Question:  Dear Greg,

            My question is about how and when a Christian receives the Holy Spirit.  Some teach it comes with water baptism, either as an infant or later in life.  The Bible tells of it coming with water baptism and sometimes at other times.  It also comes by the laying on of hands by apostles or elders.  Some people today say they feel the Spirit entering them and know the exact time it happened.  I feel I do have the Holy Spirit because I know that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us so that we could have everlasting life with him.  But I do not know how or when I received the Holy Spirit. 

            Your views on this would be greatly appreciated.  May God bless you.

            John

Answer:  Dear John,

            The Bible does not speak about a precise moment when someone is given the Holy Spirit.  Rather, it says that the Holy Spirit is given to those who repent, who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who believe in and on him, etc.

            There are doctrines that churches have come to believe, doctrines that have never been regarded as essential core beliefs of historic Christianity, about the exact time, manner and way God gives the Holy Spirit.

            But the Bible is not so specific.  Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit lives in us, and Romans 6 tells us that our old man symbolically dies in the waters of baptism, and that we are resurrected from baptism in newness of life—new men and women in Christ, spiritually reborn.  Jesus tells us, through his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 that we must be born again to enter the kingdom.  From this and other similar passages some reason that the Holy Spirit is given after baptism rites/ceremonies.

            But the Bible is also clear that baptism is not what saves us, and that baptism itself is simply an outward act on our part, obedience to God’s command, reacting to what has already happened in our life, by God’s grace.  Or, in the case of an infant, what has happened in the life of his parents who bring him/her to be baptized.

            The mistake here is that some churches and denominations can start thinking that what they do and perform results in the gift of the Holy Spirit.  While God does use imperfect humans as his tools and helpers, we must never lose sight of the fact that God gives us, by his grace, of himself—God the Holy Spirit.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht