THE RESULT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT’S BAPTISM

Through His death, resurrection, and exaltation, the Lord Jesus removed the penalty of sin and broke its power. Through union with Him by faith, He made it possible for the believer on earth to live the same life of victory, power, and holiness as He lived in Heaven. This life was to be communicated to and maintained in each believer through the incoming, indwelling, and infilling of the Holy Spirit.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter, James, John, and all the other believers who tarried in the upper room were baptized with the Holy Spirit. The question is bound to rise in our hearts, “Did that baptism make any difference in their lives? If so, what difference?” A casual comparison of the record of the disciples’ life before and after Pentecost will convince anyone that a marvelous change had been wrought. These men had been in almost daily companionship with Jesus during the years of His public ministry. He had taught them profound truths, and they had shared His wonderful prayer life. They had lived under the spell of that matchless personality day by day. He had been both their Teacher and their Example for three years.

But witness their lives’ failure, defeat, and sin as it is laid open to our gaze in the Gospels! See the jealousy, ambition, selfishness, pride, self-seeking, self-assertion, self-love, weakness, and fruitlessness. Despite their fellowship with the Holy One, who tried in all possible ways to help them, they remained very largely what they were before they followed Him.

And why was this true? Because He was only living with them, one without, working upon them by His word and personal influence. But what a change was wrought when, on the day of Pentecost, through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, Christ came down into those men to take the perfect possession, the complete control, and the unhindered use of their whole being. Self was dethroned, and Christ was enthroned as Lord. Christ became the Life of their life.

A fourfold fruitage was manifested in their lives immediately. They became men of purity. “God, which knoweth the hearts, giving them the Holy Spirit, purified their hearts by faith.” A mighty inward change first was wrought. The Spirit of God is a holy Spirit, and He can only dwell in a holy place. So, His primary work is always the cleansing of the innermost recesses of the life. “Be ye holy for I am holy ” (1 Peter 1:16) is God’s mandate to the saved soul. When the disciples were baptized with the Holy Spirit, He first purified them, displacing pride with humility, selfishness with love, cowardice with courage, carnal with spiritual, worldly with heavenly, human with divine, and temporal with eternal.

They became men of power. “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” (Acts 1:8) This promise abundantly was fulfilled in them. Inward purity begat outward power. The book of the Acts is one unbroken record of the mighty power of God, the Holy Spirit coursing through purified channels. “Rivers of living water” flowed through those first apostles and believers into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth.

They became men of passion. One and all, they gave themselves to the winning of souls. Their hearts, all aglow with fervent gratitude and adoring praise to Him who loved them enough to give Himself for them, were kindled into a flame of a passionate desire to bring others into the joy, peace, and security of a personal, saving relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. They became men of one passion — “This one thing I do” animated their lives.

“Oh! for a passionate passion for souls    Oh! for a pity that yearns! Oh! for a love that loves unto death!    Oh! for a fire that burns! Oh! for a prayer power that prevails!    That pours itself out for the lost; Victorious prayer in the Conqueror’s name,    Oh! for a Pentecost

They became men of prayer. Communion with God through prayer and cooperation with God through intercession in making the finished work of Christ operative in other men’s lives became their chief delight and constant occupation. The book of the Acts is one continuous record of answered prayer. All their wonderful works were begun, continued, and ended in prevailing prayer.

The repeated impression made upon the student of the book of the Acts is that through the baptism in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, those first believers were changed from carnal into spiritual Christians. From then on, they purposed to live their lives on the highest plane. What life on the highest plane was to them is defined aptly and adequately in a description used repeatedly in connection with them, “They were filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Through our studies thus far, we have seen that in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the eternal, incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, exalted Son crowned by the sending forth of the Holy Spirit, God has made all-sufficient provision for lifting any and every person from the deepest depths of life on the natural plane to the highest heights of life on the spiritual plane. (See Diagram 7.)

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, thank You for the transforming work of the Holy Spirit within us to perfect us unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.