What Is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Hello again and thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John.

00:00:06.880 | Whether you're commuting to work or at the gym or running errands or doing chores, wherever

00:00:09.840 | you are, we are certainly glad to have you along.

00:00:12.640 | I'm your host Tony Reinke and John Piper joins me over the phone for today's question.

00:00:17.560 | It's an important one.

00:00:18.560 | What are we to make of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

00:00:22.560 | The phrase seems to mean very different things in the Bible and it certainly means very different

00:00:27.080 | things to different denominations and church practices.

00:00:30.080 | Here's today's question sent in to us anonymously from Berlin, Germany.

00:00:34.680 | Hello Pastor John and thank you for this podcast.

00:00:36.760 | I've struggled to understand and embrace the baptism of the Holy Spirit, especially manifested

00:00:42.080 | as someone laughing and rolling around on the floor or even passing out for 30 minutes

00:00:46.000 | or longer.

00:00:47.000 | I've seen churches do this and put a lot of focus on these experiences, which make me

00:00:51.760 | quite uncomfortable.

00:00:53.400 | Can you explain what the Bible means by the baptism of the Spirit as it relates to both

00:00:57.840 | number one, our initial salvation experience, and then number two, in explaining whether

00:01:02.880 | or not we are to expect or seek after subsequent baptisms of the Spirit later in the Christian

00:01:08.440 | life?

00:01:09.440 | Pentecostalism is usually defined as a movement in Christianity that thinks of the baptism

00:01:19.240 | of the Holy Spirit as a second experience, usually after conversion, marked by speaking

00:01:26.200 | in tongues.

00:01:28.360 | That's the stereotype anyway of what Pentecostalism means.

00:01:34.480 | That really is an oversimplification.

00:01:36.600 | I just finished a book by Alan Heaton Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth, a History of Pentecostalism,

00:01:45.000 | 2013, Oxford University Press, and he shows that there are far more diverse understandings

00:01:54.640 | of the Holy Spirit in his work among global Pentecostalism than we thought.

00:02:00.480 | What is common among many branches of Pentecostalism is not a singular view of baptism in the Spirit,

00:02:09.520 | but rather a strong emphasis on the experiential nature of the Spirit's presence in the life

00:02:17.400 | of the believer.

00:02:18.880 | And I think that is precisely why this emphasis on the experiential nature of the Spirit,

00:02:25.640 | that's why the movement has been so globally dynamic and effective, because people everywhere

00:02:33.960 | are hungry for experiential reality, not just doctrinal facts or historical facts which

00:02:44.100 | are affirmed with the mind.

00:02:46.880 | That's the stereotypical way of thinking about Western Christianity.

00:02:50.380 | We have a list of doctrines, we have a list of behaviors, we believe the doctrines, we

00:02:55.600 | do the behaviors, and we infer that we belong to God and something supernatural is happening

00:03:00.720 | and nobody experiences anything.

00:03:03.560 | That's why Pentecostalism is succeeding the way it does, because they're right on this.

00:03:11.280 | Their right to have the Holy Spirit is to have a reality that one experiences.

00:03:19.840 | So it's important that we clarify the meaning of biblical terms like "baptism in" or "with"

00:03:27.720 | the Holy Spirit, because it is a biblical term and it's part of Christian experience.

00:03:35.240 | So what I'm going to suggest is that the way Paul uses the phrase in 1 Corinthians 12:13

00:03:44.680 | and the way Luke uses the phrase, or Jesus, reported by Luke, uses the phrase in Acts

00:03:52.400 | 1:5, are not the same.

00:03:55.900 | That's my basic premise, which would avoid a lot of confusion if people bought this,

00:04:01.840 | so you can check it out for yourself.

00:04:03.540 | Which means that when we ask, "What does the phrase 'baptism in' or 'baptism with the Holy

00:04:10.560 | Spirit' mean?"

00:04:13.740 | We have to ask, "Are you talking about Paul's use or Luke's use?" as he quotes Jesus.

00:04:21.400 | They're not contradictory.

00:04:22.400 | I'm not arguing that there's any conflict.

00:04:24.720 | I'm just saying we use different words, or the same words, in different ways, and they

00:04:30.520 | use the same phrase in different ways.

00:04:33.960 | So let me clarify each of those.

00:04:36.280 | 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, 12, 12, "Just as the body is one and has many members, and

00:04:44.600 | all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

00:04:50.240 | For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body."

00:04:57.020 | Or you could say, "By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body."

00:05:00.280 | Jews are Greek, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

00:05:05.880 | I think virtually everyone agrees that Paul's understanding here of baptism by the Spirit

00:05:12.820 | is the act by which the Spirit unites us to Jesus Christ and His body, the Church.

00:05:21.700 | In other words, it's conversion, it's becoming a Christian.

00:05:26.340 | This is what it means to be a Christian, to be moved upon by the Holy Spirit in such a

00:05:31.540 | way that we are brought to faith and united to Jesus.

00:05:35.380 | Now I don't think that's the way Jesus and Luke are using this similar phrase in Acts

00:05:42.980 | 1, 4, and 5.

00:05:45.100 | Here's what Jesus says as Luke quotes Him in Acts 1, 4, "While staying with them, Jesus

00:05:51.660 | ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father,

00:05:58.740 | which He said, 'You heard from Me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized

00:06:06.240 | with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.'"

00:06:10.340 | That's Acts 1, 4, and 5.

00:06:12.100 | He's quoting John the Baptist from Luke 3, 16, where John says, "I baptize you with water,

00:06:19.320 | but he who is mightier than I is coming after me, the strap of whose sandals I'm not worthy

00:06:25.520 | to untie."

00:06:26.520 | He will baptize you.

00:06:28.160 | He, Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

00:06:33.400 | Now I don't think Jesus means that His disciples will be converted from unbelief to belief

00:06:42.680 | in this baptism that they're supposed to wait for in Jerusalem.

00:06:47.080 | I think Luke sees the apostles as genuine, born-again believers before this promised

00:06:55.200 | baptism happens to them.

00:06:58.280 | Luke ends his gospel like this, with a description of the apostles before the experience that

00:07:05.320 | they're supposed to wait for, called the baptism of the Spirit.

00:07:08.080 | It says in Luke 24, 52, "They worshipped Him," they worshipped Jesus, "and they returned

00:07:14.560 | to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, blessing God."

00:07:20.960 | So here's a group of men worshipping Jesus, they have great joy, they're blessing God

00:07:27.120 | through Jesus in the temple.

00:07:28.520 | These are not unregenerate disciples waiting to be born again by the arrival of the Holy

00:07:34.920 | Spirit.

00:07:36.480 | What then does Jesus mean in Acts 1, 5, and in Luke 3?

00:07:42.480 | I think when He says, "You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit," He means you will receive

00:07:50.640 | extraordinary power for Christ-exalting ministry.

00:07:55.720 | That's what I think He means.

00:07:56.920 | You will receive extraordinary power for Christ-exalting ministry.

00:08:03.200 | Now that experience may come in an unusual, decisive experience after conversion—a day,

00:08:13.040 | a week, a year, it might, or a minute—followed by subsequent outpourings or fillings or baptisms

00:08:22.600 | of the Spirit periodically throughout life.

00:08:27.240 | Or that experience may come at the very moment of conversion, followed by lifelong, subsequent

00:08:35.760 | experiences of empowering in the Holy Spirit.

00:08:39.720 | Or it may come in various ways and fillings and blessings and empowerings of the Spirit

00:08:47.600 | throughout a lifetime that are just unpredictable and very various.

00:08:53.040 | So I think it would be a mistake to limit baptism in or by or with the Holy Spirit to

00:09:01.860 | a single, second event after conversion.

00:09:07.200 | Even though you might experience one, that doesn't mean it's the normative way that

00:09:12.920 | this baptism is to be understood.

00:09:16.320 | I think the kind of filling and empowering that we receive in such experiences are needed

00:09:24.880 | again and again and again in the Christian life.

00:09:28.600 | And they're not consistently the same in every season of the Christian life.

00:09:33.920 | It is right, I think, to ask for a fresh baptism.

00:09:39.920 | That's the language of Puritans, that's the language of Martin Lloyd-Jones, that's

00:09:43.560 | my language again and again as I approach the pulpit and seek to preach.

00:09:47.840 | I say, "Oh God, I need a fresh baptism, I need a fresh anointing, I need a fresh filling,

00:09:54.920 | I need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit."

00:09:58.400 | I think the language is very various in the book of Acts for these kinds of things, which

00:10:04.320 | are not continuous.

00:10:06.320 | You have Paul on Cyprus, and he's about to speak, and it says, "Filled with the Holy

00:10:14.840 | Spirit," and then he has an extraordinary power to deal with this magician there on

00:10:20.920 | the island.

00:10:21.920 | That's the kind of thing that I think Jesus was saying, "I want you to know this experience

00:10:27.720 | as you head out to evangelize the world."

00:10:31.360 | Now let me give four quick bullet points of reasons why I think that, why I think Luke

00:10:38.160 | and Jesus used the term that way.

00:10:41.240 | Number one, Luke describes the first baptism with the Spirit as being filled.

00:10:47.920 | He uses the filling language in Acts 2.4.

00:10:50.680 | He says, "Wait for this baptism," and then when he describes it in 2.4, he says, "They

00:10:55.120 | were all filled with the Holy Spirit."

00:10:56.800 | So for him, these are overlapping realities, fullness and baptism, and throughout the book

00:11:03.240 | of Acts, the term "filled with the Holy Spirit" is a recurrent, repeated experience in the

00:11:08.640 | believer's life, not just a one time.

00:11:10.800 | That's argument number one.

00:11:12.720 | Number two, Luke says that being baptized with the Spirit is a fulfillment of the promise

00:11:18.700 | of Joel 2.

00:11:20.400 | Wait for the promise, and then the promise that gets fulfilled is Joel 2 in Acts 2.16

00:11:25.000 | following, and the promise of Joel 2 is not the new covenant promise of new birth.

00:11:30.440 | It's the covenant promise of prophetic power.

00:11:34.320 | You're going to speak with extraordinary power there in Acts 2.

00:11:40.160 | Number three, Luke describes being baptized with the Spirit as receiving power for witness

00:11:46.200 | when the Holy Spirit comes, Acts 1.8.

00:11:49.000 | When you receive the Holy Spirit, you will have power so that you can be my witnesses

00:11:54.040 | to the end of the world.

00:11:55.480 | And that's the immediate description of what's going to happen if you wait for the baptism.

00:12:01.160 | So it's an empowering for global Christ-exalting effectiveness.

00:12:06.280 | And then finally, number four, Luke says that being baptized in the Spirit is being clothed

00:12:12.440 | with power from on high so that the message of Christ can be taken effectively to all

00:12:18.560 | the world.

00:12:19.560 | That's the message of Luke 24.49, where he tells them, "Wait in Jerusalem till you are

00:12:24.880 | clothed with power from on high."

00:12:28.520 | So my understanding of baptism with the Holy Spirit is that Paul uses a form of this phrase

00:12:36.960 | to refer to what happens at the new birth, and Luke uses a form of this phrase, and Jesus

00:12:44.040 | quoting Jesus, a form of this phrase for the empowering by the Spirit, which, to answer

00:12:51.960 | the question about the peculiar signs, may or may not include various signs like tongues

00:13:00.800 | or other unusual manifestations.

00:13:03.400 | So I think every Christian should seek fresh baptisms in this sense again and again and

00:13:12.200 | again for effective ministry.

00:13:15.960 | So helpful to be careful with the different ways terms and phrases are used by particular

00:13:20.240 | authors in the Bible.

00:13:21.480 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that word.

00:13:23.680 | And thank you to the listener from Berlin with the excellent question, as always.

00:13:27.000 | Thank you for listening, and you can search or browse our past episodes or send us a new

00:13:31.840 | question of your own.

00:13:32.840 | Go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:38.840 | We now break for the weekend and return on Monday to talk about Calvinism and Arminianism,

00:13:43.200 | and specifically in how they differ when it comes to the power of God's grace, the differences

00:13:48.320 | between Calvinism and Arminianism on the power of God's grace.

00:13:53.080 | That is next time.

00:13:54.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:55.080 | Have a great weekend.

00:13:56.080 | We'll see you back here on Monday.

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What Is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

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