Report
by Pastor Jonathan Paul
("Father of Pentecostalism")
about his baptism in
the Spirit (1890)
"I was a justification Christian. Jesus was my Savior, and I was aware that he was more than everything to me. I was also ready to lay down everything for him. Faith in him made me joyful and happy. Sometimes my He was so joyful that I would have liked to go home at such times.
But what about my sanctification? Yes, I have to say this: I suffered painfully from the experiences that Paul suggests in the 7th chapter of Romans: “I am carnal, sold under sin... I do not do what I want, but what I hate I do...! I certainly have the will, but I cannot find the ability to accomplish the good; For the good that I want I do not do, but the evil that I do not want that I do..."
I was like in a forest with no path or footbridge and couldn't find a way out. I considered my condition at that time to be the normal condition of a Christian. I certainly saw that some Christians of earlier times and also of the present had more than I did; But with some of them I thought it was a special gift of grace that wasn't there for everyone. Others again seemed to me to have more than me because they were older and more mature in Christianity. So I stayed within the limits described in the 7th chapter of Romans and, despite the lack I found in myself, I always achieved the joy of faith that was indispensable to me in looking at Jesus.
In this way, I fought the battle against sin and experienced more defeats than victories. Deep down, it was a struggle with my own strength, even though at times I looked to the Savior. It was precisely the latter, that I believed in Jesus and didn't want to do anything without him, that deceived me about my true state of mind. It was completely beyond me to consider that I could be in a state of self-sanctification. Rather, I considered this sanctification of mine to be sanctification through faith, until God, according to his infinite grace, revealed to me the secret of sanctification by faith.
This happened on June 17, 1890. On the evening of that day I lay on my couch before God. A particular incident, which I will not recount here, inspired me to examine my relationship with the Lord. The desire had been awakened in my soul by the Lord to belong to him completely and completely, so that there would no longer be anything separating me. Through this examination of my inner condition, I came to the conclusion that I was ready to give everything to the Lord. But back then I still liked smoking; and I asked myself if I was ready to give up smoking as soon as the Lord wanted me to. I replied: Yes, I am ready immediately if God wants it. So I was convinced that I was in complete surrender to God and wanted to calm myself down with this thought and go to sleep. But then the thought came to me: You probably say that you are ready to give up smoking immediately if God wants it, and tomorrow you continue to smoke and think: God doesn't want me to give up smoking. The only way you can prove that you are truly ready for any sacrifice is to give up smoking. I realized that this was true and that I could easily deceive myself without sacrificing smoking, and so at that moment I vowed to the Lord that I would never smoke again, but that I would give to the mission what I had previously smoked . All this took place in my soul without the slightest excitement and without the least struggle. I lay still before God and vowed this in order to belong to him completely.
As soon as I had done this, something wonderful happened to me, something I had never suspected in the slightest. I received an infusion of the Holy Spirit, and at the same time I saw a wonderful face with my awake senses... Oh how happy and pardoned I felt! Heavenly bliss blessed me until I lay down to sleep with praise, thanks and adoration of my God like a child who is so happy in a father's heart.
By the way, that very day I had a sermon on Acts that deeply moved me. 2:17,18: “It will come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; ... and your young men shall see visions, and your elders shall have dreams." And now this word of God had been fulfilled for me. At the same time, I also learned what a powerful influence such an influx of the Holy Spirit has on a person's entire inner life. In that hour, heavenly powers flowed to me from Jesus through the Holy Spirit, which lifted me out of my previous state. At that moment things changed inside me; and since then the grace of sanctification has flowed to me and flowed through my heart like the water of a quickening stream.
The sanctifying powers that came to me brought victory over sin. Victory came to me from above as a gift of grace. Jesus' perfect victory over sin had now become my victory. And the graces and powers of the Victor Jesus came upon me with heavenly power through the anointing which penetrated me. I now saw myself in victory, without any struggle of my own, solely through grace. It is difficult for me to say what happened to me at that time through the baptism of the Spirit. I can only confess: In that hour my Savior became greater and more glorious to me than ever before. He became much more real and real to me than I had previously thought possible. At that time - thank God forever - it became my only passion.
When I rose from my bed the morning after that evening, I rose a different person. Things that had attracted me just the day before had lost all appeal to me. The previous day I had smoked a cigar with pleasure. Now even the slightest attraction to smoking had disappeared, and even more so: it was almost incomprehensible to me how smoking could have any appeal at all. The secret had dawned on me: “Christ in me.”
I can best illustrate the state I had entered into by being magnetized. When iron is made magnetic, all the individual particles in the iron take on a new direction. That's how it was in me too. In my former state I clung to Christ as a non-magnetic iron clings to a magnet. Such iron won't let go; And so I too would not have wanted to leave the Savior before this influx of the Spirit, no, not for anything in the world! But now more had happened to me through the anointing. Now Jesus had magnetized me. Everything in me depended on him: my entire inner life was focused on him. The magnetic force had now flowed into me. Now the magnet Jesus was in me. Now I had achieved sanctification. Christ was in me.
I had come to this without being encouraged by anyone to expect such an infusion of the Holy Spirit. The so-called “holiness literature” was almost entirely unknown to me. I had suspected such English or American books on sanctification as unhealthy goods. So I didn't bother with books like that... So you can't say that any book gave me a new view of sanctification. Rather, it was solely the work of the Holy Spirit who allowed the grace of sanctification to flow to me from on high as an incredibly effective, enlivening and beatific force."
Jonathan Paul (1853-1931): Ihr werdet die Kraft des Heiligen Geistes empfangen. Ein Zeugnis von der Taufe mit dem Heiligen Geist und Feuer. Berlin, 1. Auflage 1896, S. 339 ff.; Christlicher Verlag Fritz Pranz KG, Altdorf bei Nürnberg, 3. Auflage 1956, S. 150 ff.