Filled with the Spirit

The visitor greeted me after the service, said she appreciated the sermon, was glad to be there, and so forth, just like guests and regular attenders do every Sunday in most every church on the planet. She remarked about how something I had said connected with something with which she was struggling. I smiled and shook her hand.

Then out of the blue she asked, “Are you baptized with the Holy Spirit?” I said, “Yes.” She smiled. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed our church’s resident “misplaced charismatic” grinning from ear to ear. It’s a shame I never got the chance to tell her what I meant.

Some Christians seem to barely get by in their spiritual lives. They never seem to make any progress. Prayer and Bible reading are always met with distractions. They act like they’ve been beaten up spiritually. Yet there are other Christians who seem to be firing on all cylinders and moving full speed ahead. What explains the difference? What gives this second kind of Christian such vitality? According to the Bible, one key difference is the activity of the Holy Spirit.

The book of Acts gives several examples of people experiencing the Holy Spirit in various ways. Often the term used to describe these experiences is that these people were “filled” with the Holy Spirit. This term has generated much confusion in the church. Part of the problem is that the Bible describes three different kinds of encounters with the Holy Spirit, using four different Greek expressions.

“Receiving” the Spirit

The first Greek word is lambano, meaning “receive.” This terminology is used to describe Christian conversion, and it points out that the Holy Spirit is a reality in a Christian’s life from the very beginning.

Sometimes, this conversion experience is described in dramatic terms. For example, in Acts 10:44-48, the household of Cornelius began speaking in tongues and praising God when they were converted. Similar manifestations are noted in Acts 19:1-7 with the conversion of “the First Baptist Church of Ephesus,” those who were baptized by John the Baptist and had never heard of the Holy Spirit

Some will wonder about the danger of emotionalism if such experiences are encouraged. To that I would say that there are no doubt many spiritual dangers facing the churches of which I have been a part for the past forty-some years, but unrestrained emotionalism has rarely been one of them! Rather, the danger for most of us in our relationship with God is not emotionalism but the lack of emotion. Every loving relationship involves emotions. There must be more than emotion‚ things like friendship, communication, honesty, trust, and so forth‚ but if I never showed emotion toward the people I love, something would be missing.

Of course, there is such a thing as emotionalism, when emotional expressions take priority over solid teaching. That is to be avoided at all costs. Yet our relationship with God should involve our whole personality: not just our minds but also our hearts.

Still, in other passages of the New Testament, conversion is not accompanied by dramatic manifestations. Rather, it is a more subtle (but equally valid) experience. Paul especially highlights this kind of conversion experience. For example, he writes:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. (Ro 8:15)

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. (1 Co 2:12)

Our experience of receiving the Spirit thus confirms within us that we are God’s children and gives us an understanding of all God’s gifts. I would argue, with all due respect to my Pentecostal and charismatic friends, that this initial “receiving” of the Holy Spirit in conversion is what is being described by the terminology of being “baptized with” (Greek baptizo en) the Holy Spirit, which refers to an experience shared by all believers in each of the three verses in which it is found (Ac 1:15; 11:16; 1 Co 12:13). (That is what I meant when I told that visitor that I was “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” I know that isn’t what she meant by asking the question, but you can’t really do Bible study in the greet-the-preacher line after morning worship.)

I have a vivid recollection of the time when I “received” and “was baptized by” the Holy Spirit. I know where I was and who was with me.

Being “Filled” (or “Full of”) the Spirit

Next is the verb “fill” (Greek pleroo) and the related adjective “full” (Greek pleres). These expressions are used to speak of the kinds of character changes the Holy Spirit produces in the lives of believers.

The imagery behind these words is of a gentle, gradual filling. Something slowly expands outwards until it permeates the environment. Such is the case in John 12:3: “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Being “filled” with the Holy Spirit is connected in Scripture with:

• Wisdom: “Select from among yourselves seven men full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” (Ac 6:3)
• Faith: “And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.” (Ac 6:5)
• Joy: “And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” (Ac 13:52)

This kind of filling can be outwardly observed (Ac 6:3; 11:24). You could tell by someone’s outward behavior whether he or she was filled with the Spirit. Otherwise, how could you make it a qualification for church leadership?

Being filled with the Spirit is described as a continuous process. Ephesians 6:18 literally reads, “keep on being filled with the Spirit.” As such, the experience does not easily lend itself to big, benchmark moments. I can’t tell you of any turning points when I was “filled” with the Spirit, although there have been a few times I have been surprised after the fact at how I seemed to handle a difficult situation with peace, gentleness, wisdom, or charity well beyond anything I could drum up on my own.

Being “Completely Filled” with the Spirit

Finally, there is the Greek verb pimplemi. I have chosen to translate this word as being “completely filled” because there is no distinct English word for this kind of experience. But just as the words pleroo and pimplemi are different, the two experiences they describe are different as well.

Being “completely filled” has to do with receiving divine empowerment for ministry. It is also the kind of “filling” that Christians tend to disagree about in the details of how and when it happens. Let me belabor the obvious, however, by first asserting that the Holy Spirit’s power is necessary for effective ministry. I would hope all Christians could agree to that proposition regardless of their doctrinal point of view. It is certainly the way Paul ministered:

My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. (1 Co 2:4-5)

Our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. (1 Th 1:5)

See also John 15:26; Romans 15:18-19, and 1 Corinthians 4:20.

Being “completely filled” with the Spirit is connected with:

• Tongues: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability.” (Ac 2:4)
• Prophecy: Peter explained what the people were seeing at Pentecost in terms of the gift of prophecy (Ac 2:17-18). Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied about the magician Elymas (Ac 13:9-11).
• Physical healing: Ananias “laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and befilled with the Holy Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.” (Ac 9:17-18)
• Bold witnessing: “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them…” (Ac 4:8). “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.” (Ac 4:31)

This diversity of manifestations should warn us against expecting any particular kind of experience and encourage us to be open to whatever God wants to do through us.

Being “completely filled” is an experience that may be repeated many times. Both Peter (Ac 2:4; 4:8, 31) and Paul (Ac 9:17-18; 13:9) were “completely filled” with the Spirit on more than one occasion. My sense is that when Pentecostals and charismatics speak of being “baptized” with the Holy Spirit, what they are really describing is a believer’s first experience of being “completely filled” with the Spirit‚Äîan experience that may take place some time after one’s initial conversion. I think the first time I was “completely filled” with the Holy Spirit was in college, several years after I first professed faith in Christ.

I suspect that much of the contention, confusion, and bad blood that has prevailed between charismatic and non-charismatic Protestants over the past hundred years is owed in part to the confusion between these various Greek words, particularly between pleroo and pimplemi. From there follow confusions regarding the two different New Testament modes of being “filled with the Spirit.”

The first kind of filling is an image of gradual development; the second is an image of sudden (although temporary) upheaval. If pleroo describes a gentle shower, pimplemi describes a tropical rainstorm. Furthermore, the first kind of filling is clearly a continuous, ongoing process in a believer’s life while the second kind is sudden and occasional. Both are clearly commended in Scripture as valid activities of the Holy Spirit, but their purposes and manifestations are quite different.

That is something to keep in mind the next time someone asks about your relationship with the Holy Spirit.

technorati tags: charismatic, holy spirit, pentecostal