| BLD - BUKAS LOOB SA DIYOS Phoenix District Diocese of Phoenix |
What is Baptism in the Holy Spirit?
While Jesus was in their company he told them not to leave Jerusalem. "You must
wait, " he said, "for the promise made by my Father, about which you have heard
me speak: John, as you know, baptized with water, but you will be baptized with
the Holy Spirit, and within the next few days." Acts 1:4-5 NEB
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes down on you; then you are to
be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, yes, even to the
ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 NAB
From the Apostle Peter's first sermon on the day of Pentecost: "The Jesus we
speak of has been raised by God, as we can all bear witness. Exalted thus at
God's right hand, he received the Holy Spirit from the Father, as was promised,
and all that you now see and hear flows from him." Acts 2:32-33 NEB
What is the baptism in the Holy Spirit? It is an experience of God present in the
person of the Holy Spirit. It is an experience required by Jesus for all of His
disciples, and as such, is one of the seven Sacraments that our Church bestows on
and requires of all the faithful-Confirmation-the receiving of the Holy Spirit. As
with all the Sacraments, it is bestowed with faith, hope and love. Faith, that in fact
God is acting to impart a special grace to the person receiving; hope, that the
persons receiving will indeed open their heart and mind to receive all that God
would have them receive from the Sacrament; and love, that entrusts to God the
outcome of the Sacrament.
As we look at this question, we pray that the Holy Spirit will take these efforts in
words, as poor and inadequate as they are, and use them to bless the reader with
a deeper experience of the love of God and the power of God available to each of
His children. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Let us begin by establishing the basis of understanding from what we have been
taught in the Scriptures by our Church over the centuries since the resurrection of
Jesus. God became man in the person of Jesus in order to pay the price of our
redemption from the hold of Satan. As revealed in Genesis, God had given the
entire world over to the responsibility of man in the person of Adam. The action of
our first human father caused him to be separated from God by his own free
choice, and consequently all human children would be born into a family that was
separated from God. But more than that, we learned that when the separation
from God occurred, we came under the dominion and rule of Satan as children of a
human father ruled by Satan.
Even now in the world, if a citizen of one country wants to become a citizen of
another, the person must make the request and follow the laws necessary, or the
new citizenship is not granted. If the person is a criminal trying to avoid the law in
their native land, the new country may not be able to grant citizenship. This may
help us to understand why God knew He must become a human being (limited by
humanity, and subject to all the temptations of humanity) in order to qualify as a
worthy substitute for the punishment due to Adam, and every child of Adam.
The Scriptures put it this way, and our Church has taught it as the Doctrine of
Original Sin: one person sinned, and many were made sinners, and yet one
Man-Jesus-did not sin. Jesus willingly laid down His life to pay the penalty for the
one man Adam who did sin. Since Jesus paid the penalty for Adam, the scale of
justice is balanced and the Devil has no right to hold Adam separated from God
any longer.
But then what about you and me? God's plan for all of us was effective in Jesus.
Since none of us had any choice when we were born into this world about whether
or not we wanted to be separated from God by our birth into the family of Adam,
God could now open the door for our free choice in Christ Jesus. So God summed
up all humanity that would ever be born from the family of Adam into Adam.
Therefore when Jesus paid the penalty for the one person, He thereby paid the
price for all persons. Now God's provision for redeeming us from the ownership of
Satan by our birth could be received by any human that would receive the gift of
Jesus as our substitute. Jesus became our substitute in full payment for our life of
sin that deserved the death penalty.
Why did we deserve a death penalty? Consider that your father gave you a legacy
for your children of 1000 acres of land for each child. Then you decided you
wanted to spend the money that the land would bring, so you sold your children's
birthright. When your children were born they had lost their birthright, not due to
their own action, but to yours! Now consider that your father is still alive, and his
plan for blessing your children has not changed. So he must now go to the legal
owner and pay the necessary price to redeem the land back. Then if any of your
children come to your father, doesn't he have right to give the legacy to them for
their enjoyment? So God did this in Jesus. Otherwise, God would have been
unrighteous to demand back something that had rightfully passed to the
ownership of another without paying the full price. So now it is possible for God to
give us the right to have fellowship with Him again as we are reconciled to Him in
Christ Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer. Now we are each faced with a choice: Life in
Jesus, or death in Satan.
But let us look at another aspect of this wonderful plan of God's for a moment in
order to understand what our choice must be. Let's say you were born into the
Smith family. After you grew up, you decided you did not like the name of Smith,
so you changed your name to Jones. Even though you have a new name you are
still in the Smith family, and the bloodline of your father is still in your veins. You
may try to change your name a hundred times, but you will always be in the Smith
family until you die. So it is with each of us born into the family of our human
father, Adam.
We separated from God by birth. We are sinners not because of what we do, but
by our birth. It is not our sin that makes us sinners, but we sin because it is in our
nature as humans, as sinners by birth. Fish swim because it is in their nature to
swim, and we sin because it is in our nature to sin.
God knew this and so He made provision in Jesus for us to be able to choose to
enter into the death that Jesus died for us and thereby pass out of the control of
the nature of sin that Satan had held us under. We see the basic sin with which
we are tempted is that we want to do things our way in our time and not need to
depend upon God. This is the "pride of life" that ensnared our first father, Adam,
and it lives in us. So there is a power in our nature that wants to sin; God needs to
provide for us a greater power if we are going to be able to resist the daily
temptations to live independent from Him. This is God's secret revealed through
the Church by the Holy Spirit-Christ Jesus will become our life through the ongoing
ministry of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now we need to understand the word "baptism". "Baptism" is a Greek word that
can be understood in this way: a sunken wooden ship is a baptized ship. The wood
is both completely immersed in the water, and the water has permeated into the
very fibre of the wood. Not only has the use of the ship been severely altered, but
the very substance of the ship is transformed. As we begin to understand this
word "baptism", we can see the gift of life that is given in the Sacrament of
Baptism.
By faith in the active power of God, we receive an immersion into the death of
Jesus Christ at the Sacrament of Baptism. The blood that He poured out of His
veins became the substance that washes away all our actions of sin, and the
death that He dies allows us to be free of the nature of sin which made us sin in
the first place. We are sunk into Him, into His substitutionary death for each of us,
and we are free to be reconciled with our real father, God.
In Baptism, we are given new life in Him through our identification with Him in His
resurrection. We are born again from the dead. All of this happens in fact at the
time of our Sacrament of Baptism, and it is received by our parents by faith in God
in our behalf. They know that someday God will bring into our experience that
which they had entrusted to Him by faith. Our full experience of this new life
awaits our willingness to enter into that death to our own self-centered lives, in
order that we also can experience His resurrection with Him.
All the facts are now in place in our lives, and God waits for us to come to Him in
Christ Jesus to claim our new birthright. At this point, we can see both what the
"baptism" in the Holy Spirit is, and why Jesus would insist upon the disciples
waiting for the empowerment before beginning their task of being His witnesses.
What about this "baptism" in, or with the Holy Spirit, or perhaps we could also call
it the Spirit of Holiness? Again, our Father God is so very thorough in His love for
us. God knew that we would not be able to hold onto this new life in Christ that He
had given us in the death and resurrection of Christ without the power, or ability,
of the Holy Spirit active in our lives. So God gives the Holy Spirit to Jesus for Him
to give to all who would come to Him as their ability to follow Him each day of
their lives. To be baptized into or with the Spirit of Holiness is to allow ourselves
to be completely filled in our hearts and minds with Holiness, and to give over
control of our lives to the
The plan of God in our lives is the same as in the life of Jesus when He walked the
earth in the limitations of humanity. It was the Holy Spirit that caused Him to be
conceived and was with Him as He grew and matured in obedience. The Holy
Spirit empowered Him to walk in ministry in Israel, suffer, be crucified on our
behalf, and be willing to die so that His Father's plan might take full effect for all
of us. This same Spirit of Holiness that enabled Him is now given by Him to enable
us to walk in holiness of life with Him and in Him and for Him.
Holiness is most simply understood as single-mindness in wanting God to have
the joy of guiding and enabling our lives. Now all this is bestowed by faith at the
time of our Confirmation, but few people really experience this empowering at
that time of their lives. All the things of God are first received by faith in the facts
He has spoken. Our experience of these facts will follow as we continue in faith to
believe that what God has said is really true.
Over the ages, our Church has proclaimed and continues to proclaim the personal
responsibility of all human beings to choose for themselves the plan of God-or the
gifts so lavishly given cannot be experienced. The basic Sacraments of initiation
into our faith have been given to all of us, and yet without mature adult
understanding and acceptance, we do not experience the full benefit of all that
God has provided for us in the facts of these Sacraments. Let us not continue in
our ignorance that is so costly to our everyday life of grace in Jesus Christ, but
come to Him from whom all blessings flow-Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed of God,
our Savior, our Redeemer, and humbly ask Him to immerse us into His Spirit of
Holiness.
During this season of Pentecost may each one of us experience a new Pentecost,
the first-fruits of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps you will join us
all now and let us pray together.
Heavenly Father I want to have all the experiences in my life that You have
provided for me in Jesus. I am sorry for my pride of knowledge that may have kept
me from experiencing any part of the gift You have so graciously provided. I do
repent of this pride, Father, and I ask You, Lord Jesus, to come ever deeper into my
experience of life and reveal Your life and love to me. I will receive the gift of Your
love in Your death for me, and all that it means. I want You to take over the
guidance of my life and be my Lord. Even though I don't know all that this means
now, I trust You to teach me. Lord Jesus, I ask You to baptize me in Your Holy Spirit
with all that it means to You to do so. I want all You have suffered so much to give
me to be a part of my life and experience. O, Lord Jesus, I empty myself of all that
I thought I knew if it stands in Your way of teaching me more about Yourself.
Teach me Your love-may Your Holy Spirit now be my ability to love, to speak and to
live a life worthy of Your name.
Reprinted from a tract published by Burning Bush Ministries, serving the Charismatic Renewal in the Diocese
of Oakland, CA. Pat Mullins is a full time Lay Minister from the Oakland Diocese.
While Jesus was in their company he told them not to leave Jerusalem. "You must
wait, " he said, "for the promise made by my Father, about which you have heard
me speak: John, as you know, baptized with water, but you will be baptized with
the Holy Spirit, and within the next few days." Acts 1:4-5 NEB
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes down on you; then you are to
be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, yes, even to the
ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 NAB
From the Apostle Peter's first sermon on the day of Pentecost: "The Jesus we
speak of has been raised by God, as we can all bear witness. Exalted thus at
God's right hand, he received the Holy Spirit from the Father, as was promised,
and all that you now see and hear flows from him." Acts 2:32-33 NEB
What is the baptism in the Holy Spirit? It is an experience of God present in the
person of the Holy Spirit. It is an experience required by Jesus for all of His
disciples, and as such, is one of the seven Sacraments that our Church bestows on
and requires of all the faithful-Confirmation-the receiving of the Holy Spirit. As
with all the Sacraments, it is bestowed with faith, hope and love. Faith, that in fact
God is acting to impart a special grace to the person receiving; hope, that the
persons receiving will indeed open their heart and mind to receive all that God
would have them receive from the Sacrament; and love, that entrusts to God the
outcome of the Sacrament.
As we look at this question, we pray that the Holy Spirit will take these efforts in
words, as poor and inadequate as they are, and use them to bless the reader with
a deeper experience of the love of God and the power of God available to each of
His children. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Let us begin by establishing the basis of understanding from what we have been
taught in the Scriptures by our Church over the centuries since the resurrection of
Jesus. God became man in the person of Jesus in order to pay the price of our
redemption from the hold of Satan. As revealed in Genesis, God had given the
entire world over to the responsibility of man in the person of Adam. The action of
our first human father caused him to be separated from God by his own free
choice, and consequently all human children would be born into a family that was
separated from God. But more than that, we learned that when the separation
from God occurred, we came under the dominion and rule of Satan as children of a
human father ruled by Satan.
Even now in the world, if a citizen of one country wants to become a citizen of
another, the person must make the request and follow the laws necessary, or the
new citizenship is not granted. If the person is a criminal trying to avoid the law in
their native land, the new country may not be able to grant citizenship. This may
help us to understand why God knew He must become a human being (limited by
humanity, and subject to all the temptations of humanity) in order to qualify as a
worthy substitute for the punishment due to Adam, and every child of Adam.
The Scriptures put it this way, and our Church has taught it as the Doctrine of
Original Sin: one person sinned, and many were made sinners, and yet one
Man-Jesus-did not sin. Jesus willingly laid down His life to pay the penalty for the
one man Adam who did sin. Since Jesus paid the penalty for Adam, the scale of
justice is balanced and the Devil has no right to hold Adam separated from God
any longer.
But then what about you and me? God's plan for all of us was effective in Jesus.
Since none of us had any choice when we were born into this world about whether
or not we wanted to be separated from God by our birth into the family of Adam,
God could now open the door for our free choice in Christ Jesus. So God summed
up all humanity that would ever be born from the family of Adam into Adam.
Therefore when Jesus paid the penalty for the one person, He thereby paid the
price for all persons. Now God's provision for redeeming us from the ownership of
Satan by our birth could be received by any human that would receive the gift of
Jesus as our substitute. Jesus became our substitute in full payment for our life of
sin that deserved the death penalty.
Why did we deserve a death penalty? Consider that your father gave you a legacy
for your children of 1000 acres of land for each child. Then you decided you
wanted to spend the money that the land would bring, so you sold your children's
birthright. When your children were born they had lost their birthright, not due to
their own action, but to yours! Now consider that your father is still alive, and his
plan for blessing your children has not changed. So he must now go to the legal
owner and pay the necessary price to redeem the land back. Then if any of your
children come to your father, doesn't he have right to give the legacy to them for
their enjoyment? So God did this in Jesus. Otherwise, God would have been
unrighteous to demand back something that had rightfully passed to the
ownership of another without paying the full price. So now it is possible for God to
give us the right to have fellowship with Him again as we are reconciled to Him in
Christ Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer. Now we are each faced with a choice: Life in
Jesus, or death in Satan.
But let us look at another aspect of this wonderful plan of God's for a moment in
order to understand what our choice must be. Let's say you were born into the
Smith family. After you grew up, you decided you did not like the name of Smith,
so you changed your name to Jones. Even though you have a new name you are
still in the Smith family, and the bloodline of your father is still in your veins. You
may try to change your name a hundred times, but you will always be in the Smith
family until you die. So it is with each of us born into the family of our human
father, Adam.
We separated from God by birth. We are sinners not because of what we do, but
by our birth. It is not our sin that makes us sinners, but we sin because it is in our
nature as humans, as sinners by birth. Fish swim because it is in their nature to
swim, and we sin because it is in our nature to sin.
God knew this and so He made provision in Jesus for us to be able to choose to
enter into the death that Jesus died for us and thereby pass out of the control of
the nature of sin that Satan had held us under. We see the basic sin with which
we are tempted is that we want to do things our way in our time and not need to
depend upon God. This is the "pride of life" that ensnared our first father, Adam,
and it lives in us. So there is a power in our nature that wants to sin; God needs to
provide for us a greater power if we are going to be able to resist the daily
temptations to live independent from Him. This is God's secret revealed through
the Church by the Holy Spirit-Christ Jesus will become our life through the ongoing
ministry of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now we need to understand the word "baptism". "Baptism" is a Greek word that
can be understood in this way: a sunken wooden ship is a baptized ship. The wood
is both completely immersed in the water, and the water has permeated into the
very fibre of the wood. Not only has the use of the ship been severely altered, but
the very substance of the ship is transformed. As we begin to understand this
word "baptism", we can see the gift of life that is given in the Sacrament of
Baptism.
By faith in the active power of God, we receive an immersion into the death of
Jesus Christ at the Sacrament of Baptism. The blood that He poured out of His
veins became the substance that washes away all our actions of sin, and the
death that He dies allows us to be free of the nature of sin which made us sin in
the first place. We are sunk into Him, into His substitutionary death for each of us,
and we are free to be reconciled with our real father, God.
In Baptism, we are given new life in Him through our identification with Him in His
resurrection. We are born again from the dead. All of this happens in fact at the
time of our Sacrament of Baptism, and it is received by our parents by faith in God
in our behalf. They know that someday God will bring into our experience that
which they had entrusted to Him by faith. Our full experience of this new life
awaits our willingness to enter into that death to our own self-centered lives, in
order that we also can experience His resurrection with Him.
All the facts are now in place in our lives, and God waits for us to come to Him in
Christ Jesus to claim our new birthright. At this point, we can see both what the
"baptism" in the Holy Spirit is, and why Jesus would insist upon the disciples
waiting for the empowerment before beginning their task of being His witnesses.
What about this "baptism" in, or with the Holy Spirit, or perhaps we could also call
it the Spirit of Holiness? Again, our Father God is so very thorough in His love for
us. God knew that we would not be able to hold onto this new life in Christ that He
had given us in the death and resurrection of Christ without the power, or ability,
of the Holy Spirit active in our lives. So God gives the Holy Spirit to Jesus for Him
to give to all who would come to Him as their ability to follow Him each day of
their lives. To be baptized into or with the Spirit of Holiness is to allow ourselves
to be completely filled in our hearts and minds with Holiness, and to give over
control of our lives to the
The plan of God in our lives is the same as in the life of Jesus when He walked the
earth in the limitations of humanity. It was the Holy Spirit that caused Him to be
conceived and was with Him as He grew and matured in obedience. The Holy
Spirit empowered Him to walk in ministry in Israel, suffer, be crucified on our
behalf, and be willing to die so that His Father's plan might take full effect for all
of us. This same Spirit of Holiness that enabled Him is now given by Him to enable
us to walk in holiness of life with Him and in Him and for Him.
Holiness is most simply understood as single-mindness in wanting God to have
the joy of guiding and enabling our lives. Now all this is bestowed by faith at the
time of our Confirmation, but few people really experience this empowering at
that time of their lives. All the things of God are first received by faith in the facts
He has spoken. Our experience of these facts will follow as we continue in faith to
believe that what God has said is really true.
Over the ages, our Church has proclaimed and continues to proclaim the personal
responsibility of all human beings to choose for themselves the plan of God-or the
gifts so lavishly given cannot be experienced. The basic Sacraments of initiation
into our faith have been given to all of us, and yet without mature adult
understanding and acceptance, we do not experience the full benefit of all that
God has provided for us in the facts of these Sacraments. Let us not continue in
our ignorance that is so costly to our everyday life of grace in Jesus Christ, but
come to Him from whom all blessings flow-Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed of God,
our Savior, our Redeemer, and humbly ask Him to immerse us into His Spirit of
Holiness.
During this season of Pentecost may each one of us experience a new Pentecost,
the first-fruits of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps you will join us
all now and let us pray together.
Heavenly Father I want to have all the experiences in my life that You have
provided for me in Jesus. I am sorry for my pride of knowledge that may have kept
me from experiencing any part of the gift You have so graciously provided. I do
repent of this pride, Father, and I ask You, Lord Jesus, to come ever deeper into my
experience of life and reveal Your life and love to me. I will receive the gift of Your
love in Your death for me, and all that it means. I want You to take over the
guidance of my life and be my Lord. Even though I don't know all that this means
now, I trust You to teach me. Lord Jesus, I ask You to baptize me in Your Holy Spirit
with all that it means to You to do so. I want all You have suffered so much to give
me to be a part of my life and experience. O, Lord Jesus, I empty myself of all that
I thought I knew if it stands in Your way of teaching me more about Yourself.
Teach me Your love-may Your Holy Spirit now be my ability to love, to speak and to
live a life worthy of Your name.
Reprinted from a tract published by Burning Bush Ministries, serving the Charismatic Renewal in the Diocese
of Oakland, CA. Pat Mullins is a full time Lay Minister from the Oakland Diocese.