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The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

🔎 By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓

In discussing the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I’m not referring to the Christian doctrine which holds that salvation is related to the act of water baptism. Rather, I’m referring to a Spirit baptism or a “conversion experience” where an individual has a personal encounter with the power of God (cf. John 3.3) in the Wesleyan sense. Many denominations——especially fundamentalist, evangelical, and pentecostal Christians——emphasize that without such a “born-again” experience no one can be saved.

From the outset, scripture emphasizes the need for a baptism of the Spirit. In Matthew 3:11 (NKJV), John the Baptist says:

I indeed baptize you with water unto

repentance, but He who is coming after me

is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not

worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the

Holy Spirit and fire.

In Mark 16.16-17, it’s not merely by faith alone, but by spirit “baptism” that salvation is accomplished! Given that the born-again Christians “will speak with new tongues,” it’s clear that the text is not referring to an immersion in water but rather to a baptism of the Holy Spirit:

He who believes and is baptized will be

saved; but he who does not believe will be

condemned. And these signs will follow

those who believe: In My name they will

cast out demons; they will speak with new

tongues.

According to some of the Church Fathers, such as Cyril of Jerusalem and St. John Chrysostom, baptism was considered to symbolically represent a form of rebirth——“of water and the Spirit” (John 3.5). Although Baptism is defined as a sacrament or a rite of admission into Christianity——typically by immersing in water——this ritual is symbolic of being cleansed from sin (1 John 1.7), and it also represents the death of the old self and the beginning of a new life! Similarly, 1 Peter 3.20-21 says that the salvation by water is not a baptism of the flesh that cleanses our filth but symbolic of a good conscience.

In Romans 6.3-4, Paul talks of a baptism Into Jesus’ death! It’s a believer’s participation in the death of Christ to allow them to “walk in newness of life”:

do you not know that as many of us as

were baptized into Christ Jesus were

baptized into His death? Therefore we were

buried with Him through baptism into death,

that just as Christ was raised from the dead

by the glory of the Father, even so we also

should walk in newness of life.

Similarly, in reference to his crucifixion and death, Jesus says in Luke 12.50 (cf. Mark 10.38–39):

I have a baptism to be baptized with,

and how distressed I am till it is

accomplished!

In this context, the term “baptism” obviously doesn’t refer to water but to death, which will be eventually followed by resurrection and rebirth. It is, in fact, part of the same regeneration process which comprises the death of the old self and the rebirth of the new self (Ephesians 4.22-24). The best example of the baptism of the Spirit, as a requirement for spiritual growth, is in Acts 2.1-4:

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come,

they were all with one accord in one place.

And suddenly there came a sound from

heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it

filled the whole house where they were

sitting. Then there appeared to them

divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat

upon each of them. And they were all filled

with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with

other tongues, as the Spirit gave them

utterance.

—

Speaking in Tongues

By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓

Speaking in tongues (aka glossolalia) is in fact a biblical spiritual gift. But it refers to speaking a known human language. It is mentioned in several places, including Acts 2.1-11, 1 Corinthians 13, and 14. It is said to be a gift from God. But not every believer receives this gift. Therefore, speaking in tongues is not a necessary manifestation of salvation. Paul says that there are various gifts distributed by one and the same spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12.8-11, Paul says:

To one is given through the Spirit the

utterance of wisdom, and to another the

utterance of knowledge according to the

same Spirit, to another faith by the same

Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one

Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to

another prophecy, to another the

discernment of spirits, to another various

kinds of tongues, to another the

interpretation of tongues. All these are

activated by one and the same Spirit, who

allots to each one individually just as the

Spirit chooses.

However, since everything in the spiritual life can be mimicked, so can this gift. In the spiritual life, there are authentic gifts of grace, but there are also false imitations. Some thinkers maintain that the *division* between authentic and inauthentic epistemic concepts doesn’t really exist. The assumption is that people create a false dichotomy out of whole cloth, which is labeled as the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. In other words, the appeal to purity or truth constitutes an informal fallacy in which one attempts to defend their generalization from a falsifying exception by precluding the said exception inappropriately. But very often the so-called “no true Scotsman fallacy” is not a fallacy at all. That’s because it wrongly presupposes that rhetorical concepts such as “true,” “real,” “authentic,” “genuine,” and “pure” are nonsubstantive platitudes that don’t exist. However, this form of Relativism is completely bogus and misinformed!

Although the “no true Scotsman fallacy” can be applied in some measure to expose fallacious argumentation, to indiscriminately repudiate truth-functional propositional logic is utterly erroneous. That’s because such a duality between the pure and the impure——between the true and the false, between the genuine and the bogus——does in fact exist in real life! This is *not* fallacious reasoning. For example, there are very expensive handbags that sell for millions of dollars. The Mouawad 1001 Nights Diamond Purse is selling at $3.8 million. The Hermes Kelly Rose Gold handbag is selling at $2 Million; the Chanel “Diamond Forever” Handbag at $261,000, and so on. But there are obvious copies and imitations, what we informally call “knockoff” merchandise. There are handbags made to look like these expensive ones that are of poor quality and that try to trick the buyer into thinking that they are authentic. Scammers with fraudulent merchandise abound in these types of businesses. These types of scams are happening everywhere at an alarming rate, whether we’re talking about the diamond industry, the home appliance industry, the technology industry, or the Clothing industry. So you can see that a real dichotomy between authentic and false versions does exist!

This carries over into the spiritual life as well. For instance, we have authentic versus inauthentic “salvation.” There are those who are radically changed and transformed by the spirit during a very painful experience called “the dark night of the soul,” and then there are those who go to a crusade and, without experiencing any suffering whatsoever, simply make a one-minute “pledge of allegiance” to Christ and mistake that for “rebirth” and “regeneration.” In the same way, there are those who receive the gift of tongues, but there are also those who exhibit false charismatic gifts without having received these gifts from God. You can find many of these false teachers in the pentecostal and charismatic movements, people like Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, and Kenneth Copeland!

There are many YouTubers that have exposed these false spiritual imitations. However, they don’t usually do a good job of explaining the essential differences between the true and the false versions, and so they give off the wrong impression that almost all of them are fake. Some of these critics are “cessationists” who believe that the gifts of the spirit ceased during the apostolic age. But for those of us who have experienced the gifts of the spirit in a powerful way (i.e. “continuationists”), we know that this approach is dead wrong because it limits God in terms of what he can and cannot do. God is much bigger than that. God is neither dead nor inactive!

There’s also a further hermeneutical consideration, namely, how to interpret the biblical text when it refers to people speaking with new tongues. Is it always meant to be taken literally, or can speaking with new tongues be taken metaphorically? In some cases, it may not be a literal interpretation at all. Why? Well, take the concept of rebirth, for example. Rebirth means a new you: a new way of seeing, a new way of talking, a new way of being. A reborn person has a new language, new thoughts, new words. He doesn’t speak the way he used to. He speaks in a new language. Thus, speaking with new tongues can, in some rare instances, be taken metaphorically or symbolically. In Mark 16.17, Jesus says:

And these signs will accompany those who

believe: In my name they will drive out

demons; they will speak in new tongues.

In the final analysis, although speaking with new tongues is mentioned several times in the Bible as a gift of the Holy Spirit, we should, nevertheless, be cautious about people who advertise that they speak in new tongues, especially sensational Bible teachers who often preach on tithing and donations. Most of these claims are false, especially those made by people like pastor Bill Johnson——who heads up Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry——who will supposedly “equip you to walk in the gifts of the Spirit.” Nonetheless, there are authentic gifts of tongues that do in fact exist!

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