Baptism with the Holy Spirit must be sought - Holy Spirit is willing
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is after conversion. Why must this be? The baptism in the Holy Spirit is evidenced by speaking in tongues. How can this occur?
The doctrine of the conditions for the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the sustained Pentecostal effort to answer both these questions: to explain why spiritual baptism cannot usually accompany initial faith, detailing the conditions that believers usually fail to meet at that time, and to announce how spiritual baptism can be brought to the crisis event where tongues will occur, detailing the conditions that, when fulfilled, will lead to the experience.
The doctrine of conditions, then, is actually a corollary of the doctrine of subsequence and a premise for the doctrine of evidence, and as such, occupies a cornerstone position in the edifice of the distinctive Pentecostal doctrine.
Under the doctrine of conditions, it is regularly suggested that certain fundamental steps must be taken for the believer to be a suitable recipient of the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit “does not automatically fill men,” writes Reed, “unless they meet certain definite conditions and definitely seek to be filled” (emphasis ours).49 It is important to note that certain conditions must not only be met (this could happen unconsciously), but certain conditions must be sought to be met (this makes the matter conscious). Unless there is a definite desire to have this experience, it will not occur. The desire to have the experience expresses itself appropriately in the willingness to meet the conditions for it.
In other words, the (complete) gift of the Spirit is not just a privilege received simply or perhaps unconsciously in receiving Christ; instead, it is an obligation to be explicitly sought and experientially along with or as a result of receiving Christ. In a Pentecostal tract, the question is asked, “Is it simply a privilege, or is it a duty, to seek this infilling …?”
And the answer is unequivocally, “We are commanded to seek it and are not obeying God unless we do.”50
The gift of the Spirit, we may say then in the preface, is not understood as a gift which comes simply as the result of (1) receiving (2) salvation in Christ (3) by faith, but it is an obligation which comes through (1) seeking (2) the fulness of the Spirit (3) through conditions, including, of course, the condition of faith in Christ.
Pentecostals do not wish to minimize Christ in their doctrine of spiritual baptism and the conditions leading to it. Quite the opposite. But the problem is, as Pentecostals see it, that in the lives of too few Christians, do the events of baptism (or conversion) and the Pentecostal baptism coincide. The solution must be, then, that beyond becoming a Christian, “there are definite, stated conditions to be met; conditions that had to be met by the disciples; conditions that must be met by all who receive the Holy Ghost today” (Conn, Pillars, p. 96).
Somehow, the faith that leads to Christian baptism is not the same as or at least is not usually sufficient for the commitment that leads to Pentecostal baptism. The Pentecostal doctrine of conditions is necessary to explain why this is the case and how it may be overcome.
Pentecostals most often establish the condition of obedience—Acts 5:32: “the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” The Pentecostal doctrines of the subsequence and evidence of the Spirit can be found almost exclusively in Acts. Still, the doctrine of the obediences necessary for the entire reception of the Spirit in Pentecostal development is, we may say, as broad as Scripture itself. Nevertheless, since Acts is so crucial for other features of the Pentecostal experience, it is usually in Acts that the Pentecostal argument for the conditions of the Spirit will be begun.
a. The Standard Acts Passages. In Acts, we have at least indications of the necessity of, and then more cryptically, the conditions for, the spiritual baptism. Skibstedt (p. 104) writes:
Concerning this question of the proper seeking of Spirit-baptism, we have the examples of the first Christians before us, such as exhortations, encouragements, and examples. Through closer examination, we will find that there were very definite conditions to which they had to subject themselves, which are also binding at all times. We, too, must subject ourselves to these conditions to have the wonderful experiences of the first Christians.
If we discover the conditions fulfilled by the earliest Christians as recorded in Acts, we are urged to find today the Spirit experienced in Acts. Thus, the exegesis of Acts is still essential for the Pentecostal conditions.
This is true even though the significant Acts incidents in Pentecostal exegesis must usually be explained deductively rather than inductively to yield the variety of conditions found in most Pentecostal lists. Riggs, for example, understands the four conditions for spiritual baptism to be regeneration, obedience, prayer, and faith. He can find all these conditions even in Acts 8 and 10, where to at least some other readers, these texts offer neither prayer by the recipients nor the kinds of obedience understood by Riggs, nor an additional act or type of faith (nor, in the case of Cornelius, a prior regeneration), as qualifications for the spiritual baptism. These four conditions (or so it seems to some outsiders) must be implied and supplied. At Acts 8, for instance, Riggs comments (p. 109):
Peter had told the Sanhedrin that the Holy Ghost was given to them that obey God (Acts 5:32) and so he doubtlessly explained this to the Samaritan converts. Peter and John both had heard the Lord promise that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him [Luke 11:13]. So they surely told this, too, to the Samaritan converts. When these awaiting new disciples were thus prayed for and instructed, the apostles laid hands on them (as an aid to the seekers’ faith) and they received the Holy Ghost.
And at Acts 19, where the account is relatively brief, Riggs (p. 112) discovers his four conditions in this manner: “Who would say that [Paul] did not instruct them according to the pattern which had been followed theretofore? It is the once-for-all pattern: be saved, obey God, ask Him for His blessings, believe with all your heart, and ye shall receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit.”
But a doctrine of conditions may be most easily commenced in the pre-Pentecost events of Acts 1:1 to 2:1. This passage is studied by Pentecostal interpreters and found to teach that the embryonic church (1) in obedience to its Lord (1:12) was (2) in one accord and (3) persisting in prayer (1:14; 2:1), providing subsequent generations with at least three conditions for the baptism in the Holy Spirit: obedience, spiritual unity, and prayer.51
But after Pentecost the difficulty in finding conditions increases with the passages, for, in most instances, no particular program of conditions is apparent. There could appear to be a disinterest in detailing steps toward the baptism in the Holy Spirit in Acts, except for the apostolic laying on of hands in two interesting passages (8:14–17; 19:6).
And yet, even the laying on of hands in both texts seems to be an act that is not initiated by the candidates but by the apostles. Nevertheless, to help modern seekers, Pentecostalism can supply the enigmatic Acts texts, usually with the help of material outside of Acts itself, with steps and conditions which will lead to the translation of believers into the apostolic events recorded in Acts.
b. A Model Interpretation of Acts 2:38. In Donald Gee’s interpretation of Acts 2:38 we have a pilot study in the Pentecostal exegesis of Acts. Gee finds in this text (“And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ ”) three specific conditions for the baptism in the Holy Spirit: repentance, baptism, and reception. It is important for us to mark how these terms are defined in the exposition in order for us to understand the Pentecostal thought-world.
First, repentance is defined as the forsaking of all sin, or renouncement, and is the negative side of the conditions. Second, baptism in water represents the positive principle of Christian obedience and means not simply baptism but “applies to all-round obedience in everything. It means actions,” Gee continues, “that witness before all that you have accepted the discipleship position. Notice particularly that baptism is for ‘remission of sins.’ It is hopeless to expect the Holy Spirit to come in and fill you until your heart is clean” (Gift, p. 55).
It may be observed here that baptism is given a very practical and active interpretation. Baptism means, as Gee emphasizes, “actions,” the believer’s actions—“actions that witness before all that you have accepted the position of discipleship.”
As Pentecostals usually express it, baptism signifies obedience. Obedience is the positive complement to and fulfillment of repentance, which is primarily negative. In Pentecostal exegesis, obedience as a condition for spiritual baptism means, specifically, as Gee explained above, activity directed toward the promised removal of all remaining sin through Christ’s blood, toward what is called “heart cleanness,” so that the Holy Spirit may have a suitable dwelling place in the believer.
In Gee’s exposition, after the obediences of repentance and baptism follows, third, reception or faith. The place of this condition on the list is not unimportant. Gee affirms with majority Pentecostalism that “we ought not need to fight and wrestle and work to receive the Holy Spirit,” for “the promises of God are all appropriated through faith, and Paul tells us especially that we ‘receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.’ Gal. 3:14. Ultimately there can be no other way” (Gift, p. 57).
It cannot be said that faith as such is omitted in Pentecostalism. It inevitably appears as a condition and is always championed. However, understanding what faith means when Pentecostals use the term requires much of our attention. Here, Gee above concluded his conditions with an argument for faith by remarking that “ultimately there can be no other way.” “Ultimately” means “finally; at last; in the end.” We may say, as we shall see more clearly later, that faith in the Pentecostal understanding and in the Pentecostal lists of conditions is rarely, if ever, sola or alone, but that it is often ultima or ultimate. This fact is essential, as we shall see, for understanding Pentecostalism.
In this representative interpretation of Acts 2:38, we hear, then, in prelude, some of the thematic notes in the Pentecostal orchestration of the doctrine of conditions: (1) the attitudes or actions preceding ultimate faith, usually described as repentance and obedience (here as repentance and baptism); (2) correspondingly, the necessity of a clean heart before the Holy Spirit may fully enter the life of the believer (where it should be observed that the Holy Spirit is not yet considered as definitively or fully come: “It is hopeless,” Gee emphasized above, “to expect the Holy Spirit to come in and fill you until your heart is clean”); and then joined to these preliminaries and following them (3) the insistence that human work is not necessary for the reception of the gift, for the gift is ultimately received through faith.
This exegesis of Acts 2:38 should introduce the important and sometimes difficult task of understanding how Pentecostalism finds the conditions it suggests in the passages it interprets. As we review the Pentecostal conditions themselves we shall have occasion to observe the application of the hermeneutical principles found here in nuce.
51 So, for example, Hurst and Jones, The Church Begins, p. 24; Riggs, Spirit Himself, p. 108; Pearlman, Doctrines, p. 317. A sample exegesis of this section might be found in the following: “ ‘And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord!’ [Acts 2:1] … This Christian love and purity had to come before the Holy Ghost could find entrance.” Conn, Pillars, p. 82.
Bruner, F. D. (1997). A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (pp. 89–92). Wipf and Stock Publishers.
49 “Pentecostal Truths,” p. 22. See also the Reglamento local, p. 16; and the even more ardent Brazilian definition in Hollenweger II, 898. Recently, Joseph R. Flower, “Holiness, the Spirit’s Infilling, and Speaking with Tongues,” Paraclete, 2 (Summer 1968), 8.
50 Kortkamp, “What the Bible Says,” n. p. The texts cited as proofs: Eph. 5:18; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4; Zech. 10:1.
Bruner, F. D. (1997). A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (pp. 87–89). Wipf and Stock Publishers.
