How do we deal with the early church fathers practicing laying on of hands, confirmation for the Holy Spirit? Many Anabaptists and separation churches today do not have this practice. And the Bible says if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He does not belong to Christ.
Okay, so the first part of the question, or I should say the first question, the normal practice in the early church that you see, it's testified to many times, would be after someone was baptized, then it would usually be the bishop or certainly a minister who would then lay hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit. And that was the normal practice. And to me, and it's the practice you see generally in acts as well. Someone's baptized and hands are laid on them to receive the Holy Spirit.
So to me, we have the testimony of history. We have the New Testament. There's no good reason to depart from that. Certainly in our congregation, which is an Anabaptist congregation, that's how we practice baptism. After the person comes out of the water, we lay hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit. But now does that mean if someone did not have hands laid on them that they haven't received the Spirit of God?
Well, think about in the book of Acts, you know, everything didn't always follow the exact same pattern. We have to be careful not to put God into a box. It's good to do things the right way, but it's not good to then start judging other people who maybe don't do it right by the book. Because when we look at the baptism of Cornelius, they received the Holy Spirit before they were baptized.
I mean, it was reversed there that God had a reason for pouring out His Spirit before they were baptized is because Peter probably wouldn't have baptized them. I mean, that's what clinched the subject to him was," Wow, these uncircumcised Gentiles are receiving the Holy Spirit just like we did. How can we prevent them being baptized?" But that's the only instance we have in the New Testament of that order being reversed. But it does show that God's not in a box, and like I say, no hands were laid on them.
There on the day of Pentecost. 3,000 were baptized. We don't know. It doesn't describe whether each person had hands laid on them after they were baptized. It would be, I think, a reasonable assumption, but we don't know that for certain. I'm thinking of the Ethiopian eunuch. I don't know that it mentions that hands were laid on him. So, yeah, I think I guess my philosophy is do everything by the book, if you possibly can, but be careful in judging other people who maybe haven't done it the right way.
I mean, I would encourage Anabaptist churches to, you know, go to the practice in Acts of Baptism and then laying hands on them. I feel fairly certain the Anabaptist would have done that in the beginning, but don't quote me on that. But let's not use it as a basis for judging others.
Particularly when you see the evidence of the Holy Spirit in someone's life, then I would be very slow to say," Oh, you haven't received the Holy Spirit because this wasn't done right." And you can see the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
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