The Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts - PH71-02

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 3:7-10

So in John 14:16-17, the Lord said, "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it doesn't see Him or know Him. But you know Him for He dwells with you, and shall be in you." To the group of Jews, His disciples, to whom He said that, this was really quite a startling thing. While the Jews were aware of the fact of the person of God the Holy Spirit, they never had any great substantial permanent relationship to this third person of the Trinity. Under their order of life, it was always a sovereign come-and-go situation. Here, the Lord Jesus used a very critical word. He said that something was going to happen to them in the way of a relationship to God the Holy Spirit, which was going to last forever.

Then He goes on and actually says that, "He will dwell with you. He will be resident here in your presence. He will, furthermore, indwell your bodies; He will be with you; and, He will be there permanently forever." To us, it's not such an unusual thing. We understand this doctrine. We respect it. We are delighted with it. But to the Jew, it was almost an unbelievable statement.

During the Lord's ministry on the earth, on this Old Testament ground with his disciples, He urged them to ask for the Holy Spirit. In Luke 11:13, we have this recorded for us: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" You must remember that this was on Old Testament ground. It would be a very wrong thing for you to ask God for the Holy Spirit today. I realize that a vast segment of Christianity today, in the form of the charismatic movement, do just that all the time. But that, of course, is not in keeping with God's plan for this age. Now, in the Old Testament, when they did not have the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, "At this point, it is legitimate for you to ask for the Holy Spirit."

This was something that the Jew had some connection with and understanding, because Joel 2:28-29, you will remember, promise that during the tribulation period, after the rapture of the church, the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon the Jewish people in a magnificent way that He had never been before. As a matter of fact, when Pentecost took place, and the Spirit of God did come down to reside upon the earth, the evidences were so dramatic that Peter, in trying to explain it to the common crowd that had gathered, said, "The only way I can explain this to you is to call your attention to what Joel said that God someday is going to do for us, in pouring out the Holy Spirit upon us Jews. Well, this is what Joel was talking about." He didn't mean that that was the fulfillment of what Joel predicted. But he said, "This is like what Joel said is going to happen. This is in the same pattern as will happen out in the tribulation period."

So they did know that God the Holy Spirit could do a very dramatic thing if He ever took hold of a human being. We have examples of that in the Old Testament in a variety of ways, where God the Holy Spirit sovereignly did take hold of a human being, and very fantastic things resulted. Here the Lord Jesus says, "Why don't you ask My Father for the Holy Spirit, and He will give Him to you?"

Well, on the evening of the resurrection day, Jesus appeared to the disciples, and apparently they had not accepted His advice to ask for the Holy Spirit. In any case, in John 20:22, on the evening of the resurrection day, we read, "And when He (Jesus) had said this, He breathed on them and said unto them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" Now, this was not receiving the Holy Spirit as you and I do today in the age of the church. This was still Old Testament ground. Here, Jesus prayed that they may at that point receive the Holy Spirit. Evidently, the reason He did this was that now they had before them 40 days of intensive Bible classes that were going to now relate information which He had told them in the upper room, "I'd like to tell you about this, but you wouldn't understand it. You couldn't enter into it. Therefore, I am not going to tell you these things now."

What was he referring to? To all the things pertaining to the church – the whole magnificent new age of the church. All of that was truth, which was yet unknown to them. Now that He had been resurrected, He said, "Now you see what has happened; the price of sin has been paid; and, the era of the church is now ready to be inaugurated in the very near future." As of that point, it was 50 days in the future, in keeping with those two Old Testament things that we looked at last week, which portrayed this in the Old Testament order. Now, He said, "The new age is coming, but you cannot understand these things without the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit." For this reason, He said, "I'm going to pray now Myself that you will receive the Spirit." Thus, He prepared them for the most amazing, unbelievable information that He was now going to convey to them about a whole new plan of God that had never been breathed about in the slightest way – not a whisper of information in the Old Testament concerning this.

So the disciples entered an Old Testament ground of relationship with the Holy Spirit. This was necessary because in John 14:26, we're told that one of the vital rules of the Holy Spirit is to teach us spiritual things. The Lord said, "But the Comforter who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you." The reason that you learn spiritual things; the reason that you can enter into spiritual phenomena; and, the reason you can come into an understanding of Bible doctrine is because God the Holy Spirit is within you to teach you. If you do not have God the Holy Spirit to teach you, nobody could teach you. So the Bible says you don't need men to teach you. It is God the Holy Spirit who is your instructor. He is the one that you need to teach you.

Now, God uses channels. He uses the written Word of God to teach you. This is what the Holy Spirit uses. He uses the pastor-teacher gift to teach you, using the Bible. This is what the Holy Spirit uses as agents to teach you. But ultimately, the teacher is the Spirit of God. So, the Bible tells us that the Spirit of God is our teacher. Therefore, the disciples needed the Spirit of God to teach them. 1 Corinthians 2:13 also gives us information about this teaching role.

So, Bible doctrine is the basis of the Christian's entire relationship with God today, and it's only God the Holy Spirit, who can teach the believer. So this age is rightly called the age of God the Holy Spirit. He is the key to everything. If you know that you are to be working in the functioning of the Spirit of God, and you relate yourself properly to Him, then there is no limitation to your going forward in the Christian life.

However, for this same reason, we would expect that at this point Satan would enter the picture to promote vast confusion, which is exactly what he has done. He has promoted fantastic confusion concerning the role of the Holy Spirit today. Spiritual confusion always stems from one thing, and that is the lack of Bible doctrine knowledge. We substitute tradition and human opinions. Most Christians operate on a fantastic amount of rationalization in spiritual things rather than on Bible teaching, and they defend their own rationalizations with considerable emotion.

These misconceptions about the Holy Spirit are zealously contended for. They are propagated by very sincere Christians, but they don't match up to the Word of God. Satan's favorite tactic is to get people to mix together things that differ, and consequently, to confuse them – to confuse dispensational distinctions.

The Word of God has to be rightly divided, and the Word of God has to be learned, and somebody has to teach the people of God. That's what constitutes feeding the flock. So Satan very naturally zeros in on this role of God the Holy Spirit. He confuses, distorts, and twists it. Consequently, he has left vast segments of Christianity in turmoil.

Now, there were certain spiritual effects that were the result of the day of Pentecost. In this session, we're going to tie up our study of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We have shown you how Satan has historically, step-by-step, brought confusion in this field. But let's sum it up now by getting clear in your mind exactly what God the Holy Spirit does in this age – things that are distinct, and which were not done on a permanent general basis in the Old Testament.

The Ministries of the Holy Spirit

1. Regeneration

   The Holy Spirit does the work of regeneration. Ephesians 2:1-5 tell us about the regenerating work of God's Holy Spirit. Regeneration means to receive eternal life. Regeneration is the new birth by which you become a child of God (John 1:12-13).

2. Indwelling

   A second work of the Holy Spirit in this age is the work of indwelling. We have this in Romans 8:9. God the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence within the body of every believer. The Bible tells us that unbelievers are characterized as not having the Spirit (Jude 19). The bodies of the believers are His temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). Christians are never told that if they sin they will lose the presence of God the Holy Spirit indwelling them. Obviously, the Corinthian Christians, as you know, were a very sinful lot. Yet, 1 Corinthians 6:19 speaks about those very people, and says, "You are the temple of God the Holy Spirit." Once the Spirit of God takes up residence within your body, Jesus said, "He will be there forever." He cannot leave you again. You may be a sinning Christian, but you cannot be abandoned by the Spirit of God. God will keep you saved. He regenerates – you don't do it. He indwells, not because of who you are, but because of what you are in Christ, and that you never lose.

3. Sealing

   A third work is sealing. Every believer is permanently sealed by God the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). The seal is God's token that the believer is irrevocably destined for heaven in a glorified body. The Holy Spirit Himself is the seal (2 Corinthians 1:22). It is the stamp of divine ownership. It is the badge of eternal security. Because you are sealed, the Word of God says, you cannot be lost again. Sealing is not indwelling; sealing is not regenerating; regenerating is not indwelling; indwelling is not sealing; and, neither are any of these the fourth one here on the list, which is baptizing.

4. Baptizing

   Every believer is once baptized by God the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). This means that a Christian is brought into union with Jesus Christ. That is, he is added to the church. The Christian is moved from a position of eternal death in Adam to a position of eternal life in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22). The baptizing work of the Holy Spirit is part of being born again.

The Filling of the Holy Spirit

When sin enters the life, you lose your spirituality, and you lose your filling. You are no longer under the control of the Holy Spirit. But when you confess that known sin as a carnal Christian, 1 John 1:9 says that you have been restored to fellowship with God the Father. You are now again filled with the Spirit. You are now again under His control. Therefore, you have one baptizing, but many fillings. Obviously, if you try to say. "Well baptizing and filling – that's the same thing," I think you will see that that opens a bag of worms that has no end to it. We went over this in the last session and showed you how baptizing and filling are totally different. They are not the same things. So the charismatic movement, which rests upon this principle that these two things are the same, is automatically in error, and right away, you know that it is not of God, because it is not in accordance with the Word of God.

Now, this filling that you have repeatedly, when you are in the status of all known sins confessed, is the source of spiritual power for living and for service. Each experience of being filled with the spirit after salvation is not something more that God gives you, but it is really a progressive expression of the completed salvation that you had to begin with.

There is one question that you have been bringing up, and very properly, we couldn't leave this subject without taking it up. After all this is said and done, and after all of our explanation of what Satan is trying to do with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you do, nevertheless, take up the book of Acts and discover some very strange relationships between salvation and people receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the charismatic movement, after all is said and done, when you have backed them to the wall, and they have nothing more to say, will always take the book of Acts and come charging back at you with one of these four major situations in the book of Acts relative to the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit. So we're going to take that up to tie this up now.

The Nature of the Book of Acts

Now, when you are going to make a change that is as monumental as going from Judaism of the Old Testament to Christianity in the New Testament (from going from the age of the law to the age of the church), obviously, you have a changeover situation, and in between, you're going to have some very strange things taking place which are not the same on either side. They're in between. They're a transitional stage. If you don't understand this about the book of Acts, that it is telling you how God made the transition, then you misinterpret what is His normal order once the transition has been established. There are certain inaugural features affecting the transition, but these inaugural features must be differentiated from the normal features which are permanently in operation once the church age has been established. Some things are done differently while the church is going into operation, then they are done in a new way once the church is established and everything is rolling.

Therefore, certain external phenomena were present on Pentecost, such as wind and tongues of fire which introduce the new dispensation. But the wind and the tongues of fire were not permanent factors in the age of grace. The Christians who first received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, received it in a room that sounded like a tornado was going through it, and as they looked upon each other, they were starting to see that above each of them danced two tongues of fire. While that happened to them on the day of Pentecost, it didn't happen after the day of Pentecost. This is never again recorded as being the permanent order. Why? Because it was necessary on that particular occasion to establish that who Jesus said was coming was true. God the Holy Spirit, who resided in heaven, was coming down to reside on earth within their bodies.

When He said "That's going to happen in a few days," something very supernatural and spectacular had to mark that arrival. That's what the wind was. That's what the tongues of fire were. That's what the speaking in foreign languages was. It was all, at that moment, to identify that this thing that God promised was now taking place. It was God's way of authenticating the fulfillment of His promise. But you wouldn't expect, naturally, for these things to continue. It announced the Holy Spirit to replace Jesus Christ. John 14:16 told us that was exactly what was going to happen.

So when you read the book of Acts, you must remember, first of all, that the book of Acts is a non-doctrinal book. The book of Acts is not a book filled with doctrine. When you want to know New Testament Christian doctrine, you have to go to the epistles. You won't find it in the book of Acts. Furthermore, the book of Acts is a historical book. It's just a story of what took place. It is also a book of experiences. It describes experiences that took place. But you must not assume that those experiences are going to be the normal experiences of Christians through the ages. It only tells you what their experiences were at the changeover period initially.

So the book of Acts has to be interpreted in the light of the doctrinal epistles of the New Testament. When you read the New Testament epistles, you have the normal order of the New Testament age. You do not have the normal order in the gospels. You do not have the normal order in Acts. It is not until you come to the book of Romans that you now enter the normal order of the church age.

So during the transition from Judaism to New Testament Christianity, there were indeed cases of believers receiving the Holy Spirit after salvation. But I want to point out to you that these were exceptions to the normal course of the age. The reason that they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit after being saved was because they were in a transition period.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts

1. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit Coming to the Jews

   So let's start with the first example. In Acts 2:4, we have the record of the baptism of the Holy Spirit coming, first of all, to the Jews. Later on, when you get to Acts 11, you discover that Peter points back and says, "On that day, we received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's how we know there were baptized here at this point. We don't know that from this passage. We know it from the fact that Peter later on mentioned that that also took place. All these ministries of the Holy Spirit came into being at the same time. But we are interested in the fact that the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place here on this day.

   We're dealing with a group of Jews, the disciples of Jesus. They are born again. Remember that in John 13:10-11, Jesus specifically declares that His disciples are all clean – all except one of them, and you know who that is – Judas. They were all clean; that is, they were all saved. They were born again. So now you have a group of Jews. They're are born again. They're seated here in this room on the feast day of Pentecost. They're on Old Testament ground. The only relationships they've ever had to God the Holy Spirit have been temporary relationships, and those that Jesus prayed for them to have during the 40-day period of His ministry with them after the resurrection. These Jewish disciples had not received the gift of the Spirit.

   In Acts 2:38, Peter speaks to the crowd after this incident at Pentecost to them, "Repent and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." What he was saying to them was that, "We have just received the gift of the Holy Spirit. You may enter into this gift also if you receive Christ as Savior. This expression, "the gift of the Holy Spirit" refers to the unique relationships of the Holy Spirit to church age believers. This is the thing that we have been looking at earlier in this session: regenerating; indwelling; sealing; baptizing; and, filling. That is what constitutes the gift of the Spirit – the unique church age relationships. The Holy Spirit had not come from heaven to begin His church age ministries until the day of Pentecost. That's when it all began. The "gift" refers to his coming.

   The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurred for the first time on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit arrived from heaven. He had been omnipresent on the earth. Now He was resident on the earth. Since the Jewish disciples were already saved on the day of Pentecost, it was natural that the baptism of the Holy Spirit had to follow salvation for them. There was no other way it could have been. But that didn't mean that that was the normal order. And yet, the charismatics will look you straight in the eye without blinking an eyelash, and say, "Now I know the baptism of the Holy Spirit comes after salvation because of the day of Pentecost. These people were already saved, and then they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit." That is because they're totally ignoring the fact that a new age was being introduced in the age of the church. There was no other way you could have made the changeover from the law age to the grace age, except with people who were already saved, and who then had to receive the baptism into the body of Christ after being saved.

   However, there is something I want you to notice. When Peter got through preaching on the day of Pentecost, a crowd of 3,000 unsaved, unbelieving Jews believed in Christ as Savior. 3,000 unregenerated Jews trusted in Christ as Savior, and they received water baptism. We have no record that they spoke in tongues, or that they had any evidence, such as the disciples did here earlier on the day of Pentecost. All we have is that they believed on the day of Pentecost, and at the same time, they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because water baptism must always follow Holy Spirit baptism. If Peter had not been satisfied that these 3,000 had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he would not have allowed them to experience water, baptism. Water baptism reflects that a person has received Holy Spirit baptism. Therefore, we may conclude that when Peter said, "You may be baptized with water," Peter was also satisfied that they had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

   Now, when did they receive it? Here, later on, on the very same day – the day of Pentecost – is a group of unsaved Jews receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation. Now in their case, it could go in that order, because they hadn't been saved when Peter started talking to them. After the inauguration of the church age, we find that this order is what is confirmed in the New Testament epistles. We have found that 1 Corinthians 12:13 teaches us that new converts receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation. The Jewish disciples of Jesus were waiting for the baptism of the Holy Spirit during these ten days after the Ascension, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come to perform His church age ministries. So the Jewish disciples had to wait.

   Yet, the charismatics will tell a believer, "Now that you're saved, you must now tarry for the coming of the gift of the Spirit." And they give people the idea that they must wait for the coming of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Nothing could be farther from the truth. These people were passing from Judaism to Christianity. They needed special confirmation. That confirmation is no longer necessary. Charismatics today do not claim (you will notice) to experience the tornadoes anymore, or the tongues of fire. They like to play around with those terms. The fact is they bring them in in the most ludicrous ways. The charismatics, in general, avoid claiming to hear wind and claiming to see tongues of fire. Yet, if they are going to have everything the same, they must claim that also.

   Remember that that's the battle cry of the charismatic Pentecostal movement: "Jesus Christ – the same yesterday, today and forever. Whatever was in the New Testament church, we should have it now." I just love it when they say that to me. I say, "How many folks have you raised from the dead lately, like they all were doing in the New Testament church?"

   I've had an answer for that. One said, "Oh, over in Indonesia, they're doing it all the time." We've heard a lot about that Indonesia rot recently. Everything's taking place over there in Indonesia, including raising people from the dead. Well, they're not really. Those people are so dead to begin with, they just look like they're being raised.

   Obviously, here we had a transition period. The vertical descent of the gift of the Holy Spirit to begin distinctive church age ministries – this is what the disciples were waiting for. They were told to wait for that. But now today, we no longer wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We no longer wait for these distinctive church age ministries. Salvation after Pentecost includes a relationship to the Holy Spirit which it did not include before. This is all part of what Hebrews 2:3 calls "the great salvation." When Hebrews 2:3 speaks about "the great salvation," this is it. The people in the Old Testament just did not have this experience of regenerating, dwelling, sealing, baptizing, and filling. They had no such permanent call upon the Spirit of God. That's why we have a "great salvation." They had a salvation, but nothing compared to ours.

   So the day of Pentecost was the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit in this vertical sense to begin a new dispensation. Afterwards, it extended horizontally, as Acts 1:8 tells us, from Jerusalem, to the Samaritans, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

2. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit Coming to the Samaritans

   The second coming of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is in Acts 8:4-25, where we have the baptism of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Samaritans. The Samaritans, as you know, were a mixture of people. They were half-Jews, and half-gentiles. The day of Pentecost, at this point is now past. The Holy Spirit is now resident on the earth. The vertical descent of the Holy Spirit has taken place. These converts in Samaria also believed on Christ. Interestingly enough, verse 12 tells us that they had received water baptism: "But when they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women."

   Here they have received water baptism, but they have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Here is a different situation. Here you have people who have actually received Christian baptism. They have trusted in Christ as Savior, and yet have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Luke says that He had not fallen on the Samaritans. Acts 8:16: "For as yet, He was fallen upon none of them. Only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. You will notice that the word "fallen" (the same Greek word) is used in Acts 11:15 by Peter in referring to what happened on the day of Pentecost; that is, the coming of the Holy Spirit in the work of baptizing. He also uses the word "fallen" in the house of Cornelius the gentile, when the Holy Spirit baptized the gentiles. So the word "fallen" here refers to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When he says that the Spirit had not "fallen" upon them, it means that he had not come in baptism, as he did on Pentecost. He didn't come as he did later upon the gentiles.

   So here we have people who trust in Christ. They're born again. They've received water baptism. Well, the church down at Jerusalem hears that these Samaritans have received Christ as Savior. So they send Peter and John to confirm this report. When they arrive, they find that the Samaritans have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They have not entered into the fullness of the salvation in the unique church age sense. So Peter and John, we're told, lay their hands upon them. Verse 17: "Then laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Spirit." As soon as these apostles laid their hands upon the Samaritan believers, they received the Holy Spirit in the sense of being baptized by the Spirit of God. The Spirit had then fallen upon them. The gift of the Holy Spirit, which had been deposited vertically to the Jewish believers on Pentecost, was now extended horizontally to the Samaritan believers.

   The Scripture does not say that the Samaritans spoke in tongues upon receiving the Holy Spirit in its church age baptism. However, Peter and John obviously must have heard or seen something that confirmed to them a very important thing. For up to this time, Samaritans, which were viewed as unclean, were considered ineligible to be members of the body of Christ. Therefore, the Jews considered that only Jews would be in the church age. Now, suddenly, they get the word that Samaritans are receiving Christ as Savior. That was the reason that God the Holy Spirit did not baptize the Samaritans immediately. God was holding off that ministry in this transitional period until a couple of apostles could be on the scene – particularly, Peter.

   Remember that it was to Peter, in the unique sense, that the keys of the kingdom of heaven had been given. It was up to Peter to open the doors, not to the church, but to open the doors to profession to various groups. Peter opened the door of profession on the day of Pentecost. He was there. He opened the door in his sermons to 3,000 who were born again on that day. Peter now opens the door with the keys of the kingdom (to the realm of professions) to the Samaritans. Two apostles were there, and they could see the evidence, which must have been these people speaking in tongues. I'm confident that the Samaritans also spoke in tongues. That was always the clue that they had received the baptism of the Spirit in the transitional stage of Acts. And they reported back to Jerusalem, and said, "Sure enough, they had had the identical experience that we did on Pentecost. They're in the body of Christ. The Samaritans are also included.

   The charismatics, however, pounce upon this incident in Acts to prove the second work of grace – the baptism of the Holy Spirit, again, after salvation. Here, it was even after water baptism. They particularly pounce upon this because it was received as the result of putting hands upon people. Remember that Agnes Ozman read this, and that's why she asked the leader of her school in Topeka, Kansas, to lay his hands upon her and to pray for the Spirit of God to come upon her when she burst into that gibberish for the first time, and the modern Pentecostal movement began. It is from this transitional passage that this is established. But the reason for this was quite evident. An apostle had to confirm that the Samaritans were also in. Each ethnic group is added to the body of Christ as Acts 1:8 predicted it would be. The entrance of each group is confirmed by the tongues gift. The reason for the delay, again, was the necessity for confirmation – an official apostle to be present to confirm that the Samaritans were in.

   So in this particular case, the transition into the church age was delayed until the apostles were there to see it. What the Samaritans received was not something more with God, but simply the common features of church age salvation.

3. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit Coming to the Gentiles (Cornelius)

   There's a third reference to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that's in Acts 10:44-48. Now the gift of the Holy Spirit goes horizontally to the gentiles. This is the story of the household of Cornelius. This is the record of Peter's vision that you're all acquainted with, where he was told that the gentiles are not dirty and unclean, and that they are now to be brought into the body of Christ. So Peter goes and gives the gospel to the home of the centurion Cornelius.

   Now, again, I must point out that Peter is speaking to believers. These gentiles in the house of Cornelius were born again. When Peter arrives on the scene, they're already believers, but they had not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So Peter explains to them about Jesus. Then, in Acts 10:43, Peter comes to the mechanics of salvation: "To him give all the prophets witness, that through His name, whosoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins." And notice what happened. Cornelius and all of them are sitting there listening. They're following Peter's explanation of what Jesus has come to do: the new era of the church which has come into being; and, the new relationships to the Spirit of God. Suddenly, he explains that now all of this is dependent upon believing in Christ as Savior, and to everything that Peter says, these gentiles are saying, "Amen." They are positive toward it: "Amen. I believe it." The words were hardly out of Peter's mouth, that all you have to do is believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, and they believed it.

   Verse 44 confirms for us that that happened because immediately it says, "While Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all of them who heard the word." The words were hardly out of Peter's mouth. And I'm so glad that he didn't tell them to invite Jesus into their hearts. I'm so glad that he used God's order of saying, "Believe in Christ as Savior," so that he wouldn't muddy up and confuse the issue. And they believed, and Peter was startled by the fact that all of a sudden these people started speaking in foreign languages. Peter said, "Aha. Now I know what the vision meant with the sheet full of all of those dirty, unclean animals you told me to eat, Lord. Now I see what you mean. Even the dogs of the gentiles are going to be members of the body of Christ, as well as Jews and Samaritans." The baptism of the Holy Spirit followed again upon believers, who were on Old Testament ground, transferring them, though they were gentiles, now into the body of Christ. This was a totally different situation than anything we have today. Peter knew that they had become members of the body because they had had the gift of tongues. That was, again, the evidence that God was using that they had entered into the gift of the Holy Spirit.

   However, you'll notice that the tongues were unsought; they were unexpected; and, they were not demanded. Tongue speaking, as always, was real foreign languages. But it was unrelated to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They were not speaking in tongues because of the baptism of the Spirit. That was simply a gift that God was exercising at that particular point to confirm that they had entered the body of Christ.

   So the extension of the church to include the gentiles amazed the Jews who were present. The Jewish Christians at Jerusalem took Peter to task for this, but after he explained to them that he had seen the same evidence as they had had on the day of Pentecost, they said, "Well, then you're right. Then God is including the gentiles in the body of Christ. Now, that's something like seven years later after what had happened on the day of Pentecost. So the gentiles indeed received salvation.

   So hereafter the normal order appears, because you will notice that here the baptism of the Holy Spirit immediately accompanied salvation. After this incident in Acts, the transition is complete. When a person is saved, he receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is no more delay. The two are immediately brought together because, again, Peter was there. He used the key to open the door of profession. Now all three ethnic groups were in, as per Acts 1:8. Thereafter, the normal order was salvation and immediate baptism of the Holy Spirit, and without the laying on of apostolic hands.

   The person who believes in Christ today does not receive the gift of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit is the Spirit of God coming to this earth to reside here. They received that on the day of Pentecost, and that's all. What we enter into are the ministries of the Spirit of God as the result of His having come to this earth. So He regenerates; He baptizes; He indwells; He seals; and, He fills automatically, all of us at the point of faith in Christ. And this released the gospel to the whole world. Normally, water baptism follows. That's what it did here in Acts 10:47-48. Water baptism came. But you notice, again, that it was after salvation, and not a part of it. It was not related at all. It was just a picture of what had already taken place.

4. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit Coming to the Disciples of John the Baptist

   Just to complete this, there's one other experience of tongue speaking. We have this in Acts 19:1-6. Very briefly, here are 12 men who were disciples of John the Baptist. They're on Old Testament ground. They're also believers. They're still looking for the Messiah to come as John the Baptist had announced. They had not entered into the relationship of the Holy Spirit in the church age. This is 20 years after Pentecost. This group is given to us in Scripture to illustrate the fact that all over Palestine, there were Jewish believers who had not gotten the word concerning the coming of Jesus Christ, and the new order of the church age. Until they received Christ as personal Savior, under the new order, they were saved and they were going to heaven, but if they died under that condition of being saved on Old Testament ground, they were not a part of the body of Christ.

   Now, that's what Paul found with these 12 disciples of John the Baptist who had not heard, they said, that the Holy Spirit had even arrived. The King James Bible originally translated Acts 19:2 as, "And he said unto them, 'Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?' And they said unto him, we have not so much as heard whether there is the Holy Spirit." This translation using the word "since" is wrong. It is not "since." The Greek here is that old aorist participle friend of ours, which gives us a relationship of two things that have to happen at the same time. And the order here indicates that their believing and their baptizing are at the same time. So it should be, "Have you received the Holy Spirit when you believed?"

   Now the charismatics love to quote this to you. Somebody quoted it to me this week. And I have to look at them and wonder that they could be so foolish as to not know that that is a wrong translation, and that it completely distorts what's in the Greek. In the Greek, Paul was saying, "Now, when you were born again, didn't you receive the Spirit of God that is in the church age ministries?" And that's when they tell him, "We don't even know anything about that." Well, what did they trust in? They said, "Well, we trusted in the coming Messiah? We received John's baptism, not Christian baptism." Paul says, "Well, that your trouble." So he explained to them the new age (the new order); they believed; and, then they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then there was evidence, again, of the speaking in tongues, that they had received God the Holy Spirit.

   Now, what is happening here, in this case, is to show us that many, many people throughout the land of Palestine were completely separated from the information concerning the working of God's Holy Spirit in the new age. When these people believed, Paul laid his hands on them, and they spoke in tongues. They were re-baptized with Christian baptism. Had they died on Old Testament ground, they would not have been in the privileged group of the body of Christ. Everybody who was a believer in Palestine had to eventually come to the knowledge of the gospel and receive Christ in order to enter into the church age relationship. Thousands of Jewish believers were in this condition throughout the land of Palestine. Here, God gives us just a picture of one example. But when you get to the New Testament, you find that the normal order is the household of Cornelius. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

So consequently, the gift of tongues is totally different today in every respect. So the transitional book of Acts, which the charismatic movement leans heavily upon, is a book that is simply telling us how God was making the switch from the old order to the new order. Those transitional patterns don't prove a thing. Don't be confused by them.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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