Saturday 17 January 2009

Get Baptised in the Spirit

4 comments:

Anthony Smith said...

Amen! But you know that "baptised in the Spirit" is the wrong term for this continuing, growing immersion and filling of the Spirit, right? Read 1 Cor 12:13 - all Christians have already been baptised in the Spirit - and check out Grudem on the subject...

Simon said...

Is 1 Cor 12:13 talking about Baptism in the Spirit or Baptism into the body of Christ by the Spirit? I think it's the latter. When the Apostles were baptised into the Spirit at Pentecost I can't beleive that this was regeneration- rather a renewed invisioning and empowering. Every Christian today has this empowering when they are first saved but I do believe that everyone needs to keep on seeking a re-immersing in the Spirit again and again and again so that we who live in the Spirit can also walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:25). What do you think?

Anthony Smith said...

Well, there's baptism in something and there's baptism into something. We were all baptized in the Spirit (that's what 1 Cor 12:13 says, in plain and simple language!), and the effect of being baptized in the Spirit is that we were all baptized into the body of Christ. So it's both "Baptism in the Spirit" and
"Baptism into the body of Christ by the Spirit".

I see the day of Pentecost as a one-off event in history marking a transition between the Spirit's work in the Old Covenant and his work in the New Covenant. Before that day, the disciples hadn't received the Spirit in the New Testament sense, then on that day Jesus poured out the Spirit in a new way on all his people. But there was only one day of Pentecost - anyone converted since that day enters the New Covenant life of the Spirit at conversion - they don't have to pass through an Old Covenant experience of the Spirit and then have their own personal day of Pentecost.

I agree with what you say about re-immersing and empowering, but I just don't think "baptism" is the word the Bible uses to describe that particular work of the Spirit.

But I think it's important to emphasise this - otherwise we end up with a two-tier church, with spiritually baptized Christians and spiritually unbaptized Christians. And that notion should sound repugnant if you've studied 1 Corinthians - or Colossians :)

Simon said...

That's a fair comment. I can't use 'Baptism in the Spirit' to mean a continually sought after empowering because scripture doesn't use the phrase like that...

Hmm I'll re-think this.

Thanks brother :-)