Part 68

In the first place _the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of which one may and ought to know __ whether he has received it or not_. This is evident from our Lord’s command to His disciples in Luke xxiv. 49 and in Acts i. 4, that they should not depart from Jerusalem to undertake the work which He had commissioned them to do until they had received this promise of the Father. It is also evident from the eighth chapter of Acts, fifteenth and sixteenth verses, where we are distinctly told, “_the Holy Spirit had not as yet fallen upon any of them_.” It is evident also from the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the second verse, R. V., where Paul put to the little group of disciples at Ephesus the definite question, “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?” It is evident that the receiving of the Holy Ghost was an experience so definite that one could answer yes or no to the question whether they had received the Holy Spirit. In this case the disciples definitely answered, “No,” that they did not so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given. They did not say what our Authorized Version makes them say, that they did not so much as hear whether there was any Holy Ghost. They knew that there was a Holy Ghost; they knew furthermore that there was a definite promise of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, but they had not heard that that promise had been as yet fulfilled. Paul told them that it had and took steps whereby they were definitely baptized with the Holy Spirit before that meeting closed. It is equally evident from Gal. iii. 2 that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of which one may know whether he has received it or not. In this passage Paul says to the believers in Galatia, “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Their receiving the Spirit had been so definite as a matter of personal consciousness, that Paul could appeal to it as a ground for his argument. In our day there is much talk about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and prayer for the baptism with the Spirit that is altogether vague and indefinite. Men arise in meeting and pray that they may be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and if you should go afterwards to the one who offered the prayer and put to him the question, “Did you receive what you asked? Were you baptized with the Holy Spirit?” it is quite likely that he would hesitate and falter and say, “I hope so”; but there is none of this indefiniteness in the Bible. The Bible is clear as day on this, as on every other point. It sets forth an experience so definite and so real, that one may know whether or not he has received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and can answer yes or no to the question, “Have you received the Holy Ghost?”