The Holy Spirit in His Manifestation of Power Is Available to Everyone Who Believes

Throughout the history of God’s people, God has always moved by imparting His Power to individuals chosen to carry out His Work.

In the Old Testament, these people were kings and prophets whom God chose specifically for a task. They were also judges, as in the case of Gideon and Samson, and others whom God chose and selectively endowed with His Power to carry out a heroic and superhuman task.

In the new order of the churches, however, we see that God makes His gifts and the anointing of His Spirit available not only to those kings, prophets, and judges, but to every believer. And Scripture tells us that “God’s anointing is for everyone who believes,” as the apostle Peter says in his first sermon on the Day of Pentecost.

He says in verse 39 of chapter 2 of the Book of Acts: “For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, to as many as God our Lord shall call.” And the promise of which the apostle Peter speaks is precisely the promise of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit in His Power, in His manifestation of Power, is available to everyone who believes, to every believer. And God’s desire, His purpose, is that every believer, upon receiving Christ as Lord and Savior, should also receive the moving of the Holy Spirit, to be a servant, a useful instrument of the Lord in carrying out the Great Commission and the assignments that the Spirit of God may wish to give that believer.

So we have to understand this: many believers live weak and ineffective lives because they lack that experience, that impartation, that Power of the Holy Spirit. And many churches do not teach believers how to enter into that blessing of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. They are not given moments when God’s anointing is imparted to them, when they are brought into the Pentecostal experience. So these believers are very faithful and love the Lord dearly, but they do not know the powerful moving of the Holy Spirit in that dimension.

And I remember a passage that comes to mind now, in chapter 19 of the Book of Acts, where Paul meets some believers in Ephesus who do not know that Pentecostal dimension of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. They have come to know Christ, but they do not even know about the Holy Spirit. So Paul meets them—Acts chapter 19, verses 1 and 2 says: “Paul came to Ephesus and, finding certain disciples”—that is, these people already believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior—“and finding certain disciples, he said to them: Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

Look at the apostle Paul’s question here. Paul is saying: I know that you believed, but that does not necessarily mean that you received the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit? In the Old Testament, receiving the Holy Spirit is a kind of code phrase meaning: did you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, did you enter into that Pentecostal dimension of the Christian life? It is possible to have received Christ as Lord and Savior but not be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And it is possible to have the Holy Spirit, I believe, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God who enters a person when that person believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but not to have the Pentecostal experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They are two different things.

I know that may sound scandalous to many, but there are many believers who have the Spirit of God within them yet have not had the Pentecostal experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit. And that is what Paul is asking them: did you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And look at what they answer him. They said to him: “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” These believers had received a basic teaching about the Christian life, but they had not been discipled, because there were not yet methods and systems for instructing believers in doctrine. Instead, someone would simply pass through the little town or village of many believers, tell them about Christ as the Messiah, and they would accept that Christ was the Messiah. Then those people would continue on their way, leaving the believers with only a very rudimentary understanding of the Christian life.

So Paul meets some of these believers and wants to bring them to a higher level. Perhaps he realizes from the way they act that they have not had that more powerful impartation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they tell him: look, Paul, we did not even know there was such a thing as the Holy Spirit; all we know is that Jesus is the Messiah, that is all.

Paul then asks them: “Into what, then, were you baptized? They said: into John’s baptism.” What was John’s baptism? Baptism in water. John said: I baptize in water, but one is coming who baptizes in fire and the Holy Spirit. So they had only been baptized with the baptism of repentance in water, not with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

So Paul tells them: “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus, the Christ.” You see? He is clarifying. There is a baptism in water; there is an experience of repentance from sins. That is very good, but that is not everything he is saying. We are in Acts 19, verses 5 and 6.

In verse 6 it says: “And when Paul had laid his hands on them”—because one of the ways to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is through the laying on of hands by someone who has had that experience in their life—“when he had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them; and they spoke in tongues and prophesied, and there were about twelve men in all.”

When the apostle Paul lays hands on them, they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they are baptized in the Holy Spirit, and in this case they speak in tongues and prophesy. What does it mean that they prophesied? They were speaking mysteries, they were worshiping the Lord, they were speaking under the anointing and inspiration of the Holy Spirit because they had been filled through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So that is the idea.

We have to be very careful because, yes, we have the Spirit of God, we are saved, we have repented, we have received Christ as our Lord and Savior, but we lack that Pentecostal experience, and we have to seek it and ask the Lord to fill us. That is why this doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is so important and why I have been taking so much time to examine it with you.

I hope we can continue examining this wonderful doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit later on. May the Lord continue to bless you.