Baptism with the Holy Spirit

The second half of John 1 is filled with titles and labels applied to Jesus. In today’s sermon we are going to look at one of them. Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Spirit. The Spirit is the neglected person of the Trinity. I hope to change that, at least a little. This morning we are going to take a look at the work of the Spirit in the life of the Christian, in your life. Even apart from preparing this sermon, the Spirit has been leading me to think about several aspects of what He is about. I am eager to share with you some of what I am learning. Our text this morning is John 1.29-34.

The first thing that I would like to do is to briefly touch on the Spirit and the Trinity. God is Father, Son and Spirit. These are three distinct persons who are, at the same time, one God. So, the Spirit is a He and not an it. He is a person. And, to quote the Catechism, He is ‘equal in power and glory’ with the Father and the Son. He is God, just as the Father is God and just as the Son is God. So, to use language that I’ve used before, He is one member of the eternal family which is God.

Now, let’s take a look at this idea of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. So, first, this is something that Jesus does. That’s what our text teaches. Jesus baptizes, and He baptizes with the Spirit. So, you see, biblical baptism is not essentially about water, and the point of baptism isn’t what the person being baptized is doing. No one gets wet by Jesus baptizing with the Spirit. And this baptism is about something that He is doing to someone. To be sure, this baptism with the Spirit is related to water baptism. Water baptism is a picture of it, a sacramental picture of the baptism with the Spirit. A minister baptizing a person with water is a picture of what Jesus does to someone with the Spirit. The two baptisms are distinct, but there is a sacramental tie between them. So, baptism with the Spirit helps us understand water baptism.

Let’s move on to the next thing, and let’s get to it with a question. ‘What happens to a person when Jesus baptizes him with the Holy Spirit?’ And the answer is not at all complicated. Jesus gives that person the Spirit. Peter points to this during his sermon on Pentecost. (And also notice here the connection between water baptism and the baptism with the Spirit.)

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is doing something big when He baptizes. He gives the Spirit to someone who has never had the Spirit before. And as Peter’s statement makes clear, this happens when someone repents and entrusts himself to Jesus. It’s something that happens when a person is converted.

Receiving this gift is something that is very intimate. Listen to what Paul wrote.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

The Spirit isn’t just somewhere in the neighborhood. He is in the Christian’s heart. To use traditional language, the Spirit dwells within. So, when Jesus baptizes someone with the Spirit, an intimate bond is created between that person and the Spirit. This is the climax of the Immanuel principle. God really is with us. Wherever you go, the Spirit is right there with you. This is not just some metaphor or figure of speech. This is a reality. The Spirit lives within each one of you. That’s why Paul writes, ‘Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you’. So, if someone were to ask you, ‘Where is your God?’, you don’t answer in the way that Israel in the desert did. They could point to the tent where the Ark of the Covenant was and say, ‘My God is over there in that tent.’ And that was the truth. But you do something different. You point to yourself and say, ‘He is right here with me.’ When Jesus baptizes someone with the Spirit an intimate bond is created between that person and the Spirit. It’s Immanuel, God with us.

Let’s move on with another question. ‘So, what does the Spirit do? How does His being with the Christian make a difference in the Christian’s life?’ Let’s answer this in stages. Let’s first take a look at the big picture. Here is the summary of the whole Bible: God saves sinners. There’s the Bible in a sentence. Now, each person of the Trinity plays a part in this saving of sinners. The Father plans this saving. The Son accomplishes whatever is necessary so that these sinners can be saved. The Spirit applies this saving to sinners. The Spirit takes the benefits that Jesus has created, things like forgiveness, becoming a child of God, experiencing the life of God and all the rest, and He makes them yours. Without the Spirit playing His role in the saving of sinners, all of the blessings of the Gospel would be in heaven while we are still on the earth. And what good would that be for us? The Spirit takes the blessings and makes them yours. He applies to you what Jesus has accomplished. This is important because it answers what is often a confusing question: ‘How do I make the Gospel more and more mine?’ And the answer is that this is something that the Spirit does. So, you see, once again we are confronted with grace.

Let’s add another way of understanding what the Spirit does. He continues what Jesus started when He was here in the flesh. Jesus said, ‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another…’ The next word has been hard to translate. Some options are Counselor, Advocate, Comforter, Helper. The Greek word includes all of that. So, let’s just leave that word there for now. Jesus said, ‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever.’ The key word here, in terms of our question about the Spirit, isn’t ‘Paraclete’ but ‘another’. Jesus is promising to send another Paraclete, someone who will be just like He was. So, listen to Luke’s first sentence of the book of Acts. ‘In the first book [Luke’s Gospel], O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach…’ Luke is telling us that this second book is about what Jesus continued to do and teach – by the Spirit. And as you read Acts, that’s exactly what you find. So, Jesus comes, born in Bethlehem, sent according to the plan of the Father to save sinners. Then, the Spirit comes, on the day of Pentecost, sent by the Father and the Son, to continue what Jesus started. The Spirit continues to do and teach, and in this way He does His part to save sinners.

Now, let’s get more specific. What exactly does the Spirit do so that sinners are saved? Here you’ll see that God’s goal of saving sinners is so much more than just getting them converted so they can end up in heaven. The Spirit unites, conquers, reveals, and assures. Let’s look at each of these.

The Spirit unites us to Jesus. Listen to what Calvin has to say about this.

We must now examine this question. How do we receive those benefits which the Father bestowed on his only-begotten Son — not for Christ’s own private use, but that he might enrich poor and needy men? First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us. For this reason, he is called “our Head” and “the first-born among many brethren”. We also, in turn, are said to be “engrafted into him”, and to “put on Christ”; for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him. … To sum up, the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself.

The Spirit unites us to Jesus and, in this way, applies all the blessings of the Gospel to us. In this, all that Calvin is doing is explaining what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians. ‘For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.’ When you were baptized with the Spirit something mystical happened. You were united to Jesus. You were joined to His body. At that point, all of the benefits of the Gospel that Jesus gained became yours. This is what happened when you were converted. The Spirit united you to Jesus. At that moment, forgiveness and hope and the love of the Father and the peace of the Gospel and all the rest became yours.

Now, since Paul teaches that the body of Jesus is just another way of understanding the Church, when you were baptized with the Spirit you were also mystically united to the other members of the Church. Some of you are hands and others feet and others ears, but you are all united by the Spirit into the one body of Christ. So, when Paul writes to encourage the saints to be ‘eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’, he’s talking about the union that the Spirit has created among us. When he blesses the saints with the words, ‘the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all’, this fellowship is a fruit of the union that the Spirit has created among us. So, the Spirit unites us to Jesus with bonds that are real though invisible. And He also unites us to each other with bonds that are, likewise, real though invisible.

Let’s move on to the next category. The Spirit conquers. He conquers sin. There are two sides to this coin. Here’s the first side. The Spirit removes the problem of sin. Here, think: forgiveness. Our sin is no longer a barrier between us and God. On the Cross, Jesus atoned for it. And when the Spirit united you the Jesus, He made that atonement yours. Your sins were forgiven.

But this removing the problem of sin isn’t just about forgiveness. The Spirit also frees you from the slavery of sin. The power that sin once had over you is now broken. So, Paul writes,

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? … For if we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Paul is explaining being baptized with the Spirit and how, therefore, you have been united to Christ. Because of that baptism, you have died to sin. It is no longer your master, and you are no longer its slave. You have been set free from sin. This doesn’t mean that you don’t sin any more. But it does mean that you don’t have to sin. The unbeliever has to sin. He is a slave of sin. He can choose greater or lesser sins. But whatever he chooses, it will be sin. But that’s not you. You don’t have to sin. The Spirit has freed you from that. And bit by bit, you come to experience that freedom. Sins that once dominated you disappear. The Spirit frees you from sin. He conquers it. What I find intriguing is that Paul discusses this in the context of water baptism.

I said that there were two sides to this coin about the Spirit conquering sin. Let’s look at the other side of the coin. The Spirit not only removes the problem of sin, but He also gives you the ability to live well, to choose the good. Here, think about Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is a partial list of the qualities that you have been saved to. You have been set free from sin so that these kinds of traits might develop in you. But understand, these are not things that you are supposed to create in yourself. These are traits that the Spirit creates. He makes you love and rejoice and be at peace and all the rest. He gives you the ability to live well, to live a holy life.

Add to this the gifts of the Spirit. And again from Paul:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

This is also the Spirit’s work in you. He has given to each of you certain abilities that are to benefit others in the Church. The mission of the Church, the growth of the Gospel, advances because the Spirit has given you these abilities.

So, two sides of the same coin. The Spirit conquers sin. He applies what Jesus has done so that you can be forgiven and so that the power of sin is broken in you. And in this He also gives you the ability to live beautiful lives of holiness.

The Spirit unites. He conquers. Next: He reveals. Why is it that one person becomes a Christian and another doesn’t? Some of you have siblings, people who grew up in the same household with you, who are not Christians. But you are. Why? The Bible answers that in several ways. Here’s one: The Spirit made it possible for you to understand the Gospel. He revealed it to you. More from Paul:

The natural person [the unbeliever] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

The Spirit reveals the Gospel. The Spirit acts in some person’s life, and right then, at that point, the lights turn on. He gets it. He understands the Gospel and, as a result, he believes it. This is what happens when someone is converted.

However, the Spirit’s work of revealing does not stop once a person is converted. That’s just the beginning. Consider what Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus.

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe…

The Spirit continues His work of revealing truth to the Christian. And He does that to you. Many things come from this, but let me mention just one. You’re not on your own to figure it all out. Trying to understand how to live well and then actually doing that is beyond what you can do. But remember that the Spirit is with you. He lives in you. And He will reveal to you what you need to know. And then, He will give you the ability to put that into practice. Growing as a Christian is not something that you need to figure out and then make happen all on your own. It’s something that the Spirit does in you.

And that leaves the last of these categories: assurance. Again from Paul: ‘The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’ Making sure that you are a Christian isn’t something you need to accomplish. It’s up to the Spirit to assure you that you are a child of God, that Jesus is your Savior and that He will complete this work of saving you. That’s also part of the work of the Spirit. It’s His job to make sure you get it. The Spirit will assure you that you are a Christian.

Now, what do you do with all of this? Once again, from Paul: ‘If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.’ Here we have another indicative of the Gospel. We live by the Spirit. He has begun His work in us. That’s just a fact. But notice that Paul ties this to an imperative of the Gospel; a command. ‘… let us also walk by the Spirit.’ Since it is true that we have been united to Jesus and to each other, since it is true that sin has been conquered so that we are able to live holy lives, since it is true that the Spirit continues to reveal Gospel truth to us, since it is true that He is giving us more and more of a sense of assurance, since these things are true of us, then let’s live that way. That’s what Paul is saying here. Gospel facts are the basis of Gospel living.

If the Christian life is a matter of trying to figure out the Gospel and then trying, on our own, to make the necessary changes in our souls, then timid goals and pessimism make sense. But if we have the Spirit of God living in us, if He is busily taking more and more of the Gospel and making it real in us, then the sky is the limit. No more timid goals. No more pessimism. Look at the kind of person Jesus was and is. That’s the Spirit’s goal for each of you. Ponder Jesus’ promises for His Church. That’s the Spirit’s goal for us together. Don’t settle.

And the key here is prayer. Jesus said,

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

There are some things about the Gospel, things about the ministry of the Spirit, that we are not experiencing as deeply as we can. But if we pray to the Father telling Him about our need of more of the Spirit’s ministry among us, basing our requests on clear Gospel facts, how can He not freely give us what we ask for and then, much more?