Shallow
Pentecostal Baptisms;
Their
Cause and Cure
By T. Arthur Lewis
A Chinese missionary expresses
his regret at the lack of depth and capacity in the case of some of the natives upon receiving their Pentecostal baptism. However this condition is not alone confined to the foreign field, for here in the
home land the same thing is true. But in every case, whether here or there, wherever
there has been little or no teaching concerning the surrender of the whole being to the process of crucifixion, there cannot
be much depth to the baptism.
It should be remembered that
the Pentecostal baptism is but an initial spiritual experience. The Holy Spirit
was outpoured in the very beginning of this dispensation and was the very first experience the disciples realized after the
ascension of Christ. In their case they had been prepared for their Pentecost
through personal contact with Jesus, both before and after His resurrection. Because
of this fact and the effect of His teaching while with them together with the ten days of final preparation in the upper room,
the first recipients of the Holy Spirit had been usually prepared for their personal Pentecost.
It is important that every
believer should understand the place of the indwelling Spirit and the source of all His operations. This is the regenerate human spirit which is referred to by various terms in Scriptures such as, “The
spirit of man” (1 Cor. 2:11); “The inward man” (Rom. 7:22; 2 Cor. 4:16); “The new man” (Col.
3:10). There are many children of God who do not know the conscious witness of
the Holy Spirit with their own spirits. As the result; this class of believers
live in the realm of the “soul,” that is to say, in their “feelings” and their minds; but as to what
is “spirit,” they have no conception.
Man is a three-fold being,
“spirit, soul, and body” (1 Thes. 5:23). The regenerate spirit of
man is the only true point of contact between God and man. The spirit of man
in its fallen state is dead to God, who is essentially Spirit, and is also dead to the divine spiritual things. On the other hand, it is alive unto the spirit of the world and worldly things. At time of conversion, the human spirit is quickened and brought out of its state of spiritual death and
made alive unto God, through receiving His son Jesus, who is the life of God. 1
John 5:11, 12.
The “spirit of man”
is filled with the Holy Spirit at the time the believer speaks “with other tongues.” Acts 2:4. This infilling however is only according to capacity,
which accounts for the varying degrees of depth of the Pentecostal baptism. The
spirit capacity of each individual believer naturally would vary according to which class of believers he belonged; namely,
the wayside class, the stony ground class, the thorn class, and the good ground class.
Matt. 13:19-23. The Holy Spirit comes to the immature and matured believer
alike. However, the older Christian should possess more depth of spirit than
the “babe in Christ,” and he will, provided he has understood his identification with Christ in His death on the
cross, and has yielded himself to the process of crucifixion.
Another reason for the varying
spiritual capacity is the fact that some people are deeper in their natures than others in their natural state, and when this
type of character receives the divine nature and hands himself over to the Holy Spirit for His continual operations, the result
is a deepening of the channel.
A further reason for this
state of shallowness is due to over anxiety on the part of ministers and Christian workers to get the recipient to speak in
tongues; so that at the first sound of the “tongues,” the seeker is told that he has received the baptism; and
in not a few cases the utterance ceases at that point. But this is just the stage
in the process of the baptism where the believer should be encouraged to keep of seeking the Lord, who only now has come into
possession of the tongues. To stop the work of the Spirit at the speaking point
is a fatal mistake, and in some cases has for years completely arrested all further operations of the Holy Spirit in the life
of the believer. As a result, there is no more speaking in tongues and, in view
of the fact that “He that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself,” (1 Cor. 14:4) one essential means of self-edification
is cut off.
Some of these partially baptized
saints have gone on in a dissatisfied state, not knowing real liberty and fullness of joy of the baptism, until they have
come in contact with some Pentecostal saints who have discerned their true state and its cause. Through prayer and further waiting upon the Lord, a full baptism has been realized and the believer at
last has reached the full consummation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in its initial aspect.
All Pentecostal believers
should understand the relation of the Holy Spirit to the death of Christ. The
cross is the basis of the Holy Spirit’s operations. Christ’s death
on the cross makes possible the gift of the Spirit, as it is written, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the
law, being made a curse for us – that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Gal. 3:13, 14. “Calvary and Pentecost are inseparable. Calvary always sends a man on to Pentecost; Pentecost is always sending a man back
to Calvary. The man who stops at Calvary arrests the plan of God. That is to say, if a man is merely satisfied with forgiveness of sins, and wants nothing more, he has an
arrested life and the plan of God has come to a stop; but the man who stops at Pentecost and does not continually go back
to Calvary is defeating the purpose of God. You can never know the power of Pentecost
unless the power of the cross is working in you.”
The baptism of the Holy Spirit
is a very necessary and important crisis in a Christian’s life, because it makes the transition from the natural to
the spiritual plane. The measure of the Spirit received in the beginning depends
entirely upon the intelligent cooperation of the believer, not only up to the time he begins to speak in tongues, but right
on until he is satisfied that the Lord has accomplished His purpose in the initial infilling.
It is the speaking in tongues that liberates the human spirit, which at this point has been filled with the Holy Ghost
for the first time, that results in the overflow of praise and adoration in other tongues unto God. This is the fulfilling of John 7:38 wherein we read, “Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers
of living water.” The Spirit is now open to God for the first time, and
the greater the flow of tongues, the greater the joy and abandonment to the Holy Spirit.
All that the believer can
realize at this first infilling is of the greatest value in the after life and ministry.
Consequently, Christian workers should never try to help seekers through into the baptism, only as the Holy Spirit
may definitely lead them.
There is another matter which
should be mentioned wherein care should be exercised when one is seeking the baptism and begins to speak in tongues. This is the place where the worker should be very careful and not talk in tongues
in he hears the seekers saying the same words after him. The Lord gives to each
baptized saint his own individual utterance. Any notion on the part of the worker
that he can help the recipient to get the language by a continual talking in tongues himself is a misconception.
The risen Lord is THE BAPTIZER,
and does not need any human assistance. Too often the touch of the hand on the
seeker or even the sound of the voice of a nearby worker will check the work of the Lord.
For these reasons and others which might not be mentioned, it is easy to see the harm that is done in interfering with
the work of the Lord when He is baptizing a believer into the Holy Ghost. It
is the worker’s business to stand near by the seeker in prayer and praise, and offer whatever assistance the seeker
may request or discern by the Spirit.
