Your Helper the Holy Spirit: Session 6 – The Power of the Holy Spirit

Notes:

Be Filled with the Spirit

Acts 1:1. Luke wrote a two volume work – Luke’s gospel and Acts. Each covers 33 years. Vol. 1 = all that Jesus began to do. Vol. 2 = all that Jesus is continuing to do. How? See Acts 1:8 – by the Holy Spirit. Acts should be called ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit’. It is the only NT book without a proper ending. Chapters are being added each day. Will we add a chapter?

Acts 1:9-11. ‘See Him go, see Him come’. In between don’t stand gazing up to heaven. Jesus left 120 disciples with an incredible commission. The completion of the mission task and the 2nd Coming will coincide (Mt.24:14).

Acts 1:4-8. ‘Power’ (dunamis) = ability. God lets us see our inability so that we might depend upon His ability.

See how Luke describes Jesus’ His ministry (Lk.4:14,18). This is how the Church carried out its ministry. Don’t do anything until you are baptized in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 40 times in Acts 1-13.

Baptism in the Spirit

  • Acts 1:8. Is this a secondary experience in the Holy Spirit, as we Pentecostals teach? See Jn.20:22.
  • The Greek word for ‘breathed’ here is emphusao. This is the only place where it is used in the NT, but in the Greek translation of the OT it is used in Gen.2:7.
  • As God breathed into Adam, he was given life. This was the creation of man. Likewise, when Jesus breathed into His disciples, they were given new life. This was the work of re-creation, or regeneration.
  • Then the command in Acts 1:4-5 and the promise in Acts 1:8.
  • The Holy Spirit comes in to bring the life of Jesus (Rom.8:9). Yet, there is a subsequent experience – the baptism in the Holy Spirit – in which the Holy Spirit comes in His own office to empower, (Jn.7:37-39)

Receiving the Spirit

  • Acts 2:37-38. Those who preached the gospel in the NT often asked for a three-fold response: 1) Repentance towards the Father; 2) Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; 3) Receive the Holy Spirit.
  • Believing and receiving are separated in time. E.g. Jesus was born of the Spirit, but at the age of 30 the Spirit came upon Him in a new way. It was then that He began His ministry. The change was so radical that His family thought He had gone mad! Before, He knew who He was; after, others knew who He was.
  • Acts 8:12-17. The whole city of Samaria repented, believed and was baptized in water. But something was missing. The Holy Spirit.
  • They knew they had not received the Spirit because everyone who had experienced an outward manifestation, e.g. prophecy, tongues, power, etc.
  • The word ‘baptize’ means to completely fill with or cover with. It does not necessarily mean to do so from the outside. It can also mean to suffuse, i.e. saturate, permeate, or flood from within.
  • The human spirit is a reservoir into which the Holy Spirit flows when we are saved. But when we are baptized in the Spirit there is an overflow of that which is on the inside. Our bodies, minds, emotions become available to Him for powerful and even supernatural ministry.
  • Acts 19:1-6. When Paul found some disciples who were not going very well he would ask: Did you receive the Holy Spirit? If not have you believed in Jesus and been baptized? If not have you repented?
  • The first experience of the Holy Spirit is an incoming; the second an outflowing. The first experience we know about it, the second others  do.
  • God has chosen tongues as a distinct sign of the NT age. It is the only one of the gifts, together with interpretation of tongues, which did not operate in the OT era.
  • The purpose of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. Pentecost was a reversal of Babel. At Babel man tried to ascend to heaven. At Pentecost, heaven came to earth.
  • Eph. 5:18. The Gk verb here is a continuous present sense. Literally, ‘be being filled’; ‘keep on being filled’
  • To fill is synonymous with being drunk, or under the control of.
  • Paul was not exhorting the Ephesians to seek another experience of the Holy Spirit coming into them. He was commanding them to be under the control of one who already indwelt them.
  • We have all there is of the Holy Spirit. The question is, “Does He have all of us?”. How much access does the Holy Spirit have to you?


# Answers to this quiz are found in the notes above. Click on quiz to commence. Only correct spelling is recognised. A minimum 70%  correct is required to advance to the next session.