“One of the most striking contradictions I’ve discovered in the Book of Mormon is its depiction of people receiving the Holy Spirit—specifically, the Lamanites in Helaman 5—long before Pentecost, the biblical event that inaugurated the Spirit’s indwelling presence under the New Covenant.” Contrary to the Book of Mormon’s depiction, the Bible clearly teaches—from the mouth of Jesus Himself—that the indwelling and permanent gift of the Holy Spirit was not given until Pentecost.
To examine this, we must first consider the biblical framework regarding the Holy Spirit, including the extraordinary events of Pentecost. Then, we’ll turn to the Book of Mormon and ask the key question: Does the Book of Mormon’s portrayal of the Lamanites receiving the Holy Spirit fit within the biblical framework?
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament Period
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit’s role differs significantly from His work after Pentecost. Rather than permanently indwelling believers, the Spirit’s presence and activity were selective, task-specific, and temporary. For example:
• Numbers 11:25-26: The Spirit temporarily falls on elders, enabling them to prophesy for a short time.
• Exodus 31:3-5: Bezalel is filled with the Spirit of God to design and construct the tabernacle.
• 2 Peter 1:21: The Spirit inspires men to prophesy and write Scripture “as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” but they do not experience the Spirit’s permanent indwelling.
While the Holy Spirit was active in empowering individuals for specific purposes, permanent indwelling was not part of the Old Covenant experience. Instead, Old Testament prophets looked forward to a day when the Spirit would be poured out universally and permanently to dwell in and change believers from the inside out:
Joel 2:28-29: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”
Ezekiel 11:19-20:
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Ezekiel 36:26-27: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you… And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
Jeremiah 31:33-34:
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.”
These prophetic promises anticipate the profound transformation that would occur under the New Covenant, inaugurated by Christ’s death and resurrection. This Old Testament framework underscores why the permanent and universal gift of the Holy Spirit could not have been granted to the Lamanites, or anyone else, before Pentecost.”
Jesus’s Promise of the Forthcoming Spirit
The New Testament unequivocally teaches that the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit—the “baptism with fire”—was not available before Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification. Indeed, it could not be given yet before Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension.
John’s Gospel Makes this point explicit on two occasions.
John 7:37-39: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
As John explains, even those who had believed in Jesus had not yet received the spirit because Jesus had not yet been glorified. This passage makes it clear that the Spirit’s outpouring was a future event, contingent on Jesus’s glorification.”
John 16:7: “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
These are Jesus’s own words and he leaves no doubt. Until Jesus died and ascended in glory, the Holy Spirit, would not come to Jesus’s followers.
A few other passages in the New Testament also link the coming of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s inauguration of the New Covenant that Jesus offered us through his death on the Cross.
Galatians 3:13-14: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”
And in Hebrews, the inauguration of the New Covenant on the cross is part of the New Covenant, which was inaugurated by Christ’s blood (Hebrews 10:16). And the coming of the Holy Spirit is expressly linked to the Old Testament promises of Jeremiah (Hebrews 8:10).
Day Of Pentecost
The promise of the Holy Spirit’s outpouring was fulfilled dramatically on the Day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2.
Before Jesus departed, he promised his disciples that he would be “sending the promise of my Father upon you” and that they would soon be “clothed” or “endowed” with “power from on high.” Luke 24:49. It is clear that this promise had not yet been fulfilled but would be in short order.
The coming of the spirit would allow the disciples to take the gospel “to the ends of the earth.”
On the day of Pentecost, the spirit came powerfully to dwell in the disciples.
Acts 2:32-33: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Many scholars have noticed a profound connection between these events at Pentecost and the scattering of languages at the Day of Pentecost. See for instance this video from N.T. Wright.
These parallels show the crucial role of Pentecost in God’s redemptive plan.
Peter explicitly links this event to Joel’s prophecy: “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.’” (Acts 2:16-17).
Peter also expressly links these events to the resurrection, ascension, and glorification of Jesus: Acts 2:32-33: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”
Peter’s sequence is clear. The spirit is poured out after Jesus ascended and is directly linked to Christ’s exaltation:
Peter then promised the same outpouring of the spirit to ALL present who would “Repent, and be baptized … in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” Each of them would “receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2:38–39).
Pentecost was not merely another instance of the Spirit’s activity but a watershed moment in salvation history as Wayne Grudem explained “[W]e must realize that the day of Pentecost is much more than an individual event in the lives’ of Jesus’ disciples and those with them. The day of Pentecost was the point of transition between the old covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit and the new covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit.” (Systemic Theology, Second Edition, Chapter 39, p. 949-50). Indeed, it is difficult to overstate how significant of a turning point Pentecost was.
Helaman 13: 3 Nephi 9:20 and Its Claims:
The Book of Mormon claims that around 30 BCE—over 60 years before the day of Pentecost—a group of Lamanites received the Gift of the Holy Spirit in a manner strikingly similar to Acts 2.
“And behold, the Holy Spirit of God did come down from heaven, and did enter into their hearts, and they were filled as if with fire, and they could speak forth marvelous words.” (Helaman 5:45)
If this verse stood alone, one might argue that this is simply a manifestation of the Spirit similar to Old Testament occurrences. However, in 3 Nephi 9:20 Jesus explicitly links the Lamanites’ experience to the New Covenant baptism of the Holy Spirit:
“20 And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.”
Jesus is therefore portrayed in the Book of Mormon as declaring that these Lamanites had in fact been “baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost.”
This claim is deeply problematic. Jesus’s own words in the Bible make it clear that the baptism of the Holy Spirit could only occur after His glorification. The Book of Mormon thus disrupts the biblical progression of salvation history.
If the Lamanites truly experienced the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost around 30 BCE, this would mean the New Covenant was inaugurated decades before Christ’s atonement—an idea entirely foreign to the biblical storyline.”
Latter-day Saint Defenses: Do They Hold Up?
Latter-day Saints may offer a few defenses. First, they may suggest that Israel from the time of Sinai until the coming of Christ was uniquely deprived of the Holy Spirit because Israel only enjoyed the Aaronic and not the Melchizedek priesthoods and according to Latter-day Saint belief the Melchizedick priesthood is needed to bestow the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Under this view, the absence of the Spirit leading up to Christ’s ministry was a special exception rather than the norm. But the problem with this argument is that it is not supported anywhere in the text. The Bible does not suggest that previous dispensations had a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit. To the contrary, Biblical prophets looked forward to the day of Jesus for a unique outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And John 7:39 explicitly states that the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
This argument is also problematic from LDS framework since in John 17, Jesus is specifically speaking to his Apostles who according to LDS belief were ordained Apostles and given the Melchizedek Priesthood before the death and resurrection of Christ. But John 17 is clear that they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. So the spirit not yet being conferred had nothing to do with different kinds of priesthood authority.
Another possible defense is that Christ’s atonement had retroactive impact and therefore the Holy Spirit could have been given even before his atonement. This argument hinges on the idea that since Christ’s sacrifice transcends time, its benefits could be applied to individuals living before the crucifixion. But again, this contradicts verses expressly saying that the Holy Spirit was not given to mankind until after Pentecost. (See John 7:39, John 16:7 and Acts 2:33). “While the retroactive application of Christ’s atonement allows for salvation before His death, it does not explain why the Spirit’s indwelling presence—explicitly linked to Jesus’s glorification—would occur prematurely
A final defense might be that the God could work in unique ways outside of the ordinary biblical framework due to special circumstances. This claim is problematic in two respects. First of all, nothing in the Book of Mormon suggests that the reception of the Holy Ghost by the Lamanites was unique and unprecedented in history of the Nephites and Lamanites. For instance, Nephi wrote at around 550 BC about the receiption of “the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost” (2 Nephi 31:13), and Alma at around 150 BC prays for his people at the Waters of Mormon that after baptism “the Spirit of the Lord be poured out upon you” (Mosiah 18:13). So the Book of Mormon teaches of a continual and unbiblical pattern of the gift of the Holy Ghost being given even hundreds of years before Pentecost. Second, this ignores how the Bible consistently ties the indwelling of the Spirit to Christ’s new covenant and to the miraculous day of Pentecost.
Each of these defenses undermine the uniqueness of Pentecost, robbing it of its status as a pivotal moment in redemptive history. They also diminish the legitimacy and authority of the Old Testament prophets who foresaw the day of Pentecost.
Conclusion:
The Bible presents Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification as the central turning point in human history. Pentecost marked the inauguration of the New Covenant and the universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Mormon, however, portrays a narrative where the Gospel is proclaimed in fullness long before Christ and where the Holy Spirit is bestowed out of time. This contradiction reflects a broader theological disconnect between the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
This contradiction not only challenges the Book of Mormon’s consistency with the Bible but also raises significant theological questions about its credibility as Scripture. For Christians, the Day of Pentecost is a pivotal moment in salvation history, one that cannot be rewritten without undermining the gospel itself.