10 What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Krisan Marotta: You're listening to Wednesday in the Word, and I am so glad you are. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the 10th and the final talk in my series called Who's the Holy Spirit? Lecture notes for today's talk from the link below the podcast, and you can also find them by going to my website, which is wednesdayintheword.com, then slash Holy Spirit 10 or 10. Thanks so much for listening. We are finishing our series on the Holy Spirit today, and the final topic I want to look at is baptism of the Holy Spirit. And yes, I did save the most controversial topic for the end. This leads us into the divisive question of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, gifts such as speaking in tongues, some would include prophecy, healings, miracles, and so forth. Today's churches can roughly be categorized into two groups. There are cessationists who believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and healings and miracles, ended with the apostles. So they ceased. They are cessationists and they think the gifts have ceased. Then there are continuationists who believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit continue into the present day. And this is a really contentious issue. There are a lot of passages we could talk about, and each of those passages has a lot of interpretive issues. It can be very complicated to sort it all out. So I'm going to tell you right up front that I lean toward the cessationist side. But I also think that both sides in this debate ought to admit that it's really hard to be definitive on the issue because there are so many interpretive choices that go into understanding the passages. I also firmly believe that God can do what he wants to do to accomplish his purposes. He could be silent for a number of years, and then he could be very active again, and then he could be silent again and so forth. We've seen him do that in redemptive history. All that means I am very reluctant to categorically say God no longer acts in this certain way because I don't see Scripture making definitive promises in this area like the definitive promise that God gave Noah that there would be no more worldwide floods. As with all divisive issues, my advice is to know what you believe and why you believe it, and to make sure, make it your goal to understand the other side well enough to know why that side fails to persuade you. And then I think this is one of those issues where we as believers need to give each other some grace and humility and say, this is a hard issue to understand, it's hard to be definitive, this is what I think, but I could be wrong, you could be right. So we need a good dose of humility in this topic. My goal in this talk is to give you a basic understanding of the issues involved, and I will tell you what swings me toward the cessationist side. And I should probably remind you that I speak with no authority whatsoever. That's always true. I'm not a pastor, I'm not a preacher, I'm not a minister of any kind, I'm not ordained in any denomination, and I do not represent any particular denominational group or body of believers. I am just another Bible student. I'm just another student of the scriptures who's telling you, here's what I've learned. I am blessed that I can spend about twenty hours or so a week doing Bible study at this season of my life, and I tell others what I've learned and how I learned it through this podcast. But I have no authority whatsoever. This is just my understanding of scripture so far. On this particular topic, on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I would say the Bible is not definitive. Or to put it another way, I don't really see the biblical authors addressing this question. And that's frequently the case. They don't always talk about questions we would like them to answer. We would like them to resolve the disputes we have over these issues and speak very decisively and clearly to them, but they don't because for them and their culture and their day it just wasn't an issue. What I want to do today is review the basic passages, not all the passages, but the main ones that contribute to this debate and what I think we can learn from them. So first I want to look at where this debate comes from, and we're going to start with Luke chapter three verses fifteen through eighteen. Luke is speaking here of John the Baptist. As the people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His widowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. This idea that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, while John baptized with water, is one of the few passages that is found in all four Gospels. You're probably aware that the synoptic gospels, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are quite similar, and many of the stories we have are found in all three of them. John set out to write a different gospel, and his is much different. He had a different agenda. He didn't feel the need to repeat what the other three Gospels contained by and large. So very little of what John tells us is duplicated in the other gospels. But this idea is one of the things that John includes. There's always a lot of debate about the word baptism and its significance. Before it came into the New Testament, the Greek word described dipping something in water to wash it. For example, this word would have been used to describe the Jewish ceremonial washings. Part of the debate comes over what this word baptize is emphasizing. For example, is the emphasis on being washed, is the emphasis on being immersed into water? Or is the emphasis on coming out clean, for example? What's the main point? When we talk about baptizing with the Holy Spirit, are we talking about being put into the Holy Spirit? Are we talking about a cleansing? Or are we talking about the result of something? There are very different ways you could read the significance of that phrase. And you'll notice in Luke 316 that Luke gives us two modifiers. Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And again, there's a lot of debate about what's being emphasized by the idea of fire. Fire can be a metaphor for purification. So we see this in 1 Peter, for example. Fire burns away impurities, like heating gold to remove the impurities in the metal. And John the Baptist could be saying Jesus will put his followers through a kind of purifying ritual. And we could go on, we could speculate all day about the different nuances that fire could have and what he's referring to, but I think the context gives us a clue and that we should see the next verse as explaining the metaphor. In three seventeen he says his widowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The fire metaphor seems to continue, in my opinion, into the next verse. John tells us Jesus is going to gather the wheat into his barn and he's going to burn the chaff with fire. And that suggests to me that the fire is a metaphor for judgment and destruction. I think John is giving us two options. Those who are saved will be baptized with the saving Holy Spirit, and those who are judged will be baptized with the fire of judgment. I think John the Baptist is contrasting the outward water baptism that he practices with the inward baptism of the Holy Spirit that the Messiah brings. We are left with the big question though, what is the nature of this baptism? This speech is recorded in all four Gospels and none of them explain exactly what the phrase means. We're going to have to look at other passages to try to figure that out. Before we do, let me remind you of the distinctions we've made in this series. Roughly speaking, the work of the Holy Spirit can be divided into two main categories. So there are two sorts of things he does. The first work of the Spirit is what I've been calling the universal work of the Spirit. We've talked about this for several weeks, and that's the transforming work of renewal that the Holy Spirit does in every believer's heart to give us faith and understanding and perseverance. The second work is what I've called the individual work of the Spirit, and that is empowering people for ministry. So we talked about this as the individual work of the Spirit. We looked in the Old Testament at Moses, the judges and kings who were empowered by the Spirit to fulfill their leadership roles in Israel. We also looked at the prophets and how they were empowered to speak divinely revealed truth about God. And in the New Testament, we see the apostles given that same divine understanding as they carry on a prophet-like role. Alongside this empowering, we see the Holy Spirit giving the prophets and the apostles the ability to perform miraculous signs that confirm and validate their authority to speak for God. The apostles and the prophets demonstrate that God is with them by means of the miracles they did. As we look at these passages today, I think what we're going to find is that the baptism of the Holy Spirit refers to both these categories. That is, we will find the baptism of the Holy Spirit referring to this universal spiritual renewal, and we will also see it referring to the individual empowering for ministry, especially of the apostles, and the corresponding ability to perform attesting miracles that verify their message. Let me see if I can make that case. I'm going to start with this idea of empowering the apostles for their ministry. The Gospel of John records a long talk that Jesus gave to the disciples on the night of his arrest. We call that the upper room discourse. And several times in the talk, Jesus tells the disciples that after he leaves, the Holy Spirit will come and empower them to carry on the ministry. I'm going to start and read John chapter 14, verses 25 through 26. And remember, this is Jesus speaking to the twelve on the night of his arrest. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. And then skipping over to chapter fifteen, I'm going to pick up John fifteen, twenty-six, twenty seven. But when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. And then later in chapter sixteen, this is verses twelve through fifteen. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Now there's a very important interpretive decision that everyone who comes to these passages has to make, and not everyone agrees on the answer. And how you answer it in this case greatly determines where you end up. It makes a big difference. And the interpretive choice is do Jesus' words here apply to all believers everywhere, or do they only apply to the twelve who are sitting at his feet? Now that is a big debate. Without going into it in detail, I would argue that they apply only to the twelve, his future apostles. Jesus is leaving. Look again at what he says the Holy Spirit will do for the apostles. He says the Holy Spirit will teach the apostles. The Holy Spirit will help them remember everything that Jesus said to them. The Holy Spirit will bear witness to Jesus. The Holy Spirit will teach them new things that Jesus has not yet told them, things they couldn't bear to hear right now, and the Holy Spirit will teach the apostles what is to come. Now I realize the phrase baptism of the Holy Spirit is not used in these passages, but I would argue that's the event he's talking about. The coming of the Spirit on the Apostles after Jesus leaves, I think is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that we see fall on the twelve at Pentecost. In Acts after the resurrection, Jesus tells the apostles that this baptism will come. This is Acts chapter one verses one through eight. In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Now notice as I read on the they in these verses is the apostles. So we just said he had given the commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles, and now he's going to use the pronoun they and it is referring to the apostles. Okay, going on with three, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God, and while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? And he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So here we see Jesus speaking specifically to his apostles, and he's describing this coming baptism of the Holy Spirit as something that will empower them to go out and be his witnesses. This baptism will enable them to testify to the world about Jesus. And he tells them that baptism of the Holy Spirit that I'm talking about right now, you heard John the Baptist talking about that. John baptized with water, Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and this is about to happen to you. So just as predicted in the upper room discourse, the Holy Spirit is going to empower them to testify to the world about Jesus. Now, I realize once again the same interpretive decision has to be made. In Acts 1, Jesus is specifically talking to the apostles here. Everyone agrees on that. He is talking to the apostles. But do his words apply to all believers? Or was this a unique empowerment given to the apostles? In other words, is Jesus speaking about what I've called an individual work of the Spirit that is given to the apostles, or is it a universal work given to all believers? And that is highly debated. And I would argue that it is a unique and special empowerment given to the apostles. Now, that's controversial, not everyone agrees with that. I think he's talking to the apostles about the authority given to them to proclaim the gospel, to speak the truth, to accurately teach what Jesus taught and to write scripture. And that this is one of those unique individual works of the Holy Spirit, specifically empowering the apostles for their calling, just like he empowered Moses and Samuel and Isaiah and David and the other Old Testament leaders and prophets. Remember, we looked at Corinthians, where Paul says apostleship is one of the gifts of the Spirit. And I think that's what Jesus is describing here. He's talking about a work of the Spirit that is about to happen to these particular individuals that he has chosen to be his apostles. Let's look at another piece of the puzzle. This is an event that is recorded in John chapter twenty, verses nineteen through twenty-three. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now that sounds really strange to us, but it's not really surprising that Jesus would use breathing on them as a symbolic picture of imparting the Spirit to them. In Greek, as in Hebrew and Aramaic, the word for spirit and the word for breath or wind are the same word. Jesus seems to be giving them here some sort of preliminary preparation for the authority they will have as apostles. They will be able to forgive sins, and the authority to forgive sins is related to this giving of the spirit. The spirit is enabling them to have the wisdom to know when that's appropriate and when it isn't. And this is one of the clues that pushes me to understand this as an individual work of the spirit, because regular believers do not have the authority to forgive sins, even though regular believers have the spirit. This event seems to be some preliminary event to the main outpouring of the Spirit which comes at the day of Pentecost. And let's look at that. This is Acts chapter two. I'll read verses one through eight. And when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language, and they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? And then Luke goes on to list the many languages and nationalities present. This dramatic event is reminiscent of the spirit of Moses being given to the seventy that we looked at in the Old Testament, at least in the result it produced. There's an audible sound like a rushing wind, there's a visual tongue of fire which hovers over each apostle, and the result is they begin to speak of the mighty works of God in all these various languages, languages they have not learned, but which are understood by the bystanders. But notice what happens to Peter. You'll remember that Peter was the apostle who denied Jesus three times after Jesus was arrested, and he has been fairly quiet since that event. Almost certainly he was recovering from this colossal failure and thinking about the implications of it. But now look what happens. This is Acts 2.14. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words. So the Spirit has just come upon Peter. This is Peter who could not admit to a slave girl that he knew Jesus on the night of Jesus' arrest. He denied Jesus three times, and now he's standing up in front of this great crowd, and he gives an impromptu and rather amazing sermon explaining the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection. And what has changed? Well, the Spirit has come upon him. His work as an apostle, as an authoritative representative for Jesus has begun. And I think we're intended to see that this pouring out of the Spirit with the speaking of tongues and the flames of fire and so forth is the inauguration of the apostle's ministry. And it's the beginning of a pronounced empowerment to carry out this ministry. So this is one aspect of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the empowerment of the apostles to carry out their witness and authoritative roles. Up to this point, I don't think the apostles were ready to take on that role. This outpouring of the Spirit is the last step in their preparation process that began on the day that Jesus called them to follow him. Now, again, because of the interpretive decisions I've made in these passages, I am concluding and believing that this is the empowerment of the apostles and not the empowerment that all Christian ministers, teachers, and leaders received. There is another side on the debate that expands this understanding such that they think all Christian pastors, leaders, teachers, and ministers and so forth ought to be seeking an empowerment of the Holy Spirit like this in order to fulfill their ministry. And they would cite this passage and these ones we've just looked at as justification for that view. I don't really have time to get too deeply into the debate, but I would say I am absolutely aware that as a Bible teacher I am dependent on the Holy Spirit. I firmly believe that any understanding of truth I have is a result of him giving me the eyes to see it and the brain to understand it and the will to believe it. I could not and would not be doing these podcasts apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. This is where I think the distinction between the individual and universal works of the Spirit can help us. I do not believe that the passages we've just looked at teach a universal authoritative kind of empowerment for every ministry job, like they do for the apostles. I think that's an individual work of the spirit. But I do think there is a universal work of the spirit in giving every believer wisdom and understanding at whatever level, and that whatever ministries they do, whether it's helps, encouragements, whatever, they are doing because of this gifting of the Holy Spirit, but that's an individual work. It's not going to look the same in all believers. We see this same debate with Paul's letters. People also take several passages in Paul's letters as teaching a universal empowerment for ministry. And as you might expect, I see those passages differently as well. We looked at some of the Corinthian passages in this series, and as I argued in those passages, I think Paul is talking about the empowerment that he received to be an apostle, and he cites that empowerment as the reason he can speak with authority. The significance of those passages for us is not that we too will be empowered to speak with authority. Rather, I think the significance is that we ought to recognize Paul's authority and the authority of the other apostles and realize we can have confidence that the apostles knew what they were talking about. You can't have confidence that I know what I'm talking about because I have no such authoritative gift from the Spirit. But you can have confidence in what the apostles said because of the empowerment the Holy Spirit brought to their message. He gave their ministry authority. So we've seen that the baptism of the Holy Spirit can refer to the authoritative empowering of the apostles. So an individual work of the Spirit giving the apostles their authority and equipping to do their ministry. So let's move on and talk about the universal transforming work of the Holy Spirit and this idea of baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now the question on the table is should we associate the universal transforming work of the Spirit in all believers with this idea of baptism of the Holy Spirit? Maybe they're two separate things. Maybe there's a baptism of the Holy Spirit that happened on the day of Pentecost, and then there is also this universal work of renewal, and we shouldn't confuse the two. Well, that's a possible interpretation. But I think we'll see, I would argue that the idea of baptism of the Holy Spirit can, in other contexts, include this idea of spiritual renewal that the Holy Spirit brings about in all believers. And there is one passage in particular that sways me that direction. It is John chapter seven, verses thirty-seven through thirty-nine. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. That's the end of Jesus' quote, and then John adds, Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Okay, how are we to understand this? First, John records in his gospel a number of places where Jesus uses food and drink as metaphors for his ministry. As I understand it, the metaphor is twofold. When he's talking about food, like the bread of life passage, he's drawing on this idea that food is necessary for life. If you don't eat, you die. And food also satisfies our hunger. We have a hunger for food and that keeps us alive. And when we eat, it both satisfies our desires and it keeps us alive. Likewise, water also keeps us alive and it quenches our thirst. If you don't drink, you will eventually die. We are designed with a thirst for liquid, and water satisfies both that thirst and it keeps us alive. We see this image earlier when Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well. This is back in John chapter four, verses ten through fourteen. Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Notice we have a number of similar elements between what Jesus says to the woman at the well and Jesus' later statement which John connects to the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus can give us water to drink that will quench our thirst. It's living water. This water flows from the inside, becoming a spring that leads us to eternal life. The conversation with the woman at the well is clearly a gift given to all believers. It is a well springing up to eternal life, and we know all believers will have an inheritance of eternal life. This is something that Jesus is doing for all who follow him. It will satisfy them and it will lead to eternal life. The interpretive decision I've made, or one of them, is that Jesus is talking about this same idea to the crowd in John chapter seven, where I just read John seven thirty seven and thirty eight. Let me read that again. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And you can see the ideas here are very similar, and then John adds the comment in thirty nine, now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. John, an authoritative apostle, is associating this life giving, thirst quenching water with the later coming of the Holy Spirit. Earlier the apostle John quoted John the Baptist as saying one was coming who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. This event was something that was to come, and now he's associating this later coming of the Spirit with this thirst quenching, life-giving internal water. And notice he says, the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive. It seems to me then this idea of baptism of the Holy Spirit is associated with the life-giving waters, which is associated with all believers. And I would argue that the idea of baptism of the Holy Spirit is associated both with the empowerment of the apostles to do their ministry and with the transforming work the Holy Spirit does in the life of every believer, quenching our spiritual hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now that brings us back to the day of Pentecost. The number of people who followed Jesus would ebb and flow throughout his public ministry. But at his death he died pretty much alone. All the people who had cried Hosanna when he entered Jerusalem had largely abandoned him, his apostles had scattered and fled, and Peter had denied him. But now at Pentecost, Peter stands up and gives an amazing sermon, and the text says, this is Acts 241, so those who received his words were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. Three thousand people respond to Peter's message, and I think Luke is suggesting that these were genuine conversions and genuine works of God to bring people to belief. Later in Acts, when Paul and Barnabas are in Antioch, Luke says in Acts 13, 48, and when the Gentiles heard this, they begin rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. So there we have Luke seeing the conversion of the Gentiles as a work of God who appointed them to eternal life, and I think it's fairly safe to say he would see this conversion of the three thousand Jews on the day of Pentecost the same way. We see this outpouring of the Holy Spirit resulting in many people coming to believe. And after Jesus leaves, we see a rapid growth of the church, and I think that's a result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, giving people belief, giving people the eyes to see and the kind of saving faith that leads to eternal life. And I think this helps us understand what it means when he says the Holy Spirit had not been given up to this point. As we talked about when we looked at the Old Testament passages, every believer who lived in Old Testament times had the Spirit given to them to do this renewal and transforming work in their hearts. So we clearly saw the Holy Spirit given in Old Testament times, and we've already seen him at work in the apostles and other believers up to this point. But something changed on the day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost was the beginning of this massive work of the Spirit of God. People from many nations were gathered for Pentecost, heard the gospel, and believed. Up to this time there was a little understanding of Jesus in his message, but now in a real sense the floodgates have opened. So I think the newness is not that the Spirit did not give people faith before. The Spirit did give people faith before the day of Pentecost, but the newness is the massive scale on which it's going to happen now. This massive work that's going out to all the nations. So the newness is the scale on which the giving of the Spirit is happening. Now that brings us to the last idea I want to talk about, which is the miraculous events that happen on the day of Pentecost. So let me read that again. I'm going to start back in Acts chapter two and go through verse eleven. There's a lot of names in here, I probably won't pronounce them all correctly, so just bear with me. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. That's the apostles, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now the word dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. At this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language, and they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontius and Asia, Phiriga and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. So many believers have gathered in Jerusalem for the feasts, and they hear this commotion and they rush to see what's happening with the apostles. The spirit has descended, you can hear it, you can see it, you can see the resulting change. This is an obviously supernatural event that gets everyone's attention. And I think the elements are intended to be symbolic and instructive. The apostles are speaking of the mighty deeds of God in many languages, and Luke goes out of his way to emphasize all the different nations that are represented and all the different languages that are represented who have come to Jerusalem for the Passover. As many scholars have commented, this is kind of a reverse tower of Babel. The language distinctions that separate people are irrelevant because of the Holy Spirit. No matter what language they speak, they're hearing the works of God in their own language because the Spirit is giving them understanding. In particular, they're hearing the work that God has done through Jesus in their own language. And this is just the beginning of the distinctions that we're going to see done away with in the book of Acts. I think this is a kind of a testing miracle that God is behind the message that Peter is about to preach, and it symbolically pictures these human barriers and divisions are being done away with. So I would understand this as a symbolism that verifies to the authority of the apostles and attests that what they're saying is true. Let's go on a little bit, look at Acts chapter two, verses twelve through eighteen. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? But others mocking said, They are filled with new wine. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them. For these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel, and in the last days it shall be, God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy. Now Scripture often uses opposite pairs to represent the total. So we read night and day and that means all time. We read heaven and earth, and that means everywhere. These pairs in the quote from Joel are meant to mean everyone, sons and daughters, young and old, male and female, slave and free. The idea is this is going to happen to everyone. Now again, there is some debate about exactly what Joel is referring to and exactly how Peter is understanding Joel, and I'll save that debate for another day. For our purposes in this study, I just want to point out that Luke has emphasized how many different nations and languages were present at Pentecost, and Joel is emphasizing that the Spirit will be poured out on all humanity. We saw in the Old Testament how people would prophesy when the Spirit came upon them. We saw it with Moses and the seventy elders, and we saw it with Saul on two occasions. And here we see the apostles prophesying, speaking out to people who speak a variety of languages about the mighty work that God has done in Jesus. People of all nations are hearing it in their own language, and they will go on to tell others in their own language what they heard. The striking nature of this event becomes even more clear later in Acts. We're going to skip forward to Acts ten. In a vision, Peter is told to visit a Gentile named Cornelius, and in a vision, Cornelius is told to seek out Peter. Now ordinarily Peter would never go to the house of a Gentile, but God makes it clear to Peter that he should go. And Peter preaches to Cornelius and his household and the crowd that Cornelius has gathered, and this is what happens. This is Acts chapter ten verses forty four through forty eight. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word, and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. Again we see this supernatural pouring out of the Spirit as an attesting miracle, but this time it's to convince the Jews that God has indeed accepted the Gentiles. And in the next chapter, when Peter returns to Jerusalem, the Jews are incredulous and they criticize Peter for going to the Gentiles, and Peter recounts the story of the visions and the falling of the Holy Spirit, and it seems to be the falling of the Holy Spirit that convinces them of Peter's words. This is Acts chapter eleven, verses fifteen through nineteen. Peter is speaking. If then God God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? When they heard these things they fell silent, and they glorified God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. So it is this miraculous visual outpouring of the Holy Spirit that convinces the Jews that God is truly behind this amazing thing of granting repentance to the Gentiles. And two more times in Acts we'll see this giving of the Spirit repeated, and each time it's associated with the movement of the gospel outward to a new area or new group of people. So we've seen that the baptism of the Holy Spirit can, in some contexts, refer to the unique empowering of the apostles to fulfill their authoritative ministry. And we've seen in other contexts that it refers to the universal work of the Spirit giving belief and repentance to all those who would believe. So that brings us to the question, should we expect these sorts of miraculous outpourings of the Spirit to happen today? And again, this is highly debated. And again, this is my good for nothing opinion that carries no weight or authority whatsoever. I would say, on the one hand, nothing in the New Testament explicitly says that these kind of charismatic outpourings are going to stop. Although some people argue that 1 Corinthians 13, 8 tells us that tongues will cease, and they argue from that, that tongues will cease when the New Testament canon is complete, and therefore these charismatic gifts should stop. I think that's a misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 13. I think Paul is talking about the time when Jesus returns there, when the kingdom of God is fully established, and when that happens, we won't need tongues, we won't need prophecy anymore. The individual works of the Spirit enable us to serve each other now, and they have their place now in this life. But when the perfect establishment of God's kingdom comes, we won't need them anymore. We won't need to be taught because we will all know, and we won't need to encourage each other with the works of God because we will all see and understand. So, in my opinion, on the one hand, nothing in the New Testament explicitly says that the charismatic gifts will stop. On the other hand, the New Testament does suggest some reasons why these charismatic type gifts may have stopped. As we just saw in Acts, Luke presents these miraculous gifts as an attesting work of the Spirit in very unique situations. We have the apostles being confirmed in their authority. We have the Jews of all nations hearing the gospel at Pentecost. We have the Gentiles included in the blessing of the Spirit. At this time of beginning, the Spirit is being poured out in striking events so that people will recognize the change that is taking place. And that suggests to me that these kinds of visual, tangible, very striking outpourings had their time and place then, but not now. Furthermore, Hebrews explicitly tells us that God used signs and miracles to attest to the authority of the gospel message. And what I'm about to read, the phrase what we have heard refers to what we have heard from the apostles. This is Hebrews two verses one through four. Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. So the author of Hebrews seems to be saying this gospel message, first it was spoken through Jesus the Lord. It was confirmed to us by those who heard, that is, the apostles. God testified that we should listen to the message of the apostles by accompanying their message with miracles, signs, wonders, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. So that gives us a plausible explanation for why there were so many miracles in the early church, and comparatively we don't see that today. Because God was confirming the authority of the apostles and he doesn't need to do that today. Now that does not prove that these gifts have ceased, but try a thought experiment with me. Imagine that every believer since the ascension of Christ had this same kind of experience. Every believer ever had an undeniable visual and auditory experience of flames of fire on their heads and beginning to speak in a language they've never been taught such that a nearby foreigner would understand. And for two thousand years we see this in every believer. Imagine every believer could heal the sick and every believer could cast out demons and so forth. Now, as you know, that didn't happen. But suppose it had happened. We would conclude that the charismatic gifts had not ceased. God had a purpose for them to continue. But that purpose could not have been attesting to the authority of the apostles because everyone is doing it. The apostles wouldn't be unique. How would we know who to listen to if all believers could verify whatever they thought was true with miraculous signs and wonders? What would we do when two believers told us conflicting messages and both performed signs? We wouldn't know who to believe. And the fact that Hebrews tells us that God used these signs to attest to the authority of the apostles implies to me that other believers don't have that authority and therefore aren't going to be doing these same kind of signs. Now, today many people claim to be able to speak in tongues and perform miracles and healings and so forth, but I don't find them convincing, and of course I may be wrong. Most religions around the world have some kind of ecstatic experience associated with them, what we would call glossolia today, where people just start speaking in a kind of joyful, ecstatic babbling that no one, including the speaker, seems to understand, and that happens in many religions today. Ecstatic states where strange sounds are uttered and exalted feelings occur are common in just about every religious culture. For what it's worth, linguists have studied this phenomenon. They record the utterances and listen to it, and they have been unable to find any evidence that the sounds have the structural properties of language. So as far as linguists can tell, the sounds cannot be a language. And they have tested people who claim to have the gift of interpreting these messages. These people claim to be able to listen to someone speaking in tongues and tell you what they're saying. And linguists have played them recordings of people speaking in tongues, and these supposedly gifted people don't agree on what the message is. They can play the same recording to two different people and get two different answers. Now I realize that evidence doesn't prove anything one way or another, but it does create a picture that is not compelling to me. It is a picture that only increases my caution and skepticism, and it doesn't give me a lot of reason to conclude that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. And let's think about healings today. When Jesus did healings, there was a lot of evidence. People witnessed it. People knew the sick person both before and after, and they could testify to the change. The sick person himself was around to testify to the events. And when the leaders of the day investigated, they found evidence that it had happened, not the other way around. They had to come up with other excuses like, oh, Jesus must have healed by the power of the devil because they couldn't deny that the healing had happened. For the most part, today we don't usually see that kind of evidence around healings. And we have some sad cases where the supposed healings are investigated and turn out to be fraud. Again, that doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but it does increase my skepticism. Finally, I would say that those who argue for the continued existence of charismatic gifts today don't typically have a good biblical argument. And again, this is just my useless opinion. At least I don't think they're interpreting the passages properly, but again, I am no one from nowhere, and I could very well be wrong. From what I've read and from what I've studied, I don't find their arguments compelling, but maybe I just haven't read the right person yet. So to summarize, let me pull all this together. I understand the baptism of the Spirit to have both an individual and a universal application. In some contexts, I think they use the term baptism of the Holy Spirit to speak of the individual side, particularly the empowerment of the apostles so that they can speak authoritatively for Jesus and so that they can perform signs and miracles that attest to their authority. In other contexts, we see the universal side, and they are speaking of the pouring out of the Spirit on believers everywhere to transform their hearts so that they believe. And this universal work is new after the ascension of Jesus in the extent that it reaches and the scope of how many people it reaches and touches. Remember, John tells us that Jesus is the one baptizing in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one who sends the Spirit to the apostles to teach them things he hadn't told them yet, and on the day of Pentecost, Peter says this in Acts chapter two, verses thirty two through thirty three. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. So the flames, the speaking in tongues, the rushing wind, everything they're seeing and experience is being poured out by Jesus about whom Peter and the others are testifying. And then Paul told us in 1 Corinthians twelve, eleven, all these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills. That is still true. The Spirit of God empowers each of us individually just as He wills. He makes Himself known in each person's life in a way that He thinks is best to do to accomplish the plans and purposes of God. The power of the Spirit is not changed. If God wants to confirm that someone is in fact speaking the gospel today through a miracle or a charismatic gift, he can certainly do it. But I don't see them as a normal part of our Sunday worship services. I don't think Christians who have never experienced a charismatic gift are lesser Christians in any way. But I think as Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, we should desire the greater gifts, and he tells us those are faith, hope, and love. And we should value and be grateful for the universal work of the Spirit in the lives of all believers to change us so that we persevere in the faith, we hope in the gospel, and we learn to love God with our whole being and our neighbors as ourselves. If you've been blessed by this, please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcast. You can also find hundreds of episodes on my website, so you can browse for other topics and passages you might be interested in. I don't ask for donations and I do not have ads on my website. If you'd like to thank me, please leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen to your podcast and tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. I invite you to check out his other music. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope you'll join me again at Wednesday in the Word.