so many things that are given to the believer in addition to eternal life. That’s right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Those who crucified the Lord, not only are they going to receive the remission of sins, but the Spirit will dwell in them permanently. That’s wild.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, like, for example, the believer is also given redemption, which is not the same thing as eternal life, and set free from the power of sin. He’s been given a gift. He’s been placed in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
He received a spiritual gift.
SPEAKER 03 :
He’s been given access. Christ becomes his high priest. There’s so many gifts that are added to eternal life. And so here, Peter is offering them this forgiveness of sins, and he goes… God’s going to give you a gift, too. I would say that the gift here is not because they’ve earned it, repented, and I’m going to give this to you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. Well, I think this is a good stopping point. Thanks, Charlie. That was a really great discussion.
SPEAKER 03 :
You made us think. You sure did.
SPEAKER 02 :
And in the meantime, y’all, keep grace in focus.
SPEAKER 01 :
Be sure to check out our daily blogs at faithalone.org. They are short and full of great teaching, just like what you’ve heard today. Find them at faithalone.org resources blog. we would like to thank all of our financial partners who help us keep this show going. All gifts are tax deductible and very much appreciated. If you’d like to find out how you can be a financial partner, visit us at faithalone.org. On our next episode, claiming to be saved without life change. Is it genuine? Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus. The preceding has been a listener supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
