God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a
sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). There are 366 ‘Fear nots’ in the Bible, I’m
told, one for each day of the year – including leap year! So when we
ask our loving heavenly Father for good gifts, for his Holy Spirit
(Matthew 7:7-11, Luke 11:1-13) he delights to give. Mind you, he’s the
‘God whose other name is Surprise’: his good gifts may be different
from our expectations. He is wise and loving, and gives what is best
for his different children.

The ‘Lord’s prayer’ varies a little between Matthew and Luke. So
it’s not meant to be said parrot-fashion, but rather provides the
general idea about the content of our praying. We have two requests in
relation to God: ‘May your name be hallowed’ and ‘May your kingdom
come’, then three requests about ourselves – in relation to things,
sins, and tests.

Then Luke gives us two of Jesus’ parables – the ‘friend at midnight’
and ‘fathers and sons’. They teach us that our praying should be urgent
(God is not reluctant to give, but his best gifts come to those who are
really ‘fair dinkum’: we’ll find him if we search for him with all our
hearts). And, arguing from the lesser to the greater, Jesus tells us
that if human parents, faulty and sinful as they are, won’t give harmful
things to their kids, how much more will God, who is wholly good, answer
our prayers aright. Then follows an interesting passage about spiritual
discernment (Luke 11:14-36).

Now, for the ‘crunch’ question: when we pray for God’s Holy Spirit,
what may we expect to happen? The Pentecostalists tell us that the full
reception of the Holy Spirit happens in an event ‘distinct from and
subsequent to’ conversion. This second experience, the initial evidence
for which is speaking in tongues, gives a Christian power for witness
and service through exercising the full range of the New Testament
‘spiritual gifts’. The ‘Neo- Pente- costalists’ in the 1960s had
roughly the same approach. Dennis Bennett exhorted people to receive
Jesus Christ as Saviour, renounce false teaching in the cults, and ask
in faith to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and normally they would then
receive the gift of tongues. Briefly, the biblical accounts upon which
this general approach is based, are to be found in the Gospels and Acts,
and involve such precedents as Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit and
later baptism in the Spirit, the disciples’ ‘receiving the Spirit’ when
Jesus breathed upon them, and their later experience at Pentecost, etc.

Evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, have stressed that you
mustn’t build doctrines from these events, but rather ask ‘What do the
N.T. letters to various churches teach us?’ And only once is ‘Baptizing
in the Spirit’ referred to here (I Corinthians 12:12-13).

And so the battle-lines formed, and the troops became entrenched
within their fixed positions. It’s been something like the French
Maginot Line in World War 2. It faced the equally impregnable Siegfried
Line. Each army was safe behind its ramparts but unable to advance.
Suddenly the German panzer divisions moved swiftly around these fixed
positions and rolled into Paris without a pitched battle. The Maginot
Line remained impregnable, but unfortunately for the French its powerful
guns were in the wrong place pointing the wrong way!

So with our little theologies. We fight our wars, protect territory
already won, and are often ill prepared to take new ground. ‘For
decades Pentecostal and traditional theologies of the Baptism in the
Spirit faced each other along one major doctrinal battle line. Then
suddenly the Holy Spirit moved around these fixed positions to
infiltrate charismatic renewal behind the lines in mainline Protestant
and Roman Catholic churches’ (Charles Hummel, ‘Fire in the Fireplace’,
IVP, p. 189).

Paul tells his Ephesian friends ‘God has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing’ (1:3). When a person becomes a Christian (and that
happens in many different ways), he or she may not then realize all
that’s happened. The idea of ‘justification’, for example, may come much
later. But it happened earlier! So we mustn’t put a strait-jacket on
this experience. It can happen dramatically (if the person was running
hard from God beforehand, for example) or quite matter-of-factly!

So with the Holy Spirit. Luke and Paul, for example, are writing
from different perspectives. Luke describes the operations of the
Spirit giving believers power for witness in the world – and that can be
repeatable. Paul talks about the Spirit incorporating us into the Body
of Christ – that’s once-for-all. Paul’s talking about the initiating
function of the Spirit, Luke his ‘overwhelming’ activity. Luke uses the
terms ‘baptized’ and ‘filled’ interchangeably. Paul uses other
experessions – ‘regenerating’, ‘sealing’, ‘sanctifying’ etc. Luke is
descriptive, Paul didactic. Luke talks about an outward manifestation;
Paul an inward one.

An event may be described different ways (the death of Christ, for
example). And N.T. words can have different meanings in different
contexts (Paul has perhaps five separate meanings for ‘flesh’).
‘Baptism’ is used in the Scriptures as a flexible metaphor, not merely a
technical term. Clark Pinnock says: ‘So long as we recognize
conversion as truly a baptism in the Spirit, there is no reason why we
cannot use ‘baptism’ to refer to subsequent fillings of the Spirit as
well. This later experience, or experiences, should not be tied in with
a tight ‘second blessing’ schema, but should be seen as an actualization
of what we have already received in the initial charismatic experience
which is conversion’. I like that.

Both Luke and Paul would agree that Christians ought to ‘Go on being
filled with the Holy Spirit’. If the Spirit gives gifts, O.K. Receive
them gladly and use them for the glory of Christ, and to promote love
and unity in his Body. (If these three outcomes are not likely to
happen, then the gifts should be wisely and sensitively restrained,
according to Paul.) (Incidentally, I think we’ll be looking back onto
these past eighty years and wonder why we’ve made such a fuss about the
gift of tongues. Surveys in the U.S. and Latin America show that most
Pentecostals don’t regularly use this gift.) Are you filled with God’s
Holy Spirit? Are you disciplined in your daily life of obedience to
Christ? I’m not asking about feelings or experiences: I’m asking ‘Is
your life open to the love and power of God?’ Well……..?

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