“John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” – Jesus (Acts 1:5)
May 19, 2013 on the church calendar is Pentecost, which is the name Greek-speaking Jews gave for the Feast of Weeks or Shavuot in Hebrew. It marks the end of the seven week holiday between Passover and Shavuot, and was the first day on which the faithful could bring the first fruits to the Temple in Jerusalem. Shavuot/Pentecost also commemorates the giving of the Law by God to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Keep in mind that the Old Testament Law was given to provide hints that would point God’s people to Christ. So went we look at the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, we see the first fruits of the kingdom in the form of about three thousand souls being baptized. And as Pentecost commemorated the giving of the Law in the Old Testament, we also see in Acts 2 something much greater was given by God to His people, namely the outpouring, or baptism of the Holy Spirit.
That is what I want us to briefly look at. The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not get much press in traditional Southern Baptist churches today, largely because we don’t understand it, and we are afraid we might go off the “Charismatic” deep end. This is a shame, because in dismissing it we miss out on the incredible power and freedom that the baptism of the Holy Spirit brings.
In fact, if you ask the typical church member what comes to their mind when they hear the word “baptism”, most often it will be act of immersion in water. But water baptism is only a symbol of the reality of spiritual baptism. We tend to overemphasize the rite of water baptism at the expense of true baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Let me try to explain: Both Mark and Luke record that, in preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mk 1:4; Lk 3:3) But John himself said, “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me [Jesus]…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matt 3:11) And just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus instructed His disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they received what the Father promised, “for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 1:5)
Both John and Jesus mark a distinct difference between the two baptisms – John’s was one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and Jesus’ was one of the Holy Spirit. So what does that mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit?
If we look further in the book of Acts, we come across a man named Apollos. According to Luke, he was a Jew who was eloquent and “mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and…was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John… But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” (Acts 18:24-26)
So Apollos’ teachings about Jesus were accurate, but they were incomplete until Priscilla and Aquila explained to him the way of God more accurately. I think this is a good reminder for us that our doctrine about Jesus may be accurate, but it does not necessarily mean that it is complete. So what was it that Apollos’ teaching was missing? The first indication we get was that, although he was teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, he was acquainted only with the baptism of John – one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
It is no coincidence that Luke follows up Apollos’ story immediately with another that deals with John’s baptism. Acts 19 begins, “It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul…came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” [Note that Luke refers to them as “disciples”, and Paul indicates that they were believers, not just God-fearing Jews] And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.”
To be frank, I think that is where at least some, if not many of us are today. We are still in John’s baptism. Sure, we are taught that there is the Holy Spirit who is given to everyone who comes to Christ, but we are caught in the endless cycle where we sin, we repent, we acknowledge God’s forgiveness. We sin again, we repent again, we are forgiven. But just as the writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works…,” (Hebrews 6:1) But that is where many of us are, laying foundation on foundation of repentance from dead works; we remain in John’s baptism.
Clearly, Scripture does not teach, nor is the writer of Hebrews saying that becoming mature means that you will no longer sin or have to repent from dead works. Repentance is a defining mark of every true believer throughout their entire journey with Christ. As long as we are in this physical body we will succumb to sins. The Apostle John makes it abundantly clear: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10)
However, as we are being sanctified, as we are pressing on to maturity in Christ, we begin to grow beyond the seemingly endless spiral where our lives are focused on sin and repentance. We begin to move toward a deeper intimacy with Christ and a powerful outworking of the Spirit through love and good deeds. We move from the “wretched man” in Romans 7 to the freed man in Romans 8 who walks according to the Spirit.
Paul writes in Romans 6, “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death…” That, I believe, correlates to John’s baptism – repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But Paul does not stop there; he says “so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life… For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
I believe the death correlates to John’s baptism, while the newness of life is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The problem is that many of us acknowledge that we have died with Christ, but we have yet to leave the tomb with Him. We have yet to experience the newness of life, the new creation, the truth that “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2:20) Christ in us is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is Christ living in us through the indwelling and power of the Holy Spirit. It is a new life; not an improvement on the old, but an “exchanged life”, as Hudson Taylor put it.
As I was studying, I came across this statement: “The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience to be sought, but a truth to be believed.” That is a tragic statement. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is to experience a new life. When Paul asked the disciples at Ephesus if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed, his assumption was that they would know whether or not they had based on experience. Yet preachers tell us to be careful with experiencing things. We are not Stoics! God has given us emotions, feeling, senses so that we can experience Him. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a truth that must be experienced!
John Piper spoke of the experiential reality of the Spirit, saying, “When you read the New Testament honestly, you can’t help but get the impression of a big difference from a lot of contemporary Christian experience. For them [the believers in the New Testament] the Holy Spirit was a fact of experience. For many Christians today it is a fact of doctrine… In Protestant evangelicalism [the gift of the Holy Spirit] is equated with a subconscious work of God in regeneration which you only know you have because the Bible says you do if you believe. It is easy to imagine a spiritual counselor saying to a new convert today, ‘Don’t expect to notice any difference: just believe you have received the Spirit.’ But that is far from what we see in the New Testament.”[1]
Aspiring pastors, worship leaders, and teachers, as part of your training, one of the best things you can do is to get out of your Southern Baptist (or Presbyterian, or Methodist, or…) context. I’m not saying that you need to renounce being a Southern Baptist or your Southern Baptist heritage. But I do believe it is healthy and good to experience how other godly, gospel-saturated followers of Jesus Christ worship, pray, and pursue fellowship with one another. If you go as a learner and not a critic you will find that it will broaden your view of the Holy Spirit, the church, and worship, and will increase the effectiveness of your ministry.
We too often discredit as “fringe” things we don’t understand or have never personally experienced. We are too busy being “correct.” Meanwhile, people on the “fringe” are doing mighty things for Christ and His kingdom. Scholars may wrangle over differences between terms like “baptized with the Holy Spirit”, “filled with the Holy Spirit”, “second work of grace,” and “receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Regardless, pursue the experiential reality of the Holy Spirit in your life that is firmly based on the truth of the gospel. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, do mighty things for Christ and His kingdom.
So let me ask you the same question Paul asked those disciples, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” Or are you still living in John’s baptism?
[1] By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/how-to-receive-the-gift-of-the-holy-spirit
Three Rivers Church 