On the Supernatural Plane

   In this session we shall continue to study the results which the baptism in the Holy Spirit is intended by God to produce in the life of each individual believer.

   A Gateway to the Supernatural

  For a third main result of this experience we may turn to the words of Hebrews 6:4-5, which speak of believers who:

     . . . have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.

   These words indicate that those who have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit have tasted the powers of the age to come. The baptism in the Holy Spirit gives the believer a foretaste of an altogether new kind of power – a supernatural power that belongs, in its fullness, to the next age.

   For this reason Paul describes the seal of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance.

   In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:13-14).

   An alternative translation for guarantee is “down payment.” The Greek word, which is borrowed from Hebrew, is arrabon. This is a very interesting word which I have encountered – with slight variations – in four different languages: Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and Swahili.

Its meaning was brought home to me in a vivid way many years ago. My wife, Carmen, and I had purchased to a new home for which we a down. I reminded the seller that I now regarded the home as already our property.

In the same way, the Lord gives us – through His Holy Spirit – a “down payment” of heavenly power and glory – a foretaste of the next age. This down payment sets us aside as His purchased property, not to be offered to any other purchaser. It is His guarantee, too, that at the appointed time He will return with the balance of payment and take us to His home, to be with Him forever. That is why Paul calls it “the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.”

Another beautiful illustration of what we receive through the baptism in the Holy Spirit is contained in the story of the healing of Naaman, the Syrian leper, recorded in 2 Kings 5. As a result of his miraculous healing Naaman came to acknowledge that the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the only true God. He knew, however, that he would shortly have to return to an unclean, heathen land and be associated with the idolatrous ceremonies of a heathen temple. With this in mind, Naaman had one special request to make before leaving the land of Israel.

  So Naaman said, “Then, if not, please let your servant be given two mule-loads of earth; for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord” (2 Kin. 5:17).

  Why did Naaman desire to carry home soil from the land of Israel? He had realized the holiness of the Lord, and, in contrast, the uncleanness of his own land and people. He was determined, therefore, never again to offer worship from unclean earth.

The holiness of the Lord demanded that Naaman should stand and worship Him only on earth from the Lord’s own land. Since Naaman could not remain permanently in Israel, he determined to carry a portion of Israel’s earth home with him and to make there from that earth his own special place of worship.

So it is with the Spirit-baptised believer. He gains a new understanding of these words of Jesus:

  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24).

  Such a believer can no longer be satisfied with the mere forms and ceremonies of man-made worship. He has been in the heavenly land; he has had a glimpse of its glories and the holiness of God. He has brought back a portion of that sacred soil with him. No matter where circumstances may take him, he worships now not on an unclean land, but on holy ground. He worships in Spirit – the Holy Spirit – and in truth.

  What is true in the worship of the Spirit-filled believer is equally true in every other aspect of his experience. Through the baptism in the Spirit he has entered into a new kind of supernatural life. The supernatural has become natural.

  If we study the New Testament with an open mind, we are compelled to acknowledge that the whole life and experience of the early  professing Christian’s was permeated by the supernatural. Supernatural experiences were not something incidental or additional; they were an integral part of their lives as  professing Christian’s. Their praying was supernatural; their preaching was supernatural; they were supernaturally guided, supernaturally empowered, supernaturally transported, supernaturally protected.

  Remove the supernatural from the book of Acts, and you are left with something that has no meaning or coherence. From the descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, it is impossible to find a single chapter in which the supernatural does not play an essential part.

  In the account of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus we find a most arresting and thought-provoking expression.

  Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul (Acts 19:11).

  Consider the implications of that phrase “unusual miracles.” The Greek could be translated, somewhat freely, “miracles of a kind that do not happen every day.” Miracles were an everyday occurrence in the early church. Normally they would have caused no special surprise or comment. But the miracles granted here in Ephesus through the ministry of Paul were such that even the early church found them worthy of special record.

  In how many churches today would we find occasion to use the phrase “miracles of a kind that do not happen every day”? In how many churches today do miracles ever happen – let alone happen every day?

  The truth is, where we do not see and experience the supernatural, we have no right to speak of New Testament Christianity. These two things – the supernatural and New Testament Christianity – are inseparably interwoven.

  Without the supernatural we may have New Testament doctrine, but it is bare doctrine, not experience. Such doctrine, divorced from supernatural experience, is of the kind described by Paul.

  For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6).

  Only the Holy Spirit can give life to the letter of New Testament doctrine and make that doctrine a living, personal, supernatural way of life for each believer. One main purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is to do just this.

  Spirit-empowered Prayer

  A fourth main purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit concerns the prayer life of the believer.

  Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27).

  Paul mentions one form of weakness which is common to all believers in their own natural condition and apart from the Holy Spirit. It is defined by Paul in the words “for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.” This weakness is not knowing how to pray in accordance with God’s will.

  The only One to whom we can turn for help in this weakness is the Holy Spirit, for Paul says:

  The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses . . . the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us . . . because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27).

  Paul here speaks of the Spirit as a Person who indwells the believer and who makes the believer a    vessel, or a channel, through which He offers prayer and intercession.

  This is prayer of a kind which is far above the level of the believer’s own natural understanding or   ability. In this kind of prayer the believer does not rely on his feelings or his understanding. He yields his body to the Holy Spirit as a temple in which the Spirit Himself conducts prayer, and he yields his members as instruments which the Spirit controls for purposes of supernatural intercession.

  Concerning prayer, the New Testament sets a standard to which the believer can never attain in his own natural strength or understanding. In this way God deliberately shuts the believer up in a place where he is obliged either to fall below the divine standard or else to depend upon the supernatural assistance of the indwelling Spirit.

  For example, Paul says:

  . . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit (Eph. 6:18).

  And again:

  Pray without ceasing . . . Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:17,19).

  No person in his own unaided strength or understanding can fulfill these commandments. No person can “pray always” or “pray without ceasing.” But that which is impossible in the natural is made possible by the indwelling, supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, Paul is careful to emphasize the believer’s dependence upon the Holy Spirit. He says, “Praying always . . . in the Spirit,” and again, “Pray without ceasing . . . Do not quench the Spirit.”

  The Holy Spirit indwelling the believer in the New Testament corresponds to the fire supernaturally kindled upon the altar of the tabernacle in the Old Testament. Concerning this fire, the Lord ordained:

  A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar; it shall never go out (Lev. 6:13).

  The corresponding New Testament ordinance is contained in the words of Paul: “Pray without ceasing . . . Do not quench the Spirit.” Where the Spirit-baptised believer yields full control to the Spirit within and does not by carelessness or carnality quench the Spirit’s fire, there burns within the temple of that believer’s body a fire of supernatural prayer and worship which never goes out, day or night. Few people realize the limitless potentialities of Holy Spirit prayer within the temple of a believer’s yielded body.

  Some years ago when I conducted regular street meetings in Los Angeles, Ca, a young woman of Catholic background was saved and baptised in the Holy Spirit. She was working as a maid in a Los Angeles hotel, and she shared a bedroom there with another young woman of her own age and background. One day this other woman came to her and said, “Tell me, what is that strange language you speak to yourself every night in bed after you seem to have gone to sleep?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” the first young woman answered, “because I never even knew that I was speaking any language.”

  In this way she learned to her surprise that every night after she had gone to sleep, without the conscious exercise of her own faculties, she was speaking with other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave her utterance.

  So it is to be filled with and yielded to the Holy Spirit. When we come to the end of our own natural strength and understanding, the Holy Spirit can take over our faculties and conduct His own worship and prayer through us.

  This is the picture given of the bride of Jesus in the Song of Solomon.

  I sleep, but my heart is awake (5:2).

  The bride may sleep; she may be physically and mentally exhausted. But in the innermost depths of her being there dwells One who never slumbers or sleeps – the Holy Spirit Himself. Even through the hours of darkness there burns upon the altar of her heart a fire that never goes out – a fire of worship and prayer that is the life of the Holy Spirit within.

  This is the Bible pattern for the prayer life of the church in this present age. But such a life of prayer is possible only through the supernatural, indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Revelation of the Scriptures

  A fifth great purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit may become our guide and teacher in relation to the Scriptures. Jesus promises this to His disciples in two passages in John’s Gospel.

  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you (John 14:26).

  During His earthly ministry Jesus taught His disciples much, especially concerning His death and resurrection, which they were unable either to understand or remember.

  However, Jesus assured them that after the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them, He would become their personal teacher and enable them to remember and understand correctly all that Jesus had taught them during His earthly ministry. Nor would the Holy Spirit confine Himself only to interpreting the teachings of Jesus while on earth; He would also lead the disciples into a full understanding of God’s whole revelation to man.

  However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth [more literally, into all the truth]; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak (John 16:13).

  Here the phrase “all the truth” may be interpreted by reference to the words of Jesus: “Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

  Jesus promises His disciples that the Holy Spirit will lead them into a correct understanding of the entire revelation of God to man through the Scriptures. This includes the Old Testament Scriptures, the teaching of Jesus during His earthly ministry and also the further revelation of truth given to the church after Pentecost through Paul and others of the apostles.

  The Holy Spirit is given to the church to become the revelator, interpreter and teacher of the whole compass of divine revelation in the Scriptures.

  The fulfillment of Jesus’s promise that the Holy Spirit would interpret the Scriptures for the disciples is dramatically illustrated in the events of the day of Pentecost. As soon as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples and they began to speak with other tongues, the question was raised: Whatever could this mean? Peter answered:

  But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

  “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,

  That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:16-17).

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Peter quotes and interprets a prophecy concerning the last days given in the second chapter of Joel. In the sermon which follows, almost half of what Peter says is direct quotation from the Old Testament Scriptures. The teaching of these Scriptures is applied in a clear and forceful way to the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection and of the Holy Spirit’s outpouring.

  It is difficult to imagine any greater contrast between the exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures here given by Peter and the lack of understanding concerning the same Scriptures displayed by Peter and all the other disciples during the earthly ministry of Jesus and up to the day of Pentecost.

  It would appear that this total change in the disciples’ understanding of the Scriptures was not a gradual process but was produced instantaneously by the coming of the Holy Spirit. As soon as the Holy Spirit came to indwell them, their understanding of the Scriptures was supernaturally illuminated. Their previous doubts and confusion were immediately replaced by clear understanding and forceful application.

  This same dramatic transformation continues to be a distinctive mark of Spirit-filled believers from the day of Pentecost onward.

  For example, Saul of Tarsus had been trained in the knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures by Gamaliel, the most famous teacher of his day. Yet in his early years he had no light or understanding on their correct application. It was only after Ananias in Damascus laid hands on Saul and prayed that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit that the scales fell from his eyes and he was able to understand and apply those Scriptures.

  Immediately he preached the Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God (Acts 9:20).

  Notice that word “immediately.” There was not a slow, gradual struggle for understanding but rather an instant illumination. The moment the Holy Spirit came in, He cast an altogether new light upon Scriptures which Saul had known for many years but had never known how to apply or interpret.

  What the Holy Spirit did for Peter and Saul, and for the New Testament  professing Christian’s as a whole, He is still willing and able to do for all  professing Christian’s today. But first each believer must, through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, personally receive this wonderful, indwelling guide, teacher and expositor.