Chapter 2 - Baptism of the Holy Spirit

Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the divine explosion within the innermost part of man which brings to the surface all things good and evil.

If you don’t find an interior revolution which will affect the external, I question your experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

1. The Holy Spirit is always the dynamic, the power for any of the things God will do. It was the Holy Spirit working in the Old Testament in every sign and miracle. God is causation; Jesus executes the will; the Holy Spirit accomplishes the work.

2. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is the dynamic by which the mystical Body of Christ can be formed, and the emphasis of God today, dispensationally, is that of getting His Body ready, shaped up, filled with life, vision, hope, so that He can take her home. That is His great program!

It is time people got acquainted with the objective for which this marvelous, unheard of outpouring was sent!

God’s first thought is not what we can do, but what we can become.

Works are subservient to what we become.

Jesus said He would call us out; He would train us; give us discipline; He would give us all that was needed in the way of separation, and light, and illumination, and, most of all, the terrible training which was necessary to conform us into the image and likeness of Himself—the Bridegroom, because we would be the Bride. The Bride must have some features like unto the Bridegroom. He will begin to restore, reshape, repattern, and redesign in us—in this Body with the features that are becoming here, so that some day we may be taken out of this earth, and united with Him, and projected into the things of the eternal ages. For in Ephesians it says that through the Church, He will show His glory and grace in ages to come. This is the instrument. So He says, “Ye shall be unto Me My witness in the world.” The power of the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and immerse you into what He is, and Who He is, and YOU will BECOME identified with Him.

“. . . Ye shall be witnesses unto Me . . .” (Acts 1:8b) Become this thing: a witness unto God—unto God first. Become unto Me: a process: All Swings to the glory of God. That is the real functioning; that is the ultimate.

“Ye shall become,”—not DO! I believe in Works—absolutely. But I want it in its order in God, in the Spirit. He doesn’t say a thing we are going to do. He says something that we are becoming; something that we will become. Why? Under the dynamic of this Spirit; He will immerse us under its power.—He will not destroy our individuality or our personality concept and fundament of being, He will not do that. He wants every kind, everyone of us, but it shall be an immersion—you go out of sight! You go out of sight! You are not sprinkled.

If you ever get the real baptism of the Spirit, the ‘you’ is lost, your identity, your manifestation—the ‘you’ is submerged—out of sight. All of that potential of the ‘you’ that Wants to get into prominence, it is out of sight; it is buried; buried! He says, “I will immerse you, I will baptize you in the Spirit and under the impact and power of this dynamic, you shall become unto Me in the world My witness.” Why is it that Jesus should say to them on this occasion: “Ye shall become . . .”? It is a verb of being, not of action. However, in order to build this Body, we will find He will give us so many things to occupy us, but all of that is reactionary—the effect; the reaction from the doing reflects right back again to the Body. That is why we contribute to the building of the Body. Becoming is a process. The Holy Spirit was given in that baptism for the building and making of this Body.

Why did Paul pray as he did? Did you ever look at the prayers of Paul? Go into the New Testament and follow all the prayers of Paul and see what the burden of them was. Every last prayer that is mentioned was concerning this Body; it was concerning the believers; it was concerning those who were incorporated in this mystical thing. The burden of prayer on Paul’s heart was the completion and the building and making of this Body. What is the burden on the heart of Jesus? The redemption of the world? No—He had died for the world, He can’t do any more than that! His prayer in John 17 is, “I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine.” The Holy Spirit is praying “for the saints according to the will of God.”

The submerging of the Spirit is the only dynamic by which this Body can be built and brought to completion.