The aim of this arti­cle

In this arti­cle we would like to share with you our belief that God loves each of his chil­dren in the same way and wants to have a full rela­tion­ship with them imme­di­ate­ly when they decide to become His chil­dren. There­fore the Holy Spir­it fills their heart at repen­tance with­out any time delay. This is the bap­tism with the Holy Spir­it that is God’s imme­di­ate response to their deci­sion. We would like to explain on basis of bib­li­cal pas­sages why we believe so and point out the errors of the Charis­mat­ic-Pen­te­costal teach­ing accord­ing to which repen­tance and Spir­it-bap­tism are usu­al­ly¹ two sep­a­rate events with time delay inbe­tween.

1 Occurrence and Meaning of the Term in the New Testament

The term “to bap­tize with Holy Spir­it” occurs in all four gospels: Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33. These words of John the Bap­tist refer to Jesus: he will be the one who bap­tizes with Holy Spir­it. Jesus is might­i­er than John. John called the peo­ple to regret and repent of their sins. Jesus is able to give them heav­en­ly pow­er through the Holy Spir­it to live god­ly lives fol­low­ing him. The promise made by John was ful­filled at Pen­te­cost in the year AD 30, just as Jesus had pre­dict­ed before his ascen­sion (Acts 1:4–8). We can see that the dis­ci­ples who hid behind locked doors out of fear of the Jews (John 20:19) start­ed to pro­claim the Good News with great courage and wis­dom after receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it (Acts 2:14).

2 The Unique Situation of the Disciples: Time Delay Between Repentance and Baptism in the Holy Spirit

The first dis­ci­ples decid­ed to fol­low Christ but they had to wait till Pen­te­cost 30 AD for being bap­tized with the Spir­it. We find the rea­son for this time delay in Jesus’ words:

Nev­er­the­less, I tell you the truth: it is to your advan­tage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7)

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.’” 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 7:37–39)

As these pas­sages show, the dis­ci­ples were in a unique sit­u­a­tion: although they had made a deci­sion to fol­low Jesus when they first met him, they only received the Holy Spir­it lat­er, after Jesus’ glo­ri­fi­ca­tion.² They had to wait because the Spir­it had not been giv­en yet (John 7:39). How­ev­er, since the Spir­it was giv­en (i.e. the third divine per­son was revealed at Pen­te­cost) there has no longer been any need for those who have decid­ed to fol­low Jesus to wait: they can be filled with the Holy Spir­it with­out time delay.

3 The Situation of Christians After Pentecost 30 AD.: Holy Spirit Baptism at Repentance—Fullness Without Time Delay

After Pen­te­cost repen­tance and bap­tism in the Holy Spir­it are not two sep­a­rate events any­more. If some­one opens his heart and invites God into his life God makes his home in him imme­di­ate­ly:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you anoth­er Helper, to be with you for ever, even the Spir­it of truth, whom the world can­not receive, because it nei­ther sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. …Jesus answered him, “If any­one loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:16–17 & 23)

Jesus first speaks about send­ing the Holy Spir­it that he will be with the believ­ers for­ev­er, then about the Father and him­self. This means that by receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it actu­al­ly the Tri­une God makes his abode with us. As not only a part of the Father and a part of Jesus make abode in us when we repent nei­ther is the Holy Spir­it poured out into the heart of the con­vert par­tial­ly. The only pre­req­ui­site is: to love him and the deci­sion to keep his word. In this case God does not delay with his love but he comes imme­di­ate­ly and pours it out into the believ­er’s heart:

…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spir­it who has been giv­en to us. (Romans 5:5)

It is very far from God’s being that he gives only a reduced quan­ti­ty of his love to the one who yearns for Him. On the oth­er hand the Holy Spir­it is a per­son who can­not be divid­ed in parts or por­tions like a mass of water. His work is often com­pared with that of water that revives, refresh­es and quench­es one’s thirst but we can nev­er read in such pas­sages that God first gives a lit­tle por­tion of water and only lat­er the full quan­ti­ty. When the Old Tes­ta­ment promis­es the Holy Spir­it using the pic­ture of water it always speaks in terms of full­ness: Isa­iah 32:14–16; 44:1–5; 43:19–20; 41:17–20; 35:7; 55:1–2; 58:11; Joel 3:18; Ezechiel 47:1–12)

Since the Holy Spir­it is a per­son either he is present in some­one’s heart or he is not. If he is present then he is present ful­ly, with his com­plete being and con­se­quent­ly he fills a per­son­’s heart.

For we our­selves were once fool­ish, dis­obe­di­ent, led astray, slaves to var­i­ous pas­sions and plea­sures, pass­ing our days in mal­ice and envy, hat­ed by oth­ers and hat­ing one anoth­er. But when the good­ness and lov­ing kind­ness of God our Sav­iour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in right­eous­ness, but accord­ing to his own mer­cy, by the wash­ing of regen­er­a­tion and renew­al³ of the Holy Spir­it, whom he poured out on us rich­ly through Jesus Christ our Sav­iour, so that being jus­ti­fied by his grace we might become heirs accord­ing to the hope of eter­nal life. (Titus 3:3–7)

In the con­text Paul speaks about repen­tance. Once we were dis­obe­di­ent but God saved us by the wash­ing of regen­er­a­tion and renew­al of the Holy Spir­it, whom he poured out upon us RICHLY. This means that repen­tance and receiv­ing the Spir­it rich­ly (i.e. ful­ly, since the rich­ness of God can­not mean that he mere­ly gives the Spir­it par­tial­ly) can­not be regard­ed as two sep­a­rate events, which occur with a time-delay in between.

If some­one has not received the Spir­it rich­ly, he is not washed, renewed and regen­er­at­ed. Con­se­quent­ly he is not saved, nor jus­ti­fied and is not an heir of eter­nal life (v. 7).

In anoth­er pas­sage Paul con­nects receiv­ing the Spir­it ful­ly with being a mem­ber of the church.

For just as the body is one and has many mem­bers, and all the mem­bers of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spir­it we were all bap­tized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spir­it. (1 Corinthi­ans 12:12–13)

Every mem­ber of the church was made to drink of one Spir­it. Being made to drink is again a strong expres­sion of full­ness. As we showed above, as the Spir­it is a per­son he can only give him­self com­plete­ly and not par­tial­ly. If he gives him­self to drink, he does it ful­ly and does NOT first just give us a sip of him­self and lat­er every­thing. Such a teach­ing fits rather the ori­en­tal con­cept of an imper­son­al God and a mass of ener­gy but not the per­son­al God who revealed him­self in the Bible.

If there were two steps of receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it (first par­tial­ly and then ful­ly) there should be two groups or two kinds of Chris­tians in the church accord­ing to the quan­ti­ty of the Spir­it they have. But 1 Corinthi­ans 12 does not show such a pic­ture of the church. If we look at the wider con­text Paul says that each and every mem­ber of the church is very pre­cious because the same Spir­it lives in him by whom he con­fess­es Jesus as his Lord and from whom he has received gifts: 1 Corinthi­ans 12:3–11. There are dif­fer­ences in the gifts, in the min­istries and in the effects but Paul does not speak at all about dif­fer­ences in the quan­ti­ty of the Spir­it (hav­ing him par­tial­ly of ful­ly) although it would be very appro­pri­ate to men­tion it in vers­es 4–6 if such a dis­tinc­tion exist­ed. All the gifts men­tioned in vers­es 8–10 are signs that some­one is filled with the Spirit—not only speak­ing in tongues, as the charis­mat­ic teach­ing high­lights it as a clear sign of that some­one is bap­tized with the Holy Spir­it.

Romans 8:1–17 also excludes flesh­ly Christianity—like the charis­mat­ic teach­ing usu­al­ly calls peo­ple who are “Chris­tians” with­out bap­tism in the Holy Spir­it flesh­ly Chris­tians.⁴ Those who live accord­ing to the flesh can­not please God and they will die. Chris­tians are con­trolled by the Spir­it and put to death the deeds of the body. Being con­trolled by the Spir­it is a clear expres­sion of being filled with Him. God wants to share his whole being with his chil­dren from the begin­ning and He wants to sup­port them in their fights. Why would he do it only par­tial­ly just in the begin­ning when a new­born Chris­t­ian usu­al­ly has quite strong fights? He gives us the full­ness so that we expe­ri­ence a deep rela­tion­ship with him out of which we are able to live a vic­to­ri­ous life in obe­di­ence.

Paul’s own exam­ple in Dam­as­cus is also a tes­ti­mo­ny for that being filled with the Holy Spir­it can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from repen­tance: Acts 9:17–18. By the way, there is no report about speak­ing in tongues (as the clas­sic charis­mat­ic the­o­ry teach­es) or any oth­er vis­i­ble gift of the Spir­it when Ana­nias lays his hands on him.

Also in Acts 10:44–48, in the case of Cor­nelius we can see that the Spir­it was poured out on him and his house­hold at their repen­tance and, what is more, before their bap­tism with water (while accord­ing to the clas­sic charis­mat­ic teach­ing the sequence should be: repen­tance, water bap­tism, Holy Spir­it bap­tism).

4 Being Filled with the Spirit: The Relationship with the Holy Spirit During Christian Life

At repen­tance God starts dwelling in us by the Holy Spir­it. This is a rela­tion­ship with him which can be strength­ened by our obe­di­ence (good deci­sions, devo­tion, prayer) but also weak­ened by our dis­obe­di­ence. Such expres­sions as “be filled with the Spir­it” in Eph­esians 5:18, or “do not grieve the Holy Spir­it of God” in Eph­esians 4:30 show that it strong­ly depends on us, our obe­di­ence how much the Holy Spir­it can work in us. Paul says some­thing sim­i­lar in Gala­tians 5:25: “If we live by the Spir­it, let us also walk by the Spir­it.”

In Acts 4:31 the first Chris­tians were pray­ing fer­vent­ly and expe­ri­enced great strength­en­ing in their faith by the Holy Spir­it:

…they were all filled with the Holy Spir­it and con­tin­ued to speak the word of God with bold­ness.

We find the expres­sion “being filled with the Spir­it” also in oth­er sit­u­a­tions in Acts when the Holy Spir­it strength­ened some­one in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion: Acts 4:5–10; Acts 13:9–12. Being filled with the Spir­it in such cas­es has a dif­fer­ent mean­ing than e.g. in Acts 2:4 or else­where when some­body repent­ed and received the Holy Spir­it (e.g. Acts 9:17). It is not the begin­ning of the rela­tion­ship with the Spir­it but a strength­en­ing of it and expe­ri­enc­ing His pow­er and help in a spe­cial way.

When we read about a Chris­t­ian being full of the Holy Spir­it it does not mean that he was bap­tized with the Spir­it while oth­ers were not but it means that by his obe­di­ence the work of the Holy Spir­it was very vis­i­ble in his life, e.g. Acts 6:5: “They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spir­it.”. It cer­tain­ly does not mean that the oth­er six broth­ers were not bap­tized with the Holy Spir­it in con­trast to Stephen.

5 Passages Misinterpreted in the Charismatic Teaching

There are some pas­sages in the New Tes­ta­ment which are explained by most Charismatics/Pentecostals in such a way as if repen­tance and being bap­tized / filled with the Spir­it were sep­a­rate events.⁵ If we keep the things explained above in front of our eyes it will be no prob­lem to under­stand also these pas­sages in the right way.

5.1 Nicodemus: Being Born by Water and Spirit

…unless one is born of water and the Spir­it, he can­not enter the king­dom of God. (John 3:5)

The charis­mat­ic mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of verse 5 is that bap­tism with water and with the Spir­it are two sep­a­rate events because of the con­junc­tion and. As we already explained con­cern­ing Titus 3 (and in foot­note No. 2) two expres­sions con­nect­ed by and are in the lan­guage of the Bible very often a par­al­lelism, which means that both expres­sions refer to the same con­tent empha­siz­ing dif­fer­ent aspects. We also showed above that water is used in the Old Tes­ta­ment as a metaphor of the Spir­it e.g.:

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spir­it upon your off­spring, and my bless­ing on your descen­dants. They shall spring up among the grass like wil­lows by flow­ing streams. (Isa­iah 44:3–4)

Pour­ing water on the thirsty land and pour­ing the Spir­it on Israel’s off­spring are not two sep­a­rate events but actu­al­ly, they mean the same. Israel is com­pared with a dry land and then with wil­lows by flow­ing streams after receiv­ing the bless­ing, i.e. the Spir­it (Spir­it and bless­ing are again a par­al­lelism). There­fore being born by water and Spir­it in John 3 means sim­ply being renewed by the Holy Spir­it like the water renews the one who is washed by it.

In Ezekiel 36:22–38 we find sim­i­lar expres­sions which, how­ev­er, describe even more clear­ly the new birth or birth from above⁶, which is an action car­ried out by God and thus fits very well as a par­al­lel to what Jesus want­ed to say in John 3 (and expect­ed Nicode­mus to under­stand as the teacher of Israel).

I will sprin­kle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your unclean­ness­es, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spir­it I will put with­in you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spir­it with­in you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be care­ful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:25–27)

The whole con­text speaks about an action (i.e. the birth from above which presupposes—of course—that a per­son repents) that is car­ried out by God and not by man like in the case of water bap­tism. On the oth­er hand, if in John 3:5 Jesus also meant the bap­tism by water, why does he speak from verse 6 only about the Spir­it and does not say a word about bap­tism by water? Sep­a­rat­ing water and Spir­it leads to a sim­i­lar prob­lem as what we point­ed out con­cern­ing Titus 3: those who only received bap­tism with water can­not enter into the king­dom of God, con­se­quent­ly they do not have cit­i­zen­ship in heav­en when they repent and are bap­tized with water until they do not get the bap­tism with the Spir­it.

How­ev­er, accord­ing to Philip­pi­ans 3:20 “our cit­i­zen­ship is in heaven…”—which is valid for every­one who con­vert­ed to Jesus.

5.2 John 20:19–23: Receive the Holy Spirit—How Come Before Pentecost?

…he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spir­it.” (John 20:22)

As we point­ed out above the pre­req­ui­site of send­ing the Holy Spir­it was Jesus’ going away and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion (John 7:39 and John 16:7). These pre­req­ui­sites, how­ev­er, had not been ful­filled yet in John 20 since Jesus had not ascend­ed yet to the Father to his glo­ry. That is why we have to exclude that the dis­ci­ples received the Holy Spir­it in this sit­u­a­tion. Verse 22 is the con­fir­ma­tion of Jesus’ promise giv­en in the farewell dis­cours­es about send­ing the Coun­sel­lor. He want­ed to remind his dis­ci­ples who were rejoic­ing at his appear­ance that he had to leave the Earth: he would not leave them as orphans but would send them the Holy Spir­it. The sym­bol­ic act of breath­ing could help them under­stand the con­nec­tion between Jesus and the Holy Spir­it whom they were to receive some days lat­er (Acts 1:5).

5.3 Acts 2:37–39: Repent and Be Baptized and You Will Receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit—The First Two Separated from the Last?

…Repent and be bap­tized every one of you…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spir­it. (Acts 2:38)

There is no rea­son to con­clude from this pas­sage that repen­tance with bap­tism and receiv­ing the gift of the Holy Spir­it are two sep­a­rate events with pos­si­ble time delay in-between. Which oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty (lan­guage tools) would Peter have had to express that repen­tance is answered by God with giv­ing the Spir­it imme­di­ate­ly and by the Apos­tels with water bap­tism? We can see in vers­es 42–47 that the Holy Spir­it imme­di­ate­ly start­ed work­ing in their life great­ly. He filled their heart and per­formed great mir­a­cles in and among them: deep broth­er­ly love and uni­ty.

5.4 Acts 8:5–24: Samaritans’ Repentance and Receiving the Spirit with Time Delay

…Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spir­it, for he had not yet fall­en on any of them, but they had only been bap­tized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 8:14–16)

The evan­ge­lism of the Samar­i­tans was a his­toric event which proved that not only the Jews are invit­ed into and wel­comed in God’s king­dom. Because of the enmi­ty for sev­er­al cen­turies between the Samar­i­tans and the Jews it was impor­tant that Peter and John as apos­tles and pil­lars of the church went there to greet the new Samar­i­tan con­verts and to express to them that they were accept­ed in the Church as new broth­ers in Christ. But how shall we under­stand that: “the Spir­it had not yet fall­en upon any of them; they had sim­ply been bap­tized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Bas­ing on the first part of this trea­tise we sure­ly can­not under­stand it so that they were not filled with the Holy Spir­it when they con­vert­ed. The Spir­it’s falling upon them must have there­fore a dif­fer­ent mean­ing here. It must refer to a pow­er­ful and mirac­u­lous act­ing of the Spir­it:⁷ a clear sign of the Spir­it’s pres­ence in their lives that they had not yet expe­ri­enced before Peter’s and John’s com­ing. It must have been some­thing vis­i­ble as verse 18 says: “Simon saw that the Spir­it was bestowed through the lay­ing on of the apos­tles’ hands.” So we have to under­stand verse 17: “They were receiv­ing the Holy Spir­it” so that they received the gift of the Holy Spir­it, most prob­a­bly speak­ing in tongues. This was a con­fir­ma­tion of that the Spir­it works in their life but not the moment when the Spir­it was poured out into their heart. The fact that it hap­pened through Peter and John and not through Philipp when they repent­ed could be explained by the above men­tioned unique sit­u­a­tion of the Samar­i­tans. It was impor­tant that their accep­tance in the Church is approved by the apos­tles.⁸

5.5 Acts 19:1–7: The Twelve Disciples of John the Baptist

“Did you receive the Holy Spir­it when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spir­it.” (Acts 19:2)

These dis­ci­ples were bap­tized into John’s bap­tism that means they were John’s dis­ci­ples, the fol­low­ers of his teach­ing but did not know the teach­ing of Jesus nei­ther about the Holy Spir­it. Con­se­quent­ly we can­not regard them as Chris­tians. We can sup­pose that they were men in Asia Minor who had heard about John the Bap­tist and had repent­ed from their sins and had been try­ing to live right­eous­ly accord­ing to their recog­ni­tions. That’s why they are called dis­ci­ples in v.1 and Paul regards them as believ­ers in v. 2. It seems they had also fel­low­ship with each oth­er. They got to know Chris­tian­i­ty through Paul and accept­ed it imme­di­ate­ly. They decid­ed to fol­low Christ and so Paul bap­tized them and they received the Holy Spir­it imme­di­ate­ly. When Paul laid his hands on them they also received gifts from the Spir­it: speak­ing in tongues and proph­esy­ing.

5.6 Acts 18:23–28: Apollos

He had been instruct­ed in the way of the Lord. And being fer­vent in spir­it, he spoke and taught accu­rate­ly the things con­cern­ing Jesus, though he knew only the bap­tism of John. (Acts 18:25)

Although also about Apol­los we read that he knew only the bap­tism of John he dif­fers in sev­er­al aspects from the twelve dis­ci­ples of John in Acts 19:

• he had been instruct­ed in the way of the Lord
• he was fer­vent in spir­it (cf. Romans 12:11—as the only par­al­lel in the New Tes­ta­ment with the same expres­sion: it is clear­ly about Chris­tians)
• he spoke and taught accu­rate­ly the things con­cern­ing Jesus
• He began to speak bold­ly in the syn­a­gogue
• but when Priscil­la and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accu­rate­ly.
• he was not bap­tized by Aquila and Priscil­la

All these dif­fer­ences show that Apol­los was on a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent lev­el than those twelve in Eph­esus so that although there were things he did not know about Jesus and the Chris­t­ian teach­ing Aquila and Priscil­la regard­ed him as a broth­er in Christ and con­se­quent­ly they did not bap­tize him but just explained to him the things he lacked.

5.7 Hebrews 6:1–2: Washings As One of the Elementary Teachings About Christ

…instruc­tion about wash­ings… (Hebrews 6:2a)

Wash­ings (in Greek: βαπτισμα) [bap­tisma, Plur­al of bap­tismos] are men­tioned in the same let­ter also in 9:10: “var­i­ous wash­ings”. Wash­ings refer here (9:10) to the rit­u­al wash­ings accord­ing to the Mosa­ic law. The aim of Hebrews is to encour­age Jew­ish Chris­tians not to fall back to Judaism and to point out the dif­fer­ences between faith in the Old Tes­ta­ment and New Tes­ta­ment. There­fore the most prob­a­ble under­stand­ing of the instruc­tion about wash­ings is to dis­tin­guish clear­ly the bap­tism of Jesus from the rit­u­al wash­ings accord­ing to the law and oth­er wash­ings of the Old Tes­ta­ment time like the pros­e­lyte bap­tism or the bap­tism of John. This is indeed a fun­da­men­tal teach­ing, which the addressees under­stood when they became Chris­tians and the author wants to remind them of it. This under­stand­ing does not sup­port the Charis­mat­ic the­o­ry (wash­ings = water bap­tism and Spir­it bap­tism) but fits well the top­ic and the teach­ing of the Let­ter to the Hebrews.

5.8 Luke 11:5–13

…how much more will the heav­en­ly Father give the Holy Spir­it to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13b)

Bas­ing on this pas­sage Charis­mat­ics and Pen­te­costals organ­ise spe­cial meet­ings where they “ask God” for the Holy Spir­it. How­ev­er, the con­text and the orig­i­nal Greek text do not sup­port this under­stand­ing. The Greek text says only (as NASB quot­ed above): “those who ask him” and does not say “those who ask him for the Spir­it”. In the con­text Jesus teach­es his dis­ci­ples to pray and as an encour­age­ment he speaks about how God relates to our prayers. In the par­al­lel pas­sage in Matthew 7:11 instead of Holy Spir­it “good things” is writ­ten. So Jesus wants to say that we can turn to God as to a lov­ing father when we need help and what we ask him for is in har­mo­ny with his will (1 John 5:14). Accord­ing to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wants to empha­size that the Holy Spir­it is the best thing that God gives to those who ask him. Every oth­er good thing he gives us, he gives through the fel­low­ship, lead­ing and strength­en­ing of the Spir­it. The first time this promise was ful­filled was at Pen­te­cost, when Jesus’ dis­ci­ples received the Holy Spir­it.

6 Summary & Conclusion

Chris­t­ian life starts with a deci­sion to turn away from sin and fol­low Christ. God’s response to this deci­sion is that he imme­di­ate­ly pours out his Spir­it abun­dant­ly into the heart of the new con­vert so that he can expe­ri­ence that God has accept­ed him as his child. By the Spir­it he can expe­ri­ence God’s love, peace and pow­er in fight­ing against sin. The Spir­it fills his heart so that he can love his broth­ers and oth­er peo­ple who do not know God yet. He helps him under­stand the sound teach­ing about Christ and come to uni­ty with oth­er Chris­tians. No Chris­t­ian has to wait for being bap­tized with the Holy Spir­it after he repent­ed because he is God’s beloved child whom God wants to give his full­ness:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become chil­dren of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glo­ry, glo­ry as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore wit­ness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his full­ness we have all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:12–16)

1. They also agree that in some cas­es the two things can be at the same time, or what is more, the Holy Spir­it bap­tism can pre­cede the water bap­tism. But they regard such cas­es as excep­tions and claim that usu­al­ly after repen­tance and water bap­tism some time has to pass till the bap­tism with the Holy Spir­it whose sign is usu­al­ly the gift of speak­ing in tongues. In this study we will focus on refut­ing the most spread, main stream Pentecostal/Charismatic teach­ing about Holy Spir­it bap­tism though we are aware of the fact that not all Pen­te­costals and Charis­mat­ics think in the same way about it. ↩
2. God want­ed to reveal his tri­une being in this way. First he want­ed to make the Son known through Jesus’ incar­na­tion. Send­ing the Holy Spir­it only after Jesus went away was a help for the peo­ple to under­stand that he is a sep­a­rate per­son in Trin­i­ty. We see, though, espe­cial­ly from John 14, that the work of the three per­sons can­not be sep­a­rat­ed. For more details about this top­ic read our arti­cle on the Trin­i­ty. ↩
3. Although “regen­er­a­tion” and “renew­al” are con­nect­ed by an “and” they refer to the same con­tent while high­light­ing dif­fer­ent aspects. This is a well-known lit­er­ary means used in the Bible which is called par­al­lelism. This is here a COMPLETIVE PARALLELISM, like e.g.: Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trou­ble.” The sec­ond part of the state­ment adds to and com­pletes the first part. ↩
4. The exis­tence of a flesh­ly Chris­tian­i­ty is usu­al­ly based on the mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of 1 Corinthi­ans 3:1–4. Paul calls the Corinthi­ans men of flesh because there is jeal­ousy and strife among them and these are deeds of the flesh. Accord­ing to Gala­tians 5:19–21 those who prac­tise such things will not inher­it the king­dom of God. So also the Corinthi­ans had to repent from these sins. The rea­son of being flesh­ly is not that they have not yet been bap­tized with the Holy Spir­it but that they do not obey Him. There­fore nei­ther is the solu­tion to pray for Spir­it-bap­tism but to fight against their sins (cf. Gala­tians 5:13–15; 1 Corinthi­ans 3:16–18). ↩
5. Charismatics/Pentecostals them­selves are not unit­ed in this point. Some teach that if some­one repents he receives a small quati­ty of the Spir­it and lat­er he will get the full­ness. Oth­ers claim that at repen­tance the Holy Spir­it does not come into heart of the believ­er at all but only the bap­tism with the Holy Spir­it which takes place some time lat­er. Of course, both teach­ings give room to excep­tions. ↩
6. The Greek expres­sion γενναω ανωθεν [gen­nao anoth­en] can mean both to be born again and to be born from above (also in John 19:11 & 23). ↩
7. We find a sim­i­lar expres­sion in Luke 1:35. “The angel answered and said to her [Mary], ‘The Holy Spir­it will come upon you, and the pow­er of the Most High will over­shad­ow you; and for that rea­son the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.’” Here the Spirit’s com­ing upon Mary refers to the pow­er­ful act of the Spir­it in the vir­gin-con­cep­tion. ↩
8. In this sit­u­a­tion and lat­er when Cor­nelius repent­ed we can see the spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tion of the author­i­ty of the keys (Matthew 16:19) that Jesus had giv­en to Peter. In Acts 2, 8 and 10 Luke reports step by step about the expan­sion of Chris­tian­i­ty: Jews from the dis­per­sion, Samar­i­tans and Gen­tiles. ↩