The Laying On of Hands

In Sunday’s post, we noted the first century baptism of the Holy Spirit in Samaria took place when Peter and John first prayed, then laid hands on believing Samaritans. That’s in Acts 8. We also noted the Holy Spirit did not deem this step necessary when he baptized Jews in Jerusalem in Acts 2 or Gentiles in Caesarea in Acts 10. These simply believed and were filled with the Spirit, glorifying God in other languages.

The experience of Acts 8 prompts a few questions about this “laying on of hands”. Where did it come from? What does it signify? How did the early church practice it? Did miracles always accompany it? We’re going to try to answer these questions today.

Violent Hands and Offering Hands

Many references to “laying hands” on someone in scripture are euphemisms for violence or arrest. For example, we read several times in the gospel that the chief priests and scribes sought to “lay hands” on the Lord Jesus but were unsuccessful. Nehemiah threatened to “lay hands” on the merchants encouraging his people to break the Sabbath. This is not that, so let’s not confuse two similar expressions.

I believe the first real reference to anything approximating the act we are seeking to understand comes in Leviticus 4, where the expression occurs five times in association with the laws related to the sin offering. Moses commanded the sinner (or the sinners’ representative when the offense was corporate) to lay his hand on the head of the animal that would serve as the sin offering on his behalf. The same act was to take place on the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16, during which the high priest confessed the sins of the nation while laying hands on a goat, which bore its iniquities into the wilderness.

Identification and Responsibility

Putting the two passages together, it is evident this early “laying on of hands” was an act of identification and a transfer of responsibility. In each case, the animal — bull, goat, lamb — served as the sinner’s substitute. The wages of sin is death, as the New Testament teaches, and someone had to receive the penalty for every offense committed against a holy God. In laying hands on the animal, the sinner was saying, “This is my representative.” The animal was then killed in place of the sinner, and offered to God.

That the laying on of hands signified a transfer of responsibility is most evident in the law concerning blasphemy in Leviticus 24. Moses commanded those who testified they had heard the blasphemer curse to lay their hands on his head, after which the congregation would stone him for his sin. In doing so, they relieved the congregation of the sin of blasphemy, transferring the responsibility to the guilty party.

Finally, the Lord commanded Moses to lay hands on Joshua in front of the congregation to commission him as his replacement to lead Israel. In scripture, responsibility and authority go hand in hand, and Moses thereby invested Joshua with some of his own authority. Joshua thus became responsible to fulfill the mission God had given Moses. In this symbolic act, Moses said, in effect, “This is God’s guy, my replacement. I have identified him for you. Now obey him.”

A Frame of Reference

So then, several passages from the Law of Moses gave those present that day in Samaria their frame of reference for understanding what they saw Peter and John doing to these new believers. To onlookers familiar with the Old Testament, the act of laying hands on someone traditionally signified identification and/or a transfer of responsibility and/or authority. When Peter and John came from Jerusalem on behalf of this new Jewish church and laid hands on the Samaritan believers, everyone involved knew what was going on. Only Simon the magician thought he was seeing a magic trick, and offered to pay them to teach him how to perform it. Peter promptly rebuked him for trivializing “the gift of God” by associating it with money. In conferring the momentary gift of tongues, the Holy Spirit was identifying the half-breed believers from Samaria as fellow members of the Body of Christ along with Jews and later Gentiles. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” wrote Paul, “Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” The Lord was saying, in effect, “These too are part of that thing that I was doing in Jerusalem at Pentecost.”

A similar event occurred at Ephesus in Acts 19, where about a dozen original Ephesian believers received the Holy Spirit when Paul laid hands on them. Here, the delay in baptizing them with the Spirit was not because, like the Samaritans, they were members of a rival religious sect. Rather, these men had received only John’s baptism of repentance. It was therefore necessary to baptize them in the name of the Lord Jesus in order that they be “one body” with the Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles who were already members of the church. It was important there be no confusion between John’s very Jewish baptism of national repentance and this new act by which the Holy Spirit was identifying the members of Christ’s body. Baptism in the name of Jesus was arguably more important than anything Paul’s hands accomplished that day; nevertheless, in laying hands on these Ephesians, Paul was saying, “These are ours too.”

An ‘Elementary’ Doctrine

The New Testament has little else to say about the laying on of hands. In Hebrews, the laying on of hands is listed among elementary doctrines that the writer was eager to leave behind in order to teach more complex spiritual truths. Obviously, he thought, Jewish readers understand such things already. In a couple of NT cases, the act of laying hands on someone was associated with healing, but these incidents are not to be confused with what was going on when apostles and other members of the church laid hands on individuals for service.

New Testament Commissioning

We see the laying on of hands as NT “commissioning” analogous to that of Joshua first in Acts 6, when seven men are chosen to serve the practical needs of the congregation so that the apostles could continue to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. The apostles lay hands on these men, identifying them as their chosen representatives for the service of the assembly.

Likewise, when the Holy Spirit set apart Paul and Barnabas for a specific mission work, the prophets and teachers in Antioch laid hands on them before sending them off.

Interestingly, in Acts 14:23, when Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in every church, the Greek word translated “appointed” in that context (sometimes “ordained”) is a compound of two words that mean “to stretch out” and “hands”.

Later, Paul would mention that Timothy received his gift in association with the laying on of hands by the elders and by Paul himself. It’s unclear whether he is referring to either the same gift or the same act, but we may presume Paul was concerned that Timothy be seen to have apostolic authority when teaching in Paul’s absence.

Beyond the early days of the church, there is no indication that laying hands on someone produced obvious miracles. In most cases, the “appointments” made in scripture were probably perfectly ordinary events.

A Responsible Caution

For the Christian, all these references are merely pattern and example. The only NT instructions concerning laying on of hands come from Paul in his first letter to Timothy. He writes, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.”

Keeping all this background in mind, the apostle’s intended meaning is evident: Timothy was to be careful not to identify himself with, or confer responsibility and authority upon, anyone without due diligence. Earlier in the same letter, Paul had laid down requirements for both overseers and deacons. Presumably, Timothy’s job would be to identify such men from time to time. It would be necessary to confirm that these met the apostolic standard before giving them the public “seal of approval” by laying hands on them. The work of God might be urgent, but never so urgent that Timothy would be asked to commission men for service who were not up to the job. To do so would be to implicate himself in their errors, perhaps even associating them with Paul.

We do well to keep this instruction in mind in a day when real leaders are far too rare, and both churches and retiring elders are eager to “lay hands” on anyone they believe may be able to help them maintain their weekly schedule.