If you or someone you know has had an experience that you think I might hold in question, please understand that I cannot judge your experience. For one thing, I was not there. For another, perception based on experience is a very subjective and personal thing. I can only speak what the Bible says to the best of my ability to understand it. I would however, suggest this for your consideration: It is always right to judge our experience with the Bible. It can be perilous to judge the Bible with our experience. God’s word and not our experience should be the final standard of authority when it comes to matters of faith.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit - what is it? What does it mean? What does it have to do with you and me living today?

In last Sunday’s message we considered Acts 2:1-13 in our new series from the book of Acts. There we saw Luke’s description of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles in the city of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, 33 A.D. The events that Luke described there took place just as Jesus had predicted in Acts 1:4-5. That passage says: "And gathering them together he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from me; for John baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’"

Was this baptism with the Holy Spirit for all believers or only for a select few? Does it still occur today? Is it something we should desire for ourselves?

We’re in a series from the Acts of the Apostles. Before we move on I would like to share with you a special study on this important subject The Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is the 5^th message in our series. In it I want to do my best within the confines of our allotted time to ask and answer the simple question: What does the Bible say about baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Before I continue, let me clarify that it is not my intent to judge anyone else’s experience. If you or someone you know has had an experience that you think I might hold in question, please understand that I cannot judge your experience. For one thing, I was not there. For another, perception based on experience is a very subjective and personal thing. I can only speak what the Bible says to the best of my ability to understand it. I would however, suggest this for your consideration: It is always right to judge our experience with the Bible. It can be perilous to judge the Bible with our experience. God’s word and not our experience should be the final standard of authority when it comes to matters of faith.

These things said, what does the Bible say about baptism of the Holy Spirit?

The first actual mention of baptism of the Holy Spirit in that terminology is in:

In Matthew 3:1-2 we read: "Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’"

Dropping down a few verses for the sake of our time we see that John had quite an audience. Verses 5 and 6:"Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins."

Among those coming for baptism were two groups of Jewish religious leaders. As John saw them approach he warned them of judgment if they did not truly repent. Verses 7-10: "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves,’ We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Stop there for just a moment. What sort of fire did John have in mind when he spoke in verse 10 of trees that did not bear good fruit? Is it something you and I would like to experience? I don't think so. John was referring to the fire of judgment, was he not? "Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." I think the meaning there is very clear. He then spoke these words in the following verse - verse 11: "As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Notice again the word "fire." Now look at verse 12: "And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Notice the third mention of fire. Is the fire mentioned their in verse 12 something you and I would want to have? Certainly not! He was speaking of the unquenchable fire of judgment. Now, if the fire mentioned in verse 10 is judgment, and the fire mentioned in verse 12 is judgment, is it not reasonable to conclude that the fire mentioned between the two in verse 11 also pertains to judgment? Some who read verse 11 apart from its context assume that John’s mention of being baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire refers to the "tongues as a fire" mentioned in Acts chapter 2. In the context of John’s words here however, it rather appears that this fire refers to judgment. If this is the case, what we have here is John teaching that some of those present that day - this would include some of the men who later became the apostles of Jesus since some of them were also disciples of John - some of them would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and some of those present (those who would not repent) would be baptized in the fire of judgment. John did not say precisely who would be baptized with what and he did not say that all of them would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Again, this passage in Matthew 3 - and its parallels in the other gospels(1) - is the first specific mention of baptism of the Holy Spirit in that terminology in the Bible. No more mention of baptism of the Holy Spirit is made in Scripture from there until it is brought up in:

Notice as I pointed out in last week’s message that Jesus’ promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit was given to the apostles. We read in Acts 1:1-2: "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen." Then pertaining to that same group of men, we read in verses 4 and 5: "And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’" It is very clear in these verses that this promise of baptism of the Holy Spirit was made only to the apostles.

So we see so far that in the preaching of John the Baptist the baptism of the Holy Spirit was promised to some who heard him (he wasn’t specific) while a baptism of fire, that is judgment, was promised to others. Then in the prediction of Jesus we see that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was promised to the apostles. Next we see the apostles actually baptized with the Holy Spirit in:

I pointed out to you in last week’s message that only the apostles and not the 120, or anyone else, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost as Luke describes it in Acts 2. I won’t repeat the message here but just to remind you, the pronouns "they" and "them" that refer to those filled with the Holy Spirit in this chapter refer back to the apostles and not the 120. Remembering that there were no chapter divisions in the original manuscript of Luke’s writing, there is no break between verse 26 of chapter 1 and verse 1 of chapter 2. Again let me read them to you the way they would read in the original: "And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit was giving them utterance." The general rule of grammar is that the pronoun refers back to last noun antecedent.

We learned the following from this passage when we studied it last time:

I mention each of these because when the baptism of the Holy Spirit is claimed today the circumstances are often very different. It seems that often someone is required to coach the supposed tongues speaker. When the so-called "tongues" cannot be recognized by those around it is often claimed that they are heavenly languages unknown to those on earth. And as for the purpose of the so-called "tongues" today, it is often claimed that they serve to benefit the speaker and not the hearer (an example would be that tongues are given for someone’s "personal prayer language.") This is very different than what we see in Acts 2. The purpose of tongues in Acts 2 was obviously to convince the unbelievers present. This is in perfect harmony with what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:22, "tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers...." The tongues spoken on Pentecost were surely spoken for the benefit of the unbelievers present and not the believers.

Incidentally, Paul speaks of "the signs of the true apostle" in 2 Corinthians 12:12: "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles." If everyone did all the same things the apostles could do, how could there be any signs that distinguished the men who were apostles?

"But," someone may say, "Others worked miracles in the book of Acts, didn’t they?"

Yes, this is true. However, what we will learn as we continue through the book of Acts is that, with one exception which we will speak of shortly, whenever others did miracles it was because they had received the laying on of hands by an apostle.(2) In fact, no one else besides the twelve does miracles until Stephen in Acts 6 and Philip in Acts 8. Both men had the apostles' hands laid on them in Acts 6:5-6.

Moving on now, we see reference to baptism of the Holy Spirit a fourth time in:

Peter quotes the Old Testament prophet Joel in Acts 2. Joel wrote of the coming and activities of the Holy Spirit in the first century including what happened on the Day of Pentecost. Look with me at Acts 2:15-21 where Peter cited Joel:

We haven’t time to examine this entire passage now, though we will do so in the next message of this series. For now I want you to notice verse 17. Speaking of the last days Joel says, "I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all mankind." "All mankind" most surely doesn’t mean every person in the world. Unbelievers wouldn’t receive God’s Spirit. Very likely what Joel meant was that God would pour forth His Spirit upon both Jew and Gentile believers. Since only Jews were involved with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, we should therefore expect to find at least one example of baptism of the Holy Spirit fulfilled with Gentiles in the New Testament. Do we find such an example? Indeed we do in:

Until Acts 10 there were no Gentile converts. The Jews, including Peter, did not fully understand yet that God intended the gospel to go to the Gentiles. Acts chapter 10 contains the description of how God brought Peter together with the godly centurion Cornelius. Through a series of events that included a vision from heaven Peter and six other Jewish Christian brethren were brought into contact with this man. By the time they met, Peter had recognized that God intended him to preach to the Gentile Cornelius and the members of his household. His accompanying Jewish brethren however, had not yet recognized this. So Peter began to preach. You’ll find the sermon, at least part of it, in Acts 10:34-43. I say "part of it" because it was interrupted by God in an event very similar to what happened to the apostles on Pentecost. Here is how Luke reported it: "While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. And all the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered, ‘Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?’ And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ."

How do we know for sure that this was baptism of the Holy Spirit? If we continue reading on into Acts 11 where Peter recounted these events to his doubting Jewish brethren back in Jerusalem, we find these words in Acts 11:15-17: "And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He did upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, ‘John baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If God therefore gave to them the same gift as he gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?"

Please note those words in verse 15, "just as He did upon us at the beginning." If baptism of the Holy Spirit had been a regular thing since the Pentecost, it would seem that Peter would have said something like, "just as He has been doing to all of us since the beginning." Peter equates what happened with the household of Cornelius with what happened to the apostles on Pentecost at the beginning. On both occasions the baptism of the Holy Spirit gave evidence of God’s approval of what was happening. In the case of Pentecost it was proof that God gave special power and authority to the apostles to preach the word of God. In the case of Cornelius it gave proof that God wanted to extend the gospel to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

So we’ve seen that in the preaching of John the Baptist the baptism of the Holy Spirit was promised to some who heard him while a baptism of fire, that is judgment, was promised to others. John’s prediction was not specific as to who would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then we saw in the more specific prediction of Jesus that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was promised to the apostles. Then we saw the apostles baptized with the Holy Spirit. And now we’ve seen the only other specified example of baptism of the Holy Spirit in the case of the conversion of household of Cornelius – and Peter linked it to what happened on Pentecost.

From the things that I’ve shown you therefore it appears to me that there are only two occurrences of baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Bible - one is the case of the apostles on the day of Pentecost and the other in the case of the household of Cornelius in Acts 10. Both of these were special cases, administered for special purposes on special occasions. But:

Are there objections that can be raised to these conclusions? Let me mention a couple of possible objections and respond to them.

Objection Number One: There are other examples of people speaking in tongues in the Bible. Are these additional examples of baptism of the Holy Spirit?

I don’t believe they are. Here’s why. First, the terminology pertaining to baptism of the Holy Spirit does not appear anywhere else besides the passages I have shown you. Second, in every other case where we see the manifestation of speaking in tongues, the miracle came not directly from heaven, but through the laying on of hands of the apostles. In fact, in Acts 8:18, we will see that the ability to do the attesting miraculous spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament came through the laying on of apostles’ hands. I will speak more specifically of this later in our study from Acts. This laying on of apostle’s hands is nowhere equated with baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Objection Number Two: Doesn’t Acts 2:38 say that all who are baptized to become Christians receive the gift of the Holy Spirit?

Actually, a careful study of the New Testament will show that there were some distinctions in the manner in which the Holy Spirit was given - "varieties of gifts," "varieties of ministries," and "varieties of effects," as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12.(3) Said another way, there were various "measures" of the Holy Spirit imparted. According to John 3:34, Jesus received the Spirit "without measure." Presumably, others received the Spirit with measure. Acts 2:38 refers to the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit. We learn from Romans 8:9 that every Christian receives the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This measure of the Spirit, given at water baptism, confers no miraculous abilities on the recipient. Paul makes it clear in his writing that not all of the early Christians possessed the miraculous gifts of the Spirit such as the ability to speak in languages they had never learned.(4) Aside from the two examples of baptism of the Holy Spirit, who received the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit? Only those who receive them through the laying on of apostles’ hands received them. Again, we will speak more of these things as we get further into the book of Acts.

That’s all we have time for today. I will deal with additional objections to this issue as we progress through the book of Acts.

Some years ago I visited a man who had been a childhood friend. He and I used to sneak away from our parents’ home and get into mischief together. I hadn’t seen him since those early days and in the meantime he had become a Pentecostal preacher. As you can imagine our conversation went straight to Bible theology so I asked him about his views of the miraculous spiritual gifts and baptism of the Holy Spirit. His response to me was, "It’s in the Bible. That’s good enough for me." Knowing the difficulty of studying the subject completely we went no further in our discussion. But later I thought to myself, "Walking on water is in the Scripture, so if I wish to believe that all men can walk on water today, I would have all the biblical justification I need, right?" Of course not! If we look at all the passages in the Bible that mention walking on water we will find that only two persons ever did so – Peter and the Lord Jesus Christ. So just because something is in the Bible doesn’t mean that it’s for us today. Only a careful study of the subject in its native context, considering who was speaking, to whom something was spoken, and other basic rules of interpretation, can answer the question as to whether something is for us today or is unique to another time and served a unique purpose. It is this latter statement, something "unique to another time," that in my opinion holds the answer to our question about baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is not for us today.

I invite you to carefully consider these things, and if you have questions, feel free to ask them at a convenient time – or, better yet, continue on with us in this study through the book of Acts.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. The parallels to this verse are: Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33. Matthew has the most detailed description of this event.
2. See Acts 8:14-17; Romans 1:11; 2 Timothy 1:6, 21
3. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6
4. 1 Corinthians 14:16, 23, 24.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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