Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 19

Paul having passed through the upper coasts.—This implies a route passing from Galatia and Phrygia through the interior, and coming from there to Ephesus. The “coast,” in the modern sense of the term, Saint Paul did not even approach.

Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?—Better, as connecting the two facts in the English as in the Greek, Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed?—that is, on your conversion and baptism. We are left to conjecture what prompted the question. The most natural explanation is that St. Paul noticed in them, as they attended the meetings of the Church, a lack of spiritual gifts, perhaps, also, a lack of the peace and joy and brightness that showed itself in others. They presented the features of a rigorous asceticism like that of the Therapeutæ—the outward signs of repentance and mortification—but something was manifestly lacking for their spiritual completeness.

We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.—The standpoint of the disciples so exactly corresponds to that of Apollos when he arrived at Ephesus, that we may reasonably think of them as having been converted by his preaching. They must, of course, have known the Holy Spirit as a name meeting them in the Sacred Books, as given to the prophets of old, but they did not think of that Spirit as a living and pervading presence, in which they themselves might claim a share. They had been baptized with the baptism of repentance, and were leading a life of fasting, and prayers, and alms, but they had not passed on to righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17). It lies on the surface that they were Jewish, not Gentile, disciples.

Unto what then were you baptized?—The answer of the disciples had shown:

1. an imperfect instruction, falling short of that which catechumens ordinarily received before they were admitted to the new birth by water and the Spirit;
2. an imperfect spiritual experience.

Could those who made it have been admitted into the Church of Christ by baptism in His name? The answer to that question showed their precise position. They were practically disciples of the Baptist, believing in Jesus as the Christ, and thinking that this constituted a sufficient qualification for communion with the Church of Christ.

John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance.—These words may fairly be regarded as giving the summary of what was actually a fuller teaching. The distinctive point in it was that John's baptism was, by his own declaration, simply provisional and preparatory. He taught his disciples to believe in Jesus, and belief implied obedience, and obedience baptism in His name. It is not without significance that the list of elementary doctrines in Hebrews 6:1-4, addressed, we may believe, by Apollos to those who had once been his disciples, includes what those who are now before us might have learned from him in their spiritual childhood, and that he then passes on to describe the higher state of those who had been illumined, and had tasted of the heavenly gift, and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost (Hebrews 6:4–6).

They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.—On the use of this formula in connection with the baptism of Jewish converts, see Notes on Acts 2:38; Matthew 28:19.