The Baptism in the Holy Spirit I
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Christ in us
The
Christian life is supernatural, heavenly and spiritual. Its testimony is a
mystery, “which is Christ in you, the
hope of glory” (Col.1:27). This life can never function with merely human,
natural capabilities. The great need these days are people, who know what it
means to be under the direction and power of the Holy Spirit of God.
The
apostle Paul wrote: “Great indeed, we
confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He was manifested in the flesh…” (1 T.3:16). This speaks of the great
mystery of how it came to be that the eternal, glorious God, the Son, could
appear in a human body. Of course, His body had been prepared and conceived by
God, and was not corrupted by a fallen nature; it was without spot or
contamination, without the possibility of sin.
However,
our bodies have been conceived in a despicable and incalculably fallen state,
and although we have been rescued, pardoned and cleansed, we continue to be
imperfect, committing many errors. Isn’t it then a great mystery that the
triune God can manifest Himself through us to a surprised world, which can see
men and women living a supernatural life? Even though it is a mystery, which I
cannot understand or explain, it is biblically true.
John
17 concerns Jesus’ prayer to the Father, in which He reveals that, which He
most wants to see in His disciples. In verse 21, He pleads: “Just as you, Father, are in me, and I in
you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have
sent me,” and in verse 23: “I in
them and you in me… so that the world may know that you sent me”. The world’s
people are observing a great phenomenon. Men and women with the same flesh and
blood that they have, manifest an inner power that they have never seen before.
It calls their attention, signifying, for some, a motive which causes them to
believe the gospel.
A
little earlier also, in chapter 14, verse 23, we see what Jesus taught the
person, who loves and obeys Him: “My
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” He
had already said, in verse 17, that “the
Spirit of truth… dwells with you and will be in you”. Therefore, I wrote
above that the triune God is totally involved in the life of the believer.
In
his first epistle, John said: “God gave
us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 Jn.5:11-12). We
have no eternal life apart from the Son, who lives in us. Eternal life is not something; it is a Person. All depends
on Him. Returning to His prayer, Jesus ended by saying: “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known,
that the love with which you have loved
me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn.17:26). The person of Christ
comes to the disciple and lives in him; within Him is the love that exists
between the Father and the Son… the love of God!
Therefore,
the individual characteristics of the indwelling Christ begin to manifest
themselves in the believer. Jesus did not come to refine our natural
capabilities, or to repair that which is corrupted in us. He came to bring
death to old Adam (our sinful nature), and to give us a nature, which is
compatible with God’s nature. His presence is manifested through us. The New
Testament has much to teach us about the difference between human love and God’s
love. They are very different; the world neither knows, nor appreciates, the
love of God.
In
order to be saved, we must receive faith from God, because our faith does not
save. James writes that even demons have faith: “Even the demons believe – and shudder!” On the other hand, James also
showed that there is a faith that works divine works. The disciples thought
that they lacked a certain quantity of faith. “Increase our faith!” – they said, but Jesus corrected them: “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Lk.17:5-6).
Saving faith results from “hearing, and
hearing through the word of Christ” (Ro.10:17).
We
can clearly see that Jesus taught us in John 14-16 that we must receive and
manifest His life in us. “Peace I leave
with you; my peace I give to you. Not
as the world gives” (14:27). In chapter 15, He speaks of the same love, of
which He asked the Father in chapter 17: “As
the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (15:9). To have the love of God, they depended on
Christ. Two verses later, He says: “These
things I have spoken to you, that my joy
may be in you…” (15:11).
Where
is the manifestation of the characteristics and the power of God? Where is the
unction upon those, who preach the word? Those are my questions. I think that
we are not fulfilling the work that God gave us to do, no matter how much
outward and numerical success there may be. We need to recognize that we are
bankrupt and return to giving the prayer meeting the priority that it deserves
over all Christian activity.
We
have to pray until the church vibrates once again with heavenly power. We have
to see ungodly people in fear under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We have
to see violent conversions. We have to see meetings adorned with the atmosphere
of heaven. Can it happen again? It has to happen, before all is lost in the
labyrinth of merely human effort! Today there is way too much confidence in the
decisions and determination of men, and little evidence of a genuine and
lasting work of God.
The new creation
“Thus it is written ‘The first man Adam became a living being’,
the last Adam became a life-giving
spirit” (1
Co.15:45). There are two progenitors of the human race, Adam and Christ. God,
knowing all things from the beginning, had His mind of Christ from the
foundation of the world. He knew about Adam and his failure; He knew of Jesus
and His sacrifice, which would annul the fall of the first Adam and give new
life to those, who believe on Him, those who trust Him, those who cast
themselves into His hands.
The
greatest difference that exists among the human race, is not that of gender,
that is, the difference between men and women. Neither is it a racial
difference between black, white, Asians or indigenous tribes. The greatest
difference that exists is between those that have been born only once and
those, who have been born twice.
Paul
proclaims that Christ is the last Adam, who came to establish a new creation,
over the which, He is the protagonist. God became man and was born as a baby.
His life and his ministry were incomparable on this earth. For example: “No one ever spoke like this man!” (Jn.7:46).
“Never since the world began has it been Heard that anyone
opened the eyes of a man born blind” (Jn. 9:30). “If I
had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be
guilty of sin…” (Jn.15:24).
Adam
was created in the likeness and image of God, but he fell under temptation and
by that act, he condemned all of his descendants. Jesus is the only Human
Being, of which of Father said: “This is
my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt.3:17; 17:5). His purpose
is to have a new race of people in the likeness and image of the God/Man. “He also predestined to be conformed to the
image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Ro.8:29).
He
did a work on the cross that neither Adam nor any of his sons could have done,
and He declared it to be finished! He continued, being the first fruits of the
dead, rising from the dead and making it possible that new life could be
obtained by those who were under condemnation; fallen beings from the first
creation. Having done it, before he left them to return to His Father, He
brought them together and introduced them into the new creation under the New
Testament. He said to them: “As the
Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive
the Holy Spirit’” (Jn.20:21-22).
God
breathed on man after having made him in the first creation: “The Lord God formed the man of dust from
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became
a living creature” (Ge.2:7). However, the last Adam is “a life-giving spirit”. He breathes and the believer receives the
Spirit of God. Paul said: “Anyone who
does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Ro.8:9). Every
believer, who is born into the new creation, is born of the Spirit that Christ
has given us.
Let us allow Dr. D. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones to teach us about this matter: “What
is abundantly clear in John 20 is surely that the church was constituted as a
body and as an organism there and then. Our blessed Lord, having finished his
work and having presented himself and his blood in heaven, is now the head of
the church, and he comes here to these chosen disciples and apostles and makes
it clear to them that they are already the body. He breathes this Spirit of
life into the body, in this extraordinary parallel with what happened to man’s
creation in the very beginning.” Afterwards Lloyd-Jones mentions the Great
Commission to the church, which was given to the disciples at this time: “Go into all the world and preach the
gospel.”
He
also mentions the words of the great commentator, Matthew Henry… “‘As the breath of the Almighty gave life to
man and began the old world, so the breath of the mighty Savior gave life to His
ministers and began the new world’. In other words, Matthew Henry sees this
extraordinary parallel in the original creation of man…” In this way,
Lloyd-Jones demonstrates that the church had already been initiated before
Pentecost.
There
are those who say that, as Jesus breathed upon His disciples in John 20:22,
that it was a form of prophecy, demonstrating and preparing them for that,
which would take place in Acts 2. Martyn Lloyd-Jones shows, that the very
grammar indicates that this is no prophecy: “The
word ‘receive’ in verse 22 is the aorist imperative. And the authorities are
unanimous in saying the Greek aorist imperative never has a future meaning. This
is a purely technical point, but a very important one. So many of our friends
who hold to the other teaching that we are criticizing, do so in terms of the
Greek and the original. So let us meet them on their own ground. Here – and again
I defy you to find a single exception – the authorities are all agreed in
saying that the Greek aorist imperative never has a future meaning – and I
would emphasize the word ‘never’. So you see, the very word that is used is a
word that wants us to see that what we are told happened then, did happen
then; that when our Lord said to them ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’ they did
receive the Holy Ghost.”
The baptism of power
Above
all the errors that can be observed in the church in this day (and they are
many and so great, as to bring it near to a total apostasy), what worries me
most, is that of which Paul warned his beloved son in the faith, Timothy. He
said that “in the last days there will
come times of difficulty (the same Greek word for difficulty is translated extremely
fierce, when describing the Gadarene demoniacs), for people will be lovers of self…”, and there follows a list of characteristics
that end with, “having the appearance of
godliness, but denying its power” (2 T.3:1-5. Power is the same Greek word found in Acts 1:8: ‘You shall receive power’).
Allow
me to put before you the text in John 7:38-39: “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.”
Jesus
shouted this on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was the last
feast of the year. The people were accustomed to attend the feast and return to
their homes, living a life of shadows and symbols. They never experienced
reality. Jesus went to the feast at the right time (7:8), led by the Spirit,
according to the timetable given Him by the Father, and He did it secretly
(7:10). In the middle of the feast, He revealed Himself by teaching in the
temple (7:14). However, once this last feast would end, the people would return
to their towns and houses, some from other nations, without experiencing
reality: “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” (7:37).
We
conclude, then, that the believer comes to Him, in whom he has put his trust
and has surrendered his life, so that the Lord Jesus Christ will give him the
Holy Spirit. Under His all-sufficiency, without limit, and under His
generosity, the believer will receive, not
just a river, but rivers of living water. The Lord neither lies nor
exaggerates; the Christian will experience supernatural rivers of living water,
which will flow out from him.
John
the Baptist had the ministry of preparing the hearts of Israel to receive their
Messiah. He also introduced His two principal works, which we can read in John
1:29 and 33: “The next day he saw Jesus
coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ... He on whom you see the Spirit
descend and remain, this is he who
baptizes with the Holy Spirit”. Jesus will immerse us in the Holy
Spirit, in which the presence of the Spirit penetrates and fills the whole
being, until it bursts out in rivers of living water.
In
Luke 24:45, Jesus “opened their minds to
understand the Scriptures”. After all that they had received from Him as
disciples over the three and a half year, in which they walked with him; after
having received such important things during the forty days after His
resurrection; after having breathed on them to receive the Holy Spirit, still
they lacked something else: “Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father
upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Lk.24:49).
However,
on the day that He ascended into heaven, they still had not received: “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now,” He said in Acts 1:5. In verse 8, he adds: “You will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” He was speaking of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit, received for the first time on the Day of
Pentecost.
Now,
I will have to confront an argument that many put before us these days,
something that men, greatly used of God in past generations did not see (in
another installment I will present their testimonies). Many Bible teachers are
teaching that the church was born on the Day of Pentecost, (Something which the
Bible does not tell us anywhere!). This teaching became popular at about the
beginning of the 20th Century. The text, which they misinterpret, is
the following: “For by {means of the
personal agency of} one {Holy} Spirit we were all, whether Jews o Greeks,
slaves or free, baptized {and by baptism united together} into one body, and all made to drink of
one {Holy} Spirit” (1 Co.12:13,
Amplified).
I
am confronting the attempt to equate the baptism in the Holy Spirit, a work of
Jesus mentioned by John the Baptist, which occurred on the Day of Pentecost,
with the baptism mentioned by Paul to the Corinthians. We will carefully note
the difference. John said: “This is he… Jesus Christ… who baptizes with the Holy Spirit”. Paul says: “For
by {means of the personal agency of}
one {Holy} Spirit we were all… baptized”
(Greek word en, used in a causal
sense, as in Mt.26:52, Mt.7:6, Lk.1:51, Ro.5:9. In all my Spanish versions and
in most English versions, including the KJV, the correct Greek word is “by one Spirit”). In the first case, Christ administers the baptism, in the
second the Holy Spirit administers a
baptism.
Now,
notice the element into which the baptism occurs: “He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit” and “we are all baptized
in one body.” These are two baptisms,
not one. The element in the first case is the Holy Spirit, and in the second it is a body… by the context you will see clearly that it is the body of
Jesus Christ, the church (vs.12-27). There is no doubt about the body: “You are the body of Christ and
individually members of it.” To summarize: On believing in Christ, the Holy
Spirit enters into every believer and he is born again. At the same time, the
Holy Spirit baptizes him into the element of the body of Christ, and he becomes
a member of the church.
In
one of the most trustworthy Spanish versions, La Biblia de las Americas, which I use most commonly, in the
Gospels of Luke and Matthew, the term is translated “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit”. The same people,
who try to teach that the baptism into the church is the same as the baptism in
the Spirit, will say that this only occurred only one time at Pentecost and
there are no more baptisms in the Spirit. They say that a believer enters this
baptism automatically, therefore the correct terminology for a post-conversion experience
in the Holy Spirit (in the case of those who believe in a second experience),
should be called a filling. I also believe
it is a filling, but I believe that it is more. We will study Acts 10, which
tells of the gospel being preached by Peter to the Gentiles in Caesarea.
When
reporting his visit to Caesarea to the Christians in Jerusalem, Peter mentions
this, about what took place… “The Holy
Spirit fell on them just as on us at the
beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John
baptized with water, but you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit” (Ac.11:14,15).
Jesus said in Acts 1:8 that the Holy Spirit would “come upon them”, and Luke related that He came like a wind and
filled the house, where they were sitting; they were all filled with the
Spirit. He came upon them, filled the house, and in this way they were immersed
in the Spirit and filled, as well. The Holy Spirit also came upon them in
Caesarea – He “fell on all who heard the
word”, as in Jerusalem He filled the place and they were baptized in His presence;
they were submerged or baptized, and also filled.
Philip,
the evangelist, went down to Samaria, preaching Christ. The people heard, were
filled with joy and were baptized in water. We believe that the Bible teaches
that only born-again believers should be baptized in water. In Jerusalem, the
believers heard what had happened to the Samaritans and Peter and John came.
Why did they come, if the Samaritans already were born again and baptized in
water, members of the body of Christ? The reasonable answer can only be that
they needed to be baptized in the Spirit and in His power. “For he had not yet fallen on
any of them” (Ac.8:16). They had not yet been submerged in the Spirit until
Peter and John arrived.
Saul
of Tarsus was converted on the road to Damascus. Jesus revealed Himself to him,
he received Jesus as his Lord and yielded to His will in that same instance. But
God sent a believer to him in Damascus, Ananias, so that he would be filled
with the Spirit. Afterward, he baptized him in water. The story is repeated throughout
the book of Acts. It does not relate all the events that took place every time;
it does not always say that He fell upon them, or that there was wind or flames
of fire. Nevertheless, the experience, the same that took place on Pentecost,
was repeated.
Only
once, in Acts 10, in one meeting, all received the gospel and at the same time
they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Afterwards, Peter commanded that they
should be baptized in water, although the story does not relate the actual
baptismal service. On all the other occasions in the book of Acts, the new
birth occurred separate from the baptism in the Spirit. Saul was baptized in
water after being baptized in the Spirit; you may remember that he received his
sight along with the Holy Spirit baptism and was able to go out with Ananias
for baptism without being led by the hand.
There
is a tremendous disadvantage, if Christians are not baptized in the Holy
Spirit. David Wilkerson noticed that some people from the gangs in New York,
although they had apparently received the gospel, returned to the world. Others
followed Jesus faithfully. Wilkerson wanted to know if there was a reason or a
secret that would explain the difference between the two categories of
believers, and so he interviewed those that had remained faithful. Time after
time he heard the same answer; they testified that they had received stability
and spiritual strength after having been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
The
Bible tells us that the baptism in the Holy Spirit gives us power to be
witnesses for Christ. R. A. Torrey (later we will know a little more of his
ministry and his relationship with D. L. Moody) wrote in the book that he wrote
over the person and baptism of the Spirit that we would have to give account to
God, because of our ineffectiveness in evangelization and for the lack of
fruit, for not having received the baptism.
Paul
teaches us of two kinds of material, with which true Christian can build, in an
attempt to edify the church in their ministries; on the one hand, there is
gold, silver and precious stones; on the other, wood, hay and stubble. The
great difference between them is the property of whether or not they are
combustible. In that chapter three, he had already accused the Corinthians of
being carnal, children in Christ (v.1), and for walking as (mere) men (v.3). The
final proof would be the trial of fire; if the building material passed that
test and remained, the Christian would receive recompense. If it burned, the
Christian would suffer loss, even though he would be saved. The difference was
the quality of their walk and work… as mere men or as persons dominated and
conducted by the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps
today, because of the lack of correct teaching over the doctrine of the baptism
in the Holy Spirit, we are experiencing this great lack of power in the church;
there is much emphasis in what the Christian is capable of doing. There is talk
of natural faculties, which they received at birth, as gifts. Of course, we need to offer these abilities to the Lord, but
these are not gifts of the Spirit. Oswald Chambers, in his famous devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, defines
natural ‘gifts’ as the accidents of genes! It seems to me that it is assumed
that all Christians have the power of the Holy Spirit, even though they have
never had a second experience.
Worst
of all, the greatest catastrophe is that those, who have been taken in by this
assumption, rob Christ of the glory that belongs to Him through our lives. Not
long ago, I heard a friend preach about John 16:14: He (the Holy Spirit) will
glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” The
glory, of which Christ is worthy, is greatly limited by the lives of believers
that are not baptized and filled with the Spirit. Many ministers have testified
after receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit that the Bible was opened to
them in a greater way and they saw Christ as never before. Seeing in this way,
the Holy Spirit reveals to them the things of Christ and thereby Christ
receives the glory. The baptism in the Spirit is vital!
(a second and third part will follow)
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