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Transcript 314B — What Does it Mean to be Baptised in the Holy Spirit?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I'd like to talk about the baptism in the Holy Ghost. There's something special that comes after the initial conversion I believe, and I know that we receive the fullness of the Holy Ghost right at conversion, but I hear on TV, on Christian television and from some people at school, about certain people not being baptized in the Holy Ghost yet. And yet they're Christians. And they turn to Luke 4:1, where it says, "And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and went into the wilderness." One person I talked to said that he always had the Spirit but that at this one time he was filled with that Spirit, for the work that he had to do. Now I just would like to know if you can make this clearer for me.
HC: The question that is raised is concerning the nature of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, or becoming filled with the Holy Spirit. Are we saved, and then later on baptized in the Holy Spirit? Are we saved, and later on filled with the Holy Spirit?
Actually, the Bible teaches, in Ephesians 4, I believe that there is one baptism. There are not two or three baptisms. There's only one baptism. And God speaks of this baptism (Ephesians 4:5 is the verse I'm thinking of). Actually, this baptism is the baptism we receive in the Spirit at the time that we are saved, at the time we become born again. That's the only baptism the Bible knows about.
Now it's true the Bible speaks of water baptism. But water baptism is merely a shadow or a reflection of the Spirit baptism, of the washing of our sins. Baptism means to be washed or to be cleansed, or to be purified.
Now the phrase, "baptism in the Holy Spirit," really finds Biblical emphasis beginning with Pentecost. The reason for this is that back in the Old Testament God used other signs and figures than this in emphasizing who were really saved. He did use baptism, but He also spoke of circumcision, He spoke of burnt offerings and of blood sacrifices, that were pointing to the coming Messiah. But circumcision was really the sign that someone received to indicate that they had become identified with the body of Christ.
But when the Old Testament believer was saved, he was saved exactly as we are saved. The Holy Spirit came into his life. The Bible says in Romans 8:9 that unless we have the Holy Spirit we are none of His. When they were saved, they received the Holy Spirit just as we do. But they were not mandated, nor were they qualified, to be a witness. Only occasionally in the Old Testament do we read of someone who was filled with the Holy Spirit. That is, this is language to indicate that they had been qualified to be a witness.
Now John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. His mother Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit as she exclaimed concerning the Messiah. And Its father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit. All of this happened before Pentecost.
But that was the unusual kind of thing. Ordinarily a person was not filled with the Holy Spirit. That is, God did not use this language when He spoke about the ordinary believer. But when we come to Pentecost, two things have happened. First of all, all the Old Testament signs have been completed in Christ. Never again is there to be circumcision, never again is there to be a blood sacrifice, is there to be a burnt offering.
But God did pick out of the Old Testament signs the idea of baptism, and highlighted that as the sign to be employed that showed that we had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. But the bigger piece of information was that beginning with Pentecost, every born again believer was qualified to be a witness, because you see, at Pentecost God began His program to evangelize the world. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit, which we read about in Joel's prophecy and in Isaiah, and other passages in the Old Testament, and which was fulfilled at Pentecost, was speaking of the time when God would begin to evangelize the world.
Now in evangelizing the world two things would happen. Number one, God would begin to draw believers out of every nation. Satan had been conquered at the cross, and it was God's program to begin to draw believers out of every nation. That's the first big thing that happened. And we see this dramatically of course on Pentecost afternoon, as three thousand are saved from eighteen different nations.
Secondly, every believer from now on is qualified to be a witness, so that the work of bringing in the saved from all of the different nations would be accomplished through the testimony, through the witnessing of believers as they're found throughout the world. And God referred to this qualification as being filled with the Spirit.
So you see, our salvation is the same as in the Old Testament, but now we're all like Old Testament prophets. We are filled with the Spirit from the moment we're saved. That is, this is speaking of the fact that we have become qualified to be a witness.
There is no such thing as a second baptism. There are blessings, of course, that keep coming if we're saved. You can speak about a second or third or fourth or a ninth or a twelfth or a nineteenth blessing. Every day God's blessings are renewed. But insofar as baptism is concerned, that occurred at the time we were saved, and only then.
There are a lot of gospels around today. The Bible tells us that there would be a lot of other gospels. But there can only be one true Gospel. And the true Gospel is circumscribed by the Bible. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (the revelation of this Gospel) is given to us in the Word of God, the Bible. The Bible alone and in its entirety is the divine Word.
Now today there are lots of gospels that talk about the Lord Jesus, that talk about baptism, and talk about the blood of Christ, and all of these things. But any gospel that looks to some other source for divine truth than the Bible by definition must be another gospel, because the moment you say the Bible is the Word of God, and then you say, but there's also the Word of God here or there, in a vision or a voice or a tongue, or an angel confrontation, or whatever you think it is, the moment you say that that, too, is the divine Word, then obviously you've got a different sourcebook. You've got the Bible plus this other information. And therefore, by definition it's another gospel.
And of course, if you have another gospel, then you're going to come to a lot different conclusions about what the Bible teaches, because you'll evaluate, you'll interpret the Bible not only by the Bible itself but also by the information you received from these other sources.
CALLER: There's one TV show on . . .
HC: Yes, but I don't like to talk about any names or movements or churches, or anything like that. If you just want to mention the TV show and not mention any names . . .
CALLER: No, I wasn't going to mention the name. They just really push the baptism of the Spirit. The people that they have on they let on are all Christians, but they prefer that they have this emotional thing which they refer to as the baptism in the Holy Spirit, where they've all spoken in tongues, and that is the evidence of their being filled with the Holy Spirit. They had been saved a long time before that, probably.
HC: Now, you see, the definition of the true Gospel has to do with what the Bible is. Now if you hold that divine truth comes from another source...in an unknown language like a tongue, or from a vision, or whatever... then you have a gospel, that's true. And you can believe you're saved, and you can call yourself a Christian, and you can talk about the blood of Christ. But you're saved on a different basis than the bible. You've got a different kind of a gospel than the Gospel of the Bible.
We cannot decide what the Gospel is by the lives of people. We can decide what the Gospel is by the Bible. And so the thing you have to listen to is the Word of God, the Bible. That is the only authoritative source of truth.
CALLER: Okay. I believe that. I know that's true. At times I had been wondering if there was something from God that I hadn't received. And at the same time I knew that that wasn't true. I knew that I had the Holy Spirit right in the beginning. But still, you know, hearing some of my friends say this and that, and telling about their church, where some of these things happen, some of these movings of the Spirit, I was getting kind of shaky about it, wondering why it hadn't happened to me.
HC: Yes. The Bible indicates that the just shall live by faith. The Bible indicates that we don't walk by sight. The Bible indicates that signs and wonders were done when Jesus was on earth, before the Holy Spirit was poured out. Signs and wonders continued for a little while after the Holy Spirit was poured out. But whenever the Bible talks about signs and wonders near the end of time, it always speaks of it as events that do not come from God.
We're living in a day when we really have to place our trust only in the Bible. We have to be more careful than ever. God warns, in Matthew 24:24, that false prophets and false Christs will arise with signs and wonders, to lead astray if possible even the elect.
CALLER: This one church I went to looked so real. I mean, it was full of people. And a couple of people stood up, and God supposedly spoke through them. It all looked so real. And I still don't know if it was or not . . . or what.
HC: The only source of divine truth is the Bible. And anything else, any gospel at all that looks outside of the Bible for divine truth, by definition it's another gospel. And God warns about this in Revelation 22:18: "If anyone adds to the words of this book, I will add to him the plagues written herein." And so we live in a free land, where we can hold any kind of a gospel that we would like. And that's a wonderful thing, that we live in this kind of a land.
CALLER: But at this church they proclaim the Word of God.
HC: Yes. But you see, if I would have a gospel where part of the divine truth that I regard as my authority is the Bible, then of course I'm going to talk about the Bible, and I'm going to use the language of the Bible. And I may have some correct information, to some degree, from the Bible.
But if I have more than the Bible as my source of divine truth then obviously my authority is wider than the Bible, isn't it? And God warns that we're not to listen to anything outside of the Bible as divine. We're not to add to the words of this book. If I read the Bible and I say, "That's the Word of God," fine. If I have a vision and I say, "That's the Word of God," then I have added to the Bible, haven't I? I've got two sources now. I've got the Bible, and I've got the information that came to me from the vision. And God says if that's the case, then I'm still subject to the plagues that are written in this Bible.
More than that, you'll remember in Matthew 24:24 Jesus said that these false prophets will deceive, if possible, even the elect. Now the elect are the born again believers. They're in the church where the true Gospel ought to be proclaimed, and yet other gospels will look so much like the true Gospel that even the elect would be deceived, if that were possible. And so this indicates how careful we have to be to make sure that the gospel we follow is circumscribed by the Bible.
CALLER: Okay. Now just one more little thing. Do you think I should stay away from this church then?
HC: All I can tell you is that if you want the true Gospel, you should go where the true Gospel is being proclaimed.
CALLER: I do go to a church like that.
HC: All right. Then that's where you ought to go. And the Bible says in Second John 10 that if anyone brings another gospel or another doctrine, you're not to give them any greeting.
CALLER: Okay.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.