What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? And are there two kinds of Christians—those who receive this blessing and those who do not? In this sermon, R.C. Sproul examines the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Jews and gentiles alike and discusses what this means for the church today.

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.

Then Peter answered, “Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay a few days.

Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, saying, “You went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them!”

But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning, saying: “I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came to me. When I observed it intently and considered, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I said, ‘Not so, Lord! For nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.’ But the voice answered me again from heaven, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common.’ Now this was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven. At that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent to me from Caesarea. Then the Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. And he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, ‘Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon whose surname is Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?”

When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. You may be seated.

Our God, as we contemplate the importance and significance of the narrative we have just heard, we pray that the same Holy Spirit who is the subject of attention in this historical account may help us understand its meaning and application to our lives today. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Spirit’s Repetition

If you have been listening for the last few sermons, you know that we have spent considerable time in Acts 10, where we have the episode of Peter’s visit to Cornelius’ household, Peter’s vision of unclean food, the abrogation of the dietary laws of the Old Testament, and Peter’s preaching of the gospel to Cornelius and his family.

It seems that if you have missed some of the in-between sermons, it would be like one of those segments of a soap opera. If you miss five or six sessions in a row and pick up the next episode, it seems like nothing has happened in the meantime. For some reason, Luke gives us the same story over and over again in this section of his book. One might suggest that Luke suffered from writers’ block and forgot what he had said in the previous paragraphs, so he kept repeating himself. But I doubt that, as he was inspired by God the Holy Spirit to write this account.

We must ask the higher question: Why would the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, be so repetitive in this section of the book of Acts? The only answer I can give, from someone who has been in a vocation of teaching for forty years, is that if you want to get a point across to the students, you cannot just give it to them once. Learning comes through repetition.

Whatever we are to learn in this section of the book of Acts, God the Holy Spirit has seen fit to repeat, which underscores what I told you at the beginning of Acts 10: in my judgment, this is one of the most important chapters in the New Testament. I also want to stress its importance because I believe it is one of the most misunderstood and confused portions of Scripture in our day. Having said that by way of preface, let us go to the text.

The Outpouring on the Gentiles

I am not going to look at the text verse by verse because I have already looked at most of the verses as they occurred earlier. So, let us begin at Acts 10:44, where we left off last week when Peter gave the gospel, the kerygma, to those who were there: “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision”—that is, the Jewish contingent—“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.”

We read in the narrative that while Peter was still preaching, suddenly the Spirit of God was poured out on the gentiles. Those who were Jews recognized the Spirit’s outpouring because the same manifestation that had occurred in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost occurred here as the gentile converts began speaking in tongues.

It is important to note that something happened here that also happened back in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Notice how Luke tells us that when the Spirit fell, it fell upon all those gentile believers. If you recall the record of the day of Pentecost, when the Jewish believers were assembled, the Holy Ghost was poured out on all the Jewish believers. It was not as though some of those Jewish believers who were present at Pentecost received the outpouring of the Spirit, while others missed it. In like manner, when the Spirit was poured out to the gentiles here, it was not as though Cornelius and a few others received the Spirit and others did not. Rather, among believers both at Pentecost and in Cornelius’ household, every single one of them received the gift or outpouring of the Holy Ghost. I stress that for a reason, which we will look at momentarily, but let me ask you to indulge an anecdotal episode from my own life.

The Victorious Christian Life

When I became a Christian in 1957, my conversion was the most significant watershed moment of my entire life. It conditioned everything that followed from it. Indeed, in my conversion, my life was turned upside down because instantly, by the power of the Holy Ghost, I was changed from a child of darkness to a child of light.

Previously, before my regeneration, before my rebirth by the power of God the Holy Spirit, I had no interest in the things of God. Suddenly, I was in love with the things of God. Christ has been just a religious name or a swear word that frequented my lips, but now Christ became the sweetest thing in all the world to me. In manifold ways, my life changed dramatically from day one of my conversion.

But here is one thing that did not happen after my conversion: my sin did not stop. My life changed in dramatic ways, yes, but there were still patterns of sin that I brought with me into the Christian life with which I struggled every day. At times I would wake up and ask myself: “Am I really a Christian? How can I be a Christian and think these things? How can I be a Christian and say these things? How can I be a Christian and do such things?” Sometimes, I was hanging onto the cross by my fingernails, particularly in that first year.

What exasperated me was that in the providence of God, I was given the opportunity to be a roommate with an upper classman who was the most godly student in the college. He was a straight-A student, a state-champion trumpet player who played the sweetest trumpet, always listened Christian music, and I never heard him use a foul word, get angry, fail to do his chores, or exhibit laziness. Everything with which I was struggling, he had completely under control.

I could not stand it after a while. I finally asked him, “Larry, tell me, what’s the secret?” Larry answered, “The secret is the second blessing.” I asked, “What’s that?” Larry was a member of what was called a “Holiness” church in those days, and he believed that in addition to the Spirit’s instantaneous work of regeneration in a person’s life, the Holy Spirit makes available a second work to Christians that instantly gives them the victorious Christian life, instantly filling them with the Spirit and perfecting their will and heart. If somebody came to you as a Christian and said, “There is a second blessing that results in no more sin in your life, leaving nothing but victory and the fullness of the Holy Spirit made manifest in your Christian walk,” would you want it? I really wanted it. I told Larry: “This is what I’ve been looking for. How can I get it?” He responded: “That’s easy. I’ll call the pastor and make an appointment, and he’ll give the laying on of hands, and you’ll receive the second blessing of sanctification.”

Larry set up the appointment, and I met with the minister, and he told me to kneel. I knelt, and he put his hands on my head and prayed for me to receive the blessing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which was obviously lacking in my life. He prayed, and I prayed along with him. The next day, I was still struggling with the sins I had been struggling with before, and I could only say, “Lord, it may work with some people, but in Your sovereignty, You haven’t been pleased to give me the second blessing.”

I did not know anything about theology. I did not know anything about ecclesiology. I had never heard of Pentecostalism or Holiness churches that had this view of a second work of grace. But then I began to study it as I was studying the Word of God, and I realized that historic Pentecostalism believed that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which they see as a second work of grace, is given to those who seek it for sanctification unto perfection.

Pentecostals teach the idea of the victorious Christian life, which they believe some Christians have and other Christians do not. Those who do not have it can have it, since it is available to all. But, they say, it is only realized by those who earnestly seek it.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

What I have explained above was the basic thrust of Pentecostalism at the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, a very important event took place in California, in Los Angeles, at the Azusa Street Mission, where there was an outbreak of speaking in tongues, which they believed was a new visitation of God’s charismata, His charismatic gifts, ushering in the latter rain of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to our day.

For the most part, the charismatic movement for the first half of the twentieth century was contained within the confines of Pentecostal churches, Assemblies of God, and so on. But in the middle of the century, it burst out of the small confines of the Holiness churches and began to manifest itself in the mainline churches.

Tongues speaking and other so-called charicmatic gifts broke out at the University of Notre Dame in the Roman Catholic community and at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. It broke out in the Lutheran church, the Methodist church, the Episcopalian church, and even among the frozen chosen Presbyterians. Church historians will look at the second half of the twentieth century and say the most significant movement in church history in our day was the charismatic movement, with the revival of interest in tongues speaking and charismatic gifts.

Several things have happened with the advent of the charismatic movement. By invading various denominations, Pentecostal theology stopped being monolithic and singular because the theology of the charismatic movement was tweaked by whatever denomination in which it occurred. The Presbyterians would give it some Calvinism, the Lutherans would give it some Lutheranism, and the Methodists would give it a little more Arminianism than it already had. As a result, there is not a simple, standard, unified doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

If there is such a thing as a prevailing neo-Pentecostal theology in our day, it holds certain premises, two of which you will hear often, although not everybody holds to them. The majority of neo-Pentecostals hold that, first, not all Christians have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is available to all but not possessed by all. Second, the majority believe that the indispensable sign for having received the baptism of the Spirit is speaking in tongues, or glossolalia.

If you have been a Christian for some time, you have likely encountered this viewpoint. When the theology of neo-Pentecostal, charismatic thinking is articulated, the primary basis for their theological conclusions are inferences drawn from the narratives of the book of Acts. For example, in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, there were people gathered who were already believers, but Pentecost had not happened yet. There was a time gap between coming to faith and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. The same thing was true at Caesarea in Cornelius’ household. Cornelius was already a believer, and then later the Holy Ghost fell on him. The same thing happened among the Samaritans and the Ephesians in the book of Acts (Acts 8:14–17; 19:1–7).

Seeing these things, charismatics say, “I read the book of Acts, and I see what’s normative or normal in the Christian life is that first you get the Holy Spirit at conversion, but the baptism comes at some point later on.” In neo-Pentecostal theology, it is a second work of grace wherein the point of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not to make you perfect but rather to empower you for ministry and make you a more effective witness for Jesus Christ.

To summarize, charismatics embrace the idea of a time gap drawn from the book of Acts, resulting in the idea that there are some Christians who have the second blessing, or the baptism of Holy Ghost, and there are other Christians who do not have the baptism of the Holy Ghost. There are the haves and the have-nots, which is completely different from the conclusions the Apostles drew from the narratives of the book of Acts.

No Christian Excluded

When the disciples in Jerusalem heard about the Spirit falling upon the gentiles and Peter explained what happened in Cornelius’ household, the conclusion the Bible makes is not that there are two kinds of Christians; it is just the opposite. The point is that all the believers in Jerusalem received the Spirit. All the believers at the household of Cornelius received the Spirit.

The inference drawn by the Apostles from the narrative history was that God was pouring out His Spirit, as the Old Testament had prophesied, upon all believers. The Apostle Paul taught this when he wrote to the Corinthians and said, “Were we not all baptized into the same Spirit?”

Biblically, there is absolutely no warrant for teaching an event called the baptism of the Holy Spirit that only some Christians receive but not all. Every time the Spirit is poured out in this manner in Scripture, the Scripture is jealous to point out that all who were present receive the Spirit.

A couple of things I have to say about this may be confusing to you. I am saying that among Christians who are true Christians, there is no such thing as haves and have-nots. Anyone who is a Christian is born of the Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit, has been baptized by the Holy Spirit, and is empowered by God for ministry.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as regeneration. Regeneration is not the same thing as the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. We can make distinctions about the work of the Holy Spirit, but the point is that all these gifts of the Spirit in terms of indwelling and empowering are given at conversion, with no time difference.

Does that mean there are no haves and have-nots in the church? No, and this is where it could become confusing. I am sure that with respect to the Holy Ghost, there are some who gather in church who have Him and some people who do not. The ones who do not are the unconverted.

It is possible for a person to be in the church all his life, sing the hymns every Sunday, pay his tithes, say his prayers, read the Bible, profess faith in Christ, and be unregenerate, not having the Holy Ghost dwelling in his soul. But if you are a Christian, then you have the Holy Ghost in His fullness, in His full redemptive work. There is no second blessing out there that is going to fix all your problems in the lifelong pursuit of godliness, which is not instantaneous, because sanctification takes the whole of our lifetime.

Experience Versus the Word

Let us go back to the text, picking up in verse 47 with the words of Peter: “‘Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay a few days.”

Peter made the same inference as Scripture does elsewhere when he spoke to the delegation from Jerusalem: the meaning of the Holy Spirit falling upon the gentiles is that the gentiles are included in the body of Christ. They get the covenant sign of water baptism. How can water baptism be withheld when that which water baptism signifies, in part, is the baptism of the Spirit? If the gentiles have received the baptism of the Spirit, then certainly they are eligible for full membership in the church, and so we must baptize them with water.

With all of that being the case, why is it that we still have multitudes of people who want to divide the work of the Spirit between the haves and the have-nots and are still looking for some secret remedy for the besetting sin that occurs in life? The basic testimony of some people is this: “I was a Christian for ten or twenty years, but my prayer life was weak and my prayers seemed impotent. I did not live as if I had the power of the Holy Ghost. Then I went to a meeting, somebody laid hands on me, I began to speak in tongues, and now my life is changed. My prayer life is rich. I love to pray. It is not a mere duty. I have experienced an entirely new excitement about my Christian life, and I have made a quantum leap in my spiritual growth since I received the baptism of the Spirit.”

A person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument. I do not argue with people’s experiences. If they come and tell me that since they started speaking and praying in tongues, that they have gone through great growth in their spiritual life, I say: “Praise the Lord. It is not your experience I am challenging. It is your understanding of your experience that I am challenging based on the Word.” This is where we get into trouble. Before you know it, experience becomes the law of the Christian life. They say, “It happened to me like this; therefore, that is the way it must happen to everybody.”

Differentiation in Experiences

We absolutize our experiences not only with the baptism of the Holy Spirit but also with conversion. I can tell you the day and hour I became a Christian, but there are multitudes of people who say: “I never had a life-transforming experience like that, so I can’t tell you exactly when I was saved.”

It is like the difference between Billy Graham and Ruth Graham. Billy Graham can tell you about the night he went to hear an evangelist, Mordecai Ham, after playing baseball in North Carolina, and boom, the lights came on, and he was converted and became the Billy Graham we know. Ruth Graham, who was born and raised in a Calvinistic household, cannot tell you within five years of when she was converted.

Sometimes people with sudden conversions are suspicious of people who did not have a sudden conversion. Others, who become aware of their faith gradually, begin to suspect those who think that they can name the day and the hour. But the issue is not how you became a Christian, or when you became a Christian, but did you become a Christian?

We also must understand that no two of us come into the Christian life at the same point in development. We all bring different baggage into our life. Sins that you struggle with may be sins I put away the first week I was a Christian, whereas things that never bothered you may take me forty years to deal with because no two of us are at the same point in our Christian growth.

Never against the Word

The point of this text in Acts is that God’s Holy Spirit has been poured out on every Christian. If you are in Christ, you have His Holy Ghost, and there is no magic bullet that will get you out of your weakness instantly. There is no substitute for making diligent use of the means of grace and diligently pursuing the truth of God through the Word of God because the Spirit—beloved, please hear this—the Spirit of God works with the Word, through the Word, and never, ever against the Word.

I wish I had a dollar for every person who told me that the Spirit led them to do something that the Word of God forbids: “The Spirit led me. I felt His leading.” This is Gnosticism with a vengeance. I ask, “What about what the Bible says?” I often get an answer like this: “I prayed about it, and the Spirit gave me peace.” No, He did not. God the Holy Spirit is holy, and He is the Spirit of truth. Do not ever blame Him for the peace you feel for your sin.

The Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin. He does not cause you to surrender to your sin. That is the danger of elevating experience over the Word. We want it the easy way, the quick way. But there is no easy way. The power is there. It is already in you. We are to live as Christians without having to speak in tongues to be able to verify that the Spirit is with us.

Let me say this publicly: when I came across the charismatic movement in the sixties, nobody took a greater interest in it than I did. I dove into the charismatic movement headfirst. I can say to you with the Apostle Paul, “I thank my God that I can speak in tongues more than you all.”

I have personally heard at least fifty people give specific prophecies in my lifetime. They spoke in tongues, then gave an interpretation of the tongues, “Thus saith the Lord,” and then gave me concrete prophecies of specific events that were going to take place. If I heard fifty of them, the results were zero for fifty, which creates a crisis of faith for people who are caught up in this movement.

Christianity is not magic, and God has not given us the power to bend spoons or visualize world peace and make it happen. That is magic. That is new age. That is tearing the church away from the will of God.

When I taught college and was involved in this movement, I had groups of students who were also involved in it, and we met in my house almost every single night. We would usually start praying at seven, and we prayed at least until midnight, five hours every night. More than once, we prayed until the next morning, until I had to go and teach my eight o’clock class in which they were enrolled, and they went to bed.

If you want people to pray for you who really love to pray, get your charismatic friends to pray, because they do love to pray and they believe in the power of God. That is great. The downside is that pretty soon, experience becomes the authority rather than the Word. It used upset me—all these promises, predictions, prophecies, and words of knowledge that were not coming to pass.

Out of self-defense, I said, “If I want to know what the Spirit is saying and where the Spirit is leading, then I am going to the Spirit’s book.” It is like Ulysses tying himself to the mast. I tied myself to the Word. It is the Word I trust, not my inner light or my hunches, which I can confuse with indigestion. We are called to test the spirits to see if they are of God. The litmus test for the leading of the Holy Ghost, who does indeed lead us at times, is the Word of God.

The Spirit’s Power

The Holy Spirit is alive. He is well. He is powerful. If you are in Christ, and Christ is in you, then God the Holy Spirit is in your heart and soul, and you have received what was promised in the Old Testament. My problem with Pentecostalism is that it has too low a view of Pentecost. It does not understand that the Old Testament promise for Pentecost is that the outpouring of God would not be given just to some but to all who were in the covenant by faith. If you have Jesus, you have the Holy Ghost.

Maybe you have not done as much with the Holy Ghost as the Holy Ghost would like. Maybe you have grieved the Holy Spirit, and maybe you have been a lazy Christian. Maybe you have been infants in your growth. But you received at your conversion all the power you’ll ever need to be a witness to the world. That is the point that Peter was making.

At the end of our text, Peter relayed what Jesus said: “John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Peter continued, “If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?”

Luke continues his record of the event: “When they heard these things they (the Judaizers) became silent; and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.’” That is the significance of the gentile Pentecost, that we are all brought into the body of Christ. Let us pray.

Father, we thank You that You have not left us without power to live the life You have called us to live. We thank You for the power of the indwelling Holy Ghost. We pray that You would cause us to stir up the gift that is already within us, and that we may not be deluded by false doctrine, but that we may test the spirits by Your Word to make sure that we are doing what You have called us to do. Father, forgive us for the weakness of our sanctification, for our failure to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and stir up within our souls a deep desire to know You in Your fullness. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.