- Baptism with the Holy Spirit is the act by which the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Christ the moment he believes, and by this indwelling God identifies and unites that believer with Christ and his spiritual body, the church (1 Corinthians 12:13).
- One cannot be a believer and in the church apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit; the Corinthian believers, with all of their spiritual failures, had been baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:15-18; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 1:22-23; Romans 8:9).
- The baptism of the Holy Spirit provides the basis for Christian living; 1. because the baptism of the Holy Spirit identifies each believer with Christ in Christ’s death to sin and in Christ’s new resurrection kind of life (Romans 6:1-11), 2. because the baptism of the Holy Spirit is our spiritual circumcision—the removal of the legal control over us by our unbeliever self (Colossians 2:11-12), and 3. because the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the time when the Holy Spirit comes to indwell the believer in Christ (Acts 11:15-18).
- Jesus prophesied the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33, and Acts 1:5. Jesus said, in Acts 1:5, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was future to his ascension. It was therefore not a part of the age of Israel, but was the fundamental and basic sign of the church age.
- The baptism of the Holy Spirit first occurred in Acts 2:1-4 with Jews.
- God later proved that everyone who believes in Christ will be baptized with the Holy Spirit when He visibly gave the baptism of the Holy Spirit to Samaritans in Acts 8:12-17, to Gentiles in Acts 10:43-48, and to Old Testament believers in Acts 19:1-6.
- Luke wrote in Acts 10 that, while Peter was preaching to Jews and Gentiles at Cornelius’ house in Caesarea, Peter and his audience witnessed the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Gentiles who believed the gospel (Acts 10:44-47).
- Shortly after, Peter went to Jerusalem where Jewish believers criticized him for eating with those Gentiles. He explained to them what had happened when the Gentiles believed the gospel that he delivered; Peter said that he saw the Gentiles being baptized with the Holy Spirit. Peter then explained that this baptism was exactly what Christ had predicted when He spoke to his disciples before his ascension (Acts 1.5 and Acts 11.15-18).
- The baptism of the Holy Spirit is something that God does for each believer in Christ:
- It is not something that is felt.
- It occurs at the time a person believes in Christ.
- It is supernatural.
- It cannot be improved upon.
- It is complete and perfect when it happens.
- It is not now evidenced by signs, though several times in the young church it was evidenced by signs in order to confirm that the Holy Spirit was given to every church age believer in Christ.
- It is revealed only by the Word of God.
- It is the basis for the supernatural Christian life.