I just discovered a doctrine in the church that teaches that there are different Holy Spirits; that there is the Holy Spirit you receive when you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and then there is a separate ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ which some people receive immediately, some people receive after years of being a Christian, and some never receive, even though they are a Christian. This is a false doctrine!!
There is only ONE Holy Spirit
Our living Jesus in Heaven sends us that Spirit when we accept Him as our Savior. The issue about degrees of Holy Spirit is simply how much faith you have in God. The more faith you have, the more Spirit can work in you. If you have little faith, the Spirit has no room to move or work. It’s as simple as that. The BAPTISM of the Spirit is the same thing as the INDWELLING of the Spirit. It’s just that after justification in Jesus, some people have a long way to go for sanctification to reveal the fruits and power of the Holy Spirit. This is probably how it was in me.
In this false doctrine of a dichotomy of the Spirit, theologians teach that men received the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (before Jesus died for us) when they loved God, made sacrifices, and kept the commandments. This is heresy! If that were the case, Jesus would not have needed to come and die for our sins! Before Jesus, men could know God, they could walk with God, they could keep His commandments, albeit very poorly and with a lot of killing of animals, but they could not fully commune with God. That is the whole reason for the room in the tabernacle or temple, the Holy of Holies, where the shekinah of God lived. This room had to be separated by the veil so that no one except the most devout priest on the most holy day of the year, after a lot of ceremonial purification could enter, lest he be stricken down in death! After Jesus was crucified, the veil was torn in two, indicating that man was no longer separated from God.
The Holy Spirit was sent forth by God before YHWH–or anything–was ever even created. The Holy Spirit existed in Old Testament times, yes. But the Holy Spirit was in God’s realm only. It was never capable of indwelling man until Jesus sent it forth on the day of Pentecost.
Pentecost is the Greek word for ‘fifty’. In the New Testament, the day of Pentecost was the 50th day after Jesus was crucified. After Jesus was crucified, he appeared to his disciples numerous times within 40 days as told in the gospels and Acts. During one of these encounters, Jesus shared a meal with His Holy-Spirit appointed apostles, and He gave them instructions not to leave Jerusalem, but to
Wait for the fulfillment of the Father’s promise that you heard about from Me. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days…..you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in the rest of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. ~Acts 1:4-5, 8
The reason for this was because Jesus wanted to send God’s Spirit to His chosen ones on the New Day of Pentecost. It was a symbolic replacement of the old Day of Pentecost, one of the three main Jewish feast days. Since the crucifixion of Jesus took place on the feast of Passover, the most holy day of the year when a lamb was sacrificed for all the sins of Israel in the past year, Jesus was replacing the old covenantal feasts with a new, final covenant. No more lambs would need to be slaughtered. To understand the new covenant fully we must understand the old covenantal feasts.
The most important of these was the Passover feast which I just mentioned. The next feast celebrated was Shavuot, or the Jewish Day of Pentecost, 7 weeks (50 days) after the Passover feast. During this feast, the first fruits were brought in from the harvest and the best were offered to God in a pilgrimage celebration in Jerusalem. It was also a time when Jews commemorated the giving of the Torah (law) by Moses, their greatest prophet.
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to believers on this new day of Pentecost to show everyone that He is the New Covenant, that the fruit is no longer a physical plant, but is figurative fruit of the Spirit which was poured out on His disciples beginning on that very day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, when tongues of fire rested on those who believed Jesus is the Son of God. The Holy Spirit indwelled man for the FIRST TIME ever and gave them as much power as they could handle. That is why their works increased over time, and why He said we would do greater things than He did. As our faith increases in God, our power in the Spirit increases as well. It isn’t a separate form or type of Spirit!
Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law so that we no longer need to pay homage to Moses as the greatest prophet and son of God, or the Torah law, but give our allegiance to the Only Begotten Son of God; Who represents all the law and the prophets, and who
sends the Spirit who makes the most valuable fruit for God.
The One who has the power to send forth the Holy Spirit to indwell man so that we need never be separated from God forevermore. ❤
~Song of Mary~ 