THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Does Acts Teach There Is a Second Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

INTRODUCTION. Within the various and worldwide strains of evangelical Protestantism "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" has proven to be a controversial subject. Pentecostals, Charismatics and other holiness advocates believe in a second baptism of the Holy Spirit after salvation, something commonly referred to as a "second work of grace." This work, so it is believed, delivers believers from spiritual inertia and futility and introduces them to the divine power necessary to live a victorious Christian life. We therefore give attention to this issue because if in fact God has designed a second baptism of the Holy Spirit for our empowering, then we ought to get on about the business of seeking it. In addressing the issue of Holy Spirit baptism, we must understand when it came and what it is.

WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT CAME. In addressing the "when" of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, we know it did not occur during the Old Testament era, an understanding to which the Gospels bear witness. Although predicted in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 36:26-27), the baptism of the Holy Spirit is distinctly a New Covenant phenomenon. John the Baptist announced that Jesus would initiate Holy Spirit baptism. He said, "I baptized you with water; but He [i.e., Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Mark 1:8; See Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16; John 1:33.).

Toward the end of His earthly ministry Jesus indicated that the disciples would not be left alone because the Father was going to send the Comforter who though He abided "with" them, would in the future come to be "in" them (John 14:17).

Following this promise and His resurrection, Jesus then instructed the apostles to remain in Jerusalem because within a few days after His ascension they would "be baptized with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5). After all the announcements and growing anticipation of this coming baptism of the Holy Spirit, the time frame within which the disciples would be so baptized had narrowed down to a few days. Subsequent events recorded in Acts help us to pinpoint the precise timing of the initial baptism of the Holy Spirit predicted by the prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus.

When Peter later visited the household of Cornelius, Luke recorded that in accord with Peter's reminiscence, the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles "just as He did upon us at the beginning" (Acts 11:15). To explain the phenomena he witnessed, Peter "remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, 'John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit'" (Acts 11:16). Cornelius' household had experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the same manner as did the disciples at "the beginning." But when was that "beginning"?

The answer must relate back to the events recorded in Acts 2 when, on the day of Pentecost, there came from heaven a sudden "noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. . . . And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance" (Acts 2:1-4).

Of Jesus, John predicted, "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Mark 1:7). To the disciples, Jesus announced, ". . . you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit . . . you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:5, 8). On the day of Pentecost the long-anticipated promise of the Holy Spirit's coming was finally realized, a promise initiated in the Old Testament and then confirmed by both John the Baptist and Jesus. Therefore, it may be deduced that the initial baptizing ministry of the Spirit occurred on Pentecost. That day marked the beginning of the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit.

Though Pentecost did not witness the beginning of the work of the Spirit in the world, that Jewish holy day did mark, in fulfillment of the promises of the prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus, the first and initial baptizing work of the Holy Spirit in the world. It began at Pentecost. There never was a Pentecost before Pentecost, and there never will be a Pentecost after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit's coming to the church on that day was a once-for-all occurrence in the life of the church.

Of the Spirit's future coming, John remarked that "the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39). The Pentecostal coming of the Holy Spirit required that Jesus first be glorified; that is, that after His humiliation He ascend back to His Father in heaven. Of Jesus, Peter also explained, "Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He [i.e., Jesus] has poured forth this which you both see and hear" (Acts 2:33; Compare Ephesians 4:8-13.).

WHAT HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM IS. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is that work of the Spirit that effectively distinguishes Old Testament from New Testament saints; believers before Pentecost having been Old Covenant saints, and believers on and after Pentecost being New Covenant saints. Though regenerate, that is "born again" in the popular parlance of the term (See John 3:1-10), Old Testament saints did not experience the spiritual union or togetherness that the Spirit's baptizing work provides New Covenant believers.

At Jerusalem, Acts 2. On that first Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was initial; that is, the Spirit had never before baptized and placed the aggregate of God's people into interpersonal spiritual union with Christ and each other. The extension of this ministry among the people of God would become "universal." But before it would become universal among the kingdom of believers, the baptism of the Holy Spirit would need to take place. Of this transition, the book of Acts provides the historical narrative of the extension of the Holy Spirit's baptizing ministry from Jerusalem (Acts 2), to Samaria (Acts 8), to Caesarea (Acts 10), and finally, to Ephesus (Acts 19). In each of these four extensions, the coming of the Holy Spirit was initial, not sequential, a first and not a second work of the Spirit in and among Jesus' disciples and other believers.

At Samaria, Acts 8. The apostolic mission to Samaria was undertaken because Jerusalem had heard "that Samaria had received the word of God" (Acts 8:14). Upon arriving in Samaria, Peter and John prayed for the Samaritans "that they might receive the Holy Spirit . . . For He had not yet fallen upon any of them" (Acts 8:14-16). Thus in Samaria as at Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit was an initial and first reception.

At Caesarea, Acts 10. While Peter preached at Cornelius' house in Caesarea, "the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message" (Acts 10:44). Those believers who witnessed this initial coming of the Spirit stood amazed "because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also" (Acts 10:45). Again the experience was a first for Cornelius and his household.

At Ephesus, Acts 19. To disciples he encountered at Ephesus, the apostle Paul inquired, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" to which they answered, "No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit" (Acts 19: 2). Then after Paul baptized them and laid hands upon them, "the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying" (Acts 19:6). Notable in this instance is that to the twelve Ephesian disciples, this encounter with the Holy Spirit was also a first.

In every instance in the Acts record (Acts 2, 8, 10 and 19), at Pentecost in Jerusalem, at Samaria, at Caesarea and at Ephesus, we noted that the baptism or filling of the Spirit was not a second work of grace for those believers. Rather it was a first or initial ministry by which the Holy Spirit incorporated those various believers into the one body of Christ. The sovereign Spirit came upon believers from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds for the purpose of uniting them into the one body of Christ, His church. The question as to when the Holy Spirit baptizes believers will therefore have to be determined in a way other than by assuming that Acts 2, 8, 10 and 19 present a pattern for the normal Christian life.

When Paul arrived at Ephesus and met the Ephesian disciples of John the Baptist, he asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" (Emphasis mine, Acts 19:2, NASB. See NIV, NKJV, NLT, NRSV, ASV and NAB.). Against the majority of newer translations, the King James Version reads, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" (Emphasis mine). Mistakenly, this version gives the impression that the Holy Spirit was to be received subsequent to, and not at the same time as, believing upon Jesus Christ. On this point, the King James Version is misleading.

As the majority of the newer versions read, the Apostle Paul's question infers that believers in Jesus Christ would normally receive the Spirit "when," and not "after," they first believed in Jesus Christ.[1] Paul's question assumes that believers will be initiated through Spirit baptism into the body of Christ at the same time they believe, not subsequent to placing their faith in Jesus Christ. This interpretation agrees with Jesus who said, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:39). To Jesus' statement, John added this clarification: "But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive . . ." (John 7:40). The Gospel of John marks the bestowal of the Spirit to be simultaneous with the point in time when, through faith in Jesus Christ, a believer is regenerated.

HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM, SO WHAT? In His high priestly prayer Jesus prayed for His future disciples, "that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me" (John 17:21). Jesus again prayed to the Father for those same disciples as follows: "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me" (John 17:22-23).

Faith in Jesus is the only requirement for His sovereign bestowal of the Spirit upon the believer. At the moment people exercise saving faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit bears testimony to them by entering into their hearts thereby placing them into spiritual union with Christ and all other true believers who comprise the church, the one body of Christ. Thus, in the first Corinthian letter Paul wrote, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13).

Though power issues forth from the spiritual regeneration that Holy Spirit baptism accompanies, as can be seen from both Jesus' prayer and Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians, Holy Spirit baptism is not for the express purpose of power, but rather for placement of believers into spiritual union wth Jesus Christ, and positioning them together, no matter what might be their ethnic or cultural backgrounds, in the church universal, the Body of Christ.

CONCLUSION. Paul wrote that, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" (Emphasis mine, 1 Corinthians 12:13). By insisting that believers seek a Holy Spirit baptism after salvation, Pentecostalism turns the purpose of Holy Spirit baptism on its head. A doctrine that in Scripture is understood to unite believers is turned into a doctrine that divides believers. By emphasizing a subsequent baptism of the Holy Spirit, sometimes accompanied by speaking in tongues, Pentecostalism infers that there are two classes of Christians: those who have experienced the baptism of the Spirit and those who have not.

Ironically, while the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism divides Christians into two classes, those who have the second baptism and those who do not, the actual biblical doctrine pictures the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the sovereign work of the Spirit of God whereby He unites every individual believer into the one body of Christ. The Pentecostal teaching of a second baptism of the Spirit must be rejected for reason that first, it is unscriptural for reason of its insistence upon a spiritual baptism subsequent to salvation, and second, for reason that it violates the intention of the Spirit to unify all believers by baptizing them into "one body" through "one baptism" (Ephesians 4:4-6).

By Pastor Larry DeBruyn

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[1] The verb is an active, aorist participle. The aorist tense can reflect either antecedent time (i.e., "since" you believed, KJV), or contemporaneous time (i.e., "when" you believed, NASB, NIV, et. al). See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1996) 497-498. Obviously, viewing the participle's time as antecedent and past refects a doctrine of subsequence, that believers received the Holy Spirit "after" they believed, while viewing the participle as present and contemporaneous time views the time at which the Holy Spirit was normally received to be "when" believers come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. When coupled with faith, John 7:38-39 (See text reproduction above.) supports the contemporary presence of the Holy Spirit in believers when they believe.