Bap­tism with the Holy Spirit

In this art­icle we would like to share with you our belief that God loves each of his chil­dren in the same way and wants to have a full rela­tion­ship with them imme­di­ately when they decide to become His chil­dren. There­fore the Holy Spir­it fills their heart at repent­ance without any time delay. This is the bap­tism with the Holy Spir­it that is God’s imme­di­ate response to their decision. We would like to explain on basis of bib­lic­al pas­sages why we believe so and point out the errors of the Charismatic-Pentecostal teach­ing accord­ing to which repent­ance and Spirit-baptism are usu­ally^[1] two sep­ar­ate events with time delay inbetween.

1 Occur­rence and Mean­ing of the Term in the New Testament

The term “to bap­tize with Holy Spir­it” occurs in all four gos­pels: Mat­thew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33. These words of John the Baptist refer to Jesus: he will be the one who bap­tizes with Holy Spir­it. Jesus is migh­ti­er than John. John called the people to regret and repent of their sins. Jesus is able to give them heav­enly power through the Holy Spir­it to live godly lives fol­low­ing him. The prom­ise made by John was ful­filled at Pente­cost in the year AD 30, just as Jesus had pre­dicted before his ascen­sion (Acts 1:4–8). We can see that the dis­ciples who hid behind locked doors out of fear of the Jews (John 20:19) star­ted to pro­claim the Good News with great cour­age and wis­dom after receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it (Acts 2:14).

2 The Unique Situ­ation of the Dis­ciples: Time Delay Between Repent­ance and Bap­tism in the Holy Spirit

The first dis­ciples decided to fol­low Christ but they had to wait till Pente­cost 30 AD for being bap­tized with the Spir­it. We find the reas­on for this time delay in Jesus’ words:

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. (John 16:7)

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. (John 7:37–39)

As these pas­sages show, the dis­ciples were in a unique situ­ation: although they had made a decision to fol­low Jesus when they first met him, they only received the Holy Spir­it later, after Jesus’ glor­i­fic­a­tion.^[2] They had to wait because the Spir­it had not been giv­en yet (John 7:39). How­ever, since the Spir­it was giv­en (i.e. the third divine per­son was revealed at Pente­cost) there has no longer been any need for those who have decided to fol­low Jesus to wait: they can be filled with the Holy Spir­it without time delay.

3 The Situ­ation of Chris­ti­ans After Pente­cost 30 AD.: Holy Spir­it Bap­tism at Repentance—Fullness Without Time Delay

After Pente­cost repent­ance and bap­tism in the Holy Spir­it are not two sep­ar­ate events any­more. If someone opens his heart and invites God into his life God makes his home in him immediately:

And I will ask the Fath­er, and he will give you anoth­er Help­er, to be with you for ever, even the Spir­it of truth, whom the world can­not receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. …Jesus answered him, “If any­one loves me, he will keep my word, and my Fath­er will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:16–17 & 23)

Jesus first speaks about send­ing the Holy Spir­it that he will be with the believ­ers forever, then about the Fath­er and him­self. This means that by receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it actu­ally the Tri­une God makes his abode with us. As not only a part of the Fath­er and a part of Jesus make abode in us when we repent neither is the Holy Spir­it poured out into the heart of the con­vert par­tially. The only pre­requis­ite is: to love him and the decision to keep his word. In this case God does not delay with his love but he comes imme­di­ately and pours it out into the believ­er­’s heart:

…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spir­it who has been giv­en to us. (Romans 5:5)

It is very far from God’s being that he gives only a reduced quant­ity of his love to the one who yearns for Him. On the oth­er hand the Holy Spir­it is a per­son who can­not be divided in parts or por­tions like a mass of water. His work is often com­pared with that of water that revives, refreshes and quenches one’s thirst but we can nev­er read in such pas­sages that God first gives a little por­tion of water and only later the full quant­ity. When the Old Test­a­ment prom­ises the Holy Spir­it using the pic­ture of water it always speaks in terms of full­ness: Isai­ah 32:14–16; 44:1–5; 43:19–20; 41:17–20; 35:7; 55:1–2; 58:11; Joel 3:18; Ezekiel 47:1–12)

Since the Holy Spir­it is a per­son either he is present in someone’s heart or he is not. If he is present then he is present fully, with his com­plete being and con­sequently he fills a per­son’s heart.

For we ourselves were once fool­ish, dis­obedi­ent, led astray, slaves to vari­ous pas­sions and pleas­ures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by oth­ers and hat­ing one anoth­er. But when the good­ness and lov­ing kind­ness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in right­eous­ness, but accord­ing to his own mercy, by the wash­ing of regen­er­a­tion and renew­al^[3] of the Holy Spir­it, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being jus­ti­fied by his grace we might become heirs accord­ing to the hope of etern­al life. (Tit­us 3:3–7)

In the con­text Paul speaks about repent­ance. Once we were dis­obedi­ent but God saved us by the wash­ing of regen­er­a­tion and renew­al of the Holy Spir­it, whom he poured out upon us RICHLY. This means that repent­ance and receiv­ing the Spir­it richly (i.e. fully, since the rich­ness of God can­not mean that he merely gives the Spir­it par­tially) can­not be regarded as two sep­ar­ate events, which occur with a time-delay in between.

If someone has not received the Spir­it richly, he is not washed, renewed and regen­er­ated. Con­sequently he is not saved, nor jus­ti­fied and is not an heir of etern­al life (v. 7).

In anoth­er pas­sage Paul con­nects receiv­ing the Spir­it fully with being a mem­ber of the church.

For just as the body is one and has many mem­bers, and all the mem­bers of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spir­it we were all bap­tized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spir­it. (1 Cor­inthi­ans 12:12–13)

Every mem­ber of the church was made to drink of one Spir­it. Being made to drink is again a strong expres­sion of full­ness. As we showed above, as the Spir­it is a per­son he can only give him­self com­pletely and not par­tially. If he gives him­self to drink, he does it fully and does NOT first just give us a sip of him­self and later everything. Such a teach­ing fits rather the ori­ent­al concept of an imper­son­al God and a mass of energy but not the per­son­al God who revealed him­self in the Bible.

If there were two steps of receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it (first par­tially and then fully) there should be two groups or two kinds of Chris­ti­ans in the church accord­ing to the quant­ity of the Spir­it they have. But 1 Cor­inthi­ans 12 does not show such a pic­ture of the church. If we look at the wider con­text Paul says that each and every mem­ber of the church is very pre­cious because the same Spir­it lives in him by whom he con­fesses Jesus as his Lord and from whom he has received gifts: 1 Cor­inthi­ans 12:3–11. There are dif­fer­ences in the gifts, in the min­is­tries and in the effects but Paul does not speak at all about dif­fer­ences in the quant­ity of the Spir­it (hav­ing him par­tially of fully) although it would be very appro­pri­ate to men­tion it in verses 4–6 if such a dis­tinc­tion exis­ted. All the gifts men­tioned in verses 8–10 are signs that someone is filled with the Spirit—not only speak­ing in tongues, as the cha­ris­mat­ic teach­ing high­lights it as a clear sign of that someone is bap­tized with the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:1–17 also excludes fleshly Christianity—like the cha­ris­mat­ic teach­ing usu­ally calls people who are “Chris­ti­ans” without bap­tism in the Holy Spir­it fleshly Chris­ti­ans.^[4] Those who live accord­ing to the flesh can­not please God and they will die. Chris­ti­ans are con­trolled by the Spir­it and put to death the deeds of the body. Being con­trolled by the Spir­it is a clear expres­sion of being filled with Him. God wants to share his whole being with his chil­dren from the begin­ning and He wants to sup­port them in their fights. Why would he do it only par­tially just in the begin­ning when a new­born Chris­ti­an usu­ally has quite strong fights? He gives us the full­ness so that we exper­i­ence a deep rela­tion­ship with him out of which we are able to live a vic­tori­ous life in obedience.

Paul’s own example in Dam­as­cus is also a testi­mony for that being filled with the Holy Spir­it can­not be sep­ar­ated from repent­ance: Acts 9:17–18. By the way, there is no report about speak­ing in tongues (as the clas­sic cha­ris­mat­ic the­ory teaches) or any oth­er vis­ible gift of the Spir­it when Anani­as lays his hands on him.

Also in Acts 10:44–48, in the case of Cor­neli­us we can see that the Spir­it was poured out on him and his house­hold at their repent­ance and, what is more, before their bap­tism with water (while accord­ing to the clas­sic cha­ris­mat­ic teach­ing the sequence should be: repent­ance, water bap­tism, Holy Spir­it baptism).

4 Being Filled with the Spir­it: The Rela­tion­ship with the Holy Spir­it Dur­ing Chris­ti­an Life

At repent­ance God starts dwell­ing in us by the Holy Spir­it. This is a rela­tion­ship with him which can be strengthened by our obed­i­ence (good decisions, devo­tion, pray­er) but also weakened by our dis­obedi­ence. Such expres­sions as “be filled with the Spir­it” in Eph­esians 5:18, or “do not grieve the Holy Spir­it of God” in Eph­esians 4:30 show that it strongly depends on us, our obed­i­ence how much the Holy Spir­it can work in us. Paul says some­thing sim­il­ar in Gala­tians 5:25: “If we live by the Spir­it, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

In Acts 4:31 the first Chris­ti­ans were pray­ing fer­vently and exper­i­enced great strength­en­ing in their faith by the Holy Spirit:

…they were all filled with the Holy Spir­it and con­tin­ued to speak the word of God with boldness.

We find the expres­sion “being filled with the Spir­it” also in oth­er situ­ations in Acts when the Holy Spir­it strengthened someone in a dif­fi­cult situ­ation: Acts 4:5–10; Acts 13:9–12. Being filled with the Spir­it in such cases has a dif­fer­ent mean­ing than e.g. in Acts 2:4 or else­where when some­body repen­ted and received the Holy Spir­it (e.g. Acts 9:17). It is not the begin­ning of the rela­tion­ship with the Spir­it but a strength­en­ing of it and exper­i­en­cing His power and help in a spe­cial way.

When we read about a Chris­ti­an being full of the Holy Spir­it it does not mean that he was bap­tized with the Spir­it while oth­ers were not but it means that by his obed­i­ence the work of the Holy Spir­it was very vis­ible in his life, e.g. Acts 6:5: “They chose Steph­en, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spir­it.”. It cer­tainly does not mean that the oth­er six broth­ers were not bap­tized with the Holy Spir­it in con­trast to Stephen.

5 Pas­sages Mis­in­ter­preted in the Cha­ris­mat­ic Teaching

There are some pas­sages in the New Test­a­ment which are explained by most Charismatics/Pentecostals in such a way as if repent­ance and being bap­tized / filled with the Spir­it were sep­ar­ate events.^[5] If we keep the things explained above in front of our eyes it will be no prob­lem to under­stand also these pas­sages in the right way.

5.1 Nicodemus: Being Born by Water and Spirit

…unless one is born of water and the Spir­it, he can­not enter the king­dom of God. (John 3:5)

The cha­ris­mat­ic mis­in­ter­pret­a­tion of verse 5 is that bap­tism with water and with the Spir­it are two sep­ar­ate events because of the con­junc­tion and. As we already explained con­cern­ing Tit­us 3 (and in foot­note No. 2) two expres­sions con­nec­ted by and are in the lan­guage of the Bible very often a par­al­lel­ism, which means that both expres­sions refer to the same con­tent emphas­iz­ing dif­fer­ent aspects. We also showed above that water is used in the Old Test­a­ment as a meta­phor of the Spir­it e.g.:

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spir­it upon your off­spring, and my bless­ing on your des­cend­ants. They shall spring up among the grass like wil­lows by flow­ing streams. (Isai­ah 44:3–4)

Pour­ing water on the thirsty land and pour­ing the Spir­it on Israel’s off­spring are not two sep­ar­ate events but actu­ally, they mean the same. Israel is com­pared with a dry land and then with wil­lows by flow­ing streams after receiv­ing the bless­ing, i.e. the Spir­it (Spir­it and bless­ing are again a par­al­lel­ism). There­fore being born by water and Spir­it in John 3 means simply being renewed by the Holy Spir­it like the water renews the one who is washed by it.

In Ezekiel 36:22–38 we find sim­il­ar expres­sions which, how­ever, describe even more clearly the new birth or birth from above^[6], which is an action car­ried out by God and thus fits very well as a par­al­lel to what Jesus wanted to say in John 3 (and expec­ted Nicodemus to under­stand as the teach­er of Israel).

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your unclean­nesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spir­it I will put with­in you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spir­it with­in you, and cause you to walk in my stat­utes and be care­ful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:25–27)

The whole con­text speaks about an action (i.e. the birth from above which presupposes—of course—that a per­son repents) that is car­ried out by God and not by man like in the case of water bap­tism. On the oth­er hand, if in John 3:5 Jesus also meant the bap­tism by water, why does he speak from verse 6 only about the Spir­it and does not say a word about bap­tism by water? Sep­ar­at­ing water and Spir­it leads to a sim­il­ar prob­lem as what we poin­ted out con­cern­ing Tit­us 3: those who only received bap­tism with water can­not enter into the king­dom of God, con­sequently they do not have cit­izen­ship in heav­en when they repent and are bap­tized with water until they do not get the bap­tism with the Spirit.

How­ever, accord­ing to Phil­ip­pi­ans 3:20 “our cit­izen­ship is in heaven…”—which is val­id for every­one who con­ver­ted to Jesus.

5.2 John 20:19–23: Receive the Holy Spirit—How Come Before Pentecost?

…he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spir­it.” (John 20:22)

As we poin­ted out above the pre­requis­ite of send­ing the Holy Spir­it was Jesus’ going away and glor­i­fic­a­tion (John 7:39 and John 16:7). These pre­requis­ites, how­ever, had not been ful­filled yet in John 20 since Jesus had not ascen­ded yet to the Fath­er to his glory. That is why we have to exclude that the dis­ciples received the Holy Spir­it in this situ­ation. Verse 22 is the con­firm­a­tion of Jesus’ prom­ise giv­en in the farewell dis­courses about send­ing the Coun­sel­lor. He wanted to remind his dis­ciples who were rejoicing at his appear­ance that he had to leave the Earth: he would not leave them as orphans but would send them the Holy Spir­it. The sym­bol­ic act of breath­ing could help them under­stand the con­nec­tion between Jesus and the Holy Spir­it whom they were to receive some days later (Acts 1:5).

5.3 Acts 2:37–39: Repent and Be Bap­tized and You Will Receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit—The First Two Sep­ar­ated from the Last?

…Repent and be bap­tized every one of you…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spir­it. (Acts 2:38)

There is no reas­on to con­clude from this pas­sage that repent­ance with bap­tism and receiv­ing the gift of the Holy Spir­it are two sep­ar­ate events with pos­sible time delay in-between. Which oth­er pos­sib­il­ity (lan­guage tools) would Peter have had to express that repent­ance is answered by God with giv­ing the Spir­it imme­di­ately and by the Apos­tels with water bap­tism? We can see in verses 42–47 that the Holy Spir­it imme­di­ately star­ted work­ing in their life greatly. He filled their heart and per­formed great mir­acles in and among them: deep broth­erly love and unity.

5.4 Acts 8:5–24: Samar­it­ans’ Repent­ance and Receiv­ing the Spir­it with Time Delay

…Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spir­it, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been bap­tized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 8:14–16)

The evan­gel­ism of the Samar­it­ans was a his­tor­ic event which proved that not only the Jews are invited into and wel­comed in God’s king­dom. Because of the enmity for sev­er­al cen­tur­ies between the Samar­it­ans and the Jews it was import­ant that Peter and John as apostles and pil­lars of the church went there to greet the new Samar­it­an con­verts and to express to them that they were accep­ted in the Church as new broth­ers in Christ. But how shall we under­stand that: “the Spir­it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been bap­tized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Basing on the first part of this treat­ise we surely can­not under­stand it so that they were not filled with the Holy Spir­it when they con­ver­ted. The Spir­it’s fall­ing upon them must have there­fore a dif­fer­ent mean­ing here. It must refer to a power­ful and mira­cu­lous act­ing of the Spir­it:^[7] a clear sign of the Spir­it’s pres­ence in their lives that they had not yet exper­i­enced before Peter’s and John’s com­ing. It must have been some­thing vis­ible as verse 18 says: “Simon saw that the Spir­it was bestowed through the lay­ing on of the apostles’ hands.” So we have to under­stand verse 17: “They were receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it” so that they received the gift of the Holy Spir­it, most prob­ably speak­ing in tongues. This was a con­firm­a­tion of that the Spir­it works in their life but not the moment when the Spir­it was poured out into their heart. The fact that it happened through Peter and John and not through Phil­ipp when they repen­ted could be explained by the above men­tioned unique situ­ation of the Samar­it­ans. It was import­ant that their accept­ance in the Church is approved by the apostles.^[8]

5.5 Acts 19:1–7: The Twelve Dis­ciples of John the Baptist

“Did you receive the Holy Spir­it when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spir­it.” (Acts 19:2)

These dis­ciples were bap­tized into John’s bap­tism that means they were John’s dis­ciples, the fol­low­ers of his teach­ing but did not know the teach­ing of Jesus neither about the Holy Spir­it. Con­sequently we can­not regard them as Chris­ti­ans. We can sup­pose that they were men in Asia Minor who had heard about John the Baptist and had repen­ted from their sins and had been try­ing to live right­eously accord­ing to their recog­ni­tions. That’s why they are called dis­ciples in v.1 and Paul regards them as believ­ers in v. 2. It seems they had also fel­low­ship with each oth­er. They got to know Chris­tian­ity through Paul and accep­ted it imme­di­ately. They decided to fol­low Christ and so Paul bap­tized them and they received the Holy Spir­it imme­di­ately. When Paul laid his hands on them they also received gifts from the Spir­it: speak­ing in tongues and prophesying.

5.6 Acts 18:23–28: Apollos

He had been instruc­ted in the way of the Lord. And being fer­vent in spir­it, he spoke and taught accur­ately the things con­cern­ing Jesus, though he knew only the bap­tism of John. (Acts 18:25)

Although also about Apol­los we read that he knew only the bap­tism of John he dif­fers in sev­er­al aspects from the twelve dis­ciples of John in Acts 19:

• he had been instruc­ted in the way of the Lord
• he was fer­vent in spir­it (cf. Romans 12:11—as the only par­al­lel in the New Test­a­ment with the same expres­sion: it is clearly about Christians)
• he spoke and taught accur­ately the things con­cern­ing Jesus
• He began to speak boldly in the synagogue
• but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
• he was not bap­tized by Aquila and Priscilla

All these dif­fer­ences show that Apol­los was on a com­pletely dif­fer­ent level than those twelve in Eph­esus so that although there were things he did not know about Jesus and the Chris­ti­an teach­ing Aquila and Priscilla regarded him as a broth­er in Christ and con­sequently they did not bap­tize him but just explained to him the things he lacked.

5.7 Hebrews 6:1–2: Wash­ings As One of the Ele­ment­ary Teach­ings About Christ

…instruc­tion about wash­ings… (Hebrews 6:2a)

Wash­ings (in Greek: βαπτισμα) [bap­tisma, Plur­al of bap­tis­mos] are men­tioned in the same let­ter also in 9:10: “vari­ous wash­ings”. Wash­ings refer here (9:10) to the ritu­al wash­ings accord­ing to the Mosa­ic law. The aim of Hebrews is to encour­age Jew­ish Chris­ti­ans not to fall back to Juda­ism and to point out the dif­fer­ences between faith in the Old Test­a­ment and New Test­a­ment. There­fore the most prob­able under­stand­ing of the instruc­tion about wash­ings is to dis­tin­guish clearly the bap­tism of Jesus from the ritu­al wash­ings accord­ing to the law and oth­er wash­ings of the Old Test­a­ment time like the pros­elyte bap­tism or the bap­tism of John. This is indeed a fun­da­ment­al teach­ing, which the address­ees under­stood when they became Chris­ti­ans and the author wants to remind them of it. This under­stand­ing does not sup­port the Cha­ris­mat­ic the­ory (wash­ings = water bap­tism and Spir­it bap­tism) but fits well the top­ic and the teach­ing of the Let­ter to the Hebrews.

5.8 Luke 11:5–13

…how much more will the heav­enly Fath­er give the Holy Spir­it to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13b)

Basing on this pas­sage Cha­ris­mat­ics and Pente­cost­als organ­ise spe­cial meet­ings where they “ask God” for the Holy Spir­it. How­ever, the con­text and the ori­gin­al Greek text do not sup­port this under­stand­ing. The Greek text says only (as NASB quoted above): “those who ask him” and does not say “those who ask him for the Spir­it”. In the con­text Jesus teaches his dis­ciples to pray and as an encour­age­ment he speaks about how God relates to our pray­ers. In the par­al­lel pas­sage in Mat­thew 7:11 instead of Holy Spir­it “good things” is writ­ten. So Jesus wants to say that we can turn to God as to a lov­ing fath­er when we need help and what we ask him for is in har­mony with his will (1 John 5:14). Accord­ing to Luke’s Gos­pel, Jesus wants to emphas­ize that the Holy Spir­it is the best thing that God gives to those who ask him. Every oth­er good thing he gives us, he gives through the fel­low­ship, lead­ing and strength­en­ing of the Spir­it. The first time this prom­ise was ful­filled was at Pente­cost, when Jesus’ dis­ciples received the Holy Spirit.

6 Sum­mary & Conclusion

Chris­ti­an life starts with a decision to turn away from sin and fol­low Christ. God’s response to this decision is that he imme­di­ately pours out his Spir­it abund­antly into the heart of the new con­vert so that he can exper­i­ence that God has accep­ted him as his child. By the Spir­it he can exper­i­ence God’s love, peace and power in fight­ing against sin. The Spir­it fills his heart so that he can love his broth­ers and oth­er people who do not know God yet. He helps him under­stand the sound teach­ing about Christ and come to unity with oth­er Chris­ti­ans. No Chris­ti­an has to wait for being bap­tized with the Holy Spir­it after he repen­ted because he is God’s beloved child whom God wants to give his fullness:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become chil­dren of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Fath­er, full of grace and truth. (John bore wit­ness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his full­ness we have all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:12–16)