Brief Thoughts on the Holy Spirit
BAPTIZED IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
“Do people get the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” “What’s the difference between the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:38 and receiving the Holy Spirit in Acts 8:14-19 and 19:1-7?” Because of its richness, this issue soon becomes complex. Also, there is considerable scholarly debate about it. However, no matter how much scholars debate the entire matter some things seem clear enough.
Some describe Jesus as the One who would “baptize” people in the Spirit (John 1, Matthew 3 and Mark 1). The act of Christ described by the phrase “he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit” is Christ’s act of giving the Holy Spirit to the new covenant community, which constituted the body of Christ. That initial act of giving the Holy Spirit to the church on Pentecost is Christ’s baptizing the church with the Holy Spirit.
At the time Christ did that there was a visible and miraculous demonstration that He had sent the Holy Spirit to the New Testament church (see Acts 2:33 along with 2:1-22). The miracles were evidence that Jesus had indeed been exalted and that He was initiating a new people that would be indwelled by Christ’s Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Of course, the miracles were more than evidence but they certainly functioned that way here. But the miraculous signs (the wind, fire- like signs and peasants that spoke in foreign languages they had not learned) were things that accompanied the giving of the Spirit of Christ to the His church. We should not confuse Christ’s giving the Holy Spirit and the miraculous gifts that act as proof that He had done so.
The “gift of the Spirit” which those who repented and were baptized received (Acts 2:28-39 and 5:32) is the gift of the Holy Spirit to the New Covenant community. Each person that became part of that community through repentance and baptism in the name of Christ became a sharer of the Spirit given to the church. But – and this is an important but – an individual as an independent and free standing unit did not receive the Spirit as his or her own “personal indweller.” The Holy Spirit indwells the body and everyone who is part of the body of Christ equally. In other words, all share in the presence of Christ’s Spirit. But no child of God has the Spirit independent of other members of the body of Christ. The Spirit is a single gift given to the family of which every member is a part and therefore a partaker. There is one Holy Spirit (Spirit of Christ) who indwells the one body of Christ. Each Christian is not an independent body of Christ. Each Christian is a part of the one body of Christ and the one Holy Spirit indwells in us as a single body. The indwelling Christ (who indwells by His Holy Spirit) who was exalted by the Holy Father fulfilled the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the new people of God.
The Holy Spirit gave miraculous powers to the church as He saw fit (see this developed in 1 Corinthians 12). Not every individual believer received miraculous power but the miraculous powers (and all other gifts) were given to the body so that every member of it would benefit (read 1 Corinthians 12). People in Acts 8 believed on Jesus Christ and were baptized into union with Him and that made them part of the body of Christ and partakers of His Holy Spirit. But they had not experienced the miraculous powers the Holy Spirit imparted to various believers. So when the apostles came to Samaria, knowing that these people were part of the New Testament church they recognized them publicly as such by laying their hands on them and imparting miraculous powers to some of them.
In Acts 19 Paul meets people he believes are Christians. The text does not explicitly say he thought them to be Christians, but it seems that a surface reading clearly implies that. Since he thinks they are Christians, he would know that they are part of the body of Christ which is indwelled by His Spirit. So when he asked if they had received the Spirit since they believed, he was not asking them if they were sharers in what all Christians share just by being Christ’s. He would not ask them such a question – that would go without saying. If he thought they were Christians he could just as easily have asked if they had received forgiveness, since they believed, as ask them if they had been made partakers of the Spirit.
No, he was asking if they had received a share in the miraculous power that the Spirit distributed within the body of Christ for the building up of the body and the work of the ministry. Their response showed that their faith was defective, therefore their baptism was defective, and so he re-baptized them into the name of Christ. This made them part of the body of Christ in which the Spirit dwells so they automatically became partakers of the gift of the Spirit that was common to all who are in Christ. Paul then laid hands on them and they received miraculous power from that indwelling Spirit. The miraculous power was not common to all who were in Christ (see again Acts 8 and the Samaritan situation).
But Acts 8 and 19 say the people received the Spirit; it does not say they received the power of the Spirit. This is true, but it seems clear that we have a metonymical use of the word Spirit in these texts. The Spirit is mentioned when something He gives is intended (perhaps a comparison of Matthew 7:11 and Luke 11:13 might help here).
Those who in trust and repentance are baptized into Christ become part of His body which is indwelled by His Spirit (the Holy Spirit) so that every Christian shares in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). Therefore, by definition a Christian is part of the Spirit-indwelled body of Christ. But not every Christian is given miraculous powers. What is missing in the Samaritan experience is the public witness that these half-castes were indeed received by God in Christ. That is where the miraculous powers mediated by apostolic hands came in.
Something similar happened in Acts 10 (though the similarities are different). The Samaritans had already been baptized by Philip and were acknowledged by him as part of the New Covenant people and the Jerusalem church sent Peter and John to check it out. The uncircumcised Gentiles in Acts 10 were something else. The Jewish believers would have refused the privilege of baptism and entrance into the body of Christ (in which the Holy Spirit dwelled) to the Gentiles. There was no chance that anyone would have laid hands on these people, so God directly “laid hands on them” and gave them a share in the power of the eschatological Spirit. Peter then insisted that these Gentiles had the right to be part of the New Testament church, so he baptized them in Christ’s name. It’s interesting that he did not use the presence of the Spirit to prove these people did not need to be baptized, which is what some today do. He argued the privilege and commanded them to be baptized (see the whole story in Acts 10 and 11).
This whole discussion has nothing to do with measures of the Spirit. It has all to do with Christ giving the new people of God the Holy Spirit to indwell them as God’s new elect. He did that on the Day of Pentecost. He “baptized them in the Holy Spirit.” All who come to Christ share in that gift that he poured out on the church on its birthday. The Holy Spirit then gave to the church all kinds of gifts (as He continues to do) but there were times when it was of critical importance that He make His presence known by miracles and miraculous gifts.
Christ gave the whole Spirit to the whole body. The Spirit gave gifts to that body as He saw fit (1 Corinthians 12).
