Hopefully the following excerpt on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit from another continuist, Wayne Grudem, will help you as it covers much more detail, including the events of Acts.
Wayne Grudem - Systematic Theology
Baptism in and Filling with the Holy Spirit
Should we seek a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” after conversion? What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Systematic theology books have not traditionally included a chapter on baptism in the Holy Spirit or filling with the Holy Spirit as part of the study of the “order of salvation,” the study of the various steps in which the benefits of salvation are applied to our lives.1 But with the spread of Pentecostalism that began in 1901, the widespread influence of the charismatic movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the remarkable growth of Pentecostal and charismatic2 churches worldwide from 1970 to the present, the question of a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” distinct p 764 from regeneration has come into increasing prominence. I have put this chapter at this point in our study of the application of redemption for two reasons: (1) A proper understanding of this question must assume an understanding of regeneration, adoption, and sanctification, all of which have been discussed in previous chapters. (2) All the previous chapters on the application of redemption have discussed events that occur (or in the case of sanctification, that begin) at the point at which a person becomes a Christian. But this question concerns an event that occurs either at the point of conversion (according to one view) or sometime after conversion (according to another view). Moreover, people on both sides of the question agree that some kind of second experience has happened to many people after their conversion, and therefore one very important question is how to understand this experience in the light of Scripture and what scriptural categories properly apply to it.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Traditional Pentecostal Understanding
The topic of this chapter has become important today because many Christians say that they have experienced a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” that came after they became Christians and that brought great blessing in their lives. They claim that prayer and Bible study have become much more meaningful and effective, that they have discovered new joy in worship, and they often say that they have received new spiritual gifts (especially, and most frequently, the gift of speaking in tongues).
This traditional Pentecostal or charismatic position is supported from Scripture in the following way:
(1) Jesus’ disciples were born-again believers long before the day of Pentecost, perhaps during Jesus’ life and ministry, but certainly by the time that Jesus, after his resurrection, “breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” ’ (John 20:22).
(2) Jesus nevertheless commanded his disciples “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4), telling them, “Before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). He told them, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). The disciples then obeyed Jesus’ command and waited in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come upon them so that they would receive new empowering for witness and ministry.
(3) When the disciples had waited for ten days, the day of Pentecost came, tongues of fire rested above their heads, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). This clearly shows that they received a baptism in (or with)3 the Holy Spirit. Although the disciples were born again long before Pentecost, at Pentecost they received a “baptism with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5 and 11:16 refer to it this way) that was subsequent to conversion and resulted in great empowering for ministry as well as speaking in tongues.4
(4) Christians today, like the apostles, should ask Jesus for a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and thus follow the pattern of the disciples’ lives.5 If we receive this baptism in the Holy Spirit, it will result in much more power for ministry for our own lives, just as it did in the lives of the disciples, and will often (or always, according to some teachers) result in speaking in tongues as well.
(5) Support for this pattern—in which people are first born again and then later are baptized in the Holy Spirit—is seen in several other instances in the book of Acts. It is seen, for example, in Acts 8, where the people of Samaria first became Christians when they “believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12), but only later received the Holy Spirit when the apostles Peter and John came from Jerusalem and prayed for them (Acts 8:14–17).6
Another example is found in Acts 19, where Paul came and found “some disciples” at Ephesus (Acts 19:1). But, “when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6).
All of these examples (Acts 2, 8, sometimes 10, and 19) are cited by Pentecostals in order to show that a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” subsequent to conversion was a very common occurrence for New Testament Christians. Therefore, they reason, if it was common for Christians in Acts to have this second experience sometime after conversion, should it not be common for us today as well?
We can analyze this issue of the baptism in the Holy Spirit by asking three questions: (1) What does the phrase “baptism in the Holy Spirit” mean in the New Testament? (2) How should we understand the “second experiences” that came to born-again believers in the book of Acts? (3) Are there other biblical expressions, such as “filling with the Holy Spirit,” that are better suited to describe an empowering with the Holy Spirit that comes after conversion?
B. What Does “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” Mean in the New Testament?
There are only seven passages in the New Testament where we read of someone being baptized in the Holy Spirit. (The English translations quoted here use the word with rather than in.)8 The seven passages follow:
In the first four verses, John the Baptist is speaking of Jesus and predicting that he will baptize people in (or with) the Holy Spirit:
Matthew 3:11: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Mark 1:8: “I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Luke 3:16: “I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
John 1:33: “He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” ’
It is hard to draw any conclusions from these four passages with respect to what baptism with the Holy Spirit really is. We discover that Jesus is the one who will carry out this baptism and he will baptize his followers. But no further specification of this baptism is given.
The next two passages refer directly to Pentecost:
Acts 1:5: [Here Jesus says,] “John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 11:16: [Here Peter refers back to the same words of Jesus that were quoted in the previous verse. He says,] “I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’”
These two passages show us that whatever we may understand baptism in the Holy Spirit to be, it certainly happened at the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit fell in great power on the disciples and those with them, and they spoke in other tongues, and about three thousand people were converted (Acts 2:14).
It is important to realize that all six of these verses use almost exactly the same expression in Greek, with the only differences being some variation in word order or verb tense to fit the sentence, and with one example having the preposition understood rather than expressed explicitly.9
The only remaining reference in the New Testament is in the Pauline epistles:
1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV mg): “For we were all baptized in one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
Now the question is whether 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to the same activity as these other six verses. In many English translations it appears to be different, for many translations are similar to the RSV, which says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” Those who support the Pentecostal view of baptism in the Holy Spirit after conversion are quite eager to see this verse as referring to something other than baptism in the Holy Spirit, and they frequently emphasize the difference that comes out in the English translations. In all the other six verses, Jesus is the one who baptizes people and the Holy Spirit is the “element” (parallel to water in physical baptism) in which or with which Jesus baptizes people. But here in 1 Corinthians 12:13 (so the Pentecostal explanation goes) we have something quite different—here the person doing the baptizing is not Jesus but the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they say, 1 Corinthians 12:13 should not be taken into account when we ask what the New Testament means by “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
This point is very important to the Pentecostal position, because, if we admit that 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to baptism in the Holy Spirit, then it is very hard to maintain that it is an experience that comes after conversion. In this verse Paul says that this baptism in/with/by the Holy Spirit made us members of the body of—“We were all baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13 NIV mg). But if this really is a “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” the same as the event that was referred to in the previous six verses, then Paul is saying that it happened to all the Corinthians when they became members of the body of Christ; that is, when they became Christians. For it was that baptism that resulted in their being members of the body of Christ, the church. Such a conclusion would be very difficult for the Pentecostal position that holds that baptism in the Holy Spirit is something that occurs after conversion, not at the same time.
Is it possible to sustain the Pentecostal view that the other six verses refer to a baptism by Jesus in which he baptizes us in (or with) the Holy Spirit, but that 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to something different, to a baptism by the Holy Spirit? Although the distinction seems to make sense from some English translations, it really cannot be supported by an examination of the Greek text, for there the expression is almost identical to the expressions we have seen in the other six verses. Paul says ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι ... ἐβαπτίσθημεν (“in one Spirit ... we were baptized”). Apart from one small difference (he refers to “one Spirit” rather than “the Holy Spirit”),10 all the other elements are the same: the verb is βαπτίζω (G966) and the prepositional phrase contains the same words (ἐν, G1877, plus the dative noun πνεύματι from πνεῦμα, G4460). If we translate this same Greek expression “baptize in the Holy Spirit” (or “baptize with the Holy Spirit”) in the other six New Testament occurrences where we find it, then it seems only proper that we translate it in the same way in this seventh occurrence. And no matter how we translate, it seems hard to deny that the original readers would have seen this phrase as referring to the same thing as the other six verses, because for them the words were the same.
But why have modern English translations translated this verse to say, “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” thus giving apparent support to the Pentecostal interpretation? We should first note that the NASB gives “in” as a marginal translation, and the NIV margin gives both “with” and “in” as alternatives. The reason these translations have chosen the word “by” has apparently been a desire to avoid an appearance of two locations for the baptism in the same sentence. The sentence already says that this baptism was “into one body,” and perhaps the translators thought it seemed awkward to say, “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” But this should not be seen as a great difficulty, for Paul says, referring to the Israelites, “all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2)—a very closely parallel expression where the cloud and the sea are the “elements” that surrounded or overwhelmed the people of Israel and Moses means the new life of participation in the Mosaic covenant and the fellowship of God’s people (led by Moses) that the Israelites found themselves in after they had passed through the cloud and the sea. It is not that there were two locations for the same baptism, but one was the element in which they were baptized and the other was the location in which they found themselves after the baptism. This is very similar to 1 Corinthians 12:13: the Holy Spirit was the element in which they were baptized, and the body of Christ, the church, was the location in which they found themselves after that baptism.11 It thus seems appropriate to conclude that 1 Corinthians 12:13 also refers to baptism “in” or “with” the Holy Spirit, and is referring to the same thing as the other six verses mentioned.
But this has a significant implication for us: it means that, as far as the apostle Paul was concerned, baptism in the Holy Spirit occurred at conversion. He says that all the Corinthians were baptized in the Holy Spirit and the result was that they became members of the body of Christ: “For we were all baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13 NIV mg). “Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” therefore, must refer to the activity of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Christian life when he gives us new spiritual life (in regeneration) and cleanses us and gives a clear break with the power and love of sin (the initial stage of sanctification). In this way “baptism in the Holy Spirit” refers to all that the Holy Spirit does at the beginning of our Christian lives. But this means that it cannot refer to an experience after conversion, as the Pentecostal interpretation would have it.12
But how, then, do we understand the references to baptism in the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5 and 11:6, both of which refer to the day of Pentecost? Were these not instances where the disciples, having previously been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, now experienced a new empowering from the Holy Spirit that enabled them to minister effectively?
It is true that the disciples were “born again” long before Pentecost, and in fact probably long before Jesus breathed on them and told them to receive the Holy Spirit in John 20:22. 13 Jesus had said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44), but the disciples certainly had come to Jesus and had followed him (even though their understanding of who he was increased gradually over time). Certainly when Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16), it was evidence of some kind of regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in his heart. Jesus told him, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17). And Jesus had said to the Father regarding his disciples, “I have given them the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me ... I have guarded them and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:8, 12). The disciples had “little faith” (Matt. 8:26) at times, but they did have faith! Certainly they were regenerated long before the day of Pentecost.14
But we must realize that the day of Pentecost is much more than an individual event in the lives of Jesus’ disciples and those with them. The day of Pentecost was the point of transition between the old covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit and the new covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Of course the Holy Spirit was at work throughout the Old Testament, hovering over the waters of the first day of creation (Gen. 1:2), empowering people for service to God and leadership and prophecy (Ex. 31:3; 35:31; Deut. 34:9; Judg. 14:6; 1 Sam. 16:13; Ps. 51:11, et al.). But during that time the work of the Holy Spirit in individual lives was, in general, a work of lesser power.
There are several indications of a less powerful and less extensive work of the Holy Spirit in the old covenant: the Holy Spirit only came to a few people with significant power for ministry (Num. 11:16–17, for example), but Moses longed for the day when the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all of God’s people: “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!” (Num. 11:29). The equipping of the Holy Spirit for special ministries could be lost, as it was in the life of Saul (1 Sam. 16:14), and as David feared that it might be in his own life (Ps. 51:11). In terms of spiritual power in the lives of the people of God, there was little power over the dominion of Satan, resulting in very little effective evangelism of the nations around Israel, and no examples of ability to cast out demons.15 The old covenant work of the Holy Spirit was almost completely confined to the nation of Israel, but in the new covenant there is created a new “dwelling place of God” (Eph. 2:22), the church, which unites both Gentiles and Jews in the body of Christ.
Moreover, the Old Testament people of God looked forward to a “new covenant” age when the work of the Holy Spirit would be much more powerful and much more widespread (Num. 11:29; Jer. 31:31–33; Ezek. 36:26–27; Joel 2:28–29).16
When the New Testament opens, we see John the Baptist as the last of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus said, “Among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he ... all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Matt. 11:11–14). John knew that he baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (John 3:16). John the Baptist, then, still was living in an “old covenant” experience of the working of the Holy Spirit.
In the life of Jesus, we first see the new covenant power of the Holy Spirit at work. The Holy Spirit descends on him at his baptism (Luke 3:21–22), and after p 771 his temptation Jesus “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14). Then we begin to see what this new covenant power of the Holy Spirit will look like, because Jesus casts out demons with a word, heals all who are brought to him, and teaches with authority that people had not heard before (see Luke 4:16–44, et al.).
The disciples, however, do not receive this full new covenant empowering for ministry until the Day of Pentecost, for Jesus tells them to wait in Jerusalem, and promises, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). This was a transition in the lives of the disciples as well (see John 7:39; 14:17; 16:7; Acts 2:16). The promise of Joel that the Holy Spirit would come in new covenant fullness was fulfilled (Acts 2:16) as Jesus returned to heaven and then was given authority to pour out the Holy Spirit in new fullness and power (Acts 2:33).
What was the result in the lives of the disciples? These believers, who had had an old-covenant less-powerful experience of the Holy Spirit in their lives, received on the Day of Pentecost a more-powerful new-covenant experience of the Holy Spirit working in their lives.17 They received much greater “power” (Acts 1:8), power for living the Christian life and for carrying out Christian ministry.
This new covenant power gave the disciples more effectiveness in their witness and their ministry (Acts 1:8; Eph. 4:8, 11–13), much greater power for victory over the influence of sin in the lives of all believers (note the emphasis on the power of Christ’s resurrection at work within us in Rom. 6:11–14; 8:13–14; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:10), and power for victory over Satan and demonic forces that would attack believers (2 Cor. 10:3–4; Eph. 1:19–21; 6:10–18; 1 John 4:4). p 772 This new covenant power of the Holy Spirit also resulted in a wide and hitherto unknown distribution of gifts for ministry to all believers (Acts 2:16–18; 1 Cor. 12:7, 11; 1 Peter 4:10; cf. Num. 11:17, 24–29). These gifts also had corporate implications because they were intended not to be used individualistically but for the corporate building up of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:7; 14:12). It also meant that the gospel was no longer effectively limited to the Jews only, but that all races and all nations would hear the gospel in power and would be united into the church, to the glory of God (Eph. 2:11–3:10).20 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.
But 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 the 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 first 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 p 773 Christians we are all “baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13)—just as the Corinthians were, and just as were the new believers in many churches who were converted when Paul traveled on his missionary journeys.
In conclusion, the disciples certainly did experience “a baptism in the Holy Spirit” after conversion on the Day of Pentecost, but this happened because they were living at a unique point in history, and this event in their lives is therefore not a pattern that we are to seek to imitate.
What shall we say about the phrase “baptism in 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.21
It is not a phrase the New Testament authors would use to speak of any post-conversion experience of empowering by the Holy Spirit.
C. How Should We Understand the “Second Experiences” in Acts?
But even if we have correctly understood the experience of the disciples at Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, are there not other examples of people who had a “second experience” of empowering of the Holy Spirit after conversion, such as those in Acts 8 (at Samaria), Acts 10 (Cornelius’ household), and Acts 19 (the Ephesian disciples)?
These are not really convincing examples to prove the Pentecostal doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit either. First, the expression “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is not ordinarily used to refer to any of these events,22 and this should give us some hesitation in applying this phrase to them. But more importantly, a closer look at each case shows more clearly what was happening in these events.
In Acts 8:4–25 the Samaritan people “believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” and “they were baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12). Some have argued that this was not genuine saving faith on the part of the Samaritans.23 However, there is no indication in the text that Philip had a deficient understanding of the gospel (he had been prominent in the Jerusalem church) or that Philip himself thought that their faith in Christ was inadequate, for he allowed them to be baptized (Acts 8:12).
A better understanding of this event would be that God, in his providence, sovereignly waited to give the new covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit to the Samaritans directly through the hands of the apostles (Acts 8:14–17) 24 so that it might be evident to the highest leadership in the Jerusalem church that the Samaritans were not second-class citizens but full members of the church. This was important because of the historical animosity between Jews and Samaritans (“Jews have no dealings with Samaritans,” John 4:9), and because Jesus had specified that the spread of the gospel to Samaria would be the next major step after it had been preached in Jerusalem and the region of Judea that surrounded Jerusalem: “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Thus, the event in Acts 8 was a kind of “Samaritan Pentecost,” a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the people of Samaria, who were a mixed race of Jewish and Gentile ancestry, so that it might be evident to all that the full new covenant blessings and power of the Holy Spirit had come to this group of people as well, and were not confined to Jews only. Because this is a special event in the history of redemption, as the pattern of Acts 1:8 is worked out in the book of Acts, it is not a pattern for us to repeat today. It is simply part of the transition between the old covenant experience of the Holy Spirit and the new covenant experience of the Holy Spirit.
The situation in Acts 10 is less complicated, because it is not even clear that Cornelius was a genuine believer before Peter came and preached the gospel to him. Certainly he had not trusted in Christ for salvation. He is rather a Gentile who was one of the first examples of the way in which the gospel would go “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).25 Certainly Cornelius had not first believed in Christ’s death and resurrection to save him and then later come into a second experience after his conversion.
In Acts 19, once again we encounter a situation of some people who had not really heard the gospel of salvation through Christ. They had been baptized into the baptism of John the Baptist (Acts 19:3), so they were probably people who had heard John the Baptist preach, or had talked to others who had heard John the Baptist preach, and had been baptized “into John’s baptism” (Acts 19:3) as a sign that they were repenting of their sins and preparing for the Messiah who was to come. They certainly had not heard of Christ’s death and resurrection, for they had not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2)!—a fact that no one who was present at Pentecost or who had heard the gospel after Pentecost could have failed to know. It is likely that they had not even heard that Jesus had come and lived and died, because Paul had to explain to them, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus” (Acts 19:4). Therefore these “disciples” in Ephesus did not have new covenant understanding or new covenant faith, and they certainly did not have a new covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit—they were “disciples” only in the sense of followers of John the Baptist who were still waiting for the p 775 Messiah. When they heard of him they believed in him, and then received the power of the Holy Spirit that was appropriate to the gospel of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of this, these disciples at Ephesus are certainly not a pattern for us today either, for we do not first have faith in a Messiah that we are waiting for, and then later learn that Jesus has come and lived and died and risen again. We come into an understanding of the gospel of Christ immediately, and we, like the Corinthians, enter immediately into the new covenant experience of the power of the Holy Spirit.26
It seems therefore that there are no New Testament texts that encourage us to seek for a second experience of “baptism in the Holy Spirit” that comes after conversion.
- then this question is not for you.
