My Beloved is mine and I am His (S. of S. 2:16)
I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine (S. of S. 6:3)
3 January 2016
Dear Phyllis.,
Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu (it has opened, congratulation) It sure has. We're here folks in 2016. Is this the year? Maybe.
There is no message that has caused me more confusion and agony than the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Is there such a thing as a second blessing? This is probably the most controversial message in Christianity today. The answer to that depends radically upon what denomination you belong to. If you are Pentecostal it is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If you are Nazarene it is Sanctification, If you are C&MA it is the fullness of the Holy Spirit. If you are some groups it is the Abundant life. To Hudson Taylor it was the Exchanged life. If you are Baptist there is no such thing. We get it all with salvation.
The Body of Christ is indebted to Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement for convulsing us out of dead orthodoxy. With their advent we were confronted with the presence of spiritual gifts and an unexplainable avalanche of miracles. Suddenly we were confronted with a great deal of phenomenon of the spirit world. Fundamentalism and orthodox Christianity responded very poorly to this. And not without good reason. For with Pentecostalism came a whole lot of horse manure and garbage. The Charismatic movement got invaded by the Kudalini spirit and a great deal of doctrinal error (See You Tube Shocking Documentary by Andrew Strom). For five decades I have wrestled with this issue of a second blessing or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I am perfectly at ease today.
Is there such a thing as a second blessing or two baptisms? Absolutely. This is clearly expressed in Mt. 3:11. John said, “I baptize you with water but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Very clearly we have two baptisms here. There are many scriptures clearly showing this. Unfortunately we are restricted to using the mode of inadequate words to express spiritual truth and in using words there is terrible latitude for misunderstanding. May the Holy Spirit explain this to us. There are two baptisms; one by water and the other with the Holy Spirit. Anyone can baptize another person in water but only Jesus can baptize a person with the Holy Spirit. You can't get a clearer illustration of this than what the OT teaches us through Israel passing through the Red Sea and the Jordan. The Red Sea is salvation (water); the Jordan is entering into the Promised land (the Holy Spirit). There you have two baptisms.
I have known this message since the first year I was saved. But how do you get into the Promised Land? The Nazarene taint their Sanctification message by calling it sinless perfection. And amazingly there are thousands of earnest Christians who testify that they have had this experience and are now sinlessly perfect. To my dear Nazarene friends all I can say is, “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1Jn. 1:8). Are there Second Blessing experiences? Man howdy, lots of them. Everybody (most everybody) teaches that the way into the Promised Land is by faith. It is just like salvation – you have to take it by faith. I don't know how many times I have accepted “IT” by faith only to have the devil strip me a few days later with failure.
The Pentecostals have compromised their message by insisting that there must be the manifestation of speaking in tongues. Paul settled that issue with the rhetorical question, “do all speak with tongues?” (1Cor. 12:30). Obviously not. To insist that a person is not filled with the Holy Spirit unless they speak in tongues is error. And to say that a person is filled with the Holy Spirit because they speak in tongues is nonsense. Is there such a thing as the gift of tongues? I refuse to take the scissors to the Word of God and cut out pages. I don't see where the manifestation of the Holy Spirit passed out with the 1st century. But some of the sorriest Christians I know speak in tongues – and they are anxious to tell you all about it.
If there is such a thing as the baptism of the Holy Spirit and it is the endowment from on high to be filled with the Holy Spirit and lead a better more powerful Christian life, why is it so hard to enter in? Oh the pain this has caused me for decades. One thing that helped me was the understanding that acquiring the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the same as salvation. That is you get the baptism the same way that you got saved. How did you get saved? Flesh will say that it must be in a certain way. But reality is the way people get saved is as varied as there are different shapes of snow flakes. Some have very dramatic experiences. Some have slower more gradual experiences. And some have no idea but they know they are saved now. To say that a person must be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a specific way is as much an error as to say that everybody must have the same salvation experience. Salvation is not an experience. Salvation is a relationship. It is Jesus living in me. And the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience. It is Jesus having all of me.
The story is told of a man who had two young daughters. When he came home one night, he sat down in his chair and the girls came running to him. One girl grabbed her daddy around the neck and boastingly said, “I have all of Daddy.” The other little girl climbed up in her dads lap, wrapped his arms around her and replied, “Daddy has all of me.” This is what we see in the Song of Solomon. In S. of S. 2:30 we see that the greatest thought in the believers heart is that her Beloved is hers. There is nothing wrong with singing, “Blessed assurance Jesus is mine...” That is salvation. But later on we see that the dominant thought in the believer's heart is that she is His (S. of S. 6:3). That is the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is when I accept Jesus. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is when Jesus accepts me.
Are all Christians filled with the Holy Spirit? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Why? Millions have been baptized by water but never baptized by Jesus in the Holy Spirit.
Lord, please bring us to that place where Christ might live in our hearts by faith and we might be filled with all the fullness of God. Please do it for Your great Names sake. Amen
bill
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