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Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts by J.R. Miller

J.R. Miller — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Hi Laura, great questions about the Holy Spirit in Acts! Clearly a 10 minute video can’t cover it all, so I am glad there was enough content there to start you thinking and asking questions. Let me try and respond to each question one at a time, you can reply back, and when we are ready, we can move to the next question.

Q#1: “how do we address those who say that unless you speak in tongues that you do not have the H.S. and are therefore not saved”
A: That is a hard one. The short answer is that I try to sit down with them and go through the Scripture passage by passage and talk about what we are reading. The view you mention is very new in Church history (less than 112 years old) so in reading the Scripture together we can usually help peel back the layers of denominational tradition. That question though is what made me write my book “Have You Not Yet Received the Spirit.” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1441484078/

That book was born from my own desire to answer my friends who had the very question and in it I go verse by verse through every important passage related to Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Maybe this would be another good topic for my 10 MInute Teacher Videos?

Does that help at all?

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts by Laura Lee

Laura Lee — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:21:00 +0000

Dr Miller- Yeah we just watched your ten minute teaching on the holy
spirit which was very fitting as my husband is reading through acts now.
We have a couple of questions: 1) You said that the Holy Spirit was
given to all believers without exception, so how do we address those who
say that unless you speak in tongues that you do not have the H.S. and
are therefore not saved. 2) I struggled to see how the three points
listed answered the question of why the H.S. was delayed for the
Samaritan. My back ground is not theology and I have very little formal
education in this topic so please be patient with us as we try to figure
this out. Humbly yours, The Lee’s

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by J.R. Miller

J.R. Miller — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:42:00 +0000

Great. Thanks.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by J.R. Miller

J.R. Miller — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:42:00 +0000

this is only a few quotes from a rather lengthy work, so I will have to do more reading to see De Haan’s view of the church.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by betbapt

betbapt — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:26:00 +0000

If you look at Baptist writings, you’ll read the position of Carroll and Mullins. There are many other baptist authors at google books. As Ross indicates, a lot of Baptists became under the influence of Protestants due to the movements of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Those writing from a historic Baptist perspective (rather than a Protestant one) I’ve read with this position. I’ve got a lot of old books with this same position and I’ll pass some of them along to you when I am near them.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by betbapt

betbapt — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:22:00 +0000

I’ve actually never read DeHaan’s explanation, but it sounds more anecdotal then exegetical. I’m pretty sure DeHaan would be universal church, so he does prove it isn’t a local only position.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by J.R. Miller

J.R. Miller — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:50:00 +0000

In doing some research for my course on Acts, I came across M.R. De Haan. I don’t know his background except what I read on Wikipedia, but lived in the late 1800′s through the mid-1900′s and seems to hold the Historic Baptist view you are outlining. De Haan says:

“This outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost is the one baptism of Ephesians 4:
There is one body, and one Spirit …
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:4–6).
As there is only one body, the true Church, and only one Spirit, only one Lord, so there can be only one baptism. It is history! ”

De Haan, M. R. Pentecost and After: Studies in the Book of Acts. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996. pg 40.and

“In the same way the little company of believers on Pentecost was the Church, the complete infant Church, but it still needed billions of members added experientially, although God already saw those members in the little body of believers at Pentecost. Upon this body, the Church, the person of the Holy Spirit was poured out. Every believer in the following centuries was represented there and was baptized with that body in the Holy Spirit. Every member of the Body of Christ was in God’s sight baptized once for all at Pentecost. It can never be repeated for the Church. And now when a sinner repents and believes and is saved, the Holy Spirit is not poured out upon that believer, but instead he is at that moment experientially introduced into the already baptized Body of Christ, just as new cells are added to the growing infant’s body. What happens to the baby happens to the man. Our baptism was accomplished nineteen hundred years ago, and we become partakers of it by experience when we accept Christ. Paul clinches the matter in one all-convincing verse in 1 Corinthians 12:13,”

De Haan, M. R. Pentecost and After: Studies in the Book of Acts. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996. pg. 42.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by J.R. Miller

J.R. Miller — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:05:00 +0000

Torrey and Moody were highly influenced by the Keswick movement which is outlined in the video, so yes their views are covered. I am doing another 10 series on the historical tree and they will get some mention in that video.

I have read about half of the series on your blog and left a few comments. One question though, other than B. H. Carroll and E. Y. Mullins, who are some of the other writers who taught this theology and also have some extensive writings on it. I would love to know their names and do some research.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by J.R. Miller

J.R. Miller — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:46:00 +0000

Ah, I was looking into this and see the discussion of what is termed the “Historic Baptist” View here http://kentbrandenburg.blogspot.com/2011/10/spirit-baptism-historic-baptist-view.html

In part, it states:”A third view, which will be termed the historic Baptist view,[5] affirms that the baptism of the Holy Ghost is a phenomenon restricted to the first century and connected with the sending of the Holy Spirit by Christ on the day of Pentecost as recorded in the book of Acts. This position, contrary to both the UCD and PCP doctrines, denies that anyone receives Spirit baptism today, although it affirms that the Holy Spirit indwells all believers immediately at the point of faith and regeneration (Romans 8:9, 14; Galatians 4:5-6). ”

You are right, I do not cover this view in the video so it does constitute another view, but one I have not studied as much as the others. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Comment on 10 Minute Teacher – 10 Perspectives on Spirit Baptism by betbapt

betbapt — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:44:00 +0000

OK. It’s true that “revivalist” might be too broad a turn, but if you read the writings of well-known, historic evangelicals, such as D. L. Moody and R. A. Torrey, they viewed the baptism of the Spirit as subsequent to justification, not accompanied by signs and wonders, but in order to give power specifically for evangelism. They viewed Pentecost as a sample revival and that the baptism of the Spirit would fuel evangelistic power. Maybe that fits into another one of your views and I would be interested historically where you put it, if you think that represents another view. A more modern example of those who took the D. L. Moody and R. A. Torrey view are independent Baptists like Jack Hyles and John R. Rice. There are many Baptists in their orbit in the Sword of the Lord crowd and the Hyles crowd. Hyles at one time had the world’s largest church. I don’t take that view, by the way—just reporting. I have called that the revivalist view.

The historic Baptist view is the one to which you linked to at my blog, where Thomas Ross is doing a long series. This view says that Spirit baptism is a historic event, prophesied in the gospels by John the Baptist, then referred to by Jesus in Acts 1, that it was subsequent to justification (not simultaneous), accompanied by the signs and wonders. This was the sending of the Holy Spirit, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus talked about in John 14-16. You see the baptism in Acts 2 with the Jewish believers, Acts 8 with the Samaritans, Acts 10 with the Roman believers, and in Acts 19 with Greek believers. Baptism is different than indwelling and filling and was a historic event that will be duplicated in the future during the tribulation period as prophesied in Joel 2. That’s the view that I take. You read that Spirit baptism is a historic event, as an example, in the writings of B. H. Carroll, a 19th century leader in the Southern Baptist Convention and founder of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Thomas Ross is posting an in depth presentation of it, as well as historic links, at What Is Truth, but has the whole presentation available online.