Baptized Into One Body

“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” I Cor 12:13

It is unfortunate that the term “baptism of the Spirit” has been divorced from its original New Testament meaning. God has spoken to us in Spirit, given words which we must not confuse. I Cor 2:12-13

The baptism of the Spirit occurs at conversion when the Spirit enters the believing sinner, gives him new life, and makes his body the temple of God. All believers have experienced this once-for-all baptism. Nowhere does the Scripture command us to seek this baptism, because we have already experienced it and it need not be repeated.

The “filling of the Spirit” Eph 5:18, has to do with the Spirit’s control of our lives. In Scripture, to be filled by something means “to be controlled by.” We are commanded to be filled, and we can be, if we yield all to Christ and ask Him for the Spirit’s filling. This is a repeated experience, for we constantly need to be filled with spiritual power if we are to glorify Christ.

To be baptized by the Spirit means that we belong to Christ’s body. To be filled with the Spirit means that our bodies belong to Christ.

The evidence of the Spirit’s baptism at conversion is the witness of the Spirit within, Romans 8:14-16. It is not “speaking in tongues.” All of the believers in the Corinthian assembly had been baptized by the Spirit, but no all of them spoke in tongues.

The evidence of Spirit’s filling are:
• Power for witnessing....Acts 1:8
• Joyfulness and submission....Eph 5:9
• Christlikeness....Gal 5:22-26
• A growing understanding of the Word....John 16:12-15

It is not possible to be a Christian and not be baptized by Christ with the Holy Spirit. Nor is it possible to have more than one baptism with the Spirit. There is only one Spirit baptism, the baptism of Christ with the Spirit that all believers receive when they are born again.

Paul’s central point in I Cor 12:13 is that baptism with the one Spirit makes the church one Body. If there were more than one Spirit baptism, there would be more than one church, and Paul’s whole point here would be destroyed. He is using the doctrine of baptism with the Spirit to show the unity of all believers in the Body. Many erring teachers today have used a wrong interpretation of the baptism with the Spirit, to divide off from the Body and imagined spiritual elite who have what the rest do not. That idea violates the whole teaching here.

We are one. We may have different gifts, ministries, and callings, but we are one Body in Christ.