Baptized With Fire

The importance of being baptized with the Holy Spirit

Even if being baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire were mentioned only once in Scripture, it would still be important. However, we see this wonderful baptism mentioned multiple times and by each of the Gospels. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit is a vital part of the work of Jesus.

Matthew 3:11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Mark 1:8 “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.””

Luke 3:16 “John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

John 1:33 “I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”

Acts 1:5 “for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.””

The Fire

“We need to go forward in the power of the Holy Spirit. That power will be the fire of God destroying our enemies and setting us free from all bondage, so that we can walk around joining the son of God in praise and worship unto the Lord.” - A. W. Tozer - The Fire Of God’s Presence, p. 168 - Speaking of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace

Fire has multiple purposes. We cannot separate the potential of the fire. The same fire that warms on a cold night is the same fire that burns a house a down. The same fire used to shape metal is the same fire used to light a dark night. This means the fire is acting in multiple ways at the same time, think of being warmed by the camp fire that is also being used to make s’mores.

So it is with the fire of the Holy Spirit. The fire of the Holy Spirit is refining us, sanctification, at the same time it is burning with joy inexpressible and full of glory. The fire of the Holy Spirit sets our life aglow with a holy passion for God at the same time it is setting us apart from this world.

Refining fire

The fire of God will burn away the impurities from those who believe

The fire of God will burn those who do not believe

Zechariah 13:9 “And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”

1 Peter 1:6-7 “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

2 Thessalonians 1:6-8 “since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

Dividing fire

Separates the holy from the unholy

Luke 12:49-53 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Passion fire

Inspires us to speak up and be bold

Jeremiah 20:9 “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

Acts 7:55 “But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

This fire comes from the Holy Spirit

Romans 8:16 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”

Baptism

Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (Chapter 3)

He shall fill you with the Holy Ghost, inflaming your hearts with that fire of love, which many waters cannot quench. And this was done, even with a visible appearance as of fire, on the day of Pentecost. - John Wesley

As fire works simultaneously in a multiplicity of ways so does baptism. Heaven and earth come together and work as one in baptism. It is God doing the work through us and in us as we proclaim the work He is doing. There is always something a little silly about baptism that humbles us, it makes us vulnerable. As we bring ourselves low and follow the command of God, He does the work to cleanse us and make us a new creation. How are we cleansed and made new? It is the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.

Baptism as Initiation

We are received as members of the Church

We proclaim and confess the work of Jesus Christ in our lives

We identify with Jesus in His death and resurrection

More importantly, there is a work of God being done within us

Water can cleanse the outside but it cannot cleanse the inside

Acts 15:8-9 “And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.”

Hebrews 9:14 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Being born of the Spirit

John 3:5-8 “Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.””

This is the scary part, you cannot control the Holy Spirit

Stop trying to control your life!

Stop trying to control God!

Give into His Spirit

Baptized with the Holy Spirit

Acts 11:15-17 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

The Holy Spirit falling on them is equated to the baptism of the Holy Spirit

They received the Spirit

The New Covenant

We were under the penalty of death

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jesus bore our sin and took our place

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Blood had to be shed for the new covenant

Luke 22:20 “And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Jesus had to go to the Father to send the Spirit

John 16:7 “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

The Holy Spirit is the seal of the new covenant

Jeremiah 31:33-34 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

It is the Holy Spirit that brings these promises in our lives

Ephesians 1:13 “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,”

“What then is ‘baptism in the Spirit’? Following Jesus in Acts 1:5, we define it as the Spirit’s coming to someone to begin in him the new covenant ministry as described.” J. I. Packer, Growing In Christ

Operation of the Spirit

Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire God comes to dwell with us. How amazing! It is always terrifying for our mortality to meet the Immortal One. Our mortality cannot survive in the presence of the Holy Immortal God. As His Spirit comes to dwell with us we must die, but God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living. Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit a new life is born in us, of the Spirit. It is when the seed dies that it bears much fruit, John 12:24. The Holy Spirit dwells with us, in us, He is Immanuel, God with us, as Jesus was.

John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Matthew 10:20 “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Matthew 12:28 “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

John 7:39 “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

John 14:16 “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,”

also Counselor

John 14:17 “even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

How now shall we live?

My truck can do many different things. It is one matter to have a truck, it is another matter to use it. I can drive it down the road and at least put it to use, but it can do so much more. The Holy Spirit is with you if you believe, but how much control are you giving Him of your life? It is one matter to have the Holy Spirit, it is another matter to desire His fullness in your life. It takes letting go of what you think you control, (How is your control really working out for you anyhow?) and fully surrendering to God and the work of the Holy Spirit. Remember, He only gives good gifts and what He desires for you is abundant life. The Church has a pandemic of anemic Christians not willing to find their full sustenance in God. Let us be a church that feasts on all of God’s goodness, to be fully satisfied in Him and allowing His work every day in our lives. Let us be willing to give God full control of our lives and our church and anxiously anticipate the work He will do through us.