The Church is unique, and the Church Age believers are living under the divine system of privilege. They belong to a highly superior position and great opportunity; they are the nobility of heaven residing on the face of earth. Every Church Age believer holds the rights and privileges of heaven while living on earth. God has marvelously provisioned us and systematically instructed us to walk worthy of such privileges. These privileges are unique to the Church Age:

  • The baptism of the Holy Spirit
  •   The protocol plan of God
  •  Mystery doctrine
  • The invisible assets
  • The equality factor
  • Royal commissions
  • The indwelling Trinity
  • The available divine power
  •   The absence of prophecy
  •  Invisible heroes

These privileges form a single balance whole. Each complements the others. As the believer learns what his assets are and how to use them, they begin to function together as an integrated system. Awareness and consistent use of these assets keep the believer moving in the Christian way of life. These privileges constitute the unique meaning of Christian life, purpose, and define the very designed God has for the Church.

JR Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries

 

THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is once a lifetime experience of the Church Age believers. At the moment of salvation, God the Holy Spirit places every believer into permanent union with Christ (Galatians 3:1-5, 14, 26-27, Ephesians 4:4-5). This immediate ministry of the Holy Spirit is called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It occurs at the very moment an individual believe and receive the free gift of salvation in Christ. It creates an everlasting union with God.

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12; 12-13).

The baptism of the Holy Spirit sets the believer apart from unbelievers and apart from believers of all other dispensations. Every Church believer is sanctified in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2, 30) for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:13-140. The baptism of the Holy Spirit created a new spiritual royalty, set apart for the maximum glorification of Jesus Christ.

The purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is to link and unite permanently the Church Age believer to Christ and to make the power system of the Hypostatic union and the Church Age readily available to the believer.

There is nothing mystical about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and there is no need for second experience. The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs apart from human manipulation and will. No human being can command God to make certain action demanded by men. The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs under the divine process of imputation of eternal life – the life of God to the believer.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit creates the Trinity to reside in the believer. At the point of salvation, God restored the human spirit of an individual to be the residence of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), which guarantees the eternal security of the believer. In the OT Israel, there was no baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not permanently given to believers.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the filling of the Holy Spirit, just as it is not an experience or the work of grace after salvation, and it is not and never was, speaking of tongues. Those who failed to carefully distinguish the baptism of the Holy Spirit from spiritual gifts sincerely but inaccurately thought that the baptism of the Holy Spirit involves speaking in tongues.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at the moment of salvation for all Church Age believers, while the gift of tongues operated only in the post-salvation experience of a few first-century Christians. The phenomenon of tongues was a temporary spirit gifts designed to warm Israel of impending national judgment (Isaiah 28:11) and evangelism. The listeners but not the speakers evangelized Jews in gentile languages understood. The gift of tongues practiced by few believers during the pre-canon period of the Church Age dramatizes the Jews failure to evangelize the Gentiles.

The gift of tongues was a miraculous sign to alert Israel to her decadence, which is why, no one, has legitimately spoken in tongues since A.D. 70, when Jerusalem fell, and the purpose for this temporary gift expired. “If there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away” (1 Corinthians 13:8b).

The gift of tongues ceased long ago, but the baptism of the Spirit occurs in every generation of the Church age, and it never involves human emotion or ecstatic experience, because genuine baptism of the Spirit has absolutely no relation to feelings. The believer may be elated or feel nothing at the moment of salvation. Regardless how a person feels in that initial instant of faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit unites him with Christ forever.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit comes unnoticed and without warning. No human being can sense or detect the baptism of the Holy Spirit in any way. No senses (sight, hearing, touch, or smell) can confirm this spiritual event in the life of a person. The spiritual ministry of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation is known only through Bible doctrine, which the believer learns after salvation.

No person has the authority or power to command or demand the Holy Spirit to baptize an individual or group of individuals. The Holy Spirit will never submit, obey, or listen to human pleading or begging under the guise of powerful prayer of cultic preachers.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is never earned nor deserved by the believer. God give this fabulous gift by grace, totally without regard for human merit or human good works. Eternal union with Christ is complete at the very moment of salvation, accomplished entirely by the grace of God before any believer has a chance to perceive his spiritual position in Christ or learn about this thing. Baptism of the Holy Spirit comes before spiritual growth, Christian service, or knowledge of salvation.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not progressive and cannot be improved, since the ministry of the baptism of the Holy Spirit has permanent and eternal effect. Never in all eternity can it be undone, lost, canceled, or render void by anything, and never does it need to be repeated (Romans 8:38- ).

The spiritual impostors have created their own “reverse version” of baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is fill with ecstatic emotions and mystical rituals. The primary purpose of baptism of the Spirit is to permanently link the saints to Christ, not to show off the “spiritual power’ of the cultic preachers.

JR Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries

 

   

 

 

 ©2005-20079  J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries