Spirit filled John the Baptist said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11) Jesus repeated this promise to all who believe, with no conditions, or evidence required, in Luke 24:49, “I send the Promise of My Father upon you”, and in Acts 1:4-5, “…wait for the Promise of the Father…you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Peter strengthened the promise in Acts 2:38-39 saying, “the promise is toyou and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” The words “baptize you with the Holy Spirit” are found only 7 times in the New Testament, and no person was ever named to have been Spirit baptized because 1Corinthians 12:13 states, “For by one Spirit we were ALL baptized into one body…” If you are born again, you are “all”, and All is All!
Matthew 3:16, “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.”
John 1:33, “…Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”
Out of the context of water baptismis the first teaching in the Bible of Spirit baptism! The baptism with the Holy Spirit is the “descending” action of the Holy Spirit that brings the residency, “remaining”, or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; the baptism action and the indwelling position cannot be separated. Jesus promised to every believer, one event incorporating two different parts, an action and a position, each without any required outward evidence: (1) The action: The baptism with the Holy Spirit, which is the promise of the Father, Matthew 3:11, Acts 1:4-5, 2:38-39, and (2) The position: The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, John 14:16-31.
Jesus promised, “He will be in you” (John 14:16-31),which isthe indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to every single believer, without tongues evidence. He also promised the baptism with the Holy Spirit to every single believer without tongues evidence. Acts 11:15-17, “as upon us at the beginning…baptized with the Holy Spirit…when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ”. Romans 8:9, “…if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” The 120 believers, in Acts 2:4, received the promise of the Father,Spirit baptism and indwelling, and were ALSO subsequently Spirit filled and spoke in tongues, as a sign to the unbelievers.
Water baptism by immersion symbolizes the believer’s identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, to walk in newness of life. 1Peter 3:18, “…baptism…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” If Spirit baptism and water baptism are parallel, why would we reverse the order and go from new birth, newness of life, back into death, burial, and sin? Pentecostal doctrine does precisely that—disconnects Spirit baptism from Spirit indwelling, puts the action subsequent to the position, and then attaches “the evidence” of tongues as a condition of baptism.
In the book The Baptism In The Holy Spirit, Full Gospel Bible Institute (Eston, Saskatchewan) founder Dr. Glen S. McLean teaches on page 20, “The Scripture also speaks of the baptism in the Holy Spirit as us being filled with the Spirit…”Pentecostal statements of faith all teach that this experience is subsequent to salvation, and initially evidenced by the speaking in other tongues. Believing that baptism equals filling is the very cornerstone of the Pentecostal faith, but to the contrary, Bezalel in Exodus 31:2-3 and a host of Old Testament saints were “filled with the Holy Spirit” including John the Baptist. He taught that Spirit baptism was yet to come but he never spoke in tongues. The separation of 1800 years between the first occurrences of Spirit filling and Spirit baptism proves that baptism is not filling.
Even so, baptism and filling mean different and opposite actions. The Greek word baptizo means: “to cover by immersion” and important to note that sprinkling is symbolic of baptism, which itself is a symbol, not of death and resurrection. The Greek word pletho specifically means: “to fill, put, or pour into something.” It has nothing to do with immersion or the outside washing, but filling applies to only the inside of a vessel. Language is critical to understanding, that a certain word means a certain thing and that a different word means a different thing unless all characteristics are identical. However, the literal meanings of baptism and filling are opposite, as well as a long list of other attributes.
Acts 2:4, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” In the only seven scriptures speaking of Spirit baptism, there is absolutely no tongues evidence and so the evidence in Acts 2:4 for Spirit filling is purposely confused with Spirit baptism. Of the first tongues occurrence in Acts 2:4, (1) the people spoke in other (fifteen) real known foreign tongues, (2) unsaved people heard the wonderful works of God even in their own dialect, (3) the message was from God to men and, (4) 3000 were added to the body of Christ in one day. In the present day triple crossed substitution of errors, the event of being filled with the Holy Spirit is replaced with baptized with the Holy Spirit, the true gift of tongues is replaced withthe unintelligible Corinthian “heavenly prayer language,” and the direction is reversed as men now speak to God for “self edification”—no one understands and no one gets saved.
Matthew 23:13, “…For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.” It is men who try and shut up the kingdom of heaven, and impose seeking and human endeavor onto receiving what God has promised freely to ALL without required evidence. A century ago, a novice preacher teaching error, followed by babble in the night from an 18-year-old devotee, created the one brick theology that multiplied into a house built on sand rather than on solid exegesis.
Spirit baptism is a promise to all believers, and seeking after the baptism in the Holy Spirit, that God has already given, is a denial of the same Holy Spirit.
