<p>19:5 <em>And when they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus</em>-</p><p>These men had not been baptized with Christian baptism, which is into the death and resurrection of Christ. The command for baptism into His death and resurrection was given after Christ had risen from the dead. It could be argued therefore that this is not an example of adults once baptized by immersion into the Lord&rsquo;s death and resurrection being rebaptized. That approach would appear to be the correct line of interpretation once due weight is given to the fact that they had not received the Holy Spirit; surely there is an intended allusion to Jn. 7:39: &ldquo;He spoke of the Spirit, which they that believed in him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, as Jesus had not yet been glorified&rdquo;. The Greek idea behind &ldquo;not yet been given&rdquo; is similar to the men&rsquo;s words in the Greek of Acts 19:2, where &ldquo;We did not hear whether there <em>be </em>any Holy Spirit&rdquo; carries the idea &lsquo;We didn&rsquo;t hear that the Holy Spirit is present / has been given&rsquo;. The men had surely heard of &ldquo;Holy Spirit&rdquo;, but they were unaware it had been given. The connection with Jn. 7:39 could suggest they were actually ignorant of the death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus- hence their need for Christian baptism. Their ignorance of the coming of the Spirit is painted, according to the connection with Jn. 7:39, as ignorance of the fact Christ had been glorified. If these men had been baptized by John but were now in Ephesus, it&rsquo;s quite possible they had left Palestine soon after their baptisms and were ignorant of what had subsequently happened to Jesus until Apollos had now told them. &ldquo;Into Gk. <em>ek</em> what were you baptized?&rdquo; (Acts 19:3) would therefore carry the implication that they had not been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ; their answer comes across rather lamely: &ldquo;Into John&rsquo;s baptism&rdquo;. The necessary answer was &ldquo;Into Christ&rsquo;s death and resurrection&rdquo;, but they are forced to reply somewhat ungrammatically- that they had not been baptized <em>into </em>&nbsp;anything much at all, apart from into John. There could even be the implication that they had not been baptized by John himself, but &ldquo;into John&rsquo;s baptism&rdquo; by some disciple of John. Acts 19:5,6 sounds as if they were unaware that John had taught the people that they must believe and be baptized &ldquo;into Christ&rdquo;; and when they understood that this had been his message, then they were baptized into Christ. They had had the idea in their minds that they must make a change, but it would seem they were ignorant of what John had actually taught about Jesus.</p><p>Again and again it must be remembered here that John&rsquo;s baptism wasn&rsquo;t Christian baptism; it was to prepare the way for Christ and baptism into Him. Paul explains that John&rsquo;s teaching was intended to lead men to believe &ldquo;in&rdquo; or &ldquo;into&rdquo; Christ Gk. <em>ek </em>again- he stresses this twice in Acts 19:4. When the men understood that, they were &ldquo;baptized into Gk. <em>ek</em> the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 19:5). Baptism <em>into</em> Christ is here presented as part and parcel of belief <em>in</em> Him. Baptism is assumed in the New Testament as being part of belief. This incident leaves us with the clear impression from the use of the term <em>ek</em> , into, that they had been baptized into John and had been ignorant of Christ&rsquo;s death and glorification. Their immersion &ldquo;into John&rsquo;s baptism&rdquo; had not therefore been Christian baptism at all.</p><p>The connection between baptism and receipt of the Spirit also cries out to be understood within the context of Acts to the great opening example of baptism in Acts 2:38: &ldquo;Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit&rdquo;. I have elsewhere suggested that the &ldquo;gift&rdquo; in view there was that of forgiveness and spiritual blessing in Christ. The baptism or, rebaptism of Acts 19 did not of itself give the Holy Spirit gifts; these came as a result of Paul laying his hands upon the newly baptized people. This would&rsquo;ve been a situation analogous to that in Acts 10, where the Gentiles who were baptized exercised miraculous Spirit gifts straight afterwards in order to demonstrate that the decision to baptize them had in fact been correct.</p>