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Christ for our justification, but it is as sons that we accept the
Spirit for our sanctification: "And because ye are sons, God hath sent
forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father"
(Gal. 4: 6). Thus, when Peter preached his first sermon to the
multitude after the Spirit had been given, he said: "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 Ghost"
(Acts 2: 38).

This passage shows that logically and chronologically the gift of the
Spirit is subsequent to repentance. Whether it follows as a necessary
and inseparable consequence, as might seem, we shall consider later.
Suffice that this point is clear, so clear that one of the most
conservative as well as ablest writers on this subject, in commenting
on this text in Acts, says: "Therefore it is evident that the reception
of the Holy Ghost, as here spoken of, has nothing whatever to do with
bringing men to believe and repent. It is a subsequent operation; it
is an additional and {70} separate blessing; it is a privilege founded
on faith already actively working in the heart. . . I do not mean to
deny that the gift of the Holy Ghost may be practically on the same
occasion, but never in the same moment. The reason is quite simple
too. The gift of the Holy Ghost _is grounded on the fact that we are
sons by faith in Christ, believers resting on redemption in him_.
Plainly, therefore, it appears that the Spirit of God has already
regenerated us."[3]

Now, as we examine the Scriptures on this point, we shall see that we
are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we
appropriated Christ as sinners. "As many as received him, even to them
that believe on his name," is the condition of becoming sons, as we
have already seen, receiving and believing being used as equivalent
terms. In a kind of foretaste of Pentecost, the risen Christ, standing
in the midst of his disciples, "breathed on them and said, Receive ye
the Holy Ghost." The verb is not passive, as our English version might
lead us to suppose, but has here as generally an active signification,
just as in the familiar passage in Revelation: "Whosoever will, let him
_take_ the water of life freely." Twice in the Epistle to the
Galatians the possession of the Holy Ghost is put on the same grounds
of active {71} appropriation through faith: "Received ye the Spirit by
the