The baptism in the Holy Spirit is frequently misunderstood, even by those receiving it. In Acts 1:8 Jesus said:
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The word for “power” is the Greek word dunamis, which is where we get the word “dynamite”. According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, one of the meanings for dunamis is “miraculous power”. The word for “witnesses” is martus, from which we get the word “martyr”. But martus (martyr) didn’t always mean “somebody who dies for their faith” like it does today. The original meaning was “somebody who provides testimony or evidence to what they have witnessed”. The word’s meaning changed over time because so many believers ended up dying upon testifying of their faith in Jesus.
Using those two definitions, in essence Jesus was saying “you will receive miraculous power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will provide evidence to what you have witnessed”. In other words, the disciples knew that Jesus had been resurrected and that He alone is the way to salvation, but who was going to believe them when they shared their message? That’s why they needed the miraculous power of God to accompany their preaching. The Holy Spirit would empower them to provide evidence to support their testimony. Taking into consideration Mark 16:17-20 we can see even better what Jesus was talking about.
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
Then in Luke 24:46-49 we read:
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
As we read through the book of Acts we see this miraculous power in manifestation, helping the believers to persuade men to believe in Jesus. God never intended for the church to preach the gospel in mere human strength, intelligence, or eloquence. He always intended for us to do the work of fulfilling the Great Commission with the power of the Holy Spirit to work miracles as a way of providing evidence to verify our claim that Jesus is alive and that faith in Him is the only way to be saved.
The miraculous component to preaching the gospel seems to have been lost for the most part after the first few centuries, but in the 19th century it began to be emphasized again in the Holiness Movement that was produced by the revivals of John Wesley and George Whitefield. As a result the Faith Cure and Higher Life movements began emphasizing faith healing. Toward the end of the 19th century there was an emphasis on a second work of grace, or “second blessing”. Some felt that it was about holiness, and believed that it would provide sanctification and bring the believer to the point where they no longer sin. Around the turn of the 20th century however, many were coming to believe that what people were actually seeking was the empowerment that the early church experienced in Acts 2:4.
On January 1, 1901 believers gathered at Charles Parham’s bible school in Topeka, Kansas reported that very experience. Parham began to spread the message of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues in various cities where he ministered. In Houston, Texas a black minister named William Seymour heard Parham and received the same experience. He took the message to Los Angeles, California and became a key figure in the Azusa Street revival which brought reports of thousands of believers receiving healing, speaking in tongues, and manifesting other gifts of the Spirit. As a result, the Pentecostal movement began which eventually gave birth to the Charismatic movement, which began in the 1960s and continues to this day.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit isn’t a “second blessing”. You might receive blessings as a result, but that’s not its purpose. It’s not a way to be sanctified to the point where you no longer sin. You might live a holier life after receiving it, but that’s not the purpose either. The purpose is to be empowered for service. The purpose is to bring the believer into the realm of the supernatural so that they can provide supernatural evidence to support their testimony of Jesus. Additional gifts of the Spirit will also be manifested as a way of ministering to other believers as we see in I Corinthians 12:4-11.
When believers begin to grasp the purpose for the baptism, that it’s meant to empower the believer to win the lost and edify other believers, and that it’s not about self, they’ll begin to rise up and do the work that God has called them to do in a way the glorifies Him and nobody else.