ANANIAS, SAPPHIRA AND THE TRINITY

The Old Testament is all about Jehovah God, revealing who He is and His plan for His chosen people. Scattered throughout the O.T. are prophetic references to a coming Messiah and some references to the Holy Spirit, but the predominant presence is Father God. 

Through the gospels we are given the story of the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. In John we learn that Jesus was God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2).

This had to be confusing for the disciples, who just wanted a Messiah who would throw out the Romans and keep the nation free from foreign domination. Instead, Jesus talked to them about being just like His Father and then He began to teach them about the Holy Spirit.

Jesus taught the disciples that when He went back to be with the Father, He (Jesus) would send them another Comforter (John 14:16). The word Helper/Comforter means “another just like the other” — the Holy Spirit would be just like Jesus and would continue His ministry on earth. As Jesus was God, so would the Holy Spirit be God. God the Father was in heaven and Jesus (God the Son) walked among men, ministered on earth, and gave Himself as the sacrifice for sin. God the Holy Spirit would be in the earth and make His dwelling place in the body of those who believed in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19). The Holy Spirit would come to empower and to dwell in those who would follow Christ (Acts 1:8).

This had to be very confusing for the early church, for the disciples. For centuries the Jews had focused on one God, Jehovah. Yes, they had anticipated the coming of the Messiah, but had it ever registered that the Messiah would be God — not a different God, but the same God, just in a different form? And now they are confronted with the third part of what we call the Trinity — the Holy Spirit. Just as it is confusing today and people argue about the Trinity (how can there be three Gods in one?), some maintain that our focus in the New Testament age should just be Jesus. The theological air in the church still has a smell of confusion over the Trinity, just as it did 2000 years ago.

I believe the early church reeled under the revelation they were being confronted with. Thousands of years of history and tradition were being changed in a matter of days. Thousands of years of “one God” were being replaced by a triune Godhead and the early church was staggering under the call to understand and to change.

This brings us to the moment of Ananias and Sapphira, who were a part of the church right after Pentecost. When did they come to Christ? We do not know for sure; perhaps they were among the several thousand who responded to the first altar call on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41). Or perhaps they came a little later: “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

Those early days in the church were powerful times of ministry and praising God. In Acts 4:32-37 we see a church that was committed to taking care of each other as moved on by the Holy Spirit. If one was in need, others gave of their resources to help.

In Acts 5:1 we meet Ananias and Sapphira. In the spirit of sharing, they sold a piece of property and kept part of it for themselves. However, they told the apostles they were donating everything from the sale, a full 100 percent.

Peter challenged Ananias: “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. . . . Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3-4). What happened after Peter’s challenge to Ananias is the graphic underscoring of the revelation to the church; i.e., the Holy Spirit is God!

I believe that just as the early church grappled with this revelation, so large segments of the church today grapple with the place of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity and the Holy Spirit’s importance to us.

Do we view the Holy Spirit as co-equal with God? How we see the Holy Spirit is important and will become increasingly so in the darkening days that are in our future.

As long as I live I will never forget the words of a much older minister. I was in Bible college, young and impressionable. In a class for those preparing to go into pastoral ministry the teacher, while discussing the gifts and operation of the Holy Spirit, said: “The Holy Spirit will ruin your church if you don’t control Him.” Later in life I came to understand that what the man was talking about was the conduct of people who do and say bizarre things and claim to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. But I walked away from that teaching with a disrespect for and a caution about the Holy Spirit. I carried that attitude with me for several years and that’s a sin. To disrespect the Holy Spirit is to disrespect God.

Sadly, we live in a day when much of the church that was born in a Holy Spirit revival has relegated the Holy Spirit and His gifts to a back room. Even sadder is the fact that some of my friends in the Spirit-filled ministry have relegated the Holy Spirit to the back room of their lives, as well as their ministry. In many churches the Holy Spirit’s work is guardedly allowed and as such they are disrespecting the Holy Spirit and the Trinity.