The outpouring of the Spirit is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. To the Holy Spirit it is an outpouring, but to Christ the Head it is a baptism.
The Lord Jesus referred to the baptism in the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5. “John indeed baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This has been accomplished in two sections involving the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. Therefore, in 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks.” Since the Spirit is the sphere and element of our spiritual baptism and in the Spirit we were all baptized into one organic entity, the Body of Christ, so we should all, regardless of our races, nationalities, and social ranks, be this one Body. It is in the one Spirit that we were all baptized into the one living Body to express Christ.
First, the outpouring of the Spirit was on the one hundred twenty believers (Acts 1:15; 2:1-4). On the day of Pentecost the Jewish believers, the first part of the Body, were baptized.
After the Jewish believers had been baptized in the Holy Spirit for the formation of the church, the Gentile believers were baptized in the Spirit in the same way (Acts 10:24, 44-47a). The Holy Spirit fell upon those who heard the word in the house of Cornelius outwardly and economically. In the case of the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit’s entering into the believers essentially for life and falling upon them economically for power took place simultaneously when they believed in the Lord. However, only His falling upon them economically is noted in Acts 10:46, because it was outward and could be realized by others by their speaking in tongues and praising God, whereas His entering into them took place silently and invisibly. They received both aspects of the Holy Spirit directly from Christ the Head of the Body, without any mediatorial channel, before they were baptized in water by other members of the Body of Christ. This indicates emphatically that the Head of the Body baptized the Gentile believers into His Body directly. The Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius received the Holy Spirit economically, as the early apostles and the Jewish believers did on the day of Pentecost, directly from the ascended Head.
Peter’s word in Acts 11 proves that what happened in the house of Cornelius was the second step in Christ’s baptizing His Body in the Holy Spirit once for all. Peter said, “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as also on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John indeed baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit” (vv. 15-16). Therefore, the record in Acts strongly indicates that only two cases-that of the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost and that of the Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius-are considered the baptism in the Holy Spirit. In these two instances the Head Himself did something directly on His Body for the formation of the church. By these two steps the Head of the Body baptized all His believers once for all, both Jewish and Gentile, into His one Body. Hence, the baptism in the Spirit is an accomplished fact carried out by Christ in His ascension both on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius for the formation of the universal church, His Body.
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