What does having the Holy Spirit mean?

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

One thing is certain. The three step plan does not line up with either the Word or the experience of most people who come to Christ for salvation and experience spiritual transformation.

LOL! Who's a three stepper? It takes more than the New Birth of Water and Spirit.

I'll agree with you on one point:

It is not the experience of most people that come to Christ for salvation. You've got that much right.

P.S. Many religions experience 'spiritual transformations.'

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

What I am saying is that while you contend that everyone who was filled with the Holy Ghost spoke with other tongues, the record doesn't support that position. It's been 100 years since the outpouring in Topeka, Kansas, yet Pentecostals still think it necessary to emphasize that someone spoke with tongues, so it just seems logical to me that an historian who felt it newsworthy that 120 spoke with known tongues, would consider 3000 people speaking in unknown tongues even more news worthy, and of historical significance.

By your logic, do we know if any repented?

[Barb]

Originally Posted by Theophilus

That's your opinion and you're are welcome to it, maam, but you're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

For the record, I can't believe for a moment that an 'elder' would be so novice in requiring such redundancy. Do we see repentence with redundancy? No! Are we to assume that it was not there? If anybody's assumtions are without merit and off base, it is that of anyone that requires redundancy to their personal satisfaction in order to prove to them, what the Word has already proven with plenty of instances.

Therefore, if not novice, then the prevential demand for more proof, where plenty is given, is of poor attitude, IMHO.

An 'elder' ought to have a better approach to the Word than that, unless there be an agenda, not of truth seeking, but rather status quo keeping of, if nothing else, one's personal theology.

Well, sir...I am not in the habit of making a mountain out of a molehill, as you say, so perhaps we should end this point here...

I am a 'PAJCer' yet I found TB's post neither offensive or argumentative...and that is my opinion.

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by Theophilus

Power in numbers? How many of them agree on what being born again really means, or what takes place during the process?

It's not about numbers really. It's about testimony of being totally changed as a result of placing faith in the Christ of Calvary for salvation. It's about people who accept that the God of the universe robed Himself in flesh, came to earth as a man and died as the supreme sacrifice and that they have believed and placed their faith in this God and have made Him Lord of their life. It's about the spiritual transformation that took place in their life as a result and the change that it brought to them 'spiritually' and in other ways that affected huge change in their lifestyle.

Scripture tells us we can't even confess Jesus is Lord without a work of the Holy Ghost in a person's life. So who are we to say that their testimony and confession isn't true or based on a genuine true salvation experience. I don't care if it's 500 or 500,000,000. It's the testimony that's important. I have the same testimony as they do and it can't be discounted.

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by Felicity

It's not about numbers really. It's about testimony of being totally changed as a result of placing faith in the Christ of Calvary for salvation. It's about people who accept that the God of the universe robed Himself in flesh, came to earth as a man and died as the supreme sacrifice and that they have believed and placed their faith in this God and have made Him Lord of their life. It's about the spiritual transformation that took place in their life as a result and the change that it brought to them 'spiritually' and in other ways that affected huge change in their lifestyle.

Scripture tells us we can't even confess Jesus is Lord without a work of the Holy Ghost in a person's life. So who are we to say that their testimony and confession isn't true or based on a genuine true salvation experience. I don't care if it's 500 or 500,000,000. It's the testimony that's important. I have the same testimony as they do and it can't be discounted.

In regard to this and to add to it .....

You know even most apostolics when working with people to show them more truth will allow for recognizing what God has already done in a person's life .... for the change that has taken place ..... and then lead them on from there. They won't discount or nay say the testimony of the believer. The apostles certainly didn't.

Surely God is a miracle working God. He can do anything. He can certainly change a life -- bring about spiritual transformation in that life -- and then lead a person on to more truth and more light.

Many of the people who come into our churches come in this way. They've already been living for God but have a hunger and thirst for more and find a fulfilling enriching experience in the baptism of the Holy Ghost ..... just as Topeka Bible School students did ..... just as I did.

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Sherri

Then WHAT IN THE WORLD do they have after repentance? NOTHING?????? I know people who have totally walked away from sins and addictions after they repent. They could not do that without the power of God's Spirit in their lives.

I didn't say they had NOTHING! I said they don't have the Spirit of Christ IN them. They most certainly have the Spirit of Christ WITH them and continuing to guide them into all truth. Those who turn from sin receive the blessings of God. He that fears God and works righteousness is accepted with Him. I think repentance is huge and not just an "I'm Sorry" act that is a result of God working in someone's heart.

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

I didn't say they had NOTHING! I said they don't have the Spirit of Christ IN them. They most certainly have the Spirit of Christ WITH them and continuing to guide them into all truth. Those who turn from sin receive the blessings of God. He that fears God and works righteousness is accepted with Him. I think repentance is huge and not just an "I'm Sorry" act that is a result of God working in someone's heart.

Mizpeh ....

Your views on this subject reminds me of what my very closest PW friend expressed to me once when we were talking about this. We worked closely together and were very close friends since Bible School. She's definitely PAJC in her views on salvation. She said that repentance resulted in a relationship with God akin to communication wires being strung between us and God.

Well .... lol .... I took her up on that at the time and asked the usual questions and the answers were very unsatisfactory. Communication enablement between me and God doesn't change a life from the inside out. The natural mind has to be transformed spiritually before it can understand or comprehend and desire spiritual things. That's what Scripture says.

So then in your view the Spirit of God transforms a life inwardly resulting in change from the inside out by being WITH them but not IN them?

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Sherri

I believe that when Jesus said you must be born of the water AND the Spirit, that He meant spiritual birth, as well as natural birth (Nic only had understood the natural birth--of the water). Where does the Bible say being born again means speaking in tongues?

Tongues is a sign of the baptism of the Spirit. Being born again doesn't mean speaking in tongues. Being born again means being born AGAIN of water and Spirit. It is not related to the first time we were born of the flesh.

1Pe 1:23 - Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Joh 1:13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The initial infilling of the Spirit comes the same way to all as it did to the disciples in Acts 2.

Just as Peter noted in Acts 10:44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. 45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.

The only way Peter knew the Gentiles had received the Spirit was because they spoke in tongues just as the disciples did on the day of Pentecost. Peter had to explain these events to his brethren in Acts 11.

Acts 11:15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. 16 Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. 17 Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by Felicity

The emphasis in Acts and in all of the New Testament in regard to salvation was on faith and believing and it was too all the way through the rest of the letters written by the Apostles.

Originally Posted by Theophilus

I disagree, there is much more to it than that. If you truly believe and have faith then obedience is a result and gifts are given.

I didn't say there wasn't much more than that. There certainly was, but the bulk of the emphasis was on faith and believing.

Obedience certainly is a result. I agree.

Gifts are given - absolutely. I agree.

But this doesn't change where the heaviest emphasis lay and what the apostles themselves stressed and wrote about time and time and time again.

Tongues were not mentioned much in comparison to the sheer volume of scripture where faith and belief were referred to over and over and over again. But of course this doesn't in any way negate or take away from the other teach given and the fact that works and obedience do and should in fact follow faith and belief!

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Felicity

Mizpeh ....

Your views on this subject reminds me of what my very closest PW friend expressed to me once when we were talking about this. We worked closely together and were very close friends since Bible School. She's definitely PAJC in her views on salvation. She said that repentance resulted in a relationship with God akin to communication wires being strung between us and God.

Well .... lol .... I took her up on that at the time and asked the usual questions and the answers were very unsatisfactory. Communication enablement between me and God doesn't change a life from the inside out. The natural mind has to be transformed spiritually before it can understand or comprehend and desire spiritual things. That's what Scripture says.

So then in your view the Spirit of God transforms a life inwardly resulting in change from the inside out by being WITH them but not IN them?

Yes, that is my view from the word of God and my experience as I've already related to you. Your last two posts (124, 125) were very good and I agree with most of what you say. Repentance is an inner work of the heart but does not require the Spirit of God to be in a person for the work to be done.

.....and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is unto you....

Receiving the Spirit is separate from repentance. From what I understand you believe there are two times a person receives the Spirit of God, once at belief and repentance and then again with the sign of tongues. I cannot find proof for that anywhere in the scriptures.

The first time the apostles received the Spirit was on the day of Pentecost. They had been given power and authority over devils and sickness before the day of Pentecost. They baptized believers in water unto repentance before the day of Pentecost, but they did not have the Holy Spirit IN them until Acts 2:4. Jesus said the Comforter was WITH them but would be in them. Jesus said He must go away to send the Comforter.... ... I can't find where the apostles had been given the Spirit twice.

After the discussions over the past few weeks, like Barb, I have been searching the scriptures to see if these things are so. I'm doing a inductive study on the book of Romans to help me understand justification among other things.