In the Apostles’ Creed believers confess, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Many Baptists do not use the Apostles’ Creed. Do we believe in the Holy Spirit? Do we know about the Holy Spirit? I heard one pastor say he was raised in a church that saw the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures. With gratitude for the scriptures, we must not forget the Spirit who inspired them and applies them to our lives. Another pastor called the Holy Spirit, “Forgotten God.”
When Paul and Apollos traded places, Paul discovered disciples who did not know about the Holy Spirit. They had heard about the baptism of repentance, but not about Pentecost. Paul baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus. They confessed Jesus as Lord. Then Paul laid hands on them. The Spirit came upon them giving them other languages and messages from God.
This experience was not normative for all new believers in other cities. But the message of the gospel confers the presence of the Holy Spirit upon all who believe and understand the truth about Jesus. We receive the Spirit when we receive Christ. Baptism shows us this symbolically. What difference does the Holy Spirit really make in our lives? All. What is an escalator that does not work? Stairs. Metal stairs. So is a church or a believer without the Spirit, unable to move.
A.W. Tozer once said, “ If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.” David Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked his reformed Baptist congregation: “If you received all of the Holy Spirit at your conversion, what have you done with Him?” Good question. What have we done with the Spirit? He is not done with us.
As the Holy Spirit transformed these twelve men in Ephesus, so he transforms us. Without the Spirit we are not Christians. Do we bear the fruit of the Spirit? Have we received the gifts of the Spirit? Everybody who knows us already knows. Do we know the Spirit? Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25).
