What is The Baptism of the Holy Spirit? Part 4

 

Picture from Wallpapers.com - twodazza

We will keep moving along, exploring what it means to be baptized by the Holy Spirit. As you can see above, this is my fourth article on this subject, and I encourage you to read the previous three if you haven't already. They provide a foundation on which I will continue building in this article, and if you do not have that foundational knowledge, what I am writing here may not make sense to you.

My first article investigated how the the Bible talks about baptism by the Holy Spirit and it included a look at Jesus' own water and Holy Spirit baptisms. My second article presented the evidence that there are actually two separate experiences of relationship with the Holy Spirit; the first being the receipt of the Holy Spirit upon our confession of faith, and the second being living under the influence of the Holy Spirit so that He empowers us with gifts of the Spirit in the same way that Jesus was empowered and was able to act in the ways that He did. Remember that in John 14:12 Jesus tells us that we have the opportunity to act as He did; "he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do". This promise is what we explored in the third article; what Holy Spirit baptism means and what it is supposed to look like.

In that third article, I mentioned that there is a difference between the fruits of the Spirit, as we read about in Galatians 5:22-23, and the gifts of the Spirit, which are the result of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit as He works through us. One is supposed to be the evidence of our relationship with Jesus; the other is supposed to be the evidence of our relationship with the Holy Spirit. I want to spend my efforts in this article looking at the fruits of the Spirit, which will stray away from the overall theme of this series, but I think that it is necessary for a fuller understanding of the main topic of this series. I will follow that up with another article looking at the gifts of the Spirit which will return us to the theme that I am pursuing.

When we read Paul's letter to the church in Galatia, we come across his teachings on what it looks like to walk by the Spirit. Without delving into the entire letter, we see that the purpose of the letter is to refute the pressures that Messianic Jews were inflicting on Gentile Believers that they were supposed to observe the Jewish laws and rites if they wanted to walk with Christ. 

The entire letter warns the Galatians about being lead astray by false teachings, and it specifically refutes that idea of retaining observance of Jewish law and, particularly, the rite of circumcision. In the fifth chapter, Paul exhorts the church that we are not subject to the Jewish laws when we are living under the dominion of Christ. The laws were originally given in order to teach the Jewish people who had escaped from Egypt that they were called to abandon the pagan religious ways that they had been surrounded by while in Egypt in order that they would seek to obey the One God that delivered them from their slavery. Remember that the descendants of Jacob, or Israel, had been in Egypt ever since Jacob went there to escape the famine that his son Joseph lead Egypt through by knowledge from the Holy Spirit. They had been in Egypt for 400 years, ending up enslaved by the Egyptians and surrounded by the Egyptian pagan practices, so they no longer knew the God of their forebears or how to serve Him. 

These laws of the Old Testament were a part of God's gradual revelation of what it looked like to seek Him and to live according to His ways. These laws are given to humanity early in the books of the Bible, but in reality, this occurred probably around 2000 years after creation, give or take several hundred years. These laws had been the basis of the Israelite faith for generations; but the sacrifice of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell all Believers made the strict observance of the law obsolete; not that the law no longer guides us, but we are to live according to the leading of the Holy Spirit and not the letter of the Law.

In the fifth chapter of his letter, Paul gets to why it is not necessary to follow the Jewish laws in order to follow God. Paul is telling all Believers that through our faith in Jesus, our lives should look different from those around us who have rejected Him, so that we do not have to follow laws in order to be set apart, but that by the outpourings of our love for Christ, we will look different; "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love." (v. 6). Our faith us supposed to be enacted through our love for those around us.

Verses 13 and 14 continue to flesh out this idea of faith and love over Law; "For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If we are living according the Spirit that we received upon our confession of faith in Jesus, then our actions towards others will be in accordance to the fulfillment of the Law without the necessity to memorize and observe the Law word for word. Paul reiterates this more plainly in verse 18 where he states that, "if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law." This teaching also aligns with the Law of Liberty that we read about in the book of James.

We are coming up to the verses wherein Paul tells us what it looks like to live under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but first he tells us what it looks like to live in a way that is contrary to the Holy Spirit. Since Paul thought it important to make this distinction, we will look at this part as well.

In verses 19-21, we read, "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

That is quite a list, but there are probably some things in there whose meanings are a little vague to us. In comes the word-nerd. I will again be taking these definitions from my 1976 World Book Dictionaries.

Immorality is wickedness; wrongdoing; vice; lack of chastity. A vice is a moral fault or habit, and a lack of chastity is a lack of moral purity; decency; modesty.

Impurity is a lack of innocence or a contamination of evil.

Sensuality refers to sexual indecency or obscenity as well as lust, but it can also refer to the excessive indulgence in the pleasures of the senses. This could arguably include things such as drunkenness, narcotic highs and anything else external that makes us feel good - notice that this is the "excessive pursuit" of those things, so not all things that make us feel good have evil roots, though some do. Discernment is required.

Idolatry is placing anything above or before God. This can be a created thing or another entity.

Sorcery is the practice of magic or witchcraft. This is not to be confused with simple sleight of hand. Sorcery specifically refers to these arts as practised with the help of evil spirits. Necromancy, psychics, horoscopes and tarot cards come to mind, along with others.

Enmity and strife go hand in hand, both referring to hostility, hatred and fighting between people and people groups. Actual racism would fall in this category, but not what people like to claim as racism these days.

Jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness; these should all be pretty self-explanatory, with disputes, dissensions and factions all referring to much the same things.

And we end up with carousing which means to drink heavily and to take part in noisy and boisterous partying. And of course this list is not exhaustive but Paul extends it to include "things like these".

I hope that those who have been walking with the Lord for a while do not recognize their own actions in too many of those listed items, but there are some that are more natural for people to fall into. Things such as enmity and strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes and factions can be very easy to fall into; it can be argued that they come with being human, and this is the flesh that Paul exhorts us to fight against.

But let's look at the fruit of the Spirit, which are in contrast to the deeds of the flesh.

Galatians 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Maybe it says something that these should need no further description. We all know what they are and we all know that they are good.

What Paul is talking about here is what comes from the root of who or what we are and what we are focusing on. Matthew Henry states in his commentary of the Bible that, "As sin is called the work of the flesh, because the flesh is the principle that moves men to do it, so grace is said to to be the fruit of the Spirit, because it proceeds from the Spirit, as the fruit does from the root." 

So we see that if we are living a life that portrays the deeds of the flesh, that is an indication that we do not have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. Likewise, if we are living a life that portrays the fruit of the Spirit, that is an indication that we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. The root that we nourish will affect the fruit that we produce. This is what Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 15:18-19; "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders." That list sounds a lot like "things like" those that Paul listed. This is how the world will be able to differentiate between those of the world and those of the Holy Spirit.

It is probably important to point out that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit does not mean that we will live faultless lives. We will always be battling our flesh nature, that which seeks to protect ourselves from blame and shame and harm. This is why things like jealousy, outbursts of anger and disputes are still things that need to be dealt with even among Believers. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a cleansing force, but it does not make us instantly clean. He will point out our failings and encourage us to right wrongs and to do better, but it is a continual process.

Taking from the "Introduction to Christian Theology", we read that "The fruit of the Spirit is the communication to the individual of the graces flowing from the divine nature, and has its issue in character rather that in special qualifications for service." (pg 251). This is to say that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit does not inherently give us "special qualifications", otherwise stated as giftings, for service to God, but rather that the changes in our life that others will see, that is, the fruit, indicates to others that we are living under the grace of God. 

God's grace to us is undeserved. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." We have done nothing that warrants our deserving God's grace, nor have we done anything that warrants our receipt of the Holy Spirit. We cannot earn these things, yet they are bestowed on us when accept Jesus' gift of salvation. And the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the first experience, will manifest through the fruit of the Spirit.

We will not act or work in power under this first experience of the Holy Spirit, but God's divine nature can still flow through us in the ways that we treat others. This can be enough to draw others to Christ through their interactions with us, but we will not be acting in power in the ways that Jesus refers to in John 14. That only comes once we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit; the second experience of the Holy Spirit. 

I am curious about at what point in time this became less than common knowledge among Believers. When did the church lose sight of the power that is available to those who truly seek it through submission to the Holy Spirit? Maybe it became an issue when man sought to use the church to wield political power rather than spiritual power. This may have been at the time of Constantine when he claimed christianity, but used his position to influence the creed of the early church, being new to the faith himself. Or perhaps this knowledge began to see it's death while the popes of the Catholic Church exercised power over mankind that God never granted to religious leaders, which also coincided with the church withholding the Scriptures from the masses through the protectionism of banning translations into the common languages of the people. If the latter is the case, then why has this not returned to the common knowledge of the Believers in the 500 years since Luther took his stand against the Catholic Church?

I don't have these answers, and I know that I am not the only one to plumb these depths of Biblical truths and come to these conclusions. But in this age of easy access to information, it may be time for this understanding of the Scriptures to become common knowledge again. I think that we can all agree that this world needs more of Christ than it has probably needed at any other time since He walked among us.

So I want to encourage you to think about these things to make sure that they make sense to you. And if they do, consider acting on them. If we had a world wherein people were actually working in the power of the Holy Spirit, performing miracles and teaching the masses, how could this world change? The power of the Holy Spirit is not diminished, but He also does not force us to act in ways that we do not agree to. So we must ask, seek and knock in pursuit of the baptism of the Holy Spirit before He will act in the ways that the Scriptures tell us that Jesus and His disciples did.