How Do You Get Baptized In The Holy Spirit?
- God is sovereign over the work of His Spirit, and it doesn’t always happen in the same way to every person.
- All we have to do is ask in faith.
- Our experience with the filling of the Spirit and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not a one-and-done thing; it’s an ongoing experience.
How do you get baptized in the Holy Spirit? I know we get baptized in water, but isn’t it different in the Holy Spirit?
The answer to this question is nuanced. It’s a little complicated, because there is nothing we can do to manufacture the baptism of the Holy Spirit. God is sovereign over the work of His Spirit, and it doesn’t always happen in the same way to every person.
I understand there is a big theological divide among Christians at this point. We can agree on this: the Bible clearly says that every believer in Jesus Christ has the Spirit of God. You cannot be born again apart from God’s Spirit. Part of the New Covenant promise is that God will give His Spirit to His people. So, you can’t be a born again Christian and not have the Spirit of God.
Some Christians, with whom I disagree, say that being saved is the same as receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. On this point, I would make a distinction. I believe the Bible teaches that we can have multiple experiences with the Holy Spirit, and ongoing experiences with the Holy Spirit. For example, on the Sunday evening of His Resurrection, Jesus met with His disciples. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I believe that at that moment the disciples were born again and brought into the New Covenant. The work of Jesus was complete. They could now be Christians in a New Covenant sense. You could say that they were believers before that, but they weren’t part of the New Covenant, because the New Covenant had not been instituted. At this time, Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then some 50 days later, on the Day of Pentecost, they received the Holy Spirit again. I believe that’s when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit.
God is sovereign over this work. There are people who are baptized in the Holy Spirit the moment they believe, yes, and then there are other people for whom God has reserved that aspect of His work as a subsequent experience. I think that’s pretty clear in Scripture.
So, how do you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Just ask. Jesus said that we receive the gift that God gives us in the Holy Spirit simply by asking. We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to achieve it. We may have to let go of some things in our lives. God may say, “I’m going to wait to do this work by My Spirit, because My Spirit is a Holy Spirit.” There may be some things you need to lay aside in your life before He answers that prayer. If so, ask the Lord about it. Maybe there will be some confession and repentance involved. But please recognize that those things don’t earn the gift of the Holy Spirit. You could say that they make room for the work of the Spirit. All we have to do is ask in faith.
How do you know if you’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit? I think that the only conclusive proof is the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Some people point to particular gifts of the Spirit as being the measure of whether or not a person has received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I don’t think that the Scripture really teaches that. I understand where people get that from the Bible, but I don’t think that’s a right way to understand the Scriptures. Here’s what I know: anybody who’s filled with the Spirit and is walking in the Spirit will have the fruit of the Spirit evident in their life. They may not have any particular gift on display at any particular moment, but they will have the fruit of the Spirit and the life of the Spirit in their life. So, ask in faith, believe that Jesus is faithful to His promise, and look for Him to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
There are some believers on the more Pentecostal side who put a put a great emphasis on a second blessing. They’ll look to Acts 1:4-5, where Jesus tells the disciples who are born again to wait until they receive power from on high, and think that’s a normative practice for everyone else who is saved. They believe that there is a necessary time where you’re waiting very actively, not just passively, for this other experience of the Holy Spirit. But that’s not really applicable to us. That command was to Jesus’ original disciples for a specific reason.
One person, upon being asked about a second blessing, replied, “I believe in a second blessing and a third and a fourth and a fifth.” I really believe that our experience with the filling of the Spirit and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not a one-and-done thing; it’s an ongoing experience. It’s an overflow. Jesus likened it to rivers of living water gushing out from our hearts. It’s not just a one-time spray, so to speak, but a continual flow.
I believe in an ongoing experience of the Holy Spirit. Practically speaking, there has been some damage done by an emphasis on a second blessing. One danger is to create an idea of a two-tiered Christianity, with those who have it and those who don’t. In that attitude, those who feel like they have the second blessing may look down on those who don’t. Friends, that is not a fruit of the Spirit. In fact, it proves there’s something a little off kilter in their understanding.
Jesus told His apostles to tarry specifically because they were waiting for the actual fulfillment of the Day of Pentecost. That was a very specific thing. But that day is done, and now the door is open. We don’t need to wait fifty days after getting saved to be baptized in the Spirit. But I would say that there remains a pattern of waiting on the Lord.
We are not in control of this gift, but God is sovereign over it. He may not grant our request as soon as we ask. Jesus told His followers to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking. God is able and willing to give us His Spirit, and all we can do is receive it; we never earn it.