Was Simon Magus a Christian?
When I preached through Acts a few years ago, I concluded Ananias, Sapphira and Simon were probably Christians who were punished by physical death. It ultimately doesn’t matter, for people today. Lesson learned = don’t lie to God!
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[Lee]You are attempting to make a theological argument that does not account for the exegetical details of the passage, as I have already explained above. I do not agree that the passage is about the Holy Spirit; His work is one key aspect of this account, but it is debatable that that is the main point. In the larger context of Acts 8, we have the conversion of the Ethiopian official, and there is no mention of the Spirit coming upon him, even after he believed and was baptized.RajeshG wrote:
…Many people say that they have believed, are baptized, and then at some later point totally turn away from the faith, which shows that they never were true believers at all. …
But “many people” don’t have their conversion recorded under inspiration—God breathed and infallibly accurate.
And you’re missing the point. The passage/narrative is about the Holy Spirit, emphasizing that indwelling/empowerment is not a gimmick, nor to be irreverently treated. This is consistent through the Book of Acts. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) had already had an intense rebuke along the same lines. The confirmation of salvation being granted to the Gentiles was via the Holy Spirits’ coming upon them in miraculous displays (Acts 10-11). The ignorant believers of Acts 19 had lessons to learn concerning the Holy Spirit. The earliest record of the Holy Spirit coming—Acts 2—was accompanied by a strong rebuke when His work was regarded as drunkenness, and was the springboard for the sermon at Pentecost and initiation of the Jerusalem church. It is quite inconceivable that this consistent presentation of the work of the Holy Spirit throughout the Book of Acts is interrupted with this narrative in Acts 8 that the conclusion has little to do with the Holy Spirit and the crux is “he wasn’t a believer anyway so don’t worry too much about what he was trying to do; unbelievers do unbelieving things after all.”
There was no strong rebuke in Acts 2; you are reading that into the passage. Peter did tell the people that the men were not drunk, as the people had supposed, but the language hardly matches the intensity of the rebuke in Acts 8. In Acts 19, Paul also does not use an apostolic prayer-wish that the believers in Ephesus would perish for their ignorance …
Scholarly commentators do not agree what the main theme(s) of the book of Acts is/are; yours is one understanding among many that various people have argued for.
We are not going to agree so we will just have to wait until we get to heaven to find out.
[RajeshG]Isn’t the punishment of death an even stronger rebuke than an apostolic prayer-wish?There was no strong rebuke in Acts 2; you are reading that into the passage.
[Kevin Miller]There is no exegetical basis for conflating what happened to Ananias and Sapphira with what Peter said to Simon. The word used for “perish” in Acts 8:20 is a noun that is never used in the NT to signify physical death; when referring to humans in the NT, it consistently refers to those who perish eternally.RajeshG wrote:
There was no strong rebuke in Acts 2; you are reading that into the passage.
Isn’t the punishment of death an even stronger rebuke than an apostolic prayer-wish?
To understand properly what Peter said to Simon, here are the uses of ἀπώλεια in the NT when it refers to human beings:
Matt. 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Jn. 17:12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Acts 8:20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Rom. 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Phil. 1:28 And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
Phil. 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
2 Thess. 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
1 Tim. 6:9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
Heb. 10:39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
2 Pet. 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 Pet. 2:3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
2 Pet. 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
2 Pet. 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Rev. 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Rev. 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
The NT usage of this word shows clearly that Peter was not expressing an apostolic prayer-wish that Simon would die physically. His statement was much stronger.
Discussion