So they said to him,
“We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”
3 And he said to them,
“Into what then were you baptized?”
So they said, “Into
John’s baptism.”
4 Then Paul said, “John
indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they
should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.”
5 When they heard this,
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid
hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and
prophesied. 7 Now the men were about twelve in all.
As I have said already in 2005 this story shook my world.
Born and raised a Seventh-day Adventist, degree in theology, and pastoring for
6 years already and I'm seeing something I've never seen before. You have to
understand that as a Seventh-day Adventist we often say arrogant things like
"How can anyone read the Bible and not see the Sabbath? It's there from
creation right through?!" Now I had to swallow my words. I mean how could
anyone read the New Testament and not see the prominent and critical place
taken up by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It's there from the beginning of
the New Testament to the end. In fact when you start digging through the Old Testament
there is plenty of hints there as well.
If you reread verses 5 and 6 above it is clear that water
baptism is a separate event from Spirit baptism. You could even say one is the
emptying and the other is the filling. Do you remember the story Jesus told
about a guy who had a demon living in him and it was cast out and the man's
heart was swept clean? Jesus said the demon went and could find no host so he
returned to the man and found his heart swept clean and put in order so he got
seven other demons more wicked than himself and they filled that man's empty
heart and he was in worse condition after than he ever was before.
Empty. John's baptism was a baptism of emptying. A baptism of
repentance where you realized all the bad stuff that was occupying your mind
and your life and you went down into the water to have it all washed away. It
symbolized death and burial of the old life of sin and rising to a fresh clean
start. An empty slate as it were.
Perhaps this practical illustration will be helpful. You have
lousy eating habits. You eat chocolate cake and ice cream for every meal. When
you are thirsty you drink Pepsi. Your doctor gives you a physical and the
results are bad. He asks you what you are eating and you tell him. He says you
have to stop because your diet is killing you. So you repent of your unhealthy
ways. You throw out the ice cream. You stop buying or baking the chocolate
cakes. You pour the Pepsi down the drain. Your meal plan is a clean slate.
Do you see a problem? The bad has been removed leaving
nothing but a huge vacuum. What will fill that space? If new and better things
are not introduced hunger will intensify. Thirst will increase and sooner
rather than later something will fill that void and most often it is a return
to the familiar and in the end just like Jesus said, that man was in worse
shape than he ever was before.
Religion tends to be an exercise in emptying. It identifies
bad habits and character traits and says we must get rid of them. But then
what? Empty spaces will always be filled.
God doesn't want us empty. He wants us filled. The baptism of
the Holy Spirit. His presence living in us. A new man from the inside out.
"Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27)
How did I never see it?!!!
We will continue tomorrow.
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