Prayer

What is The Baptism Of The Spirit?

What Is The “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”?

As we have already demonstrated, the phrases “baptism in the Spirit,” “filled with the Spirit,” and “full of the Spirit” are not synonyms. Each of these phrases has its own unique meaning and context. If you have not yet read either of those blogs feel free to do so by clicking HERE for “Filled with the Spirit” and HERE for “Full Of The Spirit”. Here in today’s post, we will look at the relevant passages that speak of the “baptism in the Spirit” and ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be ‘baptized in the Spirit’?”

The Relevant Passages:

  • Matthew 3:11 (ESV): “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
  • Mark 1:8 (ESV): “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
  • Luke 3:16 (ESV): John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
  • John 1:33 (ESV): “I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”
  • Acts 1:5 (ESV): “For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
  • Acts 11:16 (ESV): “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’”
  • Acts 2:38 (ESV): And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
  • 1 Corinthians 12:13 (ESV): 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.

Let’s Start with the Gospels

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all mention the “Baptism in the Spirit” that Jesus would perform. All these promises of Jesus’ baptism ministry emerge while the Gospel writers describe John’s baptism ministry. Before we get to Jesus, we should probably talk a little about John’s baptism.

John the Baptist was an Old Testament prophet who lived in the Old Covenant. Jesus says as much in Matthew 11:11, where he calls John the Baptist the greatest prophet of the Old Covenant. In this same passage, Jesus compares John’s life with those in the new covenant (i.e., the kingdom of heaven) and says all those in the new covenant are greater than John the Baptist. This interpretive key is really important! John was enacting what the Jews called a “mikvah” or a “ceremonial washing.” John was not initiating new covenant baptism; he was calling out the religious whose outward hands were clean, but whose hearts were far from God.

So, the baptism we are commanded to initiate with new converts in Matthew 28:19 is not the same as John’s. This makes sense because John could not have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, as John was beheaded before the Spirit was poured out. New covenant baptism requires the new covenant to be initiated before it can be viewed as valid.

All the Gospel writers contrast John’s baptism with Jesus’ baptism. John baptizes with water, but Jesus immerses people into an entirely different medium—the Spirit. John offers a ceremonial washing of those under the Old Covenant, and Jesus offers immersion into the Spirit for the New Covenant.

Why This Timeline Matters

Many in the Pentecostal community want to start the new covenant at the moment of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Others want to start the new covenant at the Last Supper, where Jesus says, “This is the blood of the new covenant.” Still, others look to the obscure passage of John 20:22 when Jesus breathed on his disciples and had them “receive the Holy Spirit.” Each of these accounts attempts to prove an early establishment of the new covenant to see Acts 2 as a subsequent experience after our entry into the new covenant.

I commend my Pentecostal brothers and sisters for their attempts to give the new covenant an early launch date; however, I do not find their arguments compelling. For comparison, we should look to Israel and the initiation into the old covenant. Israel was delivered from Egypt by God’s mighty hand, but they still did not have a covenant. Israel slaughtered the Passover lamb and held an old covenant feast before the old covenant was established. Israel was even washed in the Red Sea, but they still had not yet made a covenant. It was not until the day of Pentecost, the day the law was given, that the old covenant was enacted. Though Israel saw covenant-like things before Pentecost, they had not yet been united to a covenant until that day.

Similarly, my wife and I possessed a marriage certificate before we were married; we both had great love before we were married, and we were even rather romantic from time to time. We started joining accounts and changing names on legal documents, but we were not one flesh until December 23, 2012.

The Promise of the Spirit in the New Covenant

If all that does not convince you, the scriptures themselves describe the new covenant accompanied by the outpouring of the Spirit.

Ezekiel 36:24-28: “For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 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. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

In this passage, Ezekiel clearly links the cleansing, the new heart and spirit, and the indwelling of God’s Spirit with the relationship dynamics of the New Covenant (“you shall be my people, and I will be your God”). We also have promises from Ezekiel 37:14, Joel 2:28-29, and Isaiah 44:3.

Baptism of the Spirit in Acts & The Pauline Epistles

Acts 1:4-9: And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But 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.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

If you are following my train of thought here, then you will not see Acts 1:4-9 as an event where new covenant members are told to wait for a second blessing. Rather, you will see Jesus telling his old covenant buddies to wait for the new covenant to kick off the ground.

If Pentecost is meant to be the start of the New Covenant, then I think it ought to parallel the Old Covenant in enough ways for us to see similarities. The old covenant was enacted on Pentecost; this was the day that Moses brought down the Law of God. That day there was great immorality in the camp of Israel, and the Levitical priests slayed about 3,000 by the command of God. The new covenant was enacted on the day of Pentecost as well. This was the day that Jesus did not pour out the Law, but Jesus poured out the Spirit. As the Spirit is poured out, about 3,000 come to salvation.

Interestingly, you will not see the “baptism with the Spirit” language in Acts 2. Nowhere does Luke, Paul, or Jesus connect tongues speech with the “baptism in” or “baptism with the Spirit.” Rather, spiritual gifts, such as tongues, are a byproduct of the new covenant. We can see that plainly in 1 Corinthians 12.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13: 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.

Did you catch that? In one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. The baptism of the Spirit unites us to Jesus. If you are a member of Jesus’ body, then you are “baptized in the Spirit.” This “baptism in the Spirit” does not promise an accompaniment of tongues. In fact, in the very same chapter in 1 Corinthians 12:27-28, Paul tells the church that all those who are baptized in the

Spirit, those who are members of Christ, do not all have the same gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:27-28: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

Working Definition

The Baptism of the Spirit is a supernatural work of Jesus, where someone is “born again” through a supernatural baptism in the Holy Spirit and becomes a partaker of the New Covenant.

Common Objections

Acts 1 & 2 Describe the Baptism Of the Spirit: Some will argue that the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 describes the event of being “baptized in the Spirit,” and since they spoke in tongues, then the Baptism of the Spirit must include tongue speech. However, this is a category error. Acts 2 is not describing baptism in the Spirit as it relates to tongues. Acts 2 describes the events that surrounded the bringing of the New Covenant.

The first covenant was given with the sprinkling of blood, a flaming mountain, and the slaughter of 3,000 people. However, Gideon was not somehow in an inferior covenant because he did not experience a flaming mountain, the sprinkling of blood, or the slaughter of friends and family. The covenant is only inaugurated one time, and the events pertaining to that inauguration are unique and momentary. In the same way, no one should expect every modern believer to speak in tongues as a result of the Baptism of the Spirit just because the first members of the new covenant did. That was a unique circumstance surrounding the inauguration of the New Covenant.

What About Acts 19:1-7?

Some will argue that Acts 19 is an example of believers who had not yet received the baptism of the Spirit. Let’s take a look at the passage:

Acts 19:1-7: And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.

Here, Dr. Luke describes the Apostle Paul stumbling over some disciples of John the Baptist, not disciples of Jesus. These are not Christian disciples, but those who were discipled by John in the Old Covenant module of mikvahs. How do I know that, you may ask? 

They did not know who the Holy Spirit was—that is kind of a big deal. All Christianity has always been Trinitarian Christianity. We are commanded to be baptized into the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. When Paul realized they had not received Jesus, Paul picks up where John left off in his disciples’ training. He says, “Remember that message that John the Baptist used to say: ‘The Messiah is coming to baptize in the Holy Spirit’? Well, I have good news, fellas, that Messiah is Jesus, and you can receive the Holy Spirit right now!”

These unbelievers just became believers, and once they are united to Christ, they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Some begin to speak in tongues; others begin to prophesy!

What About Acts 8:14-17?

Another reasonable objection to this view comes from Acts 8, where the Samaritans clearly become converts but do not receive the Spirit. Let’s take a look:

Acts 8:14-17: Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them 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. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

This is the only passage in all of scripture where a group of believers repent of their sin, believe on the Lord Jesus for salvation, are baptized, and do not receive the Spirit. But why? Is it because all believers everywhere need a secondary experience with the Spirit post-conversion, or is there a different reason?

As you can probably tell, I think there is a different reason. You see, the Apostles witnessed with their own eyes the fulfillment of Jesus’ words in Acts 1. Jesus said, “Jerusalem will be hit first”—that takes place in Acts 2. Then Jesus says, “All Judea and Samaria are next”—we see that happening in Acts 8. Then Jesus says, “The nations will get their turn next”—we see that in Acts 9 when Peter goes to the Gentiles. It is important in all of these accounts that the Apostles are present.

There was significant skepticism over the Gentile converts in Acts 9 and 10. And rightly so, the Gentiles up until this moment were enemy number one. Why would God just allow these folks to be invited into this new covenant like everyone else? The deciding factor for Peter was the Spirit being poured out in the same way it was poured out on the Jews. And this seemed compelling to the rest of the Jerusalem council as well.

If the Gentiles were enemy number one, then the Samaritans were a close second. And for the same reason there needed to be apostolic witness to Gentile conversion, I believe that the Samaritans likewise needed to receive the Holy Spirit with an apostolic witness.

Conclusion

In summary, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is distinct from other expressions like being filled with the Spirit or being full of the Spirit. Through examining scripture, we see that this baptism is a unique, supernatural work initiated by Jesus, signifying the believer’s entry into the New Covenant. It’s not merely a ceremonial act but a transformative experience, uniting believers to Christ and equipping them with the Spirit. As we navigate the diverse views within the Christian community, it’s essential to anchor our understanding in the biblical narrative, recognizing the unique and powerful nature of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.

 

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