According to the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements
have a membership that together reaches “the global total of a staggering 600 million” (Daily, 2008). Even if
that number is somewhat of an over-estimation, it reflects the immense size of Christian groups that hold ecstatic spiritual
experiences as very important in their worship. However, this number does not even take into account the Wesleyan Holiness
or Third Wave movements, which also promote similar phenomena.
Since these groups started
to rise near the turn of the last century there has been a lot of debate surrounding the doctrine of “Spirit-baptism.”
Believers have come up with many different ways of explaining this concept, yet remain divided on the best way to do so. I
propose that one generally becomes Spirit-baptized (or Spirit-filled) after converting to Christianity, and that a supernatural
experience always marks this. Yet before I explain the evidence for this, I would like to share the views of those from the
four aforementioned movements.
Four
Unique Perspectives
The
Wesleyan Holiness movement began in the late 1800's, and was the first major movement to last which advocated the belief in
Spirit-baptism. The Holiness people believed that, “When the Spirit makes His abode within, it will be manifested by
the believer's experiencing a definite emotional reaction” (Nichol, 6). This mystical experience results in a greater
ability to live a lifestyle consecrated to God, which is why Donald Dayton described the movement as more “oriented
to ethics and spiritual life than to a defense of doctrinal orthodoxy” (Dayton, 197).
Following the Holiness movement came the Pentecostal
movement, starting in the early 1900's. “Taking up second-work theologies from their Wesleyan heritage” (Smith,
28), Pentecostals often came out of the Holiness movement. Yet as Vinson Synan writes, “Most Pentecostals believe, furthermore,
that the first sign or 'initial evidence' of this second baptism is speaking in a language unknown to the speaker” (Elwell,
899). Because of this teaching, a division arose between the early Pentecostals and their Holiness brethren.
Next came the charismatic movement in the
1960's, when some Christians said that other supernatural gifts could evidence one's infilling. One well-known healing minister
expressed a Charismatic view saying, “There is no one list of things that always happens to every person. It is as if
God tailors the outpouring of the Spirit to each person individually” (MacNutt, 63).
Directly after the Charismatic movement there
arose another revival, termed the “Third Wave.” This movement began in the 1980's, and was also known as the Neocharismatic
movement. The members of it believed in spiritual gifts, but considered these available from the point of one's salvation.
It has been said that “those who identify with this movement believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit comes at conversion
rather than as a second work of grace after the new birth. They reject tongues as the validation of a spiritual conversion
experience, though accepting this as one of many legitimate spiritual gifts” (Foster, 104).
Each of these separate revival movements have
contributed greatly to the modern Church's understanding of Spirit-baptism, and must be considered on some level. Yet with
these perspectives in mind, it is also important to look at the Bible.
A
Separate Experience from Salvation
The
Word of God is clear that there is a distinction between receiving the Holy Spirit at salvation and receiving His power in
fullness. When Jesus appeared to His disciples after rising from the dead, He breathed on them and told them to “receive
the Holy Spirit” (John 21:21-22). Then in the book of Acts He commanded them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but
to wait for the Promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). He told them, “you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost
has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). So the Lord made it clear that this reception of power was something special, unique
from when His followers first received Him as their risen Lord and Savior.
This fact is also made plain in other passages.
The clearest is in Acts 8, where the Bible reveals that “when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria
had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might
receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
In other words, these men had already set themselves apart for Christ. They still needed another encounter with the Holy Spirit
though.
A
Supernatural Event
Having
established that Spirit-baptism is not the same as salvation, we must now deal with the issue of evidencing that one has undergone
this baptism. The first place most seekers look for enlightenment is in the book of Acts, since this is where Pentecost took
place. The Word describes the disciples' experience in Jerusalem declaring, “And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Because of this verse, and several
others in the book of Acts, some Christians have come to expect the gift of tongues to manifest at each Spirit-baptism. Yet
there are other biblical passages where similar spiritual-fillings are described without tongues being mentioned.
For instance, Jesus Himself was filled with
the Holy Spirit at the same time that He was immersed in water. Luke 3:21-22 reads, “When all the people were baptized,
it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in
bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, 'You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.'”
Then Luke 4:1 continues, “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the
Spirit into the wilderness.” So we see that the Lord received a vision and heard God's voice when the Holy Spirit entered
Him in fullness.
Before this verse, in Luke 1:41-42, it is
clear that Elizabeth received an infilling of the Spirit. Here we are told, “And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the
greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with
a loud voice and said, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'” So it is plain to see
that Elizabeth received prophetic revelation about the Child in Mary's womb, simply because of the Spirit that came upon her.
Even if we return to the book of Acts we can
find evidence that tongues may not always be the immediate result of Spirit-baptism. Rather, it looks as though in Acts 19:6
that some of the newly filled believers prophesied. “And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon
them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.”
The
Old Testament
Looking
further to the Old Testament we find a greater wealth of Scripture pertaining to the the effects of the Holy Spirit's empowerment.
In most cases, some sort of prophetic unction comes upon those who receive the Holy Ghost. This is seen in 1 Samuel 10:10,
where we read, “When they came there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him; then the Spirit of God
came upon [Saul], and he prophesied among them.” Virtually the same situation occurs with Balaam in Numbers 24:1-9,
with Amasai in 1 Chronicles 12:18, with Azariah in 2 Chronicles 15:1-7, and with Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24:20.
Another form of miraculous phenomenon takes
place in Judges 15:14-15. Here “the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon [Samson]; and the ropes that were on his arms
became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey,
reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.”
Some may respond that these Old Testament
empowerments were temporary gifts from the Holy Spirit, and did not evidence a remaining infilling. However, Christ quoted
an Old Testament prophet when He announced, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” This was taken from Isaiah 61:1-2, and all indication shows that
for Christ it referred to a continual inner empowerment from the Holy Spirit.
The
Answers are Clear
It
becomes evident looking at these passages that something dramatic takes place when one is filled with the Holy Spirit. However,
the result of speaking in tongues is not always a requirement. Experience may lead one to say, as Jim Greer did, that “The
vast majority of the time [tongues] is the initial evidence of receiving the Baptism of the Spirit” (Greer, 180). Yet
the Bible shows clear examples of situations when this is not the case.
Therefore, we see that not only there is a
major blessing aside from salvation, but that those in each revival movement who received a phenomenal spiritual experience
were apparently Spirit-filled.
