Holy Spirit -04- The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
John the Immerser promised some of his audience that Christ would baptize them in the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11). After his resurrection, Jesus promised his apostles that they should be baptized in the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). This promise was fulfilled in the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (verse 4). "The like gift" was poured out on the house of Cornelius (Acts 11:17). We do not read of any such manifestation of the Holy Spirit to any other person, or persons, in the Bible. On these cases McGarvey remarks:
"When the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance, the promise of a baptism in the Holy Spirit and of power from on high was fulfilled. The power took effect on their minds, and its presence was manifested outwardly by their speaking in languages which they had never learned. The inner and mental miracle was demonstrated by the out ward and physical. The promise, ’It shall not be ye that speak, but the Spirit of my Father that speaketh in you’; was fulfilled in its most literal sense; for the very words which they uttered were supplied to them immediately by the Spirit * * * It was literally given them in that hour what they should speak. Such power had never before been bestowed on men.
It was the baptism in the Holy Spirit; not of their bodies, like John’s baptism in water, but of their spirits. It was not a literal baptism, for this is not to be affirmed of the connection between spirit and spirit; but the word baptism is used metaphorically. As the body, when baptized in water, is sunk beneath the surface and completely overwhelmed, so their spirits were completely under the control of the Holy Spirit, their words being his and not theirs. The metaphor is justified by the absolute power which the divine Spirit exerted upon their spirits. Such is not the case with ordinary influences of the Spirit, consequently these are not styled baptisms in the Spirit" (Comments on Acts 2:1-4).
Commenting on Acts 10:44-46, he says:
"The ground of amazement to the Jewish brethren was not the mere fact that these Gentiles received the Holy Spirit; for if Peter had finished his discourse, promising them the Holy Spirit on the terms which he had laid down on Pentecost, and had then baptized them, these brethren would have taken it as a matter of course that they received the Spirit. And, if after this, he had laid hands on them and imparted the miraculous gift of the Spirit, as in the case of the Samaritans, they would not have been greatly surprised. The considerations which cause the amazement, were, first, that the Holy Spirit was ’poured out’ upon them directly from God, as it had never been before on any but the apostles; and second, that this unusual gift was bestowed on Gentiles .... We have no event with which to classify it except the gift bestowed on the apostles on Pentecost; and thus it is actually classified by Peter farther on (XI 15) .... In these words he identifies it as a baptism in the Holy Spirit, and these two are the only events that are thus designated in the New Testament. The one was the divine expression of the first Jews into the new Messianic Kingdom, and the other, that of the first Gentiles." On this point A. Campbell said:
"Baptism in the Holy Spirit, as promised by Jesus, Acts 1:5, and explained on Pentecost, Acts II, and in the house of Cornelius, Acts X 16, 17, indicates those supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, bestowed, for the confirmation of the testimony, upon the Apostles and first converts from among the Jews and Gentiles. This immersion of’ the Jews and Gentiles was only once, as in the case of private or personal immersion.... These gifts appearing externally and internally of’ the persons of the Apostles and the first fruits of both people, were so overwhelming as to be figuratively called an immersion in the Holy Spirit" (Appendix to the "Living Oracles").
Since the one case of baptism of the Spirit opened up the door of faith to the Jews and the other to the Gentiles, we may not look for another. Since there are no people who are not either Jews or Gentiles there is no need for another case of Spirit-baptism.