THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Dr. W. A. Criswell
Acts 2:1-4
02-06-77
You
are listening to the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas.
As he delivers the message from God’s Word today, entitled The Baptism of
the Holy Spirit.
This
is the first day of our entrance into a six-week period of “Good News Dallas.”
What we’re praying for, asking God for, is not just for a series of services
that will climax that six weeks about the second or third week in March.
What
we are asking God to bless is in power, to work with us, to be present among
us, to lift us upward in true spirit of renewal and revival and resurrection
and re-consecration. And it extends over a period of six weeks.
I
have a feeling and the persuasion in my soul, they will be the greatest, most
meaningful, significant, spiritually blessed of all of the six weeks that we’ve
ever lived through.
And
this is the beginning: our Jewish Christian fellowship meetings, our tremendous
superintendent and teachers and officers and leadership meeting of the Sunday School
Tuesday night, and then we enter into a visitation program, then hundreds of
college prayer services all over the city.
These
are days of uplift. They are days of the outpouring of the Spirit of the
Lord. They are days of true revival. I see it on every hand. Then a sign of
it is in my preaching through the Bible.
So
often times and once again the passage before me is as though the Holy Spirit
of God had chosen it in keeping with this day of great revival and outpouring.
In
our preaching through the Book of Acts, we are in the second chapter, and these
are the words of the text, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they
were all with one accord in one place.
“And
suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a rushing mighty wind and it
filled all of the house where they were sitting.
“And
there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sat upon each of
them.
“And
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other glōssa,
with other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
As
I read through the text, I am amazed. I am surprised. I am overwhelmed. For
there is a word that I am looking for, but I don’t find it in the text. The
word I’m looking for is “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.”
There
is no such phrase as that in the Bible. The Greek is “the baptism in the Holy
Spirit.” And it is translated in the King James Version, “baptized with the
Holy Spirit.”
But
even though the phrase, “the baptism of the Holy Spirit,” is not in the Bible,
at least I’m looking for the word “baptism.” But I don’t find it in the
passage. It is not mentioned nor is it referred to.
Well,
maybe inerrancy has fallen into error. Maybe inspiration is dropped away from
its inspirare, its inbreathing of God.
Maybe infallibility is no longer infallible. Maybe God has
made a mistake and He left out a word here that I am looking for, the word
“baptism,” the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Then
surely I will find it if I turn the page. For inerrancy may not be inerrant
there. And inspiration may not be inspired there. And infallibility may—maybe
God made a mistake here.
But
surely, He will correct it over here and I’ll find the word “baptism” over
here. But I turn the page and it isn’t there. And I turn the next page, nor
is it there. And I turn the next page, nor is it there. And the next, and the
next, and the next and it isn’t. It isn’t there.
Well,
what is this? What is God doing? And what is the Lord saying? And what are
these words? It isn’t there.
Then
I discover as I study the Book that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is said just
one time. Just once.
In
the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew that you read John the Baptist, “I
indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me,
mightier than I, the latch of whose shoes I’m not worthy to unloose, he will
baptize you with the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Spirit and in fire.”
And
that’s the only place that it’s said. In the first chapter of the Book of Acts
out of which I am preaching, Jesus referred to that one saying of John the
Baptist.
And
in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Acts Simon Peter referred to that one
saying of the Book, of John the Baptist, here in the Book of Matthew. But
other than that, it is never mentioned. It is never referred to. It is never
spoken of.
Well,
if the word baptism is not used, well, what word is used? All we have to do is
to open the sacred Book and read it. “And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit.” And I turn the page, and it is the same word. “And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit.” And I turned page, and in the same word, “And
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Nor
is there ever any deviation from it. Always they are “filled with the Holy
Spirit.” And they are “filled with the Holy Spirit.” And they are “filled
with the Holy Spirit.” But never are they “baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Then
there must be some tremendous doctrinal revelation that God is teaching us.
There is. This is not ephemeral or peripheral or summarily presented in God’s
Word. It is fundamental and dynamic.
And
it is because we do not understand it that we fall into such heresy and error.
But understanding it, God’s Word is true and plain and experiential and
heavenly and confirmable and reasonable and demonstrable.
So
we look at those two words. John the Baptist used the word “baptize.” And
he’s the only one that ever said it. Then all of the recounting thereafter is
“the filling of the Holy Spirit.”
What
is the difference between the prophecy of John the Baptist concerning Christ,
“He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit,” and then the story as it unfolds
before us of the filling of the Holy Spirit, “the filling of the Holy Spirit”?
It
is this and plainly this, and God reveals it to us. This: With relationship to
Christ in regard to our Lord, as concerning Jesus, He is the baptizer in a
once-for-all sense and that only. That is, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
is an ascension gift of our Lord when He returned to heaven.
After
He was crucified and buried and raised from the dead, He returned to His
Father. And there He kept the promise He made to the disciples that He would
pour out upon them the Spirit of presence and of power.
One
time did that happen, just once. And in that sense Christ is the baptizer with
the Holy Spirit. It is an ascension gift that He poured out upon the earth
when He returned back to heaven.
Why
is it just one time? Because that ascension gift of the baptism of the Spirit,
that pouring out of the Spirit; that ascension gift is the beginning of a new
era, it is the beginning of a new dispensation. It is the beginning of a new
epoch. It is the beginning of this day of grace in which we live.
It
is the beginning of the day of the calling out, the ekklēsia, the ek
kaleō, the gathering together, the calling out of the body of Christ
made up of Jew and Gentile.
A
mustērion, Paul describes it. A secret. God hid in His heart
until He revealed it unto His holy apostles according as Paul writes it in
Ephesians chapter 3. In one sense only, and in one time only, is Christ
considered the baptizer. That is when He returned to heaven and poured out the
ascension gift upon this world, the day of Pentecost.
Thereafter—and
this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit as it concerns the Holy Spirit Himself
and us—thereafter, that is, after the Lord returned to heaven and poured out
the ascension gift upon this earth, thereafter, the Holy Spirit is the baptizer.
And He baptizes us into the body of Christ.
1
Corinthians 12:13, “By one Spirit—the Holy Spirit of God—are we all baptized
into the body of Christ.”
And
here again, that is a one-time thing in the life of the believer. When you
were converted, when you were regenerated, when you were saved, you became a Christian,
the Holy Spirit took you and joined you to the body of Christ. He baptized you
into the body of our Lord.
That
is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. First, a once-for-all ascension gift of
Christ as he poured out the Holy Spirit upon the earth, and thereafter, the
Holy Spirit is the baptizer and He baptizes us when we’re saved into the body
of Christ.
Now,
the filling: The filling of the Holy Spirit of God is an experience that is
ours now and forever and repeated again and again and again and again.
And
they were filled with the Holy Spirit at Jerusalem. And they were filled with the Holy
Spirit at Samaria. And they were filled with the Holy
Spirit in Antioch. And they were filled with the Holy
Spirit at Ephesus. And they were filled with the Holy
Spirit in Dallas. And we are filled with the Holy
Spirit of God today. Lord, grant it.
Now,
what is the difference then between the baptism and the filling? First, never
in the Bible is there anything even approaching a command, a mandate that we be
baptized with the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing in the Bible. But we
are commanded, we are under authority and under mandate and under injunction to
be filled with the Spirit.
Ephesians
5:18, “Be ye filled with the Spirit.”
It
is a command of God. A dry, perfunctory kind of a Christian without life,
without quickening, without joy, without gladness, is a travesty upon the
face—it is a disgrace to the name of the Lord.
We’re
to be filled with the Spirit of God, bright, radiant, happy, singing praises
the Lord. Filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Our church services, our prayer
meetings, our Sunday School lessons, our witnessing.
The
whole life of the Christian is to be quickened and uplifted. We are to be
filled with the Spirit of the Lord. That’s a command from God. No such
command to be baptized. It isn’t from the Word of God.
Number
two. The baptism is a once-for-all operation of God, but the filling is again
and again and again. You will see that in the language that the Scriptures
use, the inspired Word of the Lord.
I
have a great grief that it is impossible almost to take these Greek verbs and
to make them beautiful, translate them exactly as they are, to translate them
exactly as they are into English and to make them beautiful. It is almost
impossible to do.
And
the reason is this. We have a different kind of a verbal system in Greek than
in English. In English you cannot speak without tense. You can’t do it.
Every time you say a word, every time you pronounce a verb, you have to
pigeonhole it in some kind of time. That’s the way the English language is
constructed, the way it is built together.
Always
every verb that you use has some kind of tense to it, some kind of sometime.
The Greeks did not use their verbs like that. In the Greek language, they used
in their verbal system “kinds of action.” A thing was considered a point, it
happened just that one time. Or a thing may be considered as going on and just
on and on.
Now,
you look at these verbs. In 1 Corinthians 12:13
it says, “For by one Spirit are we all ebaptisthēmen”: aorist
tense, one time, just like a point like that. “For by one Spirit are we all ebaptisthēmen,”
aorist tense, one point. At one time are we all baptized—ebaptisthēmen,
aorist tense—are we all baptized into the body of Christ.
Now,
you look at the verb in Ephesians 5:18, “Be ye plērousthe, plērousthe,
be ye plērousthe with the Spirit.” Continuous action, plērousthe,
“filled,” passive. “Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit of God.”
One
time, aorist tense, are ye baptized into the body of Christ. And plērousthe,
continuous action again and again and again and again, are we to be filled with
the Spirit of God.
Look
again: a third distinction between the baptism and the filling. In the baptism
we are talking about a positional operation of God. It is something God does.
It’s the same kind of a thing as when the Bible says that when we’re converted,
when we’re saved, God writes our names in the Book of Life.
That’s
something God does. It is positional. I can reach up to the height of my hand
and I can just reach that far. But God writes my name in the Book of Life in
the third heaven, beyond the highest stars. It is something God does. I am
baptized into the body of Christ, my name is written in the Lamb’s Book of
life. It is something God does up there in heaven.
He
creates for me my relationship with the Lord. He joins me. He places me into
the body of Christ. He does that. And we’re all fellow members of the body of
our Lord, joined to the Lord by the Holy Spirit of God.
And
the Bible uses the word “baptized.” We are baptized into the body of Christ,
joined to the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit of God. That is positional.
It is something that God does up there in heaven when we are saved.
Now,
the filling is experiential. The filling is something that happens to me in my
heart. And it happens again and again and again and again. Maybe when I was
saved I shouted or maybe I cried or maybe I laughed or maybe I was just filled
with the holiness of God. Oh, there are so many ways when we were converted
and filled with the Holy Spirit of God!
Then
sometime thereafter in a prayer service or in a dedication or in a kitchen
corner or out in a field or driving along or in a house somewhere crying to God
I have another marvelous experience: I’m filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
And
time without number have I felt the infilling as I met with God’s people in
this dear place and with this dear church. The filling is again and again and
again and again. Never do we ever reach any high plateau where God has nothing
else for us.
No
matter how we’ve been filled and no matter what a great experience we’ve had
with Jesus, there is always something more and something else and something
over and something beyond and something beside.
Filled
with the Spirit of the Lord, again and again and again and yet again. Always
some great glorious great good thing God hath prepared for those who love
Him—the filling of the Spirit of God.
Now,
for just a little bit, we’re going to take that, the filling of the Spirit of
God, and see its effect upon people. We’re going to take these apostles and
look at the effect of the filling of the Spirit of God upon these apostles, for
the book says, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
The
effect upon the apostles: they’re new men. I don’t recognize them. They’re
somebody else. They are not the same. Why, I’ve been reading about those 12
apostles in the four Gospels. I’ve been reading about them. They appear all
the way through these four Gospels.
And
you look at them. They are quarrelsome. They are ambitious. And they are
selfish. And they’re always vying with each other as to which one is going to
be greatest in the kingdom of heaven and who’s going to be seated next to the
Lord on His right hand and on His left hand.
They’re
always in some kind of a selfish, bickering, quarrelsome mood. Why, the night
that the Lord was betrayed, the night that He instituted the Lord’s Supper, the
reason why He washed their feet was this: they were quarreling about who was
going to be greatest in the kingdom of God!
And
I presume it was precipitated about who would be seated at the right hand and
the left hand of our Lord. And while they were quarreling and selfishly
ambitious and trying to further their own interest, the Lord took off His
clothes, which is a humblest thing a man can do.
I
don’t care where you see him, a man without his clothes is a man without
dignity or prestige or power. A naked man is just flesh.
And
the Lord took off His clothes and girded Himself with a towel and began to wash
the apostles’ feet. Are you a Mason? You know exactly what I am talking about
in the humility of a man unclothed.
And
He began to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with a towel wherewith He
was girded and said to them, “He that would be greatest in the kingdom of
heaven must be the humblest servant of all.”
Now,
that’s those disciples. That’s the most sacred moment of the life of our Lord,
they are quarreling and vying ambitious, selfish as to who is going to the
greatest.
Look
at them again. They are full of doubt. Why, one of their finest, Thomas,
said, “I don’t believe that He lives. Can’t convince me that dead men rise.
All you have to do is go out there and look at these cemeteries and see if any
of them rise from the dead. I don’t believe it.”
And
he said, “Nor shall I be convinced until I put my fingers in the scars in his
hand and thrust my hand in the scar in his side.”
That’s
the disciples. Now, look again. A little girl, a menial maid in the household
of a high priest accosted the big fisherman, Simon Peter, and said, “You,
you’re one of his disciples. You talk like him.”
And
he cowered before a little maid in the house and swore and cursed saying, “I
never saw him. I don’t know him. Can’t accuse me of being one of his
disciples.”
Now,
these are the men that I read about in the four Gospels. Now, I want you to
look at them after they are filled with the Holy Spirit. They were bold and
fearless and courageous like lions.
They
even counted worthy to be suffering for the name of Jesus. And they are
filling the whole world with the faith that He’s raised from the dead and He
lives forevermore. And to those who find refuge in them, He is for them also an
everlasting Savior.
I
can’t believe it! These are the same men! They are transformed men. They are
new men. They are somebody else. They are unrecognizable. They have been
filled with the Spirit of God. The effects of the Holy Spirit, the filling of
the Holy Spirit.
Look
again. Look again. Look at the effect that the filling of the Holy Spirit of
God has upon sinners outside of the church. Look at it.
These
are the men who crucified Jesus to whom Simon Peter is addressing this sermon.
Their hands have been dipped in the blood, the crimson blood of the Son of
God.
These
are the men to whom Peter says, “Ye with wicked hands have taken and crucified
the Son of glory.” And he repeats it, boldly, courageously, facing those men
and accusing them of slaying the Prince of Glory.
What
is the response of those men who perpetrated the most heinous crime in human
history, the crucifixion of the Son of God? What is their response?
Do
you read in that sacred Book that they rose with fury and seized those apostles
and threw them to their death off of the highest pinnacle or stoned them
outside the city? No. What you read is that they were cut to the heart.
They
were filled with conviction and they said, “Men and brethren, what shall we
do? The blood of the Son of God is on our hands, what shall we do? What shall
we do?” They cried for mercy, “God forgive us. God save us.”
What
an astonishing thing! And it isn’t half a dozen of them—3,000 of them that
day. Three thousand of them that day were saved and added to the church.
And
I turn one page in the fourth chapter and there are 5,000 andrōn. Andrōn
is the word for man as opposed to woman. Anthrōpos is the generic
word for mankind—anthrōpos. Andrōn is the word for men
as distinct from gunaikēs, women. There are 5,000 men who are
added to the faith, 5,000 men in that church.
And
it says, “A great company of the priests became obedient to the faith.” That
is, they took a position of openly confessing and being baptized by water as
disciples of the despised Nazarene.
It’s
a miracle! It’s a wonder, the power of the gospel, to reach hearts that are
obstinate or obdurate or steeped in sin or given to vitriolic and vituperative
denial and opposition.
It
is a wonder! It is a miracle! In my reading this week and preparing this
sermon, I read of a humble preacher in a hotel lobby where was seated an
infidel, loud and brazen and blasphemous.
And
he said to the preacher, “You and your prayers. Let’s see you pray for me and
convert me.”
And
the preacher in the hotel lobby knelt down by the blatant infidel and prayed
for his soul that he might be saved.
And
when he stood up the infidel laughed, “Ha, ha, ha, I’m just the same. Nothing
has changed in me.”
And
the preacher humbly replied, “But wait. God is not done yet.”
And
sometime after that, that humble preacher was looking at a newspaper. And in
the newspaper, from another town, there was an article about a layman, a layman
who was holding a God-blessed, heaven-sent, Spirit-filled revival meeting in
that town.
And
he looked to see, and the name of the layman who was leading that revival was
that infidel that he prayed for in the hotel lobby.
In
preparing this sermon, I first started to name men in this church who have been
marvelously and miraculously saved. But I thought, I would embarrass them if I
spoke of their former lives and how they’ve changed, how God has saved them.
And
so I decided not to name them. But he may be seated next to you. And he may
be on that end of the pew where you are listening to this message. Or he may
be up there by your side in the balcony.
.