The Samaritan Riddle

The Samaritan riddle is the focal point of Dunn's Debate. James D. G. Dunn’s first book, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (1970), claims the New Testament says baptism in the Holy Spirit always occurs simultaneously at conversion-initiation. 

In contrast, classical Pentecostals contend that Spirit baptism always occurs subsequent to conversion and is evidenced by tongues-speaking. 

They mostly cite Acts 8:4-25 for “subsequence.” It says Philip preached to the Samaritans and they “believed,” but they did not receive the Spirit until Peter and John came days later and laid hands on them. Dunn says the Samaritans and Jesus’ 120 Jewish disciples in Acts 2 were not “Christians” until they were baptised with the Holy Spirit. 

Zarley agrees with Pentecostals about subsequence in both cases. But he claims these Samaritans and the Gentiles in Acts 10 were Spirit baptized due to Peter’s presence, using his metaphorical “keys of the kingdom” Jesus had promised to give him in Matt 16:19. After Peter opened kingdom doors for all three of these biblical classifications of people, all people afterwards are Spirit baptized simultaneously upon conversion, as Paul teaches and Dunn says, except for the Ephesians anomaly in Acts 19:1-7.

Spirit Baptism on the Samaritans (Acts 8)

Jesus Ministered Only to the House of Israel

After Jesus began his public ministry, he chose twelve apostles (Matt 10:1–4). Apostle means “one sent out.” Matthew informs, “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (vv. 5–8). So, Jesus forbade his disciples from going to Gentiles or Samaritans with this good news.

Thus, throughout Jesus’ itinerant ministry, he rarely travelled outside Israel. His intention was to minister only to Jews in their homeland. But one time he ventured briefly into the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon (Matt 15:21). It may have been to temporarily escape trouble due to his having offended some Pharisees (v. 12). He then said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24).

Why did Jesus say and do that? God’s plan was to offer the kingdom to the Jews first. Then, during Passion Week, Jesus taught two parables about it in Matt 21:33—22:14. They vividly portray God offering the kingdom to Jews, them rejecting it, and then offering it to Gentiles.

So, John the Baptist, Jesus, his apostles, and seventy others went only to Israel proclaiming the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 3:2; 4:17; cf. Luke 10:9, 11). While some Jews repented and believed, most did not. But after Jews condemned Jesus and got him crucified, God raised him from the dead.

Then God’s plan advanced to a new phase. It was to evangelise the world with this good news about the risen Jesus. Just before Jesus’ heavenly ascension, he told his disciples how it would happen. He said, “You will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” to “be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:5, 8). Then Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9).

Ten days later, the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 disciples in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (2:1–4). They “began to speak in other languages” (v. 4). Three thousand Jews were saved and thousands more soon afterwards (v. 41; 4:4; 5:14).

The “Good News” Spreads beyond Judea into Samaria

After Stephen was martyred (Acts 6:5—7:60), the gospel was preached next in Samaria. Luke tells of some Samaritans hearing and then seemingly believing the gospel, yet receiving the Holy Spirit days later. Pentecostals cite this text, Acts 8:1–25, as the strongest biblical support for their doctrine of separability and subsequence. It reads as follows:

That day, a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. 2Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. 3But Saul was ravaging the church by entering ...

Spirit Baptism on the Cornelius Household (Acts 10)

Gentiles Receive the Gospel

After the Apostle Peter used his kingdom keys to open two doors of God’s kingdom—first to Jews at Jerusalem and then Samaritans in the city of Samaria (Acts 2, 8)—he used a key to open a third door of the kingdom, this one to the Gentiles. 

When he did, Peter finished the exclusive role Jesus had given him to “loose on earth” what was “loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19). That loosing was the power of God by means of the Holy Spirit that fell upon those Gentiles. In each of these three episodes, Peter initiated the full ministry for all of Jesus’ disciples to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), and it included the baptism with the Holy Spirit. So, this third experience occurring in a Gentile land began to fulfil Jesus’ words in that text, “to the ends of the earth.”

Luke records in Acts a lengthy account of what happened that third time. He begins, “In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God” (Acts 10:1–2). So, Cornelius was a Gentile God-fearer, not a circumcised proselyte to Judaism.218 

To summarise Acts 10:3–33, God gave Cornelius a vision in which an angel told him to send men to Joppa to fetch Peter, whom he did not know. Joppa was present-day Tel Aviv, and it was located thirty miles south of Caesarea. As these men were approaching Joppa, Peter “fell into a trance” (v. 10). 

He had a vision in which he saw a large sheet with animals in it that Jews previously were forbidden to eat due to the Torah designating them as ritually “unclean” (e.g., Leviticus 11). Then we read, “Peter heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat’” (Acts 10:13). When Peter objected, the voice said, “What God has made clean you must not call profane” (v. 15). Why this change from unclean to clean?

What was implicit in the teaching of Jesus is now made explicit. The clean and unclean provisions of the law were temporary, designed to keep Israel a holy and distinct people until the time when Jews and Gentiles could receive the forgiveness of sins and sanctification on the same basis, through faith in Christ (Acts 20:32; 26:17–18; cf. 15:9). 

Association with Gentiles was a cause of defilement in Jewish tradition (cf. Jub. 22:16; Test. Jos. 7:1), rather than being strictly defined as such by the law of Moses. It was ‘unlawful’ (athemitos) in the more general sense of being against their custom. This was especially so because Gentiles did not observe the biblical rules about food. Such defilement would have to be removed by following the provisions of the law for cleansing. Even Gentile possessions needed to be purified before they were used by Jews. Acts 10 cut across all this in one simple process led by the Holy Spirit.