Who God is

118. Baptism in the Holy Spirit

In Luke 3:16 John the Baptist said, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Many believers do not recognize some very key things that Jesus told His disciples in John chapters 14, 15, and 16. He knew that He was to be killed, that He would be resurrected and come back. He also knew that He would leave a second time and that He would send the Holy Spirit to take His place.

He said the following knowing how we could feel fatherless if we could not experience His presence. “I will not leave you orphans [fatherless]; I will come to you” (John 14:18).

He told His disciples before he ascended that they would be immersed into the Holy Spirit. “For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5). “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Jesus told them not to worry after He left. He explained that the Holy Spirit would take His place and make Him (Jesus, God) real to them. Read what Jesus told them in John 14:16-26.

Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit would make Him real to them. “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (John 15:26).

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7).

Jesus told His men that He would come back soon. He did! He came back in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit and Jesus are not different people; they are the same, but in different form. The Holy Spirit can actually dwell inside humans, where Jesus was restricted to one human body.

The disciples had two experiences with the Holy Spirit.

The original disciples received the Holy Spirit of the resurrected Christ in John 20:22. However, these same men had no visible change of character until they received the Holy Spirit of the ascended Christ on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.

A. Resurrection Sunday, John 20:22.

Resurrected Christ.

In-breathed Spirit.

Result was life.

B. Pentecost Sunday, Acts 2:4.

Ascended and Glorified Christ.

Outpoured Spirit.

Result was power.

The group of 120 disciples in Acts chapter 2 abandoned themselves; they became lost in the presence of God. They spent time and invested words for intimacy. They received power that transformed their lives, power to witness, power to have all their needs supplied, power to expand their influence in other lands and power to experience intimacy and fellowship with the Glorified Christ on a daily basis.

Jesus is no longer the man walking the Sea of Galilee, nor the man suffering on the Cross, nor the man who was simply resurrected. He is now different! No human being saw Jesus in this state, except John on the Isle of Patmos as recorded in the Book of Revelation. Look at Revelation chapter 1.

The disciples experienced something on the day of Pentecost that we all need to experience. When Jesus went back to Heaven the second time in Acts chapter 1, He took a new position as the ascended Christ, not just the resurrected Christ. Jesus left earth in the form of a resurrected being, but He came back through the Holy Spirit as a much superior being, One who had ascended to the right hand of God and who had been glorified.

Notice, His disciples did not mourn in Acts chapters 1-3 as they did in the Book of John when He was crucified. This time, when He left, they took Him at His word of promise that He was coming back soon in another form. Not too many days after He left, He did come back as the Holy Spirit, and they were filled. Then, they proceeded to live their life in fellowship with Jesus just as if He were there with them (He was).

‘Baptized’ means to be immersed.

First we are baptized with water, and now with fire. The fire is His presence. When we are baptized in water we are (in type) dead, we are humiliated, but the water does not go into us and totally kill us. It is exterior. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the fire of God going inside us. It is our choice. We can choose our pride over His presence and control over us. He wants to kill our old nature by fire. God promised Noah there would be no more water, but only fire. Demons are destroyed by fire, not water.

Do we need to be filled more than once? Some denominations argue about this and miss the whole point. We are not independent containers filled with an outside source, as water from a pitcher being poured into a glass. If this were true, then perhaps we would need to be filled again and again because we have the possibility of leaking.

John 15 says that we are connected to our source like a branch on a vine. It is not a matter of being refilled, but a matter of staying connected to the vine. The sap in the vine represents the Holy Spirit, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. We need to abide in the vine. Jesus says that obedience to His Word is what keeps us abiding. The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is being flooded with God when we are connected to Him as the vine and the branch. His sap flows into us, and we stay connected if we abide.

How much filling is enough? Luke 6:45b says, “For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Personally, I like the idea that the Holy Spirit flows out of my mouth telling me that I am full!

There has been much confusion and controversy about the Baptism in the Holy Sprit. Some people talk about the gifts of the Spirit being the main issue, and others talk about tongues being the main issue. Some say baptism is for service, that if we really desire to serve Jesus and witness with power, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They are not wrong, they all have merit, but I do not believe that they touch the primary purpose of the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

What about the gifts of the Spirit?

I feel that we need to leave the giving of gifts to the giver. I have personally had many of the gifts operate in my life from time to time, but not all of them.

I believe in speaking in tongues as a valuable and powerful gift. God uses it not only in public ministry, but more importantly, He uses it to take control of our mind for His benefit. James said that the tongue is the rudder that guides the entire ship. If you want to give Jesus the rudder of your life, you should give Him your tongue. There is a full teaching on this in the ISOB curriculum called “The Holy Spirit and the tongue.”

I do not feel it is proper for people who have received the gifts to make those who have not received them feel as if there is something wrong with them. Neither is it proper for those who have not received the gifts to condemn those who have. Jesus, in Matthew 12:31, said that speaking against what the Holy Spirit is doing is a sure way to never receive those benefits in your own life. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is saying something is not of the Holy Spirit when it really is. If you are not sure, that is fine, but be careful never to speak against it unless you are truly sure and have confirmation that it is a counterfeit of Satan. It is better to be safe than sorry!

I believe that the main purpose for being baptized in the Holy Spirit is embedded in Isaiah 61.

God’s wants to set us free from different kinds of slavery.

However, the freedom is not the end purpose. The end purpose is to give us freedom so that we may enter into His presence and fellowship with Him, which will result in bearing fruit for our lives and for the Kingdom of God.

1. Freedom from bondage.

Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 in Luke 4:18 when He announced His purpose for His ministry.

Isaiah 61 starts out with Jesus saying that the Spirit of the Lord has anointed Him to bring good news to the poor, afflicted and brokenhearted. Jesus proclaims liberty to the captives, opens prisons for those who are bound, binds up the brokenhearted and proclaims the “Acceptable year of the Lord,” or “Year of Jubilee” (the time when slaves would go free). He goes on to list many other things that His ministry would accomplish.

He said that these prisoners and poor people would be changed and that they would be trees of righteousness, strong and in right standing with God. He said that they would no longer be heavy with sadness and mourning, but that they would be filled with joy.

Then He said that they would rebuild the waste places. In other words, their wasted lives would be rebuilt, like Nehemiah (whose name means the comforter or the Holy Spirit) has rebuilt the broken down walls of Jerusalem. In addition, He said that all their needs would be taken care of and they would become priests of God, or His personal representatives. They would then, in turn, become deliverers and set others free.

Isaiah 61 summarized is that Jesus would convert people from prisoners to priests through the Holy Spirit.

This is what we spoke about in Chapter 1 of this book, that we would bear fruit in all three areas of our lives: our character, our needs, and our ministry to others. From prisoner to priest.

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me; because the LORD has anointed Me:

1. To preach the Gospel to the poor;

2. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted;

3. To proclaim liberty to the captives;

4. and opening of the prison to those who are bound (Isaiah 61:1).

5. “To preach the acceptable year of the LORD and

6. the day of vengeance of our God;

7. to comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:2).

8. “To appoint to those who mourn in Zion;

9. To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning;

10. the mantle of praise for the spirit of heaviness;

11. so that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He might be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3).

12. “And they will build the old wastes, they will raise up the ruins of former times. And they will repair the waste cities, the ruins of many generations” (Isaiah 61:4).

13. “And strangers will stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the stranger will be your plowmen and your vinedressers” (Isaiah 61:5).

14. “But you will be named the priests of the LORD; it will be said of you, Ministers of our God; you will eat the riches of the nations, and you will revel in their glory (Isaiah 61:6).

15. “For your shame you will have double; and for disgrace they will rejoice in their portion; therefore in their own land they will possess double; everlasting joy will be theirs” (Isaiah 61:7).

Jesus promised to do this for all of us, but He is not here on Earth any longer. He sent another comforter, the Holy Spirit, to take His place. The Holy Spirit is the one who now administers this promise to us. We cannot partake of all of these advantages if we are not in touch with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

We need Jesus to be real to us. We need to be vitally linked with Him in order to experience all that is promised in Isaiah 61. When things are going bad in our lives, if we can hear Jesus speak to us, everything will be all right!

If we are prisoners, if we are poor, brokenhearted and beaten down, we do not need to wait to go to Heaven for help; we need it NOW! We can have it now in this life, but we need to be in touch with God. He needs to be real to us. He needs to be more than a religion, more than the doctrine of our denomination, more than the words of Scripture (as important as they are). We need to be in touch with the living Jesus in the same way as His disciples were when He was on Earth, and in the same way as they were after He left Earth, as in the Book of Acts.

Ephesians 3:18-19 (Amplified Bible) says, “That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!”

God became real to Jacob in Genesis chapter 28. Jacob got a taste of God’s presence and then could not do without it! Genesis 28:10-17 tells us about Jacob’s experience with God’s presence when he dreamed about the ladder connecting heaven and earth. Jacob arose the next morning early and built an altar there and called it Bethel, the House of God. He was completely captured by intimacy with God. God was real to him. Jacob was like you and me. He needed a lot of change. His flesh nature was corrupt. The only way God could change him, was to lure Jacob to fall in love with Him. God revealed Himself to Jacob. Jacob fell head over heels in love with God, and followed Him the rest of his life. Later, as they walked together, Jacob was finally changed from Jacob to Israel.

When Jesus came into my life, I was truly a spiritual prisoner. There were demons controlling my life. When I saw Jesus in the Book of Revelation as the ascended Christ, the victor and deliverer, I became a man wholly filled with the Holy Spirit. This occurred on the 26th day of August, 1979. Jesus became as real to me as the man next door. He spoke to me and listened to me. He was with me in my pain and troubles. When people made fun of me, He comforted me. When people tried to keep me captive, He would teach me truths that set me free. Pretty soon, as it says in Isaiah 10:27, the anointing made my “neck” so thick, that the yoke of oppression could no longer fit on me.

Little by little, Jesus not only set me free from the demons that were influencing me and holding me, but also from the demons that had gained a “home” in me. As I would fellowship with Jesus in the Word and prayer, I would cry uncontrollably, and masses of water and mucus would come out of my body. Luke 11:24 says that the demons come out of a man and wander in dry places, wanting to gain entry in the “wet” place again. The wet place, their original home, is man who is made up mostly of water. This deliverance continued weekly over a period of several months, maybe years, I cannot remember.

As time went on, I became free from the demons that used to hold me captive. My character began to conform into the image of Jesus. My needs began to be provided for. God gave me His choice for a wife and family.

After many years of discipline, He has made me a minister of God, as it is promised in Isaiah 61. The agency that God used in this transformation was the Holy Spirit, who made Jesus real to me. Jesus did the work, and the Holy Spirit was the agent inside me driving out everything that was not of God.

2. To enjoy His presence and bear fruit.

After freedom from slavery, God wants us to experience His presence and His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit makes the Kingdom of God real to us in this life. Hebrews 12.

Notice that the theme Scripture for this Section, Hebrews 12 talks about running the race, but it also talks about getting rid of every weight and sin. “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

The chapter goes on to talk about the reality of Heavenly Jerusalem, called Mount Zion, the city of the living God (the Kingdom of God). Apparently, getting rid of sin and weights, and going through the rest of the process described in Hebrews 12, has a lot to do with making the Kingdom of God real in our lives.

Let’s examine what the writer of Hebrews was saying to these people about running the race, getting free from weights and sin, and the Kingdom of God becoming real to us.

1. In Hebrews 12:2-4 we are told that we must stand with endurance. We must endure criticism, being misunderstood, persecution, and stand in patience while Jesus is growing the seed in our heart for fruit.

2. In Hebrews 12:5-11 we are told that God will chastise us, not beat us up, but correct us as sons and daughters with love for our benefit. We truly need the chastisement of God. We have blind spots that we cannot see.

Jacob was a selfish and unruly person. God truly chastised him through circumstances until God changed his name from Jacob to Israel, from trickster to one who prevails with God.

We need to see our circumstances as re-engineered by God so that as we work through them, our character is changed into His likeness. This does not mean that God brings bad circumstances into our life. He does not; Satan does. You can be sure, however, that God uses those circumstances to grow us into His image. God uses His Word to chastise us, but there are areas of our old flesh nature that just have to go through trials to be burned off.

3. In Hebrews 12:12-13 we are encouraged to keep going when situations are looking bad.

4. In Hebrews 12:14 we are told to pursue peace and holiness, without which we will not see the Lord, or the Lord will not become real to us.

5. We are told in Hebrews 12:15-17 to pursue grace and avoid bitterness. We are also told to not be like Esau who lost his birthright and could no longer repent.

6. Now, here is the reward. Read Hebrews 12:18-29. You have come (past tense) to Mount Zion, a spiritual kingdom, The Kingdom of God. It is in the now, not only in the hereafter. God wants us to live in the heavenly realm, right now, while we are still on Earth. We can actually live in the “next age,” the Kingdom Age (Hebrews 6:5), but we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to experience this. He mentions that Mount Zion, or the Kingdom of God, has several attributes.

a. First, it is the living God. The Holy Spirit enables us to fellowship with the Living God now because He is here with us.

b. Next, it is the Heavenly Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit enables us to live in the Kingdom of God, as a reality, now.

c. Then, angels are mentioned. We are not to get too focused on angels, but we need to know that they are here to do battle for us and they move at the Word of God.

d. We have come to the Church of the Firstborn, Jesus, those who are citizens of Heaven. This infers we are to be plugged into a good Bible-believing, Spirit-filled church.

e. God the Judge is mentioned in verse 23. I am glad that God is my judge, because that makes my savior my judge! He does not condemn, He convicts so that we can repent and win. God is also the judge of our enemy, Satan. He has judged him a loser. God will judge you righteous and judge Satan a loser in every trial of life.

f. Hebrews 12:23 mentions the spirits of the redeemed who have gone to Heaven. I do not believe in contacting the spirits of the saints gone before us, but I do believe that they see us. We are viewed and cheered on by the cloud of witnesses. Their testimony of faith is what we see.

g. Hebrews 12:24 tells us that we have Jesus as the Mediator of the blood covenant. Thank God for this. Jesus not only made the blood covenant with us, but He also was raised from the dead to become the mediator, the guarantee of the covenant. When we make mistakes, Jesus takes over until He can get to us to repent and confess our sin. He is our mediator, our advocate. He makes sure we win.

h. In Hebrews 12:25 we are warned to take this process very seriously, for if we neglect or reject this offer, we will end up in bad shape.

i. In Hebrews 12:26-28 we are told that God is shaking everything in Heaven and Earth, so that those things that need to be removed will be, and those things that are firm and stable, based upon God’s Kingdom, will stand the test and stand firm.

j. Finally, Hebrews 12:29 tells us that God is a consuming fire. The consuming fire is the Holy Spirit. He comes to deliver us from all that can be shaken, from everything and every residue of the old creation, our flesh and sin nature.

What can we do to cooperate with God?

1. We receive the Holy Spirit by faith.

Faith in what? Jesus spoke about the fullness of the Holy Spirit in John 7:38-39, “‘He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

So Jesus needed to be glorified before we can have faith to receive the Holy Spirit as an overflow of living water. What does glorified mean? Glorify is a word that means for the true thing to be revealed and disclosed. It is like someone taking a drape off of a new statue and revealing it for the first time.

In John 17:4-5 Jesus was praying to the Father, saying, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Jesus revealed the Father to the people with whom He came into contact. Now it was the Father’s turn to show who Jesus really was.

How was Jesus glorified? Remember, glorified means to show the true identity of the person or object. In Luke 24:13-27 Jesus is talking to the two men on the road to Emmaus. He said, “‘Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:26-27). Then these two men got so excited that they found the 11 disciples and began to tell them what Jesus had just revealed. All of the sudden, the resurrected Jesus showed up at this meeting and took over. “Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day’” (Luke 24:44-46).

He gave them revelation or glorified Himself in Moses, Psalms, and the Prophets. It says in verse 45 in the Amplified version, “Then He [thoroughly] opened up their minds to understand the Scriptures.” He was speaking about the five books of Moses, the Books of the Prophets, and the Psalms.

Shortly after this, Pentecost took place, and the disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire!

Jesus glorified Himself in Moses:

In Genesis as the creator and the seed of woman. He showed Himself to be the propagator of a new race through a blood covenant to replace the fallen race of Adam.

In Exodus, He showed Himself as the lawgiver and as the Passover Lamb for the broken law. He is the one who splits the Red Seas of our lives freeing us from the bondages of the world.

In Leviticus, He is the maker of the blood covenant, and the one who asks us to take up our cross and live in holiness.

In Numbers, He is our provider in the deserts of our life; He is our manna from Heaven and our water from the rock.

In Deuteronomy, He is the one who redeems us from the curse of the law.

He glorified Himself in the Psalms:

In Psalms, He is our shepherd and the one to whom we can pour out all of the troubles of our heart in honesty and without condemnation, like David did.

He glorified Himself in the Prophets:

In Isaiah, He is the suffering Saviour who takes our sin and sickness.

In Joel, He shows the promise of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. However, before the promise in Joel chapter 2, He showed the required consecration which precedes the promise.

He also showed them what I saw, when I got saved and filled at the same time, in the Book of Revelation as it is foreshadowed in Ezekiel and Daniel.

In Ezekiel 37, He is the one who gives our dry bones the new birth with the Holy Spirit. In chapters 38-39, He defeats our enemies. In chapters 40-42, He shows us the temple of God so that we will know that we are invited to get into a close relationship with Him.

In Ezekiel 43, He showed them the glory of the throne and the tabernacle where God meets man as in Revelation 21. In Chapter 44-46, He asks us to consecrate ourselves so that we may be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

In Ezekiel 47, as in Revelation 22, He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit which causes the river to flow out of our innermost being into the dead sea of humanity so that people can be made alive with God.

In Ezekiel 48:35 His name is “the Lord is there,” in the heavenly Jerusalem dwelling with His people.

In Daniel chapters 1-6, He reveals Himself as the one who asks us to be in the world but not of the world. He is with us in the fiery furnaces and lion dens of our lives.

In Daniel chapter 7, He shows Himself as the Ancient of days who gave kingdom victory to the saints. In chapters 8-9 the battles are likened to the battles in Revelation.

In Daniel 10:5, He shows the ascended victorious Christ as in Revelation. Chapters 10 and 11 show more war.

Daniel 12 tells about the need to stand, for some will be worn out by the enemy. Now look at Daniel 12:12. For those who stand to the end, there will be victory. This is what I saw when I got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time in 1979!

In the New Testament, Jesus truly revealed Himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He resolved the paradoxes of the Old Testament that said that God is merciful and forgives sin, yet visits the inequities upon the children of up to four generations (Exodus 34:6-7).

He revealed Himself as the Son of God, as the Word of God, as the Truth, the Life, and the Way!

He revealed Himself as the Messiah who will come back a second time as a great King on the throne.

In John 14-16, He revealed Himself as the Holy Spirit who would live in His disciples.

In Luke 24 and Acts 1 Jesus told His disciples to consecrate their lives and go and tarry, or wait, until the promise came. This is our part: obedience, consecration, and abandonment.

2. We need to be hungry for God to be real to us.

Those 120 disciples in the Upper Room were just a small number of people who Jesus had revealed Himself to after the resurrection. There were at least 500. What happened to the others? Perhaps they were not hungry enough. Maybe they were too proud, or too engrossed in their work or their family. Maybe they were too worried what others would think of them. Remember, the 120 were criticized and laughed at.

3. We have to be radical in the Word to be victorious.

The blood covenant is cut not by blood, but by words. The more Word you have the more blood you have, the more character of Jesus you have, the more sin He removes, the less influence demons have, and the more of the Holy Spirit you have. “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure” (John 3:34).

4. We need to be open to Jesus and trust Him.

Luke 11:11-13 says, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

5. The Holy Spirit always honors repentance.

He seems to show up when we turn from our sin, the ways of the world, our pride and our laziness. Acts 26:18 says, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”

Prayer.

Lord Jesus, the Word of God says that You have a desire to fill me with Your Spirit so that You and I can be more intimate. I am hungry for You and Your presence in my life. Jesus, I believe Your Word. I confess to You that I want everything You have for me. Come, Jesus, baptize me with the Holy Spirit and fire. I am open and ready for the fire in my life. I renounce and repent from all sin in my life. I forgive everyone who has wronged me. I offer myself to You a living sacrifice. You are sovereign over my life. Have Your way. I offer to You all of my members, my mouth, my tongue, my hands, feet, ears, and eyes. Take it all!