Dr Paul Allen

Jesus considered the baptism in the Holy Spirit so important that He expressly forbade His disciples to begin their ministry until they had received it. He knew it was essential for them to have the power which baptism in the Holy Spirit provides. And while staying with them, He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me, for John baptised with water, but before many days you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”(Acts 1:4–5) There are many reasons why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is important. Rufus Moseley listed the following reasons in a little pamphlet entitled The Gift of the Holy Spirit. 1.It is only through this heavenly gift empowering us, guiding us, and transforming us that we have immediate union with the glorified Jesus and are given power to do His work and His will and to grow up into His likeness.  As blessed as was the ministry of Jesus in the flesh, and as glorious as was His redemp...

  Jesus says God is Spirit, and we are also told the Holy Spirit is Spirit, so how do we define the Holy Spirit? We know his name, but we’re not so sure about what he looks like. He’s the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is difficult to define. As soon as we attempt to explain him, our language becomes less helpful than we may have hoped. Not only is our intellect too small to encompass him, but our language is also too limited to explain him. Metaphors that help us to tiptoe our way into an exploration of his character.  To describe him as an ‘entity’ or a ‘force’ sounds too impersonal; to refer to him as a ‘person’ suggests he’s human and circumscribed; to define him as a ‘member of the Godhead’ begs the question ‘what kind of member?’  To address him as an ‘individual’ sounds as if there are three gods. Even referring to the Spirit with a masculine pronoun is not necessarily the best. The Greek word (pneuma), often translated as ‘Spirit’ in the NT, is neuter wh...