It has been discussed earlier that on the day of Pentecost, in connection with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we read of people being endued with power (ability to serve God) and given gifts such as tongues, prophecy, miraculous healings and more.  This was all wonderful and to be prized.  However, we must be careful to realize that all such enablings have been, and indeed can be, imparted by God quite apart from the baptism. 

Old Testament prophets served God in most remarkable ways, they moved in all sorts of gifts, both oral gifts and miracles.  Further to these we recall that the disciples (first the twelve then another seventy of them) were sent forth under the command of Jesus and performed all kinds of miraculous acts. 

Neither Old Testament prophet nor any of Jesus’ disciples, whilst He still walked the earth, were Spirit baptized; for the Spirit had not then been given in this way.

Even an ass (ref. Balaam) was once caused to speak the Word of God on some matter!  It would seem from the New Testament record that the baptism in the Holy Spirit does cause men to manifest gifts but it would be a mistake to think that such is the reason for God’s granting us this baptism.  

What I so desire for us to take hold of here is the fact that God’s primary purpose in baptizing us in the Holy Spirit is NOT to impart gifts and special abilities but to impart to us ETERNAL LIFE.  Put another way, the Spirit has been given in order that we might be: Sons of God, members of the Church, Christians (those anointed with the life of Christ) and so on.  There is no Christian life outside of His presence; there is no salvation (New Testament salvation) outside of Him.

"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (Romans 8:9)

I have underlined references to the Spirit in the above quotation.  We have already seen how that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are all one and the same.  You cannot receive the Son without receiving the Father and the Spirit.  Romans 8:9 alone should be sufficient to show us that we cannot belong to Christ (be a Christian) without being indwelt of the Holy Spirit.  God does not withhold the baptism in the Holy Spirit as something in store for later in your Christian life.  This is not intended to be some sort of ‘second blessing’.  We do not read throughout the pages of Scripture about the ‘promise of the Spirit’ as being an ‘extra’ to our salvation.  He doesn’t come upon a man or woman just because God wants them to have some special gifts and abilities.  No!  He comes in order that we might have LIFE and have it more abundantly.

RECONCILED - THEN SAVED

Accepting that the Holy Spirit of God has come to bring us into the Life of the Son of God, we of course want to know, “How does this process work?” 

Whenever a believer wants to enquire about the ‘mechanics’ of spiritual events, frequently the best person to explain things in this way is Paul.  He took a lot of care to do so in the letter he wrote to the church at Rome.  This was an assembly he had not previously visited and so it must have seemed good to him, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to write to them about the fundamentals of the Faith.

So having explained to them the principle of ‘faith’ as opposed to ‘law’ and ‘works’ in the earlier portion of Romans he comes step by step to the heart of his message (and I would suggest that for us this is the central core of the whole New Testament Gospel).

There are two distinct elements of the message of New Testament salvation brought out in chapter five of Romans.  These can be found in one simple verse:

“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10)

The two elements that I would like to consider here are: Reconciliation and Salvation.  

- The first is chiefly concerned with what Christ has done for us.  

- The second is to do with what Christ is doing in us.

 Paul makes the point that all people are, by virtue of their first birth (being inheritors of the nature of fallen Adam), enemies of God.  Therefore, the first requirement for our salvation is that we must be reconciled to Him.  Essentially this has to do with the forgiveness of sins, which God grants on the basis of His Son’s once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  The problem so often is that ‘reconciliation’ is preached as though this were the whole Gospel.  It certainly isn’t, and preached alone it amounts to nothing more than an Old Testament message – a kind of Old Testament salvation.  Please read my next statement carefully, and I ask that you do not get offended at this point before reading on… 

The death of Jesus Christ alone is NOT sufficient to ‘save’ a man, that is, in the way that God calls ‘salvation’.  

The fact that Jesus died on a cross as a substitution for you and for me is a wonderful, wonderful part of the Gospel, but alone it is not enough to bring us salvation.  Jesus’ death at Golgotha brought you and me forgiveness for our sins, and through this selfless act of love we can be ‘reconciled’ (brought into divine favour) to God, but alas, it cannot ‘save’ us in the New Testament sense of salvation.  But Paul goes on beyond the message of ‘forgiveness of sins’ and tells us what can, and shall, ‘save’ us… it is His Life in us… not His death for us. 

Here, I am sad to say, I have noted a serious failure in the traditional ‘evangelical’ Gospel.  In many environments it is well understood and laboured fervently that Jesus died for you, and you can enter into the good of His sacrifice simply by faith – Amen.  However, it is less often explained that no man can be saved except he be filled with His Life – literally immersed (baptized) into it through the Holy Spirit.

The fact that He died for you will avail you little in this Covenant except He also live in you, and there is only one way in which God permanently takes up residence in any man or woman.  

“He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1John 5:12)

DEATH, THEN LIFE

Our concern in this study is not with the reconciliation aspect of things but with the life in us part.  We have seen that we are reconciled by His death for us but we can only be ‘saved’ by His life in us.  Remember, the issue of New Testament salvation is not whether or not a man or woman is going to heaven or hell, but whether they have been saved (delivered) from the power of indwelling sin.

Having been saved from something, namely sin, we must see that we have also been saved unto something, actually someone, namely God.  

Serving ‘sin’ is essentially synonymous with serving ‘self’, our human nature, or, put another way, the sin life/the Adamic life within us.  This breaking free from sin/self/the Old Man (Adam) has everything to do with Spiritual Baptism.  

Paul moves on in his letter to explain some of the finer detail of what happens when Jesus’ saving Life enters into a person.  Romans 6:3 tells us that the Life of Christ enters us by means of the spiritual baptism.  If your mindset has been pre-programmed to always, or firstly, associate this word ‘baptism’ with water, you will immediately start thinking of such when you read this verse.  However, Paul does not leave this point open to any misinterpretation.  He tells us quite clearly and emphatically that this process all comes about by baptism into Jesus Christ NOT water.

I have already made plentiful efforts in this study to outline the fact that God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are but One.  So, when we read of being ‘baptized into’ the Spirit or into the Son it is all one and the same.  The subject matter of Romans 6:3 is without any doubt that of a spiritual baptism not baptism in water. 

On this occasion it is the Son that is being emphasised because Paul is highlighting an aspect of this spiritual baptism in which we are identified with something that Jesus has done.

The early part of Romans 6 furnishes us with the particulars of the effects of this spiritual immersion into Christ:

V.3 - Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?  Also v.6 - “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified (died) with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

The first effect of this baptism is that we become united with Christ in His death. Our ‘Old Man’ is crucified – totally, once for all annihilated, never to be resurrected again under any circumstances.  The Old Man is Adam - our inherited life (or rather state of death!) that we received from Adam.  He was the controlling force in us and the first step towards actual salvation (not just being forgiven) is his departure – for good.  This cannot happen outside of this spiritual baptism from God.

V.4a -“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:”

The second part of this phase is that ‘the dead’ are buried out of sight.  He is gone, and in his case should be forgotten forever, as he no longer has any part to play in our life in Christ.

V.4b - “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

V.5 - “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”

Step three, thank God, we are not left dead, buried and forsaken.  The final stage in the operation of baptism must take place.  What point would there be in immersing the cloth into the vat of special dye just to leave it there?  Absolutely none of course.  It is raised up, and behold something entirely new has been produced.  The cloth has been fully immersed and so is fully impregnated with the colour of the dye.  Even so, the believer is raised again but now impregnated, indwelt with the nature of Christ.  He loved me and gave Himself for me and now by this miraculous act He Himself indwells me.  I am in Him and He is in me; Father, Son and Holy Spirit have come to make their abode in this human but now regenerated heart.

" Do you not know that you yourself are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ..." 1 Corinthians 6:16

BORN AGAIN

Such talk of ‘salvation’, ‘regeneration’, the ‘Life of Christ’ and the like may cause some to wonder.  Is this not language usually reserved for a talk on ‘The new birth’ - the subject of being ‘born again’?  Of course it is, and if you are not yet sure what I am saying regarding this I feel it is a good idea that I make this point absolutely clear.  

The New Birth is NOT an intellectual reformation but a Divine Regeneration.

The ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ and being ‘born again’ are entirely synonymous terms.  In the next section I will tackle head on some instances in the Scripture that are sometimes taken to show that the new birth and baptism in the Spirit must be distinct events.  Further to these we will move on to the real issue in this misunderstanding which is how people interpret their ‘experiences’.  Here I will just deal briefly with the phrase ‘born again’.

We remember the words of the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus: Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  John 3:7

There the Lord went to the crux of the matter directly.  Nicodemus understood perfectly the 'law' and the 'sacrifices' required for the temporary forgiveness of sins, but, he did not understand the gift of spiritual life, Divine Life from the Baptism of the Holy Spirit which is the New Birth and Eternal Life. 

Actually, this phrase can be rendered ‘born from above’.  Why ‘from above’? Because the Holy Spirit descends from heaven into our hearts at that moment in time when we are born of God.  Look at what Jesus says above.  The first birth is when a man is ‘born of water’.  He parallels this with ‘flesh begetting flesh’.  But a man’s rebirth is when he is born of … THE SPIRIT.  It is impossible to be ‘born again’ without entering into the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit entering into you.

This is the whole sum of what it means to be ‘baptized in the Holy Spirit’.

I truly hope and pray this will be of help FOR your understanding of this essential Bible truth, that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the New Birth required to inherit Divine Life and the gift of Eternal Life.

May God bless you.

This page created by Peter Brenner on Tuesday, October 31, 2023

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