Baptism and Gifts of the Holy Spirit by Merrill F. Unger

Author:Merrill F. Unger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers

Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?

Oh! Oh! sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble!

Were you there, when they nailed Him to the tree?

3. The baptism of the Spirit is symbolized and outwardly attested by water baptism.

Some teachers correctly differentiate the baptism of Romans 6:3-4 from water baptism. However, they unwarrantedly distinguish it from Spirit baptism, making it a separate “baptism into death” in contrast to the Spirit’s baptizing work, which is supposed to be a “baptism into life.”12 But this differentiation is wholly unnecessary. The Spirit first places the believer in the sphere of Christ’s death that he might be the beneficiary of Christ’s glorious resurrection life. Moreover, baptism into the body of Christ (1 Co 12:13) is an initiation into the experiences of that body (Ro 6:3-4), which in turn are the experiences of Christ Himself, the Head and Saviour of the body (Eph 1:20-23; 5:23).

On the other hand, because the glorious spiritual realities dealt with in Romans 6 are such as no ritual ceremony could possibly effect, and because the truth of identification with Christ must already have been an actuality in the experience of the convert before the water ceremony could be administered, it is quite evident that the ritual ordinance is no more under explicit consideration in Romans 6:3-5 than in other key passages on Spirit baptism (1 Co 12:13; Col 2:10-12; Gal 3:27).

Here as elsewhere water baptism bears a relationship to Spirit baptism. It portrays outwardly and symbolically what Spirit baptism has already affected inwardly and vitally by uniting the believer to Christ and identifying him with the Saviour in death and resurrection. Water baptism, in other words, is symbolic—either of the cause or means of union with Christ, as many Christians hold, or the effect or result of that union, as others believe. As such the water ceremony always underlies the spiritual reality.

At any rate, properly understood in its scriptural relation to Spirit baptism, water baptism is divinely intended to be a symbol of unity, a portrayal of the oneness of all believers in their common relationship, first to Christ and secondly to one another in Him. It is meant to be a reminder that this unity is effected by the baptizing work of the Spirit.

The unhappy results of the church’s misconception of this symbol of unity, distorting it into a device for disunity, is well stated by Walvoord:

It is a sad reflection in the church’s spiritual discernment to observe the historic emphasis upon the sacrament without recognition of the baptism of the Holy Spirit which it should represent. In human hands the sacrament has become a divisive force in the Church instead of the portrayal of the unity of the body of Christ and its identification with Christ. How important and how precious is the truth that the believer is in Christ Himself with all that this position entails.13

4. The baptism of the Spirit is the basis of a holy walk.

The problem of

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