Transcription
So our next question comes from Neanderthal Man 97, and he says, "Hi Mike, I've listened to your channel for a long time now. I love the content. What is your view on, uh, of the baptism of the spirit? I've noticed there are quite a few different views among believers on this, so I'm curious where you come down."
Well, okay. So to explain this one, let me just give you guys the background of what I was raised with, okay? So I'm a Calvary Chapel pastor. I love Calvary Chapels. I mostly agree with the typical stuff from Calvary, but I also ruffle feathers because I'm open about things I disagree on. Why? Because I think they're secondary. I think it's okay for us to disagree.
One of the things that I was taught was that baptism in the Spirit is like an event. Now, this may not even be what's typically taught now, currently, in most Calvarys, but this is what was taught, you know, back in the '90s, late '90s, when I first started going to Calvary. And, um, I was taught that baptism in the Spirit is an event that happens like after salvation. You get saved, you're filled with the Spirit, like you're indwelt. But then baptism, that's a different term, and it refers to like, sort of the overflowing of the Spirit. So the, so there'd be an analogy like, here's a cup of water, indwelt with the Spirit. We're like, pour the water. And then overflowing, they pour the water, and it would overflow the cup. So the water is the Spirit, you're the cup, you're filled with the Spirit. But when you're overflowing and it's gushing out of you, that's a result of the baptism of the Spirit.
Um, I would say I definitely don't think that's accurate as far as terminology goes. I think biblically speaking, baptism in the Spirit is just salvation. You just get saved. It's the indwelling of the Spirit. That is, that is baptism of the Spirit. That's the biblical terminology. And I don't want to take Bible terms and use them in different ways because it will cause me to misinterpret scripture because I'm thinking that thing means something other than what it meant in context.
So on the other hand, I do think that it is possible to like, be filled with the Spirit more than when you first got saved. And I think this can happen in a number of times in a person's life. But I wouldn't use the term baptism. I also wouldn't create a hierarchy where like, some people are considered like next-level Christians because they've got the baptism of the Spirit.
So let me walk you through some of this in scripture. Um, Jesus says, "Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." That's because your initial baptism represents the fact that you have a relationship with the Father through the Son, and you're filled with the Spirit, right? That's, that happens upon salvation. In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul says, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body." That's interesting. So if you're part of the body of Christ, you are baptized in the Spirit. Every, every believer is baptized in the Spirit. This is just salvation. This is the indwelling. He goes on in that same verse to say, "We all, we were all made to drink of the of one Spirit," meaning every, every believer has experienced this. But again, like subsequent fillings can happen.
So John 20, verses 21 through 23, we have Jesus who, he says, he breathes on them and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Okay, so they receive the Spirit. Then in Acts 2:4, they're filled with the Spirit and they speak in tongues. Then later on, Peter, he's the guy in Acts 2:4, one of them, who's filled with the Spirit. In Acts 4:8, it actually says that Peter, and the Greek is consistent here, Peter's filled again with the Spirit, and now he preaches. So he was like a man who's had the Spirit, he's the fullness of the Spirit in a sense, but then he received more. This seems like it's related to doing certain tasks, certain moments, certain events. Does it mean that it comes with like, uh, warm fuzzies? Or what? I don't know. There's no rules there, right? God can do whatever he wants. May or may not tends to be used to, um, the, the increasing work of the Spirit in my life is so that I can do increasing things for God, do something for the Lord.
In Acts 19, though, here's a proof text that I've heard used to teach, I think the wrong way. So let me walk through this in case you guys have heard the same chapter used wrongly. So it says, Acts, in Acts 19, verses 1 through 7. "It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus and found some disciples. He said to them, 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?'" Now, in, in some Pentecostal circles, the question here is, did you get the extra baptism of the Spirit, or are you just believers who don't have the baptism yet? That's not the context though. They said to him, "No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." They don't even know about the existence of the Holy Spirit. They have partial knowledge of Christ or of the Gospel. And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism." See, Paul thinks it's weird that they don't know about the Holy Spirit because every believer's baptized with the Holy Spirit. So how do you not know? So we only know about John's baptism, like, repent and believe in the one who comes after. So Paul responds, it says, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in him who was coming after him, that is in Jesus." When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. They were about 12 men in all."
Now, the way the Pentecostals have sometimes used this passage, only some Pentecostals, ones I've been around, you know, um, is to say this is where Paul finds believers in Jesus who are, they're believers, but they're lacking the power of the Spirit, and Paul can like, kind of sense it. He can kind of tell that they're missing some of the power of the Spirit. So they need the baptism of the Spirit. But actually, that's not the case. They're actually not believers in Jesus. They just knew that John said, repent and believe, you know, we, we kind of follow what John thought, but, but they were kind of confused. They don't have all the details. He preaches Jesus to them. Like they did not know about Jesus. They didn't know about the Holy Spirit. They weren't believers, really. They were kind of disciples of John with partial information. And then when they get saved, they get filled with the Spirit. So I think this is again, a confirmation that baptism of the Spirit is a reference to salvation. And sometimes that comes to speaking in tongues, sometimes it does not, as that, that's how it's exampled in scripture. And yeah, that's my view. Hope that's clear.
Yeah, I think so. Actually, I come from a background where baptism in the Spirit and speaking in tongues and these kind of outward affirmations of the Spirit being on you were a big deal. A lot of prayer sessions were focused around, you know, "God, what can I do? How can you know these people I care about? But, you know, Spirit come on me so that I may speak in tongues, so that I may prophesy." Yeah. And I, I lean, I guess, in my, as I'm getting over the hill and turning 30 this year, um, grandpa, I, I more, more identify with what you, what you say there, Mike, is that it's, you know, it's your salvation. It's talking about, um, it was, it's essential to, you know, I believe in Christ, and that's the Spirit coming on someone. So yeah, that's, those environments are, they're very powerful when you're in those environments.
So, and I don't know how much I had here. I'm just, my, my experience is, you know, small country churches where I did most of my, uh, being taught and raised. And not, not Pentecostal. You know, we visited Pentecostal churches here and there, but, so it was a foreign concept to me when I saw anything that that approached that. And, and, you know, baptism of the Spirit was a euphemism for, um, you know, speaking in tongues and, and things that are more Pentecostal gifts. Um, so it's like, you might come in, I look at it as this is, this is salvation. This is, this is what it looks like when somebody's saved. Um, but, you know, uh, I, I can be guilty at times of, of not letting the Holy Spirit do what he needs to do at times too. It's, it's, it's my upbringing. I'm fighting it. Yeah. Working on it. Yeah. I feel like I want, I want to see more of the work of the Spirit, more prophecy, all those types of things. But there's a hesitancy that that's like, I just don't want to fake anything. Like I only want the genuine work of the Spirit as the Spirit wills, as scripture says, not as I will, trying to force these things, but as He wills. And if that's now, or or later, or whenever, His will be done. But it's the same Paul who said they were all baptized in First Corinthians, they're all baptized with the Spirit. He also goes on to say that all of them don't speak in tongues. People don't usually bring those two verses together, but I think that's kind of interesting.
But they do speak in tongues, so. Right. What's that? I said, but they do speak in tongues, right? Yeah. They all speak in tongues, just not all inside. That's right. So it's not like a, a proof, a proof like, or it's not the proof, I should put it that way. Yeah. It's not the only way to confirm that somebody has received the Spirit. Agreed.