Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 101:402 (Apr 1944)
Article: The Baptism with the Holy Spirit Part 1
Author: Merrill Frederick Unger

BSac 101:402 (Apr 44) p. 232

The Baptism with the Holy Spirit
Part 1

Merrill Frederick Unger

The Baptism with the Holy Spirit Misstated and Confused

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is one of the most vital and important of Scriptural doctrines. Its vast significance can readily be appreciated when it is realized that it is that divine operation of God’s Spirit which places the believer “in Christ,” in His mystical Body, the Church, and which makes him one with all other believers in Christ, one in life, the very life of the Son of God Himself, one in Him, a common Head, one in sharing His common salvation, hope and destiny. Indeed, but a cursory consideration will reveal the paramount import, and the sweeping ramifications of this vital Bible theme, affecting, as it does, so intimately and vitally the believer’s position and experience, his standing and state.

The astonishing thing, however, is that a subject of such momentous importance, with such far-reaching effects upon Christian position and practice, should suffer so woefully at the hands of both its enemies and friends. From its enemies it has suffered not so much from open hostility or opposition, as from chronic neglect. It is simply ignored, or at most treated superficially. Those who reject dispensational teaching, who posit an “all-time grace covenant,” who make no adequate distinction between the “assembly” of Israel in the wilderness in the Old Testament, and the Church as the Body of Christ in the New Testament, simply do not know what to do with it. It remains, and must continue to remain, a Scriptural conundrum, to all such.

If this doctrine has suffered at the hands of its enemies,

BSac 101:402 (Apr 44) p. 233

it has especially been wounded in the house of its friends. Large groups of earnest and well-meaning, but poorly taught, Christians, in evident reaction against the neglect and omissions, which have attended this truth, have taken it to heart, according to it great emphasis and prominence. In their zeal and enthusiasm, however, they have not always confined themselves to clear and accurate Scriptural statement. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a Biblical theme used at once to teach deeper spiritual living, and yet at the same time subject to more misconception, misstatement and confusion, than this one. Nowhere in the whole range of Biblical theology is there greater need for precise and correct statement of vital truth than in the field of this doctrine. But what are the reasons for misconception and misstatement? Whence does confusion arise? These questions are pertinent, and touch at the heart of the matter. And so first to be considered are

I. The Causes of Confusion

1. The First Cause of Conf...