UNDERSTANDING THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

In last Sunday’s sermon, “Baptized with the Holy Spirit”, I spoke of Dr. Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology as being very helpful in understanding the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I believe that the apostles who were baptized in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost had been previously saved, and that the apostle Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that baptism in the Spirit occurs at the time of regeneration and salvation of believers in Christ.  Here is a quote from Dr. Grudem that I did not use on May 3:

“The Day of Pentecost was certainly a remarkable time of transition in the whole history of redemption as recorded in Scripture.  It was a remarkable day in the history of the world, because on that day the Holy Spirit began to function among God’s people with new covenant power…This fact helps us understand what happened to the disciples at Pentecost.  They received this remarkable new empowering from the Holy Spirit because they were living at the time of transition between the old covenant work of the Holy Spirit and the new covenant work of the Holy Spirit.  Though it was a ‘second experience’ of the Holy Spirit, coming as it did long after their conversion, it is not to be taken as a pattern for us, for we are not living at a time of transition in the work of the Holy Spirit.  In their case, believers with an old covenant empowering from the Holy Spirit became believers with a new covenant empowering from the Holy Spirit.  But we today do not become believers with a weaker, old covenant work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and wait until some later time to receive a new covenant work of the Holy Spirit.  Rather, we are in the same position as those who became Christians in the church at Corinth; when we become Christians we are all ‘baptized in one Spirit into one body’ (1 Cor. 12:13)—just as the Corinthians were…”

“What shall we say about the phrase ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit”?  It is a phrase that the New Testament authors use to speak of coming into the new covenant power of the Holy Spirit.  It happened at Pentecost for the disciples, but it happened at conversion for the Corinthians and for us.”  (pages 772-773)

Thank God for the Holy Spirit and His life-giving power!