ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Acts 5.3-4

Book: Acts · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV (ASV)

"1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, 2. and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet."

"3. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? 4. While it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart? thou has not lied unto men, but unto God."

"5. And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost: and great fear came upon all that heard it. 6. And the young men arose and wrapped him round, and they carried him out and buried him." (Acts 5:1-6, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, 2. and kept back part of the price, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet."

"3. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? 4. While you kept it, didn’t it remain your own? After it was sold, wasn’t it in your power? How is it that you have conceived this thing in your heart? You haven’t lied to men, but to God.”"

"5. Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and died. Great fear came on all who heard these things. 6. The young men arose and wrapped him up, and they carried him out and buried him." (Acts 5:1-6, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, 2. And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet."

"3. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? to lie to: or, to deceive 4. Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God."

"5. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. 6. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him." (Acts 5:1-6, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"1. And a certain man, Ananias by name, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, 2. and did keep back of the price, his wife also knowing, and having brought a certain part, at the feet of the apostles he laid [it]."

"3. And Peter said, 'Ananias, wherefore did the Adversary fill thy heart, for thee to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back of the price of the place? 4. while it remained, did it not remain thine? and having been sold, in thy authority was it not? why [is] it that thou didst put in thy heart this thing? thou didst not lie to men, but to God;'"

"5. and Ananias hearing these words, having fallen down, did expire, and great fear came upon all who heard these things, 6. and having risen, the younger men wound him up, and having carried forth, they buried [him]." (Acts 5:1-6, YLT)

Setting

  • Speaker: Luke the physician (traditionally) / narrator + multiple speeches (Peter, Stephen, Paul)
  • Audience: Theophilus + Gentile Christian audience (companion to Luke)
  • Location: Jerusalem → Judea → Samaria → Asia Minor → Greece → Rome
  • Time period: events c. AD 30-62; composed c. AD 62-80

Theological reading

Acts 5:3-4 is one of the NT's strongest deity-of-the-Spirit anchors, and one of the clearest pivotal-moment severe-judgment narratives in Acts. The verse pair carries two distinct doctrinal loads simultaneously, and reading either in isolation flattens the passage.

Peter's equation, Spirit = God

The structural argument is short and exact. Peter says in v. 3: "why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" He then says in v. 4: "You have not lied to men, but to God." The two clauses are placed across a single speech-act, not separated by an intervening shift of referent. The natural reading is the identifying one: lying to the Holy Spirit IS lying to God, because the Holy Spirit IS God. The text equates the two without qualification.

This is one of the principal proof-texts for the full deity of the Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian tradition (companion texts include 1 Cor 2:10-11, the Spirit searches the depths of God; 2 Cor 3:17, "the Lord is the Spirit"; Matt 28:19, the triadic baptismal formula). Against Jehovahs Witnesses / Watchtower theology, which treats the Spirit as an impersonal active force rather than a divine Person, the Acts 5:3-4 equation is decisive: an impersonal force cannot be lied to (lying requires personal address) and cannot be identified as God without collapsing the JW theological architecture. The Oneness Pentecostal reading takes the passage as straightforward: the one God is the Holy Spirit; the Trinitarian reading takes the Spirit as the third Person sharing the one divine essence; both readings affirm the deity claim. See Trinity vs Oneness vs Modalism vs Arianism.

The sin diagnosis, hypocrisy not finance

Peter explicitly removes the financial reading in v. 4: "While it remained unsold, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control?" The property and the proceeds were Ananias's to do with as he pleased. The sin was not the keeping-back-part, it was the pretending-to-have-given-all while keeping part. The structure of the sin is hypocrisy: the reputation of sacrifice without the reality.

This is theologically load-bearing because it rules out two common misreadings. First, the passage does not teach that "every lie receives immediate death", Peter himself was not struck down for his triple denial of Christ, nor was David for the Bathsheba conspiracy. Second, the passage does not teach a prosperity-gospel inversion ("God hates underfunding the church"); Peter explicitly affirms the property right. What the passage diagnoses is the very specific sin of religious self-presentation as a tool of spiritual manipulation, using the appearance of holiness to acquire status inside the covenant community while lying to God Himself.

The pivotal-moment severe-judgment pattern

The death of Ananias and Sapphira is part of a recurring biblical pattern of severe-judgment-at-foundational-covenant-moments:

  • Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), strange fire at the inauguration of the priesthood, consumed by fire from the Lord
  • Uzzah (2 Samuel 6), touched the ark when the oxen stumbled, struck down at the ark's transfer to Jerusalem
  • Achan (Joshua 7), kept devoted Jericho-spoils for himself, judged at the conquest's opening
  • Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:3-11), here, at the Spirit-empowered birth of the church

The pattern is descriptive, not prescriptive. At pivotal covenant moments, divine holiness is dramatically demonstrated to establish the gravity of the new arrangement; the demonstration is not a continuous policy applied uniformly across redemptive history. The Sermon on the Mount's call to repentance presupposes that God's normal posture is not immediate-death judgment, but patient invitation to confession. The Acts 5 narrative establishes the seriousness of the Spirit's holiness at the church's founding moment; the rest of Acts and the NT epistles do not show this pattern continuing as routine.

Apologetic deployment

The passage is foundational for three apologetic moves:

  1. Trinitarian deity-of-the-Holy-Spirit proof, against any theology (Watchtower, modalist-collapse, JW, Christadelphian) that denies the Spirit's full personhood and deity. The equation is structural and decisive.
  2. Pivotal-moment severe-judgment defeater, against the "God in the OT is cruel; Jesus changed that; the NT God is gentle" reading. The same pattern operates in Acts 5 as in Leviticus 10 / Joshua 7 / 2 Samuel 6; God's holiness has not changed between testaments. See Christians Cannot Judge Objection Defeater and Bible Endorses Slavery Objection for adjacent canonical-trajectory arguments that reject the "OT-vs-NT-God" hermeneutic.
  3. Hypocrisy diagnosis, pastorally, the passage names the difference between sincere imperfection (which God patiently disciples) and religious-performance-fraud (which God resists). See Hypocrisy for the broader concept hub.

Patristic and Reformed reading

Augustine (Sermon 148 on Ananias), the issue was not the partial gift but the lie about it; the sacrilegious heart speaks the same evil whether the lie is detected or not. John Calvin (Commentary on Acts ad loc.), the Spirit is here demonstrated to be true God by Peter's identification; the severity of judgment manifests the holiness of the Spirit. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Acts 12), the judgment was a warning of grace, not a sign of arbitrary wrath; it spared the church the corruption that hypocrisy would have introduced at its founding moment.

Key words

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.