Baptism of the Holy Spirit

We saw that Acts is the second part in a two-part series, Luke’s gospel being Part 1 and Acts of the Apostles being Part 2. Christ prepared His disciples for the ministry they were about to engage in—proclaiming salvation in Christ alone, in order to escape the wrath that is to be poured out.
Jesus was preparing them for suffering, service and death. Indeed, the apostles faced death repeatedly. 1 Cor 4:9 [For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.]
The Lord Jesus prepared them after His resurrection for suffering, service, and death—with PROOFS, for PREACHING, by EMPOWERMENT, giving them the right PERSPECTIVE.
Last week we looked at how the Lord gave them many PROOFS for the resurrection by appearing to them during those 40 days. Secular historians wonder how Christianity took off so successfully in spite of so many who wanted to squash the movement. Within 50 days, the disciples had been transformed from a frightened and weak group of men to become so emboldened and 1000s were converted. The ministry of the apostles was primarily a ministry of the word, and we saw how the Lord spent time with them and taught them, so that their PREACHING would be accurate and bold, and so that they would have a clear sense of the message they had to take to the world. Acts 6:7 [So the word of God spread . . .] Acts 12:24 [But the word of God continued to spread and flourish . . .] Acts 19:20 [In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.] Acts 16:5 [He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance.]

CHRIST PREPARED THEM BY EMPOWERMENT
Acts 1:4-5 [And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”] This was not a command to do something. It was a command NOT to go. They had now to wait. Acts 1:8 [But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”] They were not to start on this task till they had been given the right kind of power. At best, right now they had the power of human rhetorical skill. The right power comes from the Holy Spirit of God working in the preacher, because God has total sovereignty in the matter of the effectiveness of preaching.
This is obvious when you think of the nature of the gospel and preaching. It is not about convincing people that they are wrong. winning people over to a new set of ideas and affections. It is about telling dead people to come alive.
Salvation is not like a marketplace. Imagine a marketplace where every religion and world view has a stall, where people are going about sampling the wares—and the stall owners explain the good points about their worldview. Salvation is not a marketplace like this where the stall owner for Christianity gets to put forward the plus points of Christianity to convince the buyer.
Take away the marketplace and replace it with a graveyard. The Spirit stops at a grave and says, “Come alive,” and the person comes alive. Eph 2:1 [And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.] The person was not seeking truth and the right worldview; he was dead. Eph 2:4-5 [But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—] We are saved not because we found the right stall or because the stall owner did a great job of selling the product. A human cannot raise even a physically dead person, leave alone one who is spiritually dead. In order to preach the life-giving word, they had to be empowered from on high. This is why the word “baptism” is used [but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now]. They needed to be immersed into the Spirit—completely submerged—touched completely by the Spirit and the Spirit’s power.
Who has this power? Do we get this as a second blessing?
Every believer has this power. This is not reserved for a small group of Christians, as a second blessing. Many people do not realise that this happens to everyone when they are converted. So they think they have to seek this empowerment. If it were true that not every believer is given the power of the holy Spirit, it would indeed be the greatest need of every new believer. But it is given to all believers at the moment of their conversion.
Why people think that the Holy Sprit is given as a second blessing.
Firstly, the example of the disciples. They did not get the Spirit when they were first converted, but had to wait for the Spirit, which came down on them on the day of Pentecost. Secondly, the other examples in Acts such as happened in Samaria (Acts 8:14) and Ephesus (Ephesus 19:1-7 12), where the Holy Spirit was given after conversion.
We must bear in mind that outside these examples in Acts, scripture is clear that we are to assume that every believer is baptised with the Holy Spirit from the moment of conversion. 1 Cor 12:13 [For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.] Rom 8:9 [You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.] Joel 2:28 [And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh . . .] The ‘all flesh’ in this verse cannot refer to flesh in the sense of flesh of all creatures. It cannot even mean all humans, because we know that God’s Spirit is not poured out on every one. It is obvious that ‘all flesh’ refers to all believers.
So we have to understand the examples in Acts in their context. Believers in the Old Testament did not universally have the indwelling of the Spirit. They would be infused by the Spirit for various tasks. And it was the Holy Spirit who even then called people and saved them, for the natural man could not even in Old Testament times have been spiritually discerning. But the general outpouring and filling of the Holy Spirit was not for people. The empowering Presence of God was in the temple then, but now is in the temple of the hearts of believers. John’s gospel looks back at the time when the Spirit had not yet been given. John 7:39 [Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.]
This is why in Acts it looks like a second blessing as the Holy Spirit was falling on genuine believers in Jerusalem for the very first time. And then on the very first Samaritan Christians, and on the very first Gentiles. Whenever the gospel extended across an ethnic, or geographical boundary, the new “Pentecost-like” event happened as proof to the recipients and those looking on. It was unthinkable and mind-blowing from a Jewish point of view that the Holy Spirit of God was taking up residence in Gentiles. So God proved it to them unmistakably by making it happen before their very eyes. Acts 10:45-47 [And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”]
This means that we are all the temple of the Lord and have all been baptised with the Holy Spirit. It should terrify us that the God—who inspired such awe in Sinai—who no one could see with their eyes and hope to live—should indwell us. This should change the way we live our lives. Phil 2:12 [. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling]
We can be confident that God is on our side in missions, just like the OT people experienced God’s presence leading them into victory. That same God is in us and He will see His word have victory. Even if the outer tent if our body perishes, His word will not fail. So, we do not need to seek after a second blessing at the hands of modern day false apostles.