Baptism with the Holy Spirit

Etschfall

So that the following statements are not misunderstood, I strongly recommend that you read the chapter “Spiritual Work” beforehand. There I try to show that there are obviously different ways or stages in which the Spirit of God works in us: life in faith (only those who have the Holy Spirit can recognize Jesus as their Lord), life in power from on high (through the baptism of the Spirit, which is what we are talking about below) and life in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Anyone who has received the baptism with the Holy Spirit knows this because it was a powerful, supernatural experience that brought with it a radical change in life towards God, i.e. a new heart, that was clearly visible to the outside world. The person baptized in the Spirit has the absolute certainty not only of salvation through Jesus Christ, of victory over sin and Satan, but also of intimate communion with God, is "fire and flame" for the expansion of his kingdom and also has the strength, courage and the Power of attorney to do so.

Anyone who has not received the baptism of the Spirit does not know what they are talking about. He either claims that it does not exist at all, or that it was only necessary at the beginning of the church, or that he has already received it with his conversion and just has to firmly believe in it and no longer needs it. But the latter is lying to himself if he continues to be under the rule of sin (which he can best judge by whether he can permanently cope with his greatest temptation), suffers from a lack of love and strength and from fear of humanity instead of courage to confess.

Only through baptism with the Holy Spirit are we able to meet God's high standards for his holy people. We can never achieve this on our own with all conceivable and suggested methods of “self-sanctification”, but only through God’s gift of grace. The only thing God wants from us is a devoted, unconditional “yes” to Him and His offer of both salvation and renewal (sanctification).

Jesus himself only began his public ministry after his baptism with the Holy Spirit. His disciples were to await the baptism of the Spirit in Jerusalem and then be his witnesses throughout the world. This also means for us that we should first fervently and sincerely ask God for the baptism with his Holy Spirit, which Jesus also promised us, so that after this preparation we can be empowered with the power from on high and effectively expand his kingdom . According to the Bible, this spiritual baptism can already take place with conversion (example: Paul), but it does not have to. So although the church in Samaria had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them. It was the other way around in Caesarea. So you can see that the Spirit of God cannot be squeezed into any pattern (blows how and where it wants).

 

Bible verses on spiritual baptism

Report on the baptism of the Spirit

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