Acts 8:37 reads: ‘And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may.
And he replied, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
This dialogue is found in the text tradition of Western text, but many authoritative manuscripts do not include this passage. This later addition from younger manuscripts must be very old, because the important church father of the West Irenaeus Van Lyon (approx. 140 – approx. 202 after Christ) already cites this confession in the second century in his book Adversus Haereses III 12, 8. Specialists in text criticism assume that the addition of these words (from a later baptism liturgy?) is easier to explain than omitting these words in many manuscripts.
If you believe with all your heart, you may.
To believe with your heart and to confess with your mouth is a well-known expression in the confession of newcomers (e.g., Romans 10:9–10). To be allowed, to be permitted (“koleo”) is a word that is also used with the baptism of Cornelius (Acts 10:47): can anyone withhold water?
(compare also Acts 11:17).
Then there is his confession: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
For the first time in the book of Acts we read the name Son of God
(see also Acts 9:20) as confessing reaction to the gospel proclamation of Philip. The suffering Servant of God proves to be the Son of God (compare Luke 1:32, Luke 1:35; Luke 22:70). John wrote his gospel with the goal that it is written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name
(John 20:31).
36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”