Baptism with the Holy Spirit

"I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit"(1:8)

John said Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit, but actually Jesus did not. It is possible to guess his disciples might. According to the Acts, many apostles and church leaders baptized, but in Paul's letters, Apostle Paul did not baptize often except some special incidents. We cannot figure out exactly how this baptism could be one important church ceremony in early Christian community. I think that it did not occur in one instant, but through the progress of Christianity being settled down as Latin theology, the ceremony of baptism could be made systemized. As we consider the Apostle’s creed being started from the questions and answers for baptism in Roman Catholic Church, baptism must be recognized as an important ceremony from the beginning of the church.

In fact, there is no distinct separation between baptism with water and one with the Holy Spirit, regardless of all the baptism being done with water. But according to the Acts, baptism with water was a religious proof of faith in Jesus and being forgiveness of sins, and baptism with the Holy Spirit used to be usually related with speaking in a tongue. I do not have a definite answer about why they used to relate baptism with the Holy Spirit with speaking in a tongue. Probably the people in those days might understand speaking in a tongue was a typical transformation of the Holy Spirit. Paul himself had experiences of speaking in a tongue. He was known as a person who spoke in tongue more often than others. But he acknowledged speaking in a tongue in a little passive way.

If the trumpet does not sounding a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. (1 Corinthians 14:8-9) But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.(1 Corinthians 14:19)

Of course in conclusion Paul encouraged doing prophecy and speaking in a tongue in more decent way. (1 Corinthians 14:40), but nevertheless, he did not support the idea of speaking in a tongue positively. The general nuances in chapter 14 in 1 Corinthians suggest that it is evident he has a passive attitude toward speaking in a tongue.

Let's get back to the question in the above? Why did Christians in the age of Luke who wrote the Acts regard speaking in a tongue as an important phenomenon of baptism with the Holy Spirit? The answer is in the limited Christian epistemology. I don't want to explain long. The Israelites who wandered around the wild for 40 years saw the columns of clouds and fire as God's guidance for them. It could be definitely explosion of volcano, but in their position they recognized them as appearance of God. Like this, speaking in a tongue seems to be the result of understanding faith in the early Christian community. Just like we do not regard the eruption of volcano as God's appearance today, we do not consider speaking in a tongue as baptism with the Holy Spirit either. I am telling you that we cannot accept peculiar faith experience for a certain age as universal standards for Christian truth.

Perhaps some people could refute like this. According to your logic, is there any basis to assert that Christianity is truth? Yes, there is! The point I emphasized on in the above is not that Christianity does not have any connections with truth or that the actions of God's revelation is imperfect, but that the knowledge of human beings to experience those is very limited. It is so clear that our knowledge of understanding should be self-examined thoroughly when we see Christianity kept on believing the theory of heliocentricism as a paradigm to understand universe even after Copernicus.

And then what kind of evidence could we have for baptism with the Holy Spirit? I cannot declare what could be because baptism with the Holy Spirit is the happening for God only. I could merely suggest two directions. One is about the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. The main character of the baptism is not the person who baptize or who is baptized, but it is Triune God himself. If we consider this, the assumption that we should get another baptism, in case we were not well prepared for the baptism, must be very absurd. The other thing is about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. If we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, eventually we should bear fruits of the Holy Spirit. But those fruits we cannot make sure of, but only God could. Therefore, only in case we rely on God who is the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, we are able to keep our position as a person being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Lord! I pray that I could live as a person being baptized with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of life. Amen.