Alan Lewis
Elon, North Carolina
July 2024
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. 13 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. (I Corinthians 12:12-13 ESV)
We have been studying the topic of spiritual gifts. We have been studying the Holy Spirit. No subject is more crucial today for the Christian than the Holy Spirit.
Many churches never talk much about the Holy Spirit today. Christians seem to have forgotten all about the Holy Spirit. Francis Chan wrote a book called Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit (2009).
I Corinthians 12 is a chapter all about the gifts of the Spirit. It is all about the ministries of the Holy Spirit. The longest list of spiritual gifts is found in this chapter.
Today, we come to a very important topic today. It is a very hot topic in the church. It is a topic in which there is a lot of confusion and false teaching.
We are going to be looking at the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Paul mentions it in I Corinthians 12:13.
This topic is mentioned many times in Scripture. In fact, our different people in Scripture mention the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
John the Baptist talked about it (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8). The Apostle Peter talked about in (Acts 11:16). The Apostle Paul talked about it (I Corinthians 12:13). Jesus talked about it. He mentions it twice (John 1:33; Acts 1:5).
Paul is the only one who explains what it means. We will see what he says. There are many people today who talk about the baptism of the Spirit and will say all kinds of things about it, but they don’t say exactly what Paul says about it.
Christians hold different views on the baptism. There is a lot of confusion about it. In the last hundred years or so, there have been two main views on this topic. What are they?
Two Views
Pentecostals say that you have to speak in tongues to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Baptists say you do not have to speak in tongues to receive it.
Baptists say that all Christians are baptized in the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals say that only some Christians have the baptism.
Baptists say it is say it is part of salvation. Pentecostals say it is separate from salvation.
Pentecostals say that this is an experience that every Christian should seek if you are going to have all God has for you. You have to get the second blessing.
Baptists would say that you don’t need to seek it. If you are a Christian, you already have it. They would also say that there is no command for Christians to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Two Mistakes
Where does all of this confusion come from? Why are Christians divided on this topic? There are two basic reasons. There are two mistakes that Christians make today
1) Basing what you believe on a subjective experience
Many have an incredible experience of some kind and that changes what they believe. There is nothing that you can ever do to convince them or change their mind.
You could show them a hundred verses and it will not matter because they have had an amazing experience.
There is nothing wrong with experiences, but you may have one experience and someone else could have a completely different experience.
There are plenty of people in false religions that have some incredible experiences. People in Hinduism and Buddhism have them and so do people in Islam. It does not mean that their religion is correct.
Theology should not be based on experience. It should be based on Scripture.
Many have a special experience. There is no doubt that they had it. It may have been an supernatural experience, but it was not necessarily the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It might have been something else.
Many confuse the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the filling of the Holy Spirit. Many think they are synonyms. They are not. They are completely different. One is repeated and one is not. One is commanded and one is not.
2) Basing what you believe on a few favorite verses
This is another common problem in the church today. Christians believe something and they use some verses to support it. That sounds good.
The problem is that they do not use the whole counsel of God. They use their favorite passages. Everyone has one. Preachers have their favorite passages.
Some preach the same passage over and over again. The problem is that it does not expose people to the whole counsel of God.
We want to look at everything that God says on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We do not just want to look at the Book of Acts.
The goal today is to demystify as much as possible the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are going to look at what Scripture says. It may contradict what you have been taught.
Five Truths about Holy Spirit Baptism
1) It is the most important form of baptism
When people think of baptism, many only think of water baptism We think of ritual baptism. That is what we focus on. Ritual baptism is biblical. The Bible teaches ritual baptism.
All Christians should be water baptized. It is a command but it is not the most important type of baptism. The first one to say anything about Holy Spirit baptism was John the Baptist. He was the first.
He was this rugged prophet who preached an unpopular message of repentance. He was out in the wilderness. Everyone went out to hear this crazy preacher. He baptized people in the Jordan River. Notice what he said.
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11 NIV).
Now, John believed in water baptism. He was the first Baptist. He believed in immersion. He was baptizing people in the Jordan and people thought that was something.
He was baptizing Jews. They only did that to Gentiles. He baptized full Jews and then he said, “You think that is something great. I just baptize people with water. Someone is coming who is going to baptize people with the Holy Spirit.”
John said that a greater baptism is coming, and a greater Baptizer is coming. It is an invisible baptism. We tend to focus on H₂O.
We have denominations that focus on it and emphasize water baptism but there are plenty of people who have been water baptized who are lost. Baptism didn’t change anything.
Baptism is just a symbol, and it is completely meaningless if you don’t have the reality and John the Baptist said this. “Why are you coming to be baptized, if you refuse to repent of your sins?” Meaningless rituals will not protect you from God’s wrath.
That is what the Pharisees were doing. The whole region was coming out to John, and they wanted to be part of the group, but they did not want to change. It was just a religious ritual.
There is a baptism that is far greater than water baptism. Holy Spirit is the real baptism. Water baptism is just symbolic. The question to ask is this.
You have been water baptized but have you been Holy Spirit baptized? If you just have been water baptized, you have not had the real baptism.
2) It is done by Jesus Himself
Now, this is interesting. We call it Holy Spirit baptism, but the Holy Spirit does not baptize anyone. The only who baptized people is Jesus.
That is what John said. He said, “I baptize with water, but the Messiah is coming, and He is going to perform a different baptism.”
There are seven references in the NT to the baptism of the Spirit (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; 11:16; I Corinthians 12:13).
Four of them specifically mention Jesus as the one doing the baptism. John the Baptist says this four times, once in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. HE will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11 NIV).
I baptize you with water, but HE will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:8 NIV)
John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. HE will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Luke 3:16 NIV)
And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘THE MAN on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ (John 1:33 NIV)
3) It takes place at salvation
This is very clear from I Corinthians 12. In fact, it is undeniable from that passage. Paul says, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (I Corinthians 12:13 ESV)
Holy Spirit baptism puts people into Christ. It makes them Christians. That is the definition of salvation. It is being in Christ. Holy Spirit baptism puts you into the body of Christ.
This is where it is really clear. Paul did not tell the Corinthians that this baptism put some of them into Christ’s body. He says it put ALL of them into His body.
“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (I Corinthians 12:13 NIV)
That is an amazing statement. He does not say that in one Spirit some of them were baptized into one body. He does not say that in one Spirit most of the Corinthians were baptized into one body.
Paul says, “For in one Spirit we were ALL baptized into one body.” That is interesting because Paul called this a carnal church. It was a worldly church.
Some of the members in the church were living an immoral life. They were visiting prostitutes and sleeping with their mammas and yet Paul says that they were all baptized into one body.
Holy Spirit baptism is the thing that puts you into the body of Christ. That happens at salvation and remember that Paul is the only one who tells us what this baptism means.
The baptism of the Spirit is not something that every Christian need to experience, as the Pentecostals teach. It is something that every Christian already has. There is an objection that they would raise.
They would point out that the very first time that people were baptized in the Spirit was at Pentecost. That is correct. Were the people baptized in the Spirit on Pentecost already saved?
Yes. All of the Apostles, except Judas were saved. Peter had already proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16).
Jesus called all of them clean, except for Judas (John 13:10-11). That is correct but we need to keep two things in mind here.
One, this is not really a second work of grace. They were getting the Holy Spirit for the first time. Jesus said the Spirt was with them but would be in them (John 14:17).
Two, the apostles lived in a transition period. We don’t live in a transition period today. They lived before the church began.
The church began at Pentecost. Pentecost is the birthday of the church. Jesus said in the Gospels “I WILL build my church” (Matthew 16:18).
He did not say, “I am building My church” or “I have built my church” but “I WILL BUILD (future tense) my church.”
There was no church in the Old Testament. There was no church in the Gospels. The first church was in the Book of Acts.
4) It is evidenced by signs
How can you tell a dead person from a living person? There will be certain signs of life. We call them vital signs. There are signs of physical life and there are signs of eternal life.
You have the Holy Spirit living inside you. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You have God living inside you. If you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, there will be some signs of it as well.
Pentecostals agree and they say the sign of the baptism is speaking in tongues. That is not true in I Corinthians and it is not true in Acts.
I Corinthians 12 says very clearly that ALL Christians are Holy Spirit baptized (I Corinthians 12:13) but all Christians do NOT speak in tongues (I Corinthians 12:30).
It is not even true in the Book of Acts. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit fell on people, and they spoke in tongues. In Acts 10 and Acts 19, the same thing happened but in Acts 8, the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit and there is no mention of them speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues is one sign of the baptism, but it is not the only sign. It is one sign of the filling of the Holy Spirit, but it is not the only sign.
At Pentecost, people were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues (Acts 2:4), but you can be filled with the Holy Spirit and not speak in tongues.
You can be filled with the Spirit and display the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.). Jesus was filled with the Spirit (Luke 4:1) and He never spoke in tongues.
Samson was filled with the Spirit. The Spirit came on him and he tore a lion apart (Judges 14:6).
The apostles were filled with the Spirit and demonstrated it with supernatural boldness.
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31 NIV).
5) It is a source of unity
Spirit baptism is a source of division today. It was intended to be a source of unity. Spiritual gifts make us many members. Spirit baptism makes us one body.
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. (I Corinthians 12:12-13 ESV)
Every Christian on the planet has something in common. No matter what our denomination, no matter what our theological views, no matter what our gender or race or color, we are all baptized in the Spirit.
We all drink of the same Spirit. We all go into the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit goes in us. We are filled with the Spirit.
