Chapter XX. The Baptism With the Holy Spirit.
One of the most deeply significant phrases used in connection with the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures is “baptized with the Holy Ghost.” John the Baptist was the first to use this phrase. In speaking of himself and the coming One he said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire” (Matt. iii. 11). The second “with” in this passage is in italics. It is not found in the Greek. There are not two different baptisms spoken of, the one with the Holy Ghost and one with fire, but one baptism with the Holy Wind and Fire. Jesus afterwards used the same expression. In Acts i. 5, He says, “For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” When this promise of John the Baptist and of our Lord was fulfilled in Acts ii. 3, 4, R. V., we read, “And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Here we have another expression “filled with the Holy Spirit” used synonymously with “baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
We read again in Acts x. 44-46, “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. 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. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.” Peter himself afterwards describing this experience in Jerusalem tells the story in this way, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?” (Acts xi. 15-17). Here Peter distinctly calls the experience which came to Cornelius and his household, being baptized with the Holy Ghost, so we see that the expression “the Holy Ghost fell” and “the gift of the Holy Ghost” are practically synonymous expressions with “baptized with the Holy Ghost.” Still other expressions are used to describe this blessing, such as “receive the Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 38; xix. 2-6); “the Holy Ghost came on them” (Acts xix. 2-6); “gift of the Holy Ghost” (Heb. ii. 4; 1 Cor. xii. 4, 11, 13); “I send the promise of My Father upon you;” and “endued with power from on high” (Luke xxiv. 49).
What is the baptism with the Holy Spirit?
In the first place the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of which one may and ought to know [pg 173] whether he has received it or not. This is evident from our Lord's command to His disciples in Luke xxiv. 49 and in Acts i. 4, that they should not depart from Jerusalem to undertake the work which He had commissioned them to do until they had received this promise of the Father. It is also evident from the eighth chapter of Acts, fifteenth and sixteenth verses, where we are distinctly told, “the Holy Spirit had not as yet fallen upon any of them.” It is evident also from the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the second verse, R. V., where Paul put to the little group of disciples at Ephesus the definite question, “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?” It is evident that the receiving of the Holy Ghost was an experience so definite that one could answer yes or no to the question whether they had received the Holy Spirit. In this case the disciples definitely answered, “No,” that they did not so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given. They did not say what our Authorized Version makes them say, that they did not so much as hear whether there was any Holy Ghost. They knew that there was a Holy Ghost; they knew furthermore that there was a definite promise of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, but they had not heard that that promise had been as yet fulfilled. Paul told them that it had and took steps whereby they were definitely baptized with the Holy Spirit before that meeting closed. It is equally evident from Gal. iii. 2 that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of which one may know whether he has received it or not. In this passage Paul says to the believers in [pg 174] Galatia, “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Their receiving the Spirit had been so definite as a matter of personal consciousness, that Paul could appeal to it as a ground for his argument. In our day there is much talk about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and prayer for the baptism with the Spirit that is altogether vague and indefinite. Men arise in meeting and pray that they may be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and if you should go afterwards to the one who offered the prayer and put to him the question, “Did you receive what you asked? Were you baptized with the Holy Spirit?” it is quite likely that he would hesitate and falter and say, “I hope so”; but there is none of this indefiniteness in the Bible. The Bible is clear as day on this, as on every other point. It sets forth an experience so definite and so real, that one may know whether or not he has received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and can answer yes or no to the question, “Have you received the Holy Ghost?”
In the second place it is evident that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is an operation of the Holy Spirit distinct from and additional to His regenerating work. This is evident from Acts i. 5, “For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” It is clear then that the disciples had not as yet been baptized with the Holy Ghost, that they were to be thus baptized not many days hence. But the men to whom Jesus spoke these words were already regenerate men. They had been so pronounced by our Lord Himself. He had said to them in John xv. 3, “Now ye are [pg 175] clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” But what does clean through the word mean? 1 Peter i. 23 answers the question, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” A little earlier on the same night Jesus had said to them in John xiii. 10, R. V., “He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean but not all.” The Lord Jesus had pronounced that apostolic company clean—i. e., regenerate men—with the exception of the one who never was a regenerate man, Judas Iscariot who should betray Him (see verse 11). The remaining eleven Jesus Christ had pronounced regenerate men. Yet He tells these same men in Acts i. 5, that the baptism with the Holy Spirit was an experience that they had not as yet realized, that still lay in the future. So it is evident that it is one thing to be born again by the Holy Spirit through the Word and something distinct from this and additional to it to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The same thing is evident from Acts viii. 12, R. V., compared with the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the same chapter. In the twelfth verse we read that a large company of disciples had believed the preaching of Philip concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and “had been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus” (v. 16, R. V.). Certainly in this company of baptized believers there were at least some regenerate persons. Whatever the true form of water baptism may be, they undoubtedly had been baptized by the true form, for the baptizing had been [pg 176] done by a Spirit-commissioned man, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth verses we read, “When they (that is Peter and John) were come down, they prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: for as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they had been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.” Baptized believers they were; baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus they had been; regenerate men some of them most assuredly were, and yet not one of them as yet had received, or been baptized with, the Holy Ghost. So again, it is evident that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is an operation of the Holy Spirit distinct from and additional to His regenerating work. A man may be regenerated by the Holy Spirit and still not be baptized with the Holy Spirit. In regeneration, there is the impartation of life by the Spirit's power, and the one who receives it is saved: in the baptism with the Holy Spirit, there is the impartation of power, and the one who receives it is fitted for service. The baptism with the Holy Spirit, however, may take place at the moment of regeneration. It did, for example, in the household of Cornelius. We read in Acts x. 43, that while Peter was preaching, he came to the point where he said concerning Jesus, “To Him bear all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins,” and at that point Cornelius and his household believed and we read immediately, “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because [pg 177] that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” The moment they believed the testimony about Jesus, they were baptized with the Holy Ghost, even before they were baptized with water. Regeneration and the baptism with the Holy Spirit took place practically at the same moment, and so they do in many an experience to-day. It would seem as if in a normal condition of the church, this would be the usual experience. But the church is not in a normal condition to-day. A very large part of the church is in the place where the believers in Samaria were before Peter and John came down, and where the disciples in Ephesus were before Paul came and told them of their larger privilege—baptized believers, baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, baptized unto repentance and remission of sins, but not as yet baptized with the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the birthright of every believer. It was purchased for us by the atoning death of Christ, and when He ascended to the right hand of the Father, He received the promise of the Father and shed Him forth upon the church, and if any one to-day has not the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a personal experience, it is because he has not claimed his birthright. Potentially, every member of the body of Christ is baptized with the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 13), “For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” But there are many believers with whom that which is potentially theirs has not become [pg 178] a matter of real, actual, personal experience. All men are potentially justified in the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross, that is justification is provided for them and belongs to them (Rom. v. 18, R. V.), but what potentially belongs to every man, each man must appropriate to himself by faith in Christ; then justification is actually and experimentally his and just so, while the baptism with the Holy Spirit is potentially the possession of every believer, each individual believer must appropriate it for himself before it is experimentally his. We may go still further than this and say that it is only by the baptism with the Holy Spirit that one becomes in the fullest sense a member of the body of Christ, because it is only by the baptism with the Spirit that he receives power to perform those functions for which God has appointed him as a part of the body.
As we have already seen every true believer has the Holy Spirit (Rom. viii. 9), but not every believer has the baptism with the Holy Spirit (though every believer may have as we have just seen). It is one thing to have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, perhaps dwelling within us way back in some hidden sanctuary of our being, back of definite consciousness, and something far different, something vastly more, to have the Holy Spirit taking complete possession of the one whom He inhabits. There are those who press the fact that every believer potentially has the baptism with the Spirit, to such an extent that they clearly teach that every believer has the baptism with the Spirit as an actual experience. But unless the baptism with the Spirit to-day is something radically [pg 179] different from what the baptism with the Spirit was in the early church, indeed unless it is something not at all real, then either a very large proportion of those whom we ordinarily consider believers are not believers, or else one may be a believer and a regenerate man without having been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Certainly, this was the case in the early church. It was the case with the Apostles before Pentecost; it was the case with the church in Ephesus; it was the case with the church in Samaria. And there are thousands to-day who can testify to having received Christ and been born again, and then afterwards, sometimes long afterwards, having been baptized with the Holy Ghost as a definite experience. This is a matter of great practical importance, for there are many who are not enjoying the fullness of privilege that they might enjoy because by pushing individual verses in the Scriptures beyond what they will bear and against the plain teaching of the Scriptures as a whole, they are trying to persuade themselves that they have already been baptized with the Holy Spirit when they have not. And if they would only admit to themselves that they had not, they could then take the steps whereby they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit as a matter of definite, personal experience.
The next thing which is clear from the teaching of Scripture is that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is always connected with, and primarily for the purpose of testimony and service.