Finish Well, Follow Jesus

In our last lesson, we saw how the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus at different instances of his life, starting from when Jesus was a child. Getting the anointing of the Holy Spirit while one is still a child is a great blessing, but it's not enough.

When Jesus became an adult, at approximately 30 years of age, the Holy Spirit gave our Lord the greatest anointing of all. He gave Jesus the One Baptism, also called the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord did not start his life with the greatest anointing, he ended his life with it. In the same way, most of us did not start our lives as spiritual people, but we can conclude our lives as spiritual people. We can be born of the Spirit even up until old age.

Through faith in Jesus, we can obtain even greater Holy Spirit power Jesus obtained. How is that possible? Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself affirmed it. He told his disciples:

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these... (John 14:12)

The New Birth

To start well is good, but to end well is best. You may have started your life in a Christian family with Christ, but you must not fail to finish the race with Christ too. Everyone is responsible for getting the new birth for themself.

Being born into a Christian family is not the same thing as being born again. A person becomes a member of their parents’ family if they're born once. They become a member of God’s family by being born twice.

The new birth and the baptism of the Holy Spirit are the same thing. You can use the terms interchangeably. They are two terms for the same event, synonyms.

In different churches around the World, you may have heard Christian conversion being called the “born again” experience. That's also fine. The new birth, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Christian conversion, regeneration, and being "born again" all mean the same thing.

Complete Consecration

The important thing is not so much terminology as the effect. Whatever we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it will only happen to someone mature enough to know what they are doing. That's why water baptism must precede it. When someone is baptized, they have made a mature decision to consecrate themselves body, soul, and spirit to God.

We consecrate our whole self to God by being immersed in water. Those who get baptized in the name of Jesus enter the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was about getting to God through Moses. The New is about getting to God through Jesus.

In the New Covenant, you have access to God through the mediation of Jesus. In the Old Covenant, believers had to access God through priests. Jesus presented his blood to God for us. Old Testament priests only sacrificed animals (like sheep) which represented what Christ would do at Calvary.

If you enter the New Covenant the way you should, through water baptism, God grants you the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Think of Jesus’ example. Jesus got baptized and immediately God sent him the Holy Spirit. We are each called to experience the same thing--the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The way to get that experience is by following Jesus' example.

Jesus explained how our new birth comes about. It's through both water and Spirit baptism. He called it being 'born of water and the Spirit.'

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5; NKJV).

Repentance, Faith, and Baptism

If you enter the New Covenant, you deliver all your sins to Jesus. You lay them at the Cross. That's repentance.

What does God do with your sins once you deliver them to Jesus? He nails them to the Cross.

... [you were] buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the Dead.

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he [God] has made alive together with him [Jesus], having forgiven you all trespasses, having cancelled the certificate of debt with its requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us.

And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it [the certificate of debt] to the Cross... (Colossians 2:12-14; NKJV)

The old you gets buried with Jesus in baptism. But the old you is gone only if you have died to your old self, repented of your sins, and have been buried with Christ. You are only buried through immersion in water—which is not sprinkling. You must be made like Christ in his burial, so you must go under the surface of the water just as a buried man's body goes under the surface of the soil.

In case you're wondering--yes, baptism is necessary for salvation. Jesus made no bones about it. He preached: ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved’ (Mark 16:16).

Baptized with Faith

But you must be baptized with faith. In other words, you need to understand the level of commitment you are making. No one should be subjected to baptism as a child because children don't understand what they are doing. Baptizing a child demonstrates a lack of respect for the role of faith in salvation.

The Church should only baptize people who: 1) by their own choice demonstrate a thorough repentance from their sins, and who 2) are able to demonstrate an intelligent faith in God.

A person who gets baptized expresses their trust in the God who resurrected Jesus from the Dead. That same God can breathe new life into anyone who gets the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

God Alone is Immortal

We were dead in our sins, but God wants to make us alive in Christ. How do you get Jesus' life in you? You get it through faith in Jesus' source of life: the resurrection power of God. To be saved, you must believe that God exerted life-giving power on Jesus through his Holy Spirit in order to resurrect Jesus.

How do we know that Only God could have done this? Because God alone is immortal.

... to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the Only God, be honor and glory... who alone is immortal (1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16).

Your faith must be placed squarely in the One God, the God who resurrected Jesus. Why must your faith be in the Father? Because your baptism is your act of faith that he’ll give you a new life too.

What God did in Jesus, God will do in you too. Do you believe that? If you do, then seek the baptism of the Spirit from the One God, the only Immortal. That's what Jesus did. You can't go wrong if you follow his example.