While Yet Speaking - The Holy Ghost Preemptively Fell on All
Acts 10:44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
(This_post) I found open, answered and accepted. Support for the accepted answer was scant in my opinion, and I find the following interpretation of Joseph Smith to be incorrect, leaving me unsatisfied with the answer.
I am seeking a plausible explanation for two apparent contradictions. In Acts 10:44 above and 10:45 here:
Acts 10:45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Not so much verse 44) but verse 45) uses the words "gift of the Holy Ghost."
Joseph Smith taught:
There is a difference between the Holy Ghost and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Cornelius received the Holy Ghost before he was baptized, which was the convincing power of God unto him of the truth of the Gospel, but he could not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost until after he was baptized. Had he not taken this sign or ordinance upon him, the Holy Ghost which convinced him of the truth of God, would have left him. [See Acts 10:1–48.] Until he obeyed these ordinances and received the gift of the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of hands, according to the order of God, he could not have healed the sick or commanded an evil spirit to come out of a man, and it obey him; for the spirits might say unto him, as they did to the sons of Sceva: ‘Paul we know and Jesus we know, but who are ye?’ [See Acts 19:13–15.]
History of the Church, 4:555; from a discourse given by Joseph Smith on Mar. 20, 1842, in Nauvoo, Illinois; reported by Wilford Woodruff.
What is of particular interest is that this happened without the laying on of hands. I understand that the laying on of hand is not a dispensable role in the ordinance. Also, that the facilitators of these sacred ordinances must belong the Melchisedec priesthood.
Finally, the question:
Is there a satisfactory explanation for the order, and process of these events as they are here in Cornelius's case, and everyone with him? I see two parts here, the first is the order, and the second is no laying on of hands.
1)**Joseph Smith says that Cornelius could not receive the **gift of the Holy Ghost before baptism and claims that he does not.
"he could not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost until after he was baptized."
2) Joseph Smith teaches that Cornelius could only receive the gift of the Holy Ghostby the laying on of hands and It looks like Peter believed that they had when he says 47)"Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?"
