The Baptism in the Holy Spirit Part II

I do believe that speaking in tongues is an evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, I am not certain as to whether it is the only evidence, there may be other evidences as well, it is also stated in the book of Acts that people spoke in tongues and prophesied. Prophesy as spoken of here is not merely preaching. It is speaking something by divine utterance that is given by the Holy Spirit. Someone who is preaching can be prophesying but it is not always the case. True prophecy is never dry and boring, it is always fresh and alive, but it will not disagree with the Word of God. The Word and the Spirit are always in agreement. One thing that is very certain from scripture is the fact that the entirety of the New Testament was written by people who were Baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. All the authors of the New Testament except for the Apostle Paul were in the upper room on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was initially poured out and all spoke in tongues. As we discuss later in this blog the Apostle Paul also states that he spoke in tongues as well in the book of 1 Corinthians 14:18. Let’s look again to the book of Acts, in Acts 2:1-4 we are shown the first recorded instance in the New Testament Church of anyone being baptized in or filled with the Holy Spirit. 

After being baptized in the Holy Spirit the apostle Peter preached a sermon in Acts 2:14-21 and the remarkable thing about this sermon is the power and boldness with which Peter spoke. This is the same Peter who due to his fear had denied Jesus three times before he was crucified. Here he was filled with such boldness and the power of the Holy Spirit that through the preaching of a sermon that lasted maybe 10-15 minutes 3000 people were saved. The baptism in the Holy Spirit imbues people with the power of God and a boldness to speak the truth of His Word that simply was not there before. In Acts 8:14-17 we have another example of people receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit after salvation. These people had been baptized in the name of Jesus and they had received the Word of God but they had not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Stay tuned for my next post which will explore the Baptism in the Holy Spirit further yet.

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit

A lot of the modern church has lost touch with something that is entirely Biblical, but many do not believe is for today. The something that I am talking about is called the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The theology of a lot of American churches has, down over the ages, been unconsciously for the most part, attempting to remove most things that are supernatural about God or the manifestation of His presence today from their belief system. This is an unfortunate side effect of American culture. From childhood up in America we are taught that the supernatural is not real that it exists only in fairy-tales, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, all the natural reality of this entire universe that we see around us was created by God who is Himself a Spirit. That means that the natural universe was created and is sustained by a supernatural being. I am not talking about the spooky supernatural that we see in horror movies and the like, I am talking about the real supernatural, in which exist God, angels, demons and other supernatural creatures that the Bible describes. Do not be afraid of the supernatural because the Bible clearly states that God and believers in Jesus Christ here on the Earth are the ultimate winners of every supernatural struggle that they face. There may be losses in some battles, but the war is already won. If you are not a believer, then you are only a step away from being one. You simply need to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that God raised Him from the dead and confess that with your mouth and you will be saved. These are the essentials to being born again, there are other things that follow like water baptism and the like, but the essentials will get you into heaven. Let us now however move just a little beyond the essentials, not far but just a little. In the book of Acts Chapter 1:4-5 Jesus commanded the disciples to wait for the promise of the Father which would be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is something that gives to the believer the power of God to enable them to effectively minister and be a witness to others of the wonderful things of God. In the book of Acts it seems that in most cases we are shown several examples where people are born again by the Spirit of God meaning that at the time of being born again they already have the Spirit of God dwelling in them but after that they are baptized in the Holy Spirit which typically resulted in manifestations of gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues or prophesying. This leads us to a question that is sometimes a little bit difficult to answer correctly because in scripture we have many examples of it but no direct statement that this is how it must be. The question is; Do you have to speak in tongues to be baptized in the Holy Spirit? In all honesty I would have to say that I am not 100% certain. There are those who teach that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and those that teach that it is not. I can only teach what the Word of God tells us and in the book of Acts there seems to be many examples of people who received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues and only one or two where it is not directly specified but even in most of those cases the scripture states that a manifestation of the Spirit was evident that could be seen and heard. 

My next post will continue to address this issue further.