Spirit Baptism, Tongues, and Fillings
Date: 01/22/2020
Series: The Midweek
Speaker: Pastoral Team
In this episode, the pastors dive into a very divisive topic: the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Entire churches can be split and formed around their understanding of this. The pastors strive to carefully lay out their best understanding of what the Bible teaches on this and why it matters for us today.
We cover questions like:
Is Spirit Baptism the same as "filling with the Spirit?"
Is there a second distinct experience from conversion?
What about speaking in tongues?
Why are those who experience a second baptism seemingly more passionate?
And more...
*The pastors ran out of town but wish they could have gotten into the subsequent fillings of the Spirit in Acts. Here's a helpful section from Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology,
We see examples of repeated filling with the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. In Acts 2:4, the disciples and those with them were “all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Later, when Peter was standing before the Sanhedrin, we read, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit said to them …” (Acts 4:8). But a little later, when Peter and the other apostles had returned to the church to tell what had happened (Acts 4:23) they joined together in prayer. After they had prayed they were again filled with the Holy Spirit, a sequence of events that Luke makes clear: “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:31 NIV). Even though Peter had been filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:4) and had later been filled with the Holy Spirit before speaking to the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:8), he was once again filled with the Holy Spirit after the group of Christians he was meeting with had prayed.
Therefore, it is appropriate to understand filling with the Holy Spirit not as a one-time event but as an event that can occur over and over again in a Christian’s life. It may involve a momentary empowering for a specific ministry (such as apparently happened in Acts 4:8; 7:55), but it may also refer to a long-term characteristic of a person’s life (see Acts 6:3; 11:24). In either case such filling can occur many times in a person’s life: even though Stephen, as an early deacon (or apostolic assistant), was a man “full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (Acts 6:3, 5), when he was being stoned he apparently received a fresh new filling of the Holy Spirit in great power (Acts 7:55).
Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 782.
