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The Baptism of the Holy Spirit: Difference between revisions
→What the Bible teaches
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:''You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And '''if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ'''. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of '''his Spirit who lives in you'''. <ref>The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ro 8:9–11.</ref> | :''You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And '''if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ'''. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of '''his Spirit who lives in you'''. <ref>The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ro 8:9–11.</ref> | ||
All, therefore, who belong to Christ have the Spirit of God. There are not 3 classes of Christians as William Branham taught: | |||
#those who have been born again; | |||
#those who have been sanctified: and | |||
#those who have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. | |||
The contrast between being “in the flesh” and “in the Spirit” is a contrast between belonging to the old age of sin and death and belonging to the new age of righteousness and life. So characteristic of these respective “ages” or “realms” are flesh and Spirit that the person belonging to one or the other can be said to be “in” them. In this sense, then, no Christian can be “in the flesh”; and all Christians are, by definition, “in the Spirit.” We miss Paul’s intention if we think of being “in the flesh” here as the condition of mortality that continues to characterize even believers (Nygren), or as the moral weakness and proneness to sin that, more lamentably, we still possess (Dunn). For the rest of the verse makes absolutely clear that (1) to be a Christian is to be indwelt by God’s Spirit; and (2) to be indwelt by God’s Spirit means to be “in the Spirit” and not “in the flesh.” Paul’s language is “positional”: he is depicting the believer’s status in Christ, secured for him or her at conversion. | |||
To be sure, a condition is placed on this being “in the Spirit”: having the Spirit of God dwelling in the person. But, as 1 Cor. 3:16 shows—addressed to the “carnal” (1 Cor. 3:1–3) Corinthian Christians, no less!—Paul believes that every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit of God. Indeed, this is just what Paul affirms in the last part of the verse, where he denies that the person who does not have the “Spirit of Christ” can make any claim to being a Christian at all. In other words, for Paul, possession of the Spirit goes hand-in-hand with being a Christian. However much we may need to grow in our relationship to the Spirit; however much we may be graciously given fresh and invigorating experiences of God’s Spirit, from the moment of conversion on, the Holy Spirit is a settled resident within. That Paul in the same verse can speak of the believer as “in the Spirit” and the Spirit as being “in” the believer reveals the metaphorical nature of his language. In the one case, the Spirit is pictured as entering into and taking control of the person’s life; in the other, the believer is pictured as living in that realm in which the Spirit rules, guides, and determines one’s destiny.<ref>Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 489–490.</ref> | |||
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