Little bit of a recap on where we are in this series: In part 2 I sought to show from Scripture that “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is an experience that happens to every believer upon conversion, and not something that all believers must still continue to seek.  Part 3 was where I addressed the question of why the disciples who had clearly already been believers in Christ didn’t receive the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost.  My conclusion there was that Pentecost was a unique experience because it was a unique event in history.

But even if you’ve agreed with me up to this point, there’s still three huge “Yeah, BUT!!” examples later on in Acts that seem to completely undermine what I’ve said.  The first is in Acts 8, where believers in Samaria aren’t baptized in the Holy Spirit until John and Peter come and lay hands on them.  The second is in Acts 10 where Cornelius, who was already “a devout man who feared God”, didn’t receive the Spirit until later.  And the final one is in Acts 19 where we come across the disciples in Ephesus, who had not received the Holy Spirit when they believed.  ”And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.” (v.6)

So what do we do with these?  Do these examples prove the doctrine of subsequence?  Journey with me…

1. The Ephesian Disciples (Acts 19:1-7)

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
-Romans 8:9-

When Paul arrives at Ephesus, he comes across “some disciples” and asks them whether or not they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed, to which they responded “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”  Probing further, he asked what they had been baptized into.  ”Into John’s baptism,” they replied.  (vv.1-3)

These men were in fact disciples of John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, and the last of the Old Testament-era prophets.  The difference between John’s baptism and Christian baptism is a subject for another entry, but for the purposes of this entry it’s enough to know that they aren’t one and the same.  John the Baptist had said, “‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’” (Matt.3:11, cf. Acts 1:5)

Since John testified to the fact that the coming Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit, it’s unlikely that these disciples of his who had made their way to Ephesus were ignorant of the Spirit’s existence.  Rather, what they mean is that they were ignorant of the fact that the new covenant era had begun, where those who trust in Jesus for salvation are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), and where those baptized in the name of Jesus “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)

Upon meeting these disciples, Paul, perhaps observing the lack of the Spirit’s presence in their lives, felt the need to ask them whether they had received the Spirit or not when they believed whatever it is that they had believed.  Paul’s not asking them if they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit after believing in Jesus.  He’s asking them if they’re even believers in Jesus.  Since the church was to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the fact that these men hadn’t even heard that the Spirit had come told Paul all he needed to know.  In the words of John Stott, these guys “were still living in the Old Testament which culminated with John the Baptist. They understood neither that the new age had been ushered in by Jesus, nor that those who believe in him and are baptized into him receive the distinctive blessing of the new age, the indwelling Spirit.”

Paul then did what came naturally to him.  He preached Jesus to those who were ignorant of him.  ”And Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.’  On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.  And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.  There were about twelve men in all.” (vv.4-7)

In short, these men received the Holy Spirit at conversion, not subsequent to it.

2. Cornelius (Acts 10)

Corn-Dawg, “a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (v.2), lived in Caesarea.  He was a Gentile and had great admiration for the God of the Jews, even though he had not submitted himself to be circumcised. (Acts 11:3)

You can read the full story in Acts 10, but basically the guy is visited in a vision by an angel who tells him to send for Peter, who was meanwhile having his own visions.  The purpose of Peter’s visions was to teach him that what “God has made clean, do not call common.” (10:15)  In non-visiony terms: Don’t call the Gentiles unclean.  When Cornelius’ servants arrived where Peter was, he followed them to Cornelius’ place and preached the Gospel to him and his fellow Gentile buddies.  And as he was sharing the Gospel with them, “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” (10:44)  Since the Holy Spirit fell on a man who had already been “an upright and God-fearing man” (v.22), does this mean that we should seek a post-conversion Spirit-baptism, too?

The answer, like in the Ephesian disciples case, was that Cornelius wasn’t a Christian until Peter preached the Gospel to him.  Where do we see this?  In Acts 11:13-14.  There, Peter recounts his experience with Cornelius to the Church: “‘And [Cornelius] told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’”  Cornelius was to hear a message by which he “will be saved”.  Salvation for Cornelius was still future.  Additionally, if you look at what Peter was telling them when the Holy Spirit fell on them (vv.34-43), he’s just straight up preaching the Gospel, indicating that these people needed to hear it.  Furthermore, the Church concluded that this baptism in the Holy Spirit (11:16) was the result of God granting to these Gentiles the “repentance that leads to life.” (11:18)

3. The Samaritans (Acts 8:4-25)

“Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”
-John 4:9-

Philip had gone to Samaria to preach the Gospel and had some pretty good results to show for it.  The crowds had “with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.” (8:6)  But then we see a few verses down that it wasn’t until Peter and John came to Samaria, laid hands on them, and prayed for the new believers that the Holy Spirit fell on them.

Is this just another case of people who we have assumed were believers but really weren’t?  I don’t think the text really gives us that option here.  First of all, what Philip had proclaimed was Christ. (v.5)  He “preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” to them, and as a result they were baptized in the name of Jesus (vv.12, 16), which meant that they had passed into Jesus’ ownership.  Whereas Paul knew the Ephesian disciples weren’t believers because they had only been baptized into John’s baptism, the Samaritans appear to have baptized with a Christian baptism.

Secondly, they “had received the word of God” (v.14) which, as Sam Storms points out, is “identical terminology to [Acts] 2:41 and 11:1, where genuine conversion is in view.”

Finally, whereas Peter preached the Gospel to Cornelius before he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, all that Peter and John do here is lay hands on the Samaritans and pray for them, which then results in the Holy Spirit falling on them.  They didn’t preach the Gospel to them first because they had already had it accurately preached to them and believed it. What we have here is genuine believers in Christ receiving the Holy Spirit after they had believed.  The question now is why?  Is this normative?  Or is it, like Pentecost, unique?

This is a very unusual case in the book of Acts, and before going further with it I feel the need to address some very important rules to interpreting Scripture.  The first is always compare Scripture with Scripture.  The second is closely related: don’t create doctrines out of obscure texts.  Parts 2 and 3 in this series were my argument for why being baptized in the Holy Spirit is something that happens to all believers at their conversion.  If you believe in the doctrine of subsequence, your argument with me is over those two entries, not this one.  In other words, if I’ve faithfully built a biblical case for why Spirit-baptism occurs at conversion, then the three instances addressed in this entry are, at best, exceptions to the rule and not the rule itself.  Or to say it yet another way, the doctrine of subsequence can’t stand on these three passages alone.  I say all this because even though two of the three cases can simply be written off as unbelievers becoming believers, this one can’t.  And since the rest of Scripture links Spirit-baptism with conversion, we need to be wary of taking the Samaritans’ experience and saying that it should be all Christians’ experience.

Peter had linked faith with receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), and Paul claimed that if anyone didn’t have the Spirit, he did not belong to Christ (Romans 8:9).  Luke, the author of Acts and a companion of Paul, would have been familiar with this link, which is probably why even the way he recounts the Samaritan experience indicates the uniqueness of it.  He writes that the Spirit “had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” (v.16)  ”Only,” writes James Dunn, “implies that the two things were expected or accustomed to go together.”  John Stott explores this further:

…contrary to expectation, water-baptism had been received without Spirit-baptism, the sign without the thing signified.  There was, Luke implies, something distinctly odd about their separation.  It was because of this irregularity, Professor Dunn writes, that ‘the two senior apostles came down hot-foot from Jerusalem to remedy a situation which had gone seriously wrong somewhere’.

Not only was this the first time the Gospel had been preached outside of Jerusalem, it was the first time it had been preached in Samaria.   The reason that God withheld the Spirit from these new converts is most likely due to the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans.  These people hated each other.  While we can utter the words “good Samaritan” without choking, this was a contradiction of terms in the Jewish mind.  When Jews had to pass from Galilee to Judea or vice versa, they would literally go out of their way to get there since a direct path between the two would take them through Samaritan soil.

This incident was most likely God’s way of preventing ethnic-schism between Jew and Samaritan from becoming schism within the body of Christ.  The cross of Christ tears down barriers (Gal.3:28), and unifies all believers.  Thus, as the Gospel spread into hostile territory, God wanted the leaders of the Jerusalem church to see for themselves the Holy Spirit come upon those who were formerly enemies.  This “extension of Pentecost” was a necessary “demonstration of the power of the Spirit to convince die-hards among the Jewish Christians that it was really proper to bring the gospel to the Samaritans.” (Anthony Hoekema)  As Geoffrey Lampe writes,

…at this turning-point in the mission something else was required in addition to the ordinary baptism of the converts.  It had to be demonstrated to the Samaritans beyond any shadow of doubt that they had really become members of the church, in fellowship with the original ‘pillars’ [John and Peter]…An unprecedented situation demanded quite exceptional methods.

Like Pentecost, this was a unique historical situation.  It was the first time the Gospel had been preached outside Jerusalem.  And this first time happened to be among people the Jews had traditionally hated.  God was making a unique and visible demonstration of his commitment to bring salvation to those “‘in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’” (Acts 1:8)

In the fifth and final part of this series, I’ll address the question of what it means to be “filled with the Spirit.”  And I promise not to wait nine months to write it.  (I blame Rob Bell for interrupting this series.)

I ended the previous entry by saying that the Biblical texts which speak of a Spirit-baptism point in one direction: that being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” is something that happens to every believer when they become a Christian.  This is contrary to the view which says that Spirit-baptism is something that happens after (or subsequent to) conversion, making it something that believers should still seek after.  There’s still a big ol’ “BUT” though that needs to be addressed here.  It’s not enough to conclude this series with part 2, because although I concluded that the baptism of the Spirit happens to every believer upon conversion, there are clear examples in the book of Acts of the Holy Spirit coming upon people who were already believers in Christ.  Soooooooooo…..yeah, what exactly do we do with that?

A major issue underlying the question of what exactly it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit is whether or not the book of Acts is normative for all believers.  For example, the Holy Spirit didn’t come upon the disciples until Acts 2, even though they were already believers.  So is that how the Holy Spirit always works?  Or is this instance unique to the time of Pentecost?  Again, these instances of a subsequent Spirit-baptism in Acts seem to be a powerful counter-attack against the conclusion I came to in part 2.  So if all believers are baptized in the Spirit at conversion, what in the world do we do with these stories?  To answer, we must first look at…

The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

It’s kind of weird to think of the Holy Spirit being in the Old Testament, but he’s there alright, and that’s actually pretty important to the discussion at hand.  He shows up at various times and empowers people to do various things.  Observe my primitive chart full of examples that I’m 99% indebted to Wayne Grudem for providing (his words are in the quotations):

The Holy Spirit…

-”empowered Joshua with leadership skills and wisdom (Num.27:18; Deut. 34:9)”
-”empowered the judges to deliver Israel from their oppressors” (Judg.3:10, 6:34, 11:29, 13:25, 14:6,19, 15:14)
-came upon Saul and stirred him up for battle (1 Sam. 11:6)
-equipped David for his duties as king (1 Sam.16:13)
-hovered over the waters on God’s first day of creation (Gen. 1:2)
-empowered  Bezalel with artistic skill for his work on the tabernacle (Ex. 31:3, 35:31)
-empowered the elders appointed to help Moses (Num. 11:16-17)

I could go on and on, but two things need to grasped from this: First, the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament.  Secondly (and this is extremely important), while he was active in the OT, his work wasn’t as powerful nor as extensive as it would come to be in the New Testament.  He was only said to come upon some people, and even then his residence in them wasn’t necessarily permanent.  After all, he departed from Saul in 1 Samuel 16:14.  And David, in repenting of adultery and murder, prayed that God would not remove his Holy Spirit from him (Psalm 51:11).

Covenant 2.0

Again, the Holy Spirit did come upon people in the Old Testament, but in a far more limited sense.  And since cool stuff happened when the Spirit came upon someone, such a limited work was not exactly ideal.  That’s why God gets his people excited about the promise and expectation of a day when the Spirit would come in a far more extensive, permanent, and all-around powerful way.  Moses, for example, longed for a day in which God would put his Spirit on all people (Numbers 11:29).  And the prophets spoke of and looked forward to a day when God would make a new covenant with his people, the result of which would be a far greater work of the Spirit than they had previously known.

In Ezekiel, God says “‘I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.’” (36:26-27)  Joel speaks of the new covenant age in this way: “‘And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit…And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” (2:28-29, 32)

In Acts 2, Peter says that the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost is the fulfillment of what Joel prophesied. (See Acts 2:16-21)  In other words, the age of the new covenant has arrived, an age characterized by an increased work of the Holy Spirit.  This means that before the day of Pentecost, the disciples and other believers were still “Old Testament believers” who experienced a very real (though very limited) work of the Spirit.  But with the arrival of the new covenant, the Spirit came in all his promised fullness.  Old covenant saints became new covenant saints.

So to look at the Holy Spirit coming upon existing believers in Acts 2 then and say that all believers should seek the same thing is to miss the point of the passage.  The focus isn’t on a personal experience the disciples had.  The focus is on the transition from the old covenant era to the new covenant one.  The disciples were living at a unique point in history, thus making their experience unique.  The Holy Spirit came upon them as a result of the inauguration of the new covenant, and ever since then God’s saints have been new covenant believers.  We don’t start off as old covenant believers and then transition to new covenant ones.  We start and end in the new, meaning there is no transition between covenants.  And if there’s no longer any transitioning between covenants, then there’s no outpouring of the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion.  Rather, he’s poured out upon believers at conversion.

So to sum up: Pentecost was about a shift in historical eras.  It wasn’t primarily an individual event for the disciples.  Or to say it another way: Pentecost was about the time they were living in, not about the quality of their faith.  People living at that time who were already believers had become believers under the old covenant.  The Spirit came on them later, not because that’s what happens to believers later on in their walks with Christ, but because the new covenant came later.  They lived to see the beginning of the prophesied new covenant era in which all believers would be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  And since everyone reading this has been born in this era, you’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit if you’ve been saved.

So that clears up why the disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit after their conversion at Pentecost.  What it doesn’t clear up is why even after Pentecost there seem to be examples of the Spirit coming upon believers subsequent to conversion (see Acts 8, 10, and 19).  I’ll explore that in the next entry.

The Phrase in Scripture

In order to determine whether or not believers should look for a post-conversion “baptism in the Holy Spirit”, we need to look at the phrase itself and how it’s used in Scripture.  The phrase shows up seven times: once in each Gospel, twice in the book of Acts, and once in 1 Corinthians.  In the Gospels (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, and John 1:33), the phrase refers to the ministry of Jesus.  In all four verses, the phrase is spoken by John the Baptist to say that although he (John) baptized with water, Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  In Acts (1:5, 11:16) the phrase is used in reference to Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came.  From these six verses, we learn that Jesus is the one who does the baptizing, the Holy Spirit is the element with which this baptism is carried out, and that this baptism happened at Pentecost.  But from these verses, it’s still unclear what being baptized in the Holy Spirit means exactly.

The Importance of 1 Corinthians 12:13

The seventh and final verse with this phrase comes from Paul:

“For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV)

In determining whether the doctrine of subsequence is biblical, this verse is crucial.  The million-dollar question with 1 Corinthians 12:13 is “Does this verse refer to the same thing as the other six verses?” because what Paul is describing in this verse is something that’s happened to every Christian.  In 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31, he is talking about how each believer is a member of the one body of Christ.  And in verse 13 he says that we were baptized into this body “by one Spirit.”  If what Paul is describing here is the same thing as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” mentioned in the other six verses, then the doctrine of subsequence falls because Paul is saying that the Corinthians were baptized in the Holy Spirit when they became part of the body of Christ, which is another way of saying when they were converted and became Christians.  In other words, if Paul’s talking about the same thing, then baptism in the Holy Spirit is something that happens to all Christians at conversion and is therefore not something which we should seek after it.

Pentecostals are quick to note the difference in wording between this verse and the other six references to Spirit-baptism.  Whereas the other six verses all pretty much say “baptize/baptized with the Holy Spirit”, many English translations of this verse says that we were baptized “by the Spirit.”  Their interpretation then is this: the first six verses mentioned above all refer to a baptism made by Jesus with the Spirit.  Just as water is the element in baptisms you see at a church service, the Spirit is the “element” of the baptism Jesus gives.  However, 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to a baptism by the Spirit, meaning that the Spirit is the one in this case doing the baptism.  Thus it can’t be the same thing.

The problem with the Pentecostal interpretation of this verse is that while it can be somewhat supported from a reading of some English translations, it can’t be supported in the original language.  In the Greek text of the verse the phrase translated “by one Spirit” in the NIV is almost identical to the Greek versions of the other six verses.  The word translated “by” is from the same Greek preposition used in the other six verses which in English got translated “in” or “with” (two acceptable, interchangeable translations).  In the original language, the only difference between “baptized by one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13 NIV) and “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5) is the mention of “one” Spirit rather than the “Holy” Spirit.  So in 1 Corinthians, Paul is essentially saying that we were baptized in the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

It may seem awkward in English to say that “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”  ”In” and “into” are different words in Greek (“en” and “eis”), just like in English, but in English they sound similar and could even mean the same thing.  For instance, I could go “in the house” or I could go “into the house”.  Here in 1 Corinthians 12:13, the idea is that as a result of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, we therefore have participation (the “into” here) in the Church, the body of Christ.  What’s in view in this verse is 1) what we were baptized with, and 2) what we are now associated with as a result of that baptism.  Maintaining this distinction, and perhaps to smooth out the English is probably the reason behind the translation “by”.  Wayne Grudem says it well:

“…the Holy Spirit was the element in which they were baptized, and the body of Christ, the church, was the location in which they found themselves after that baptism.”

Grudem compares this verse with 1 Corinthians 10:2- “and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”  The elements of baptism were the cloud and the sea.  The location they found themselves in was “into Moses”, meaning participation in the community of God’s people, led by Moses.

So textually speaking, it seems impossible to say that the doctrine of subsequence is found in Scripture.  The baptism in the Holy Spirit referred to in the Gospels and in Acts is the same baptism that Paul says every Christian experiences by becoming a Christian, not by an outpouring of the Spirit later on.  But if this the case, what in the world do we do with all the references to the Holy Spirit being given to people after they had already been believers?  That’s coming next, so stay tuned!

Next: Out With the Old, In With the New

I’ve been wanting to delve into the field of Pentecostal and charismatic theology for a while now, and I figure this would be a good place to start.  Actually I think the history of the movements would be a better place to start, but I’m more interested in talking about subsequence first, so…here ya go.

Okay, subsequence: what the heck is it?  The doctrine of subsequence states that after a person becomes a Christian, he or she may experience a post-conversion “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”  So in the Church there are two kinds of Christians: Spirit-baptized Christians and everyone else.  All believers should seek this Spirit baptism, which typically manifests itself in the gift of tongues.  The traditional Pentecostal view of Spirit-baptism is that once it happens to a believer, he/she begins to speak in tongues.  This is the sign that the believer has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, even if the believer doesn’t continue to speak in tongues later in life (the gift of tongues).  This outpouring of the Spirit “subsequent” to salvation is said to drastically increase the believer’s spiritual power.  Prayer is deeper than it once was, worship is awesome-er, Bible study more productive, etc.  Basically a greater and more powerful Christian experience.  And what Christian wouldn’t want this?

The line of thought that proponents of this doctrine utilize is this:

1.) Jesus’ disciples were already believers before the Spirit was poured out upon them at Pentecost.

2.) Even though they were already believers in and followers of him, Jesus commanded them to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them.  They would then be “baptized with [or 'in'] the Holy Spirit”.  (Acts 1:4-5)  The result of this baptism would be increased power for ministry. (Acts 1:8)

3.) On the day of Pentecost, the apostles were in fact baptized in the Holy Spirit.  They were “all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:4)  As Jesus predicted, the result of this baptism was a great empowerment for ministry.

4.) Following the pattern seen in the lives of the apostles, we as Christians today who have been born again should seek a baptism in the Holy Spirit whereby we will be greatly empowered to do our Lord’s work in our time on earth.  The sign that this has happened will be when we begin to speak in tongues.

5.) Support for this is seen elsewhere in the book of Acts.  In Acts 8 for example, Samaritans who heard Philip preach the gospel believed and were baptized.  But after the fact, Peter and John visited them and prayed that the Holy Spirit would come to them.  (Acts 8:12-17)  In Acts 19, Paul encounters some disciples in Ephesus.  But these disciples, even though they believed the gospel, still hadn’t received the Holy Spirit.  After laying his hands upon them, Paul remedied the situation and the Holy Spirit came upon these disciples, who in turn “began speaking in tongues and prophesying.” (Acts 9:1-6)  So from the example of the apostles on the day of Pentecost and the numerous other examples of people receiving the Holy Spirit subsequent to their conversion, it is clear from Scripture that all believers should follow this example.

Next: The Phrase ‘Baptism in the Holy Spirit’