Chapter 3

How the power first
came to earth

There is power just in believing God, but it is not the full power described in this book.

The power that comes with simply believing God was demonstrated early in Billy Graham's ministry. At that time back in the 1940s, Graham was struggling with questions he had about the Bible for which he did not have answers. But one day he got on his knees and prayed, “Father, I am going to accept this as thy Word—by faith !” This simple act of sincere faith released a power in Graham's ministry he had not before known and soon catapulted him and his ministry to proclaim the gospel to worldwide audiences.

But there is even more power to be obtained. In the Old Testament, the full power referred to in this book would sometimes be upon a few individuals, such as Elijah and Elisha, but in the New Testament God began to pour out this power on large numbers.

In fact, God spoke of the future through the Old Testament prophet Joel and said, “ I will pour out my Spirit on all people” (2:28). It has not yet happened on “all” people, but the outpouring began almost 2,000 years ago.

It happened as described in the New Testament, shortly after Christ's resurrection and on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came in force, and all the disciples were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in tongues, so much so that onlookers thought the people were drunk with wine. But the apostle Peter said, “No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16).

In this chapter you will learn how large numbers of people got the power after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which will introduce the next chapter about how you can get it the very same way.

God has not changed. “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6). His Word has not changed. These truths have not changed. Millions of Bible believers all over the world attest to these truths.

We will go back and examine how the power was transferred from God to the disciples of Jesus, and later, to others. This will serve as a model for how modern-day people can get the same power.

This is too important to gloss over lightly. Please read each word of the Scriptures given very carefully. Denominational traditions vary on this subject, which is controversial, so it is important that we see exactly what God says about it, not what man says. That way, you will have a clear understanding of the truth and will not be confused by what well-intentioned but uninformed people may tell you. It doesn't matter what I say or what anyone else says; the only thing that matters is what God says.

The prophecy. We know that the power comes from the Holy Spirit, because after Jesus' resurrection and just before His ascension into heaven, He prophesied to His disciples:

“Do not leave Jerusalem , but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit… you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you ; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:4-8).

Notice:

•  Jesus was prophesying what was to come.

•  He said it would be “the gift my Father promised.”

•  He specifically referred to it as being “baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

•  He said the experience would bring power.

•  He said it would happen when the Holy Spirit “comes on you.” This is important: Remember the words “comes on” (or KJV: “is come upon”).

The fulfillment. This prophecy was in the first chapter in the book of Acts. It was fulfilled in the very next chapter. Here is how the fulfillment was described:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them (Acts 2:1-4).

Notice:

•  What Jesus prophesied as a “baptism with the Holy Spirit,” when it was fulfilled is referred to as being “filled with the Holy Spirit.”

•  All (not some) of those present were filled.

•  The Spirit came like a wind. How appropriate: The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma , which means “movement of air, or wind.” Jesus said, “ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” John 3:8).

•  Tongues of fire rested on each one. The tongue represents confession and communication. From this moment on, the confession and proclamation of Christ as Lord would spread throughout the earth as a fire.

•  They (all) began to speak with other tongues. The Holy Spirit did not speak with other tongues; the people did, enabled by the Holy Spirit.

 

Three different relationships
with the Holy Spirit

Please take the time to follow the below very closely. It will be worth your while more than you can now imagine.

As odd as it may seem to some, the Scriptures reveal three different relationships with the Holy Spirit. I thank God for using His servant and my friend, the late Mike Richmond, to point out to me what should have been obvious. The Holy Spirit can be:

•  With you,

•  in you, and

•  on , or upon you.

Earlier, I asked you to remember the words “comes on” (or “come upon”). That is because the Bible reveals these three different relationships a person can have with the Holy Spirit. (I call them “prepositional” relationships, remembering my high school English grammar classes.)

Just before His crucifixion, Jesus was speaking to His disciples about the Holy Spirit, and said:

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17)

Here Jesus describes two of the three relationships with the Holy Spirit: the “with you” experience (now) and the “in you” experience (future), which He prophesied.

The Holy Spirit was “with” them (present) at that time. However, the Spirit was not yet “in” them. Jesus prophesied that it “will be” (future).

The “in” experience did not happen on the day of Pentecost when the power came, as most believe, but earlier, after Christ's resurrection but before His ascension, during one of His appearances to the disciples:

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-22).

The word “receive” here is the Greek lambano , which also means to “take.” We do not passively receive it; we actively take it.

This is a most interesting and overlooked theological fact and sequence of events. Jesus had not yet even told them about the power to come from the Holy Spirit, yet we know for a certainty that here they received the Holy Spirit, by the authority of the Son of God and His own breath! Again, traditionally it is thought that they did not receive the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost when the power came. But Scripture shows otherwise.

Does anyone have any doubt that if the Son of God in His resurrected body came up to someone and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and breathed on them as He said it, that they would receive the Holy Spirit, right then and there? There can be no doubt.

Therefore:

•  The Holy Spirit was “with” the disciples before the crucifixion (the “with” experience).

•  The Holy Spirit came “in” to the disciples (the “in” experience) in John chapter 20,
after the crucifixion and before the ascension. But remember, they still had no power, a power which Jesus told them about a few days later in Acts chapter 1, and told them to “wait” for, and which was to occur on the day of Pentecost.

•  A few days after Jesus' ascension to heaven, they received the “on” or “upon” (KJV) experience in Acts chapter 2, when they received power. At that moment, this same formerly powerless Peter received so much power that the very same day he preached to the crowd in hostile Jerusalem , a crowd that had just assented to Christ's crucifixion, and as a result, 3,000 people believed and received eternal life, and a lame man was miraculously healed!

The phrase “baptism with the Holy Spirit.” Much controversy surrounds the use of this phrase, and key Scriptures are often overlooked. Many believe that it is a separate empowering experience, while others insist it is what happens to all believers at the point of salvation, based on the verses, “We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13), and “(There is) one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Ephesians 4:4).

But Scripture actually says there are different baptisms (Hebrews 6:2), even though each has a singular application. There is (1) the baptism with water (Matthew 3:13); there is (2) the baptism into the body of Christ at salvation (1 Corinthians 12:13); (3) there is the baptism with the Holy Spirit for empowerment (Acts 1:5); and there is (4) the baptism of fire (Matthew 3:11).

The Greek word for baptize literally means to “immerse into,” or “dip.”

In the process of any baptism, there are three components:

•  a baptizer (one who performs the baptism, or the one who immerses the candidate),

•  an element or medium , into which one is baptized or dipped into, such as water,

•  a candidate (the “baptizee,” or the one who is “immersed”).

If you carefully examine the Scriptures, you will discover the following:

Baptism into Christ. “We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). We see that here the Holy Spirit is the baptizer. The medium is Christ. The candidate is the new believer. (These first two are a beautiful picture of how two Persons of the Godhead work together.) In this baptism, the Spirit immerses the believer into the spiritual and mystical body of Christ.

Baptism with the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist prophesied, “ He (Christ) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). Jesus is the baptizer here, not the Holy Spirit as in the previous explanation. The Holy Spirit is the medium. The candidate is the believer. This baptism is for power and service.

Baptism with water. In today's practice, the pastor or evangelist is usually the baptizer, but Scripture does not limit it to them. The medium is water. The candidate is the believer. This baptism symbolizes being buried with Christ in His death and the death of our old nature, and being raised with Him in His resurrection. It is an outward sign of an inward work.

Baptism with fire. Jesus is the baptizer. The medium is fire (figurative). The candidate is the believer. This is the lifelong purging and purification process that every believer experiences where, to prepare us for eternity with Him, Christ is continually burning out the dross in our lives.

Summary of Biblical Baptisms

A repeated phenomenon

What happened on the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 is usually thought to have been the one-time birth of the church, and in many ways it was, because power first came and world outreach began. However, after this birth, the exact same experience was repeated several times in the book of Acts, using different terminology, and the same experience has been repeated ever since. We will briefly examine each example in Acts.

At Samaria :

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14-19).

Note the words “come upon” in this passage. This passage is somewhat of a mystery in that these people in Samaria had accepted the Word of God and had been baptized in the name of Jesus, but they had neither “received” ( lambano ) the Holy Spirit nor had the Spirit “come upon” them.

It is not mentioned here that they spoke with tongues after this experience as they did on the day of Pentecost; however, many scholars assume they did because Simon witnessed something so supernatural, tangible, and moving that it caused him to offer money to obtain it.

Paul's Damascus Road experience. Paul, formerly called Saul, was a strict Jew and persecutor of Christians. But after His ascension into heaven, Jesus dramatically appeared to Paul while Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute more believers. Paul became a believer at this instant and received the “in” experience because he confessed Jesus as “Lord” and purposed to obey Him. Then Jesus told Paul to go into the city and to see a man named Ananias, who “ entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit'” (Acts 9:17).

Note key facts here:

•  Paul instantly became a believer, confessing Jesus as Lord, and purposed to obey Christ.

•  By becoming a believer, Paul received the “in” experience of the Holy Spirit, which happens automatically upon believing in Him.

•  Paul had not yet been “filled” with or empowered by the Holy Spirit, the “upon” experience.

•  It does not say that Paul spoke with tongues here, but we know that he did, at least later, because in 1 Corinthians 14:18 Paul said, “ I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.”

 

At Cornelius' house. As mentioned, Cornelius was a Roman military officer. Following a vision by both Peter and Cornelius recorded in Acts chapter 10, three men came to Peter, saying:

We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to have you come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say (v.22).

Peter went with the men to Cornelius' house and began explaining the gospel, and…

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God (vs. 44-46).

Note the words used here: “fell upon.” This is the same as the previous “on” and “come upon” experience.

Also, as I mentioned, in Acts chapter 11, Peter was explaining what happened here to the believers in Jerusalem , and he made it clear that this was exactly the same thing that happened on the day of Pentecost, and even referred to it as the baptism with the Holy Spirit:

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit ' (10:15-16).

Ephesus . Paul arrived at Ephesus , found some disciples and asked them:

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit”…. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all (Acts 19:1-2, 6-7).

Note:

•  They were previously believers. We know that all believers have the Holy Spirit “in” them. The fact that these disciples did not even know about the Holy Spirit does not prove that they did not have the Holy Spirit. But they obviously did not have the power of the Holy Spirit. Many believers today have the Holy Spirit in them, but they never get any teaching about the Holy Spirit and are ignorant about Him, just as these people at Ephesus , and many are not even aware that He is in them.

•  When Paul laid his hands on them, “the Holy Spirit came on them.” Not with, not in, but on, as we discussed.

•  They also spoke in tongues and prophesied.

 

Summary of people receiving the
Holy Spirit power in the New Testament

There are five occurrences in the book of Acts when the power of the Holy Spirit came “on” or “upon” people:

•  On the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-4.)

•  At Samaria . (Acts 8:14-19.)

•  Saul, later called the apostle Paul. (Acts 9:17.)

•  At Cornelius' house. (Acts 10:44-46.)

•  At Ephesus . (Acts 19:1-2, 6-7.)

 

In all these cases of receiving power, except maybe at Cornelius' house, the people were already believers, and even at Cornelius' house, belief probably came at least an instant before the power came upon them. This means an interval, even if seconds, or even if a split-second.

In all cases except at Samaria , speaking in tongues was specifically mentioned as a result. In Samaria , we know something strongly supernatural and tangible was evident, and because of the other four instances, it may be a safe but not totally certain conclusion that speaking in tongues also happened there.

Summary of Holy Spirit Baptisms in Acts

(It is extremely significant that every empowering experience described in the early church, except possibly one, about which we are not sure, was evidenced by speaking in other tongues. That is a significant message for us today, to be discussed later.)

Results of the power in their lives

These individuals and groups of people, now infused with God's power, boldly went out among the nations and turned the world upside down with the message of God's great love and forgiveness available through His Son Jesus Christ.

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly (Acts 4:31).

In speaking “the word of God boldly,” they were not only proclaiming God's message of salvation, but speaking His word into life situations, and seeing His miracle-working power displayed, the result of being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders (Acts 14:3).

You can have that same power!

Peter said:

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call (Acts 2:39).

Is He calling you? I believe He is. That is why you have this book. It is no accident that it is in your hands at this moment. Nothing is by accident.

In just minutes in the next chapter, you can receive that same power.

Keep reading!

Continue to Appendix 4

Go back to Chapter Appendix 2

Go back to beginning