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6. Question: What does being baptized in the Holy Ghost and with fire really mean?
Answer: Being baptized and/or filled with the Holy Spirit means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Yet I must tell you that unless you are really serious about the true things of God, you might very well be offended by that which I am going to share here. So many in today's Church simply want to toy with (and be self indulgently entertained by) the serious things of God's Spirit. And there are many others who seek to pervert and exploit those spiritual realities in order to secure personal power and to present themselves as being great and gifted leaders.
Yet even though there are indeed gifts of the Spirit to be received and walked in. (Which these heretical hypocrites have so misrepresented.) There is an aspect and reality of the baptism of the Holy Spirit which most Christians have ignored. And to be honest, in the twenty years since I first came to Jesus as a young man, I have never once heard anyone ever teach or even talk about this reality. That being, the reality of the cross in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Not simply the cross which Jesus was crucified upon to secure our right to be saved; but rather, the reality of that same cross in our own daily lives.
John the Baptist testified of the baptism of the Holy Spirit saying: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:11-12
Malachi prophesied saying: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, says the LORD of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me, says the LORD of hosts. For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Malachi 3:1-6
And last but certainly not least, Jesus Christ Himself spoke of this baptism of fire in direct relation to being crucified. And we must remember that this was long after He had already been baptized by John the Baptist. So in no way was Jesus speaking of the baptism of John when He said:
“I am come to send fire on the earth; and would that it were already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I constrained till it be accomplished!” Luke 12:49-50
And when speaking of His own crucifixion at another time, Jesus again related it to being baptized.
“And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshiping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What will you? She said unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on your right hand, and the other on the left, in your kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, You know not what you ask. Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said unto him, We are able. And he said unto them, You shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.” Matthew 20:17-23
There are many wonderful and necessary blessings that are associated with being filled with and/or baptized in the Holy Spirit. Yet we dare not ignore the reality of walking in the Holy Spirit by taking up our cross daily in order to die unto ourselves so that Christ might live in and through us by His self same Spirit. Because the fire of the Spirit was never a personal gifting of power meant to come upon God's people for their own spiritual gratification; rather, it was and is the power of the resurrection by Jesus Christ (the Living Word of God) that is Ministered into our daily lives by and through the person of the Holy Spirit as we face this perilous journey through such a dark and wicked world. In the sense that we are being continuously transformed into that same image (of Jesus Christ) as He burns away the chaff in our lives and purifies us as a refiner purifies silver in the melting pot of all our fiery trials and tribulations.
Therefore, spiritually speaking, the fatal flaw of the modern Pentecostal Church is that it seeks to exercise and walk in the spiritual power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, without first acknowledging and embracing the reality of the fellowship of His sufferings. And in so doing they have created a contradiction in terms of Biblical reality in the life of their Churches which has in turn caused a vacuity of true spiritual actuality that the Holy Spirit will not suffer; thus, causing a spiritual misapprehension and vacuum that the enemy will not ignore or leave unexploited.
This is why it was only through being baptized into the fellowship of His sufferings that the Apostles understood and walked in the power of His resurrection. For as we have already seen, Jesus affirmed this fact when He said: “Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said unto him, We are able. And he said unto them, You shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with…” And anyone who has ever read the Gospels with their spiritual eyes opened, knows that the Disciples themselves were indeed baptized into the fiery trial of their Lord's crucifixion when the soldiers took their Master away and violently mistreated Him with their cruel hatred before mercilessly crucifying Him upon the cross.
None other Disciple than the Apostle Peter knew more of this baptism of suffering through that fiery trial as he would later testify:
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you:” 1st Peter 4:12-14
And as we have already read, after Jesus arose and was getting ready to depart into heaven, they ask Him saying: “...Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” You see, it was only natural that after all they had suffered and feared; they would desire that God would put down the power of Rome and bring all of Israel to the knowledge of God's Resurrected Son. For what better Messiah could lead them than this Jesus the Christ who had conquered Death, Hell and the Grave? And yet, as it is written of God: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 And so Jesus responded by saying: “...It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1:7-8
Thus, we see that God answers the power of Satan with the power of the Holy Ghost. Fire with Fire! As it is written: “...When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.” Isaiah 59:19
The Apostle Paul also understood this principal of the cross (in the baptism of the Holy Spirit with fire) when he testified:
“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Philippians 3:7-21
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is indeed a baptism of spiritual power which enables Believers to not only stand firm in the midst of sufferings; but, also enables us to be witnesses of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. It really has nothing at all to do with being possessed by a supernatural force which makes you feel God's power as some sort of religious fix. Such is the tragedy of the modern day Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement. It has been given over to a spirit of harlotry where the true fire of the Holy Ghost has been quenched, as an entire generation of apostates have prostituted their souls in order to attain personal power and pleasures rather than prostrating themselves in repentance to attain the power of God’s purity.
We need the infilling and Ministry of the Holy Spirit. But that Ministry must always be respected in the context of the Ministry and purpose of Jesus Christ in our lives. It is not something separate or in and of itself; rather, the Ministry of the Holy Spirit is the vital outflow of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ upon His Church, to empower and equip the Saints to not only survive but to also walk victorious over all the powers of darkness that we must face in this evil world. Thus, it is only logical that Satan would seek to pervert the doctrine of the Ministry and Mission of the Holy Spirit by conflicting and confusing the teaching of His baptism in so many ways. And I suspect that is the reason why I felt so compelled to put everything on hold in order to study and write this series of articles about baptism and the Holy Spirit.
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