The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Part 2

Acts 2:5-13

     We have come in our continuing study to the book of Acts, a wonderful New Testament book that gives us the history of the first church, the first century church.  And when I use the term church, just for clarification's sake, I am not talking about a building on a corner; I am talking about a body of believers.  When we talk about the church this morning, that is what we are referring to.

     Now, we remember from our study of Acts, chapter 1 that in the first chapter of Acts, the Holy Spirit gives to us preparation for the church.  We learned some wonderful things in regard to what Jesus did to equip His own to really do the job when the church was born.  Now, as we come to Acts 2, the church is born and they're ready to do the job.  And as we see this morning, they begin to do it and it's exciting.  In relation to what happens in Acts 2, Jesus had promised two great events.  First of all, Jesus had promised the birth of the church.  In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, "I will build My church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it."  Then Jesus had not only promised the birth of the church, but He had promised the coming of the Holy Spirit.  In John 14:16 and 17 He said, "I will pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth."  And then He said, "He is with you, He shall be in you."  And then He clarified it even further in Acts 1:5 when Jesus said, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."  So Jesus made two great promises.  The church would be born and believers would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  Both of those events took place at the same time on the same day and are recorded for us in Acts, chapter 2. 

     Now, for those who were not here last week, we would apologize by saying that we began this message last week.  And as so often the case, we don't get all the way through the message.  So we will have to pick up where we left off with but a brief review.

     Now, the birth of the church, as we learned last week, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurred simultaneously.  And that has to be so because the theological definition of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that it is the placing of believers into the church.  That's what the baptism of the Spirit is.  The apostle Paul in I Corinthians, chapter 12 and verse 13 defines it very clearly when he says, "For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body."  That is, at the moment of salvation every believer is placed into the church, which is a unit, a closely-knit together body.  So that the forming of the church and the baptism of the Spirit had to happen together because the baptism of the Spirit is placing believers together in the body.  And so they did happen on the very same day.  The church was born in Acts 2.  The believers were baptized with the Spirit in Acts 2 at the same time.  That is the baptism of the Spirit.

     Now, since that time, naturally, you'll recognize that this was a transition, that this was the beginning of something here, so it didn't happen here...that is, the baptism and the entering in of the church...didn't happen to these disciples the moment they were saved.  They had likely been saved before this.  But because the age is changing and this is a transition, it occurs now in the design of God.  So though they were saved, perhaps right after Jesus arose, they would have understood the whole of New Testament salvation.  The Spirit does not come until the day of Pentecost so there's a period of time in there that we see in the transition of the two ages, the Old Testament age and the New Testament.  That does not mean that you receive Christ and 40 or 50 days later you get the Holy Spirit.  That's not the norm for all the church age.  That's simply what happened here in the transition.  From then on, at the moment of salvation, a believer, when he believes in Christ, is baptized into the body, becomes one with Christ...that's Romans 6...we went over that last week...that's Galatians 3...we've been through all of that...but that is the norm for the Christian.  The moment of salvation is the moment of Spirit baptism into the body.  But here, of course, occurring after they believed because of the coming of the new age specifically designed by God to be on the day of Pentecost.  And so we see then that what happens here is a new fellowship brought about by the Holy Spirit indwelling all believers.  So that if you want to know a definition of the church today, the true church, you would say that it is those who have been placed into a union and those who are individually indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  All Christians are part of the body.  All Christians are indwelt by the Spirit.  And the body was begun to be formed in Pentecost, Acts 2. 

     Now, that's just a fast review of last time and we'll continue our review for just a moment.  We saw that the passage is divided into three parts.  All right?  The evidence of the Spirit's coming in the first four verses, the effect of the Spirit's coming in verses 5 to 11 and the explanation of the Spirit's coming, verses 12 and 13.  The evidence, the effect and the explanation.  Now, last time we began to talk about the evidence of the Spirit's coming and we'll pick that up this morning.  Verses 1 to 4 give us the evidence that the Holy Spirit came.  Notice verse 1 and we'll just review for a moment.  "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."  Now, this is about 50 days after the Passover, 50 days after Jesus Christ died.  In fact, it is exactly so.  It is on the day of Pentecost.  The day of Pentecost was the celebration of a feast exactly 50 days after Passover, the Feast of Harvest.  And we showed you last time how that by divine timing, the fact of the birth of the church and the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurring on Pentecost fulfills the prophecy of Leviticus 23 in which we see the Feast of Harvest as a preview or a type of the church and the baptism of the Spirit.  We went into that last time.  As Christ, for example, fulfilled the Passover feast by dying on the Passover, as He fulfilled the First Fruits feast by rising on the First Fruits feast day, so the Spirit and the birth of the church occurs on Pentecost to fulfill the meaning of that feast from Leviticus 23.  You see, these three feasts are types or pictures prophetically of what is to come.  And Jesus died on the right day, He rose on the right day and the church was born on the right day because Leviticus 23 outlined it in the pictures of the feasts, which we went into last time.  So when it says that "when the day of Pentecost was fully come," that is the key to interpreting the passage.  In other words, this has a very basic direct significance for a special day in the calendar of Israel.  And for people to come along and say that the Spirit of God comes upon an individual as in Acts when the preparation is right and when the individual does the right things is to misinterpret the passage.  The Spirit came on a specific day designed by God, the day of Pentecost.  It had absolutely nothing to do with the believers there, nothing to do with them meeting any qualifications or any requirements.  They were there and it happened because God sovereignly designed it to happen.  So on God's chosen day the church was to be born, just as on God's chosen day Jesus arose, as on God's chosen day Jesus died as pictured as far back as Leviticus 23 in the feasts that He gave to Israel.  The church, then, is baptized in God's good time by God's sovereignty.  Notice verse 2 and it tells us the evidence that the Spirit came and the church was born.  "Suddenly there came"...still reviewing..."a sound from Heaven like a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting."  Notice the sound.  We told you it was the Greek word pnoe, which means a blast or a breath and it came from Heaven.  This is the breath of God, the Holy Spirit.  God is breathing to earth His Holy Spirit, a blast of breath.  It is not a wind, it is not a rushing wind; it is only a sound like a rushing wind.  In other words, there is all the noise of a hurricane and absolute stillness.  Then in verse 3 it takes us a step further and says that "there appeared unto them cloven tongues"...or parted tongues of fire.  Each tongue individually sat upon each of them.  Not only were they blended together in verse 2 into the body, the baptism of the Spirit, but in verse 3 the Spirit of God came to indwell every one of them as signified by the fact that the tongues stood over them.  And every one of them became the possessor of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  And from that time on, beloved, there is no such thing as a Christian who doesn't have the Holy Spirit, no such thing.  Romans 8:9, as we told you last week, says "...if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His."  Every believer possesses the Holy Spirit. 

     Then, to begin where we begin today, we come to verse 4 and in addition to receiving the baptism of the Spirit it says, "And they were all"...what?..."filled with the Holy Spirit..."  Now, you cannot be filled with something that you don't have.  And so it is that in verses 2 and 3 they received the Spirit of God.  In verse 4 the Spirit of God released His power to fill them.  And we believe there is a distinction between the baptism of the Spirit and the filling.  Baptism is positional; filling is practical.  Baptism grants the power; filling turns it on.  Now, for a theological definition of this you have to go to the apostle Paul.  And you find, as I quoted earlier, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is placing you into the body and placing the Spirit in you, I Corinthians 12:13.  The filling of the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5:18, is a matter of yielding to the already present Spirit so that He totally controls you.  Now, that's the question in the Christian life.  Every Christian already possesses the Holy Spirit; it's only a question of whether you yield to His power.  Let me just see if I can make a distinction to help you understand it.  You hear a lot of people say, well, I've accepted Christ as Savior, but not as Lord.  Have you heard that?  And later on in their life, you know, they bow to the Lordship of Christ.  The Bible does not teach that.  The Bible does not teach that Jesus Christ is only Christ and then a little while later He gets to be Lord.  Jesus is...what?...Lord.  That's a fact.  You don't decide to make Him Lord.  He is Lord.  The only issue in the Christian life is not who's Lord, it's are you obeying who's Lord?  When you received Christ, at the moment of your salvation, you got Him as He was...Lord.  He was Lord of your life.  The only issue remaining is whether you are obeying the Lord of your life.  And the same question carried over to the ministry of the Spirit.  It's not a question of do I have the Spirit or is the Spirit leading me or is the Spirit guiding me?  It's only a question of am I following.  That's all.  So the question in terms of this context is not have I received the baptism.  Yes!  It's am I experiencing the filling of the Spirit who is in me?  That's the only issue.  Now, I'm not gonna take a lot of time on this since we did a study of the filling of the Spirit and it's available if you'd like to get the tape on it and study it further.  But let me just try to just pin it down for a moment for you.  In the New Testament we have the term filled used many times.  And it's used when it's talking about something that overpowers everything else.  For example, it says that Stephen was full of faith.  In other words, in the midst of being stoned, the overwhelming thing was faith.  He believed God and it carried him through.  It says, for example, that the Pharisees were filled with madness.  Now, you don't really share that with any other emotion.  When you're filled with madness, the fury takes over every other constraining thing.  The Bible talks about being filled with love, where love dominates.  And that's the meaning of the word in terms of the Holy Spirit.  When you're filled with anger, that's the dominant thing.  When you're filled with love, that's the dominant thing.  When you're filled with faith, that's the dominant thing.  When you're filled with the Spirit of God, it means that you have yielded to the total dominance of the Spirit in your life.  Now, there are a lot of Christians, frankly most, who have the Holy Spirit but do not understand yielding to the total dominance of the Spirit, see.  Self-will, self-effort, self-design, do your own thing and not yielding certain areas of your life does not mean you don't have the baptism of the Spirit.  That occurred at salvation.  It only means you're not experiencing total yieldedness to the Spirit.  The apostle Paul said be being kept filled with the Spirit.  That means it can come and go.  He never said be baptized.  He never said go get the Holy Spirit.  He only said allow the Spirit who's already there to control.  The filling of the Spirit is simply a situation of control.  That's all.  If you want a parallel, parallel Ephesians 5:18 with Colossians 3:16 and following, for there you have the same results.  For example, in Ephesians 5, it says if you're filled with the Spirit, you'll do this, you'll do this, you'll do this, you'll do this.  In Colossians 6 it gives the exact identical list only it doesn't say if you're filled with the Spirit, it says if the Word of Christ dwells in you richly.  We make a synonym then if to be filled with the Spirit means the same thing as to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.  We've been over this before, but just a brief review.  Now, to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly means what.  It means to be saturated with the Word of Christ, saturated with the things of Jesus Christ.  To be dominated again is the entire idea.  Let the Word of Christ control, let the Holy Spirit control.  It's all the same thing.  This is the filling of the Spirit.  Now, what happened here at Pentecost?  They were baptized into the body in verse 2.  The Spirit came to live in each one of them individually with no exceptions and there was a little sign on their head just to prove it in verse 3.  Then in verse 4 that resident Spirit filled their yieldedness.  They were yielded.  They were ready to do whatever God wanted them to do.  They were really yielded.  I don't think there's any time when an individual is more yielded maybe than at the moment of salvation.  And the Spirit of God filled them.  And it says at the end of verse 4, He's the one that gave them what?...utterance.  In other words, at that point, their lips were like noodles, you know.  Anything that came out would come out from another source.  And they began to speak but it was not them.  It was in yieldedness to the Spirit of God and He controlled what they said.  So when we're talking about the baptism of the Spirit and the filling, we're talking about two absolutely distinct things.  And this speaking in languages, beloved, did not occur as a result of the baptism of the Spirit; it occurred as a result of what?...of the filling.  It says so in verse 4.  It says they were filled with the Spirit then resident in them and then they did this.  Now, to be filled with the Spirit, then, is to be so saturated with Jesus Christ that the controls of your life are yielded to Him.  That's what happened.  They had yielded themselves to Christ.  They were obediently waiting for what would happen.  And when it happened in their yieldedness, they were filled with the Spirit of God and they began to speak in other languages.  Now, you say, what are these other languages?  Well, first of all they're languages.  Let's clear that up.  The word glossa always means language, never means anything but language, doesn't ever mean gibberish or a non-sensical talk, ecstatic speech.  It always means languages.  That's the term of languages.  In fact, if there's any question about that, go through this little section.  In verse 6 it mentions the word language, in verse 8, tongue, and in verse 11, tongue.  But there's two different words being used.  One is glossa and the other is dialekto.  And dialekto, from which we get dialect, has to do with dialects.  So languages and dialects, not gibberish are the issue here.  When people say they have the Pentecostal gift and then they speak something that is non-language; they don't.  It is languages that is in view.  In case there's any question, it even tells you which ones in verses 9, 10 and 11, which languages they spoke...their languages.  And I believe this is the pattern and if ever there is to be a tongues occasion in the New Testament validated, it must be that which is languages.  Now, I want you to remind yourself that the languages came as a result of filling, not of baptism.  To connect these languages to the baptism of the Spirit is to error, because baptism is simply the placing of the believer into the body.  It's a non-experiential thing.  It occurs.  It's God putting you into the union with Christ and the other believers.  But as a result of filling they began to speak.  Now, let me say that it was a special phenomenon for that day.  It is not the universal pattern for every Christian.  It is not the universal pattern that every time you're filled with the Spirit you speak in these languages.  It can't be.  It had nothing to do with the baptism of the Spirit at all, but it isn't even the result always of the filling.  For example, by the time you get to Ephesians 5:18 it says, "Be filled with the Spirit" and you'll do this and it gives you a whole list of things, none of which is speaking in other languages.  It says things that are harder than that like loving your wife and obeying your husband and being kind to your children and obeying your parents and all these things, being a good employee and a good employer.  And it goes all through the practical things.  By the time Paul defines the filling of the Spirit it has nothing to do with languages anymore...nothing.  Now, it's interesting, too, that some who claim they are filled with the Spirit and, thus, speak in the languages, don't meet the qualifications of Ephesians 5 that are the real qualifications of being Spirit-filled.  There are some people who would claim that they're filled with the Spirit and they speak in languages, but they really don't love their wives as Christ loved the church.  There are some ladies who claim to have the gift of languages, but they couldn't really be filled with the Spirit or they'd be submitting themselves to their husbands.  There are some fathers who claim to have the gift of tongues as a result of the filling of the Spirit, but if they were really filled with the Spirit, they wouldn't provoke their children to anger.  See, you get real practical about it in the Pauline epistles.  It's not so ethereal as it is right here because this is a special occasion and it wasn't meant to be the universal pattern.  Now, the miracle of languages here was important because of the strategy of the spread of the gospel.  And before we're done this morning I think you're gonna see something really exciting about this strategy.  Because in Jerusalem at this time there were people from all over the Jewish world.  And there could have been as many as one million.  You can fit 200,000 of them into the temple courtyard alone.  They were jammed into this place.  And this specific miracle was specifically for this occasion, for this day, and not to become the pattern or the norm for all Christians.  You say, well, I don't know about that because it happens again in Acts several times and it's not in Jerusalem and it's not with a bunch of Jews.  In fact, it's with Gentiles.  And I say, you're right, but I'll show you why.  I'll show you why this same thing occurs again in the book of Acts.  Turn to 8:14.  I think you'll find this interesting.  By this time the gospel has spread to Samaria.  You remember Acts 1:8 said preach the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, then in all what?...Samaria.  Well, by chapter 8 it's gotten there.  And verse 14, and "when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet He was fallen upon non of them; only they were baptized in the name of Jesus.)  Then laid they their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit."  Now, here you have a group of Samaritans.  Now, do you recall the Jewish attitude toward Samaritans?  I'm sure you do.  They despised Samaritans, to put it mildly.  They loathed them.  Why?  Because originally they were pure Jewish stock and they inter-married with Gentiles.