Tag Archives: Baptism in the holy spirit

Christian Life, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Walking in the Spirit

Through a glass darkly

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“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God? When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.” (Act 11: 15-18)

In this passage, Peter is describing to the church at Jerusalem the events of Cornelius’s house that Luke had narrated in the previous chapter, when the gospel was preached to the Gentiles and they received the Spirit and spoke in tongues (Acts 10 : 44-46). This morning, I happened (happened?) to have been reading a little bit about a very well-known author and preacher who calls himself a “moderate cessationist;” wondering, as I often do, how somebody who talks and writes about prayer (and other aspects of Christian living) can leave out what to me is fundamental to my communication with God. Because I often “don’t know how to pay as I ought,” I am really grateful that ‘the Holy Spirit is helping me in my weakness,’ (Romans 8:26) so in my own opinion leaving Tongues out of one’s prayer life is like not putting the yeast in the bread machine when you are baking a loaf. Something comes out alright, and it is no doubt just as nutritious; but it’s heavy and flat, and just not something you want to go to for sustenance.

The cessationist position in the article I read taught that the whole counsel of Scripture provides a more solid and secure foundation for our Christian life that subjective experiences of the supernatural, be it “prophesies” that are products of the imagination, “healings” that are psychosomatic in origin and not at all miraculous, or “tongues” that are the product of the language centres of the human brain and not utterances of the Holy Spirit, so aware of that I found myself reading the passage that I am studying at the moment with this issue very much in my mind.

This episode in the Book of Acts is of course a frequently used justification for the Pentecostal/charismatic position on speaking in tongues: they got saved, the Holy Spirit fell as at Pentecost, and they spoke in tongues; therefore it follows that the gift of Tongues is there for everyone who gets saved. I fully believe this myself, but what struck me when I read the passage this morning was Peter’s comment that he “remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit,” and that he related this experience of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles to “the word of the Lord” spoken by Jesus. Pentecostals and Charismatics make this connection frequently enough, and I remember Reinhart Bonneke preaching on this text many years ago; but this was the apostle Peter. Jesus Himself was the Word, the Logos; and the “word of the Lord” referred to by Peter was the “rhema” word, the “now” word spoken by Him into a specific context. So the baptism of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands with the evidence of speaking in tongues is as grounded in the scriptural foundations of our faith as it is possible to be: referenced by the apostle  Peter to a rhema word spoken by the Logos Himself.

It is essential that our experience always lines up with the Word of God, and that we always worship in Spirit and in Truth; and because of this our assemblies must be churches of the Word and of the Spirit – whether or not Smith Wigglesworth’s famous prophesy of the great revival based on the Word and the Spirit ever comes to pass. But even if some of our “spiritual” experiences are not supernatural at all, I would embrace them every time for the sake of not missing the ones that are, as long as it is always our trust in the truth of the Word of God, and not our (or other peoples’) personal experience, that is the basis of our faith.

To close, prayer is not often something I find difficult. I often come across articles or book extracts that suggest all sorts of props to one’s prayer life, whether they are Bible study programmes, or pathways through the Psalms, or daily notes whatever else, and I think to myself, “Why?” Isn’t it enough to have the Holy Spirit helping me to pray?” Maybe some of these people are “moderate cessationists” as well, avoiding the gifts of the Spirit for the sake of keeping their faith in the Word unsullied by untrustworthy experiences. Maybe they find prayer difficult at times because they have left the yeast out of the bread mix and find the loaf heavy and indigestible as a result. I don’t know, and it’s not for me to judge. Maybe my own prayer life is full of yeast bubbles and has little substance…

But I know this: when I was a baby Christian in a charismatic church in the 1980s I used to doubt that people who didn’t pray in tongues were even saved, never mind just missing out on one of the God’s many blessings for His children, and by the grace of God I am wiser and less arrogant than that now; but I still think It is better see through a glass darkly than never to look in the mirror at all.

NOTE: Material on the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is (loosely) grouped under “Spirit without Limit.” A useful starting point is “The Name of the Father,” which looks at the baptism in the Holy Spirit in the context of the beginnings of the Ephesian church.

Christian Life, Discipleship and witness

The Pillars of Evangelism

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The fields are white unto harvest

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote: “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.” (2 Tim 4:5) If we stopped anyone in the street, Christian or atheist,  (OK anyone over 40 who has lived in an English-speaking country), and asked them to name an evangelist and say what they did, we would almost certainly hear the name of Billy Graham and be told that they stood up in public places and preached about Jesus/ God/ the Bible. I think this image of “the evangelist” is still prevalent in the church today, and that “evangelism” is a special activity carried out at special events by a few gifted people, often in full-time ministry and “living by faith; and that the rest of us can only expect to occasionally “witness” or “share our faith” now and then, “sowing seeds” that we do not necessarily expect to see coming to fruition. But I don’t think this is the truth. In fact I think that it is an enfeebling dilution of the legacy that Jesus left to the Church, and doesn’t really help anyone to fulfil their ministry.  If we combine the “Great Commission” verses in Matthew and Mark into one paragraph, we get the following:

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.  And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;  they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.” (Matt 28:18-30 combined with Mark 16: 15-20)

Just as the church has specialist prophets but “All can prophesy,” (1 Cor 14:31) and has specialist pastors and teachers  but we are all called to love one another and to “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;” (Col 3:16) we are all called, as Timothy was, to do the work of an evangelist and preach the gospel, even though the church also has specialist evangelists. (See Ephesians 4. It’s not the subject of this article, but leadership in every church should comprise all these specialist ministries. I’m just saying… ) So here are eight principals, eight “pillars of evangelism,” that we can take from Christ’s command. To do the work of an evangelist properly I think we need to take all of them seriously.

  1. All the world
    We Go into all the world. Our workplace as disciples of Jesus is primarily the world. We don’t expect the world to come to the church; we take the church into the world.
  2. Every creature
    We preach to every creature – old, young, rich and poor. God is no respecter of persons. In the parable of the wedding feast Jesus said: “Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.” Our commission is to make sure that the hall is filled with guests: whatever they are wearing, rags or riches, is all replaced by the wedding garment.
  3. Saved… condemned
     We preach the full gospel: salvation and condemnation. To preach is to proclaim, with authority, something that has been done, in the manner of a herald. (From the Strong’s definition.)  We are heralds of what Christ has done for us and its consequences, both for those who believe and those who don’t believe.
  4. Baptizing them
    We baptize converts in water and we baptize in the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,  of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (Heb 6: 1-2) The Ephesian church was birthed through baptism and the laying on of hands: “When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.” (Acts 19: 5-6) Being filled with the Holy Spirit has experiential results. If we do not ourselves have the faith and the personal experience to pray for someone to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to experience some consequences of that infilling, we need to leave that ministry to someone who does. In the case of the Ephesians, it was Paul. Otherwise we are offering a hungry person cornflakes and just giving them an empty packet.
  5. I am with you always
    We go, therefore, knowing the presence of God, who with us always, because we are in Christ, baptized into Him, into His death and His resurrection (Romans 6:3). We operate “in the name of Jesus” because we have been baptized into His identity. A Christian is a “little Christ,” not a partial Christ.
  6. All authority
     We go in His authority: When Jesus sent out the seventy, He said “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19) This was before Pentecost. Whether or not it is in the realm of our current experience, we are now in the day of the Greater Things; we are raised together with Him and seated with Him in Heavenly places. We have more authority now than the seventy, not less.
  7. These signs will follow
     Knowing what it means to be sent in His name, we go in the full expectation of signs and wonders following the preaching of the gospel. Paul writes: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16) To preach the gospel is to proclaim Christ’s authority over all of heaven and earth, over all the works of the enemy including sickness and demonisation. If we have no expectation of His authority being manifested when we preach “the power of God unto salvation,” we are like people who get into their company car and don’t start the engine. Not only are we going nowhere, but we are not honouring the One who paid with His life for us to have the car in which we have been told to “Go.”
  8. Teach them
     Finally, as “fishers of men,” we keep those whom we have caught. Jesus said “Those whom You gave Me, I have kept. And none of them is lost, except the child of perdition.” (John 17:12) God will give us as many as we can keep, therefore we make sure that we teach them all the things that Jesus has commanded us, so that they in turn can go and make disciples.

Jesus said that it’s the harvest field that needs workers, not the seedbed. It’s time the Church took seriously the work of the evangelist, and started reaping. In Matthew 9: 36-38, we read this:

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.”

The Greek word that he uses for pray, deomai, means to petition, bag, beseech. It implies a felt need, a longing. We “go” because Jesus tells us to. And yes, the reluctant brother (Matt 21: 28-32) was commended for his obedience. But if we really want to enter into the joy of the reaper (John 4:36) and experience the harvest firsthand, we need to feel the Lord’s compassion for the lost in our own hearts, we need to be aching ourselves for the lack of harvesters, and we need to be beseeching the Lord of the harvest for co-workers who will join us in the task.

In that spirit, Go, therefore!