Two Baptisms

(During 2022, these bi-monthly posts are exploring various facets of the beautiful diamond that is our holiness doctrine and heritage.)

Two Baptisms

I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. - Matthew 3:11

 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. - Acts 1:5

There is a photo of my water baptism in my office. In it, I’m walking toward the shore after being immersed in a creek. My pastor – Rev. O. C. Rushing – is standing in the middle of the creek with Howard Bennett, a lay leader in the church who was assisting him. Ed Midcap, who held a local license at the time and later became a pastor, and his father, are helping me out of the water. Not pictured in the photo, but present on the creekbank, are my family and other members of the church who had gathered to celebrate the baptisms. A middle schooler at the time, I had confessed my sins, found new life in Christ, and was making a public profession of my faith in Jesus.

Several years after my water baptism, I was baptized again, this time not with water but with the Holy Spirit. The occasion was a fall revival at Mount Vernon Nazarene College. Dr. Edward Lawlor, General Superintendent Emeritus, was preaching. That morning the Holy Spirit convinced me of my need to surrender everything to Jesus, especially my self-centeredness.

There is the baptism of John using water, and there is the baptism of Jesus Christ using the Holy Spirit and fire. This baptism with the Holy Spirit has been long associated with entire sanctification. 

What happens when believers are baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire?

Purity. There is a purification associated with fire baptism. To be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to have our hearts cleansed. Water cleanses some things, but fire cleanses things which water cannot.Malachi 3:3 promises the “messenger of the covenant” will sit as “a refiner and purifier of silver.” Thefire of this second baptism is symbolic of deep cleansing – the kind of cleansing experienced when precious metals are purified. Refiners watch the silver in the crucible, keeping the flame burning until all the dross has come to the top and been skimmed off. When the refiner can see his or her own face in the silver, the job has been done – the metal is pure. When we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, the Refiner can see his own image – Christlikeness – in our soul.

Power. To be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to be empowered for living victoriously and for effective witnessing. Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). At Pentecost, the disciples of Christ are marvelously transformed from fearful, overly sensitive, selfish persons, to fearless, united, Spirit-filled witnesses.

Filling. To be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4). In Ephesians 5:18, Paul urges, “Be filled with the Spirit.” Every born-again believer knows the Holy Spirit, but there is a fullness of the Spirit known only to those who have made a total surrender to Him.

Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire?

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,

One holy passion filling all my frame;

The baptism of the heav’n descended Dove-

My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.

(Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart, words by George Croly)