Sunday: The Holy Spirit and God
The Bible does not present a systematic description of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Instead we find interesting traces that indicate that the biblical writers considered the Holy Spirit to be equal with God. There are several biblical passages where the same activity is attributed to God and then also to the Holy Spirit.
Read Acts 5:1-4. What can we conclude about God and the Holy Spirit from Peter’s words to Ananias?
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If the Holy Spirit were not God, then Peter would have been speaking here in a very careless and fatally misleading manner. The interesting aspect about the nature of the Holy Spirit, however, is the fact that the apostle Peter puts God and the Holy Spirit on the same level. In verse 3, he asks Ananias why he has lied to the Holy Spirit, and he continues at the end of verse 4: “You have not lied to men but to God” (NASB). Peter clearly equates the Holy Spirit with God. His point is that Ananias was not just lying to the apostles, but to God Himself. Lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God. The Holy Spirit is God. The point is made here very clearly.
Why such a harsh punishment for what these two people did?
We must remember that the believers of the early church in Acts were “one in heart and mind” (Acts 4:32, NIV). This unity was a product of the Holy Spirit, and this is the reason they voluntarily and freely shared what they possessed. To lie with regard to the sharing was to deny the unity of the community and to belie the Spirit that undergirded that unity and made it possible.
This is why the lie of Ananias and his wife falsified the divine work and presence of the Holy Spirit in the early church community. Such dishonesty toward God is destructive and hinders the Spirit of God from working effectively in the lives of the believers. God wants us to serve Him undividedly. Because the new faith community was at a crucial juncture, God used drastic consequences to make sure that the new church would work in unison and truthfulness with one another and be willing to be led by His Spirit.
| Think how easily Ananias and Sapphira may have justified their sin. After all, haven’t we sold our own property and given some of it to the church? What’s the big deal if we keep a little? What should this story tell us about how careful we need to be regarding how we justify our actions? |
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Peter’s account of God to Ananias is interesting and the perfect place to start. The express and clear suggestion is that lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God (that they are two distinct entities but one) but (as a side question for the class) why not just say that he lied to God?
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and will lead us into all truth. It’s not God’s will that we should be left in any state of confusion or wandering about with only partial truth beliefs. As the lesson draws out the unique unity of the early church was a product of the Holy Spirit and His ongoing presence.
The model of that early church is the same that I think we all long for in our churches today and indeed why a lot of churches are praying for the Holy Spirit’s presence & power.
The punishment at first glance does seem extreme as it did when God struck down Uzzah for touching the ark (2 Sam 6:7) but so too the consequences for a movement contrary to the workings & intent of the Holy Spirit. Anyone who has sat in on enough board and business meetings will know all too well the detrimental effect of a stubborn negative attitude. Even more painful for those who have experience seeing friends being led off by offshoot influences.
Why did he not just say he lied to God? Well I think that Peter was wanting to make clear to all that the Holy Spirit was God and not to be treated with any less significants.
Are we sometimes dishonest with ourselves about our relationship with God? Do we sometimes believe that we are good enough because we go to church and hold offices of service and even donate our hard earned money to help out the church? Isn't this good enough?
What about our home life? How do we treat spouse or children? How do we treat animals? What do we do when no one is looking? What do we think about in secret? Do we think we deserve to think badly or feel bitterness toward someone because of what they did?
Does any of this have anything to do with character and our eternity?
What can be done about wrong feelings or attitudes? Will the Holy Spirit change my thoughts and feelings and motivations if I give Him room to work in me? I must be willing to give up all my perceived "rights" for the Love the Holy Spirit can give to produce solutions to my selfishly devised thinking and feeling.
It is really dangerous to lie to ourselves about our relationship to God.
Don, you're absolutely right! Lying to God is the same as lying to yourself! How deceiving! That's why to trust in our hearts is not always the safest thing to do. Keeping touch with the Divine and learning to give way to His voice is a permanent toil!
Often times we find ourselves wanting to be seen for what we are not. The spirit of deception which is very misleading to people. Ananias wanted to be seen as one of the faithful united congregation yet he was hiding something. In a way of extrapolation, I think the voice of the Holy Spirit whispered to Ananias and His wife telling them to do the right thing but they ignored. Let us know that we can deceive fellow brothers and sisters but God sees right through our Minds.
Is there a hidden part in our hearts? God not only knows the heart, He knows the intent of the heart. Why should we even thing we can justify our wrong? We should keep in mind that,what we do often affect others in a position or negative way. The story of Ananias and Sapphira thought us to live up to our commitments not only to God but to our families. The church is suffering because of this habit and the world is on the decline in family values.
if you were ananias would you have servived death
anoying the holy spirit can lead to spiritual death and anoying God can lead to physcal death
I challenge the writers of the the Sabbath School lesson on this being a critical juncture in the building of the church as to why the Holy Spirit acted so swiftly against the man and his wife. That would take God out of character. Since His goodness is what leads us to repentance. This must have been a pattern of bad behavior for them. We know that God is just and He gives us all an equal opportunity. However regardless of why the Holy Spirit acted so swiftly against them,my desire is to cooperate with God all the time,by His grace.
We know that God is just and the swiftness of His action has to have had a backstory. We, of course, do not know the backstory - but think of transactions today - selling property is not just an instant transaction. First the decision to sell, placing it on the market, finding a buyer, negotiating a price, receiving the payment. The Holy Spirit was most probably working on Ananias' and Sapphira's hearts at each step and they repeatedly ignored His voice. It is possible the lie that Peter spoke of was not just the lie about the money but the lie that their lives enacted - that they were faithful followers of the Spirit's leading (who was supposed to be the force leading them to give their offering) when in fact they were deceiving themselves and attempting to deceive others. The Holy Spirit as God read their hearts and knew that repentance was not there and would never be - thus the swift consequence that also brought an important lesson to others.
how do i let the holly spirit in me to help me with my thoughts and feelings?
i recently lost someone because of something that i did wrong to him; then i blamed him.he stopped talking to me. i have feelings for him but i know i cant trust them because i dont feel like i have a relationship with God.i ve been struggling wether or not i should contact him again and apologized. the problem is i dont know if i ll be doing it for the right reasons.
Thoughts and feelings are tricky things. And one of the problems is that we can let our own feelings dominate who we are and how we relate to others. There are a couple of important things that you should note:
There is a real strength in the community of believers. If you belong to a group of like-minded believers you will often find that sharing with them will help you to understand your own feelings. For me, I have a group of trusted colleagues who we have developed friendship with over the years. I value their judgement and know that I can listen to them with trust (even when I disagree with them)
Keep a close relationship with Jesus, by reading and thinking about him each day. Prayer, and Bible study combined with a good healthy relationship with your community of believers open the way for the Holy Spirit to speak to you.
Accept a man forsakes not all that he has, he cannot be my disciple. We hold on to things for security. Which means that we fear that God is not sufficient to do so. It is an insecurity of our fallen nature. That is why the lady who gave her last coin was more blessed than the others that gave of their surplus. Building the Tower of Babel was motivated by an insecurity. Man's enfiriority caused by their insecurity is a self righteous act.
"Why the harsh punishment?"
Why is this seen as harsh if we consider the inevitable results had God not made clear the grievous manner of this sin, which would have subverted many over the following centuries? By this swift act on God's part, many have been spared folly and eternal ruin, while those who continue in like manner have been faithfully warned. If we do not call sin by its right name, many among us will be deceived by it, and be eternally lost.
In the end, God cannot clear the guilty, so He gives fair, solemn warnings that some might "see, and fear, and trust in the Lord".
When I look at the memory verse I see that Grace comes to us through Jesus Christ and so does God's love and fellowship with the Holy Spirit. This tells me that we must have a relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Evidently, Ananias and Sapphira didn't think it was a big deal to hold back a portion of the sale of their property. They must have thought they could get past Peter. They didn't realise the seriousness of their lying to Peter full of the Holy Spirit until that final second which cost them their lives.
Brethren, can someone give another take on the reason the Ananias and Sapphira died. Verse 11 of the same passage said that "great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things". Was this action of killing the two liars showing God's might and forcing the others to fall in line? When David lied and cheated and killed did not God forgive him? How about Cain, when he murdered his brother didn't God put a mark on him that no man should kill him or they would receive much worse at the hand of God? Where is mercy here in our story today? and were the people now serving God out of fear in this scenario with Ananias and Sapphira? Could there be another reason than the ones already given?
Yes, man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart. As God looked at Ananias' and Sapphira's hearts - He apparently saw something different from David's and likely Cain's probation was not fully sealed. We don't know a lot about the couple but we know much about God! For God to have made swift execution - He knew that the course of their lives would not change and that the deceit that they manifested would pollute that early group of believers. The Holy Spirit had undoubtedly worked on their hearts (2 Peter 3:9) and they had resisted - the "fear" could also be translated "respect". Jesus as God has read the hearts of the Pharisees in their temple offerings and now the church learned that the Holy Spirit as God also read the hearts of the believers.
We have a vast mountain of evidence that God is "merciful, gracious, longsuffering, full of goodness and truth, keeping mercy for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin" which should settle the notion that some might consider that God acted out of character or in a capricious manner toward these two souls that thought they could lie to the church without being found out. But we cannot forget that God also "will in no wise clear the guilty". Who are the guilty? Anyone who rejects conviction and refuses to repent. When the many are placed in greater peril due to unfaithfulness in those of influence, God must sometimes act. Only God could foresee the great peril that would come if He ignored what some might consider a small thing.
Because of how God has always dealt with sinners(like us) I am confident that every influence to encourage faithfulness and honesty was granted to Ananias and Sapphira. Jesus gave Judas over 3 years to correct his defects, so how can we doubt He that did all that was possible here as well? He changes not and is no respecter of persons, but regards all with equal love and deep concern. He went to the cross for them as well.
Hi Georgia
I want to believe that Ananias made a promise to God through Peter that the money he'll make in selling the land will go to God. So that was God's money and no longer Ananias's. Unlike David or Cain, these two did not make any promise to God, their sins were just about them.
This church was a seed to be planted and fill the whole earth. The seed had to be pure. The heart and mind of Ananias and his wife Sapphira had been infected with a disease. All trace of this disease had to be removed quickly before it affected the seed.
Excuses given to cover our wrong doings can be compared to the fig leaves Adam & Eve tried to use to cover themselves after the fall. When we loose the covering of Christ's righteousness, we are actually "putting on fig leaves" by making excuses to justify our actions. The only way to revert that is to go back to Christ - our sacrifice & saviour.
Is there any difference in our singing "I surrender all" as compared to the actions of Ananias and his wife?
Indeed Leola, such a solemn question, which we must ask ourselves daily!
So easy to sing the familiar song and then go home and forget it until the next time we sing it some weeks/months later.
what's the difference between the Holy Spirit and God?
I could answer that by saying "nothing and everything". I think that we get exercised about drawing distinctions between terms such as this when there is really no need. God is singular as are the members of the Godhead. If that does not make sense to us it is because there are some aspects of the Godhead that are mysterious. Just because we cannot describe Him does not mean we cannot appreciate what he does in our lives.
A simplistic illustration: very few of us can describe electricity. Some of us, with the benefit of education can describe it better than others, but that does not mean we can make people understand it. However we can all appreciate its effect, when we turn on the switch and light shines. If there was a rule that we had to understand electricity before we could benefit from it, there would be a lot of very dark houses around at night.
Likewise, there is no rule that says we have to have a correct and eloquent description of God and the Holy Spirit before we can be blessed by His presence in our lives. That is indeed a comforting and challenging thought.
Acts 4:1-5 has taught me a lesson. Lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God. Sometimes we justify our sin by robbing God in returning tithe when problem strike, we spend the money set aside for offering claiming even God knows we are in problem.
I still didnt find the answer to why God was swift in the destruction of these two characters but as for me I see grace has been extended to me multiple times. I've not made a vow in a land sale to God but I looked at the fact that I've taken vows in front of the church at my baptism or even after a sermon and I've messed up big time and acted as though I'm ready for translation, knowing in my heart that it's not well with me. I cannot really explain the dynamics but I thank God I/us we have not been cut-off as they had because as someone alluded to before: we live bad at home, maybe work,in an affair, over working and spending less time in the word etc and when we get to church we are all proper and very in very involved in our offices. I thank God He has not destroyed us...
Nikky, there is more that we don't know than we do, yet, in the Bible we can see the principles by which God works and enjoins us to work also. This principle sometimes will require the Sovereign Being to act in ways He would rather not in order to preserve the lives of the innocent and/or helpless. Some answers will just won't find until "face to face". Either we trust God fully or we don't.
Nikky, That is the same type of question that I asked. I didn't cover a number of questions that I wanted to. One being what did Peter know and did he have powers that were totally uncommon? When Sapphira came in Peter ask her the questions and then told her she was next and dropped dead. Acts 5:11 says they were afraid when they heard about this. How unusual? Hardly. If you read on to Acts 5:12-16. Peter was able to do many miraculous things much as Jesus did. I think the some of the focus was missed during the lesson covering these events. How regrettable.
No where in the scripture does it say that God struck down Aninias or his wife. We cannot make that assumption. No doubt these were sincere leaders of the church whom the Holy Spirit had already been working on their heart even as they plotted to deceive the church. It was obviously overwhelming to have what was done in secret to come to the light of the entire body of believers and overwhelmed, they fell dead. It is sin that leads to death, not God. We must not ever give God a dual character...God is love and we must analyze all scripture in light of the unfailing, unchanging character of God--love. God does not kill people; it is willful disobedience that leads to death...
Gloria, people exhibit willful disobedience all the time, and live a full life doing so. So in your estimation, how did they die, and how do you confirm it?
What do you do with passages in the Bible where God takes the credit for destroying the wicked? Who brought the water in the flood or the fire on the wicked cities of the plain? Who brought the 10 plagues against Egypt, then parted the Red sea and kept it parted until the army of Egypt decided to cross through it? Did Elijah himself bring down the fire upon the captains and their 50 who tried to arrest him by order of the wicked king Ahaziah? If so, why does the Bible say "and the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50 men".
God only does what is good for bringing salvation to as many as possible. Sometimes He must act to protect those who would be destroyed by the wicked of the earth.
Amen sister. The two died because of the choices they made and the consequence of their sins. God is love and E.G White stated that His government is built on goodness, love,mercy (DA p.759). We blame God for so many things and like Lucifer we put Him in bad light as a dictator and tyrant. The scripture said that great fear fell upon those that witnessed the death of Ananias and Sapphira. Maybe that was so because they may have believed that lie about God and now they had to obey Him out of fear or else He would kill them too. I think the record should be cleared - that God is a God of Love and mercy and that we reap what we sow/ bear the consequences of our actions.
Thanks for clearing up the point.
God bless.
Acts 4:32 was a means of the survival for the entire church. A practical solution with 100 % participation. The questions that Peter asked were reasonable in Ananias and Sapphiras minds. If the amount of money had been equal to what it sold for and it was 1/2 half of what it cost. The net would be the same. This may have been Ananias's rational.However, Peter had the ability to understand the heart of Ananias and Saphira. Our hind sight provides answers that may not otherwise may be available. like what if. What if Peter had punished them to teach then a lesson but less unusual and less stressful to the rest of the believers. Acts 4:31 and Acts 5:11 . There are no ifs. God knows all there is to know.