Hebrews 6:4-6 “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, (5) and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, (6) if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.”
So why does the Lord Jesus want His saints to receive the power of the Holy Spirit? In the above passage of scripture, the Holy Spirit through His apostle gives us some insight into why Jesus wants us to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, for it speaks of the saints tasting the powers of the age to come. The powers of the age to come are in fact the gifts of the Holy Spirit as listed in the book of Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). In other words, believers who are not baptized with the Holy Spirit do not have the power that is needed to do the works that Jesus did. You will recall that Jesus said that as His believers, we would do the works that He did and even greater works than He did, because He would ascend to God the Father (John 14:12). Jesus operated in the gifts of the Holy Spirit when He walked on the earth, but He only did those works after He was baptized in the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1). And so, if the Lord Jesus Who walked this earth as a man, could only perform the works of God after being filled with the Holy Spirit, then we are certainly no different, and we too will have to be baptized with the Holy Spirit if we want to do the works that He did and also the greater works that He spoke of. As an aside, I need to make a comment regarding the greater works that our Lord spoke about. Some foolishly think that means that believers today will perform greater miracles and healings than Jesus did. That is not the case however, because Jesus also said that we cannot be greater than our Master (Matthew 10:24). The key to our understanding what Jesus meant, when He said that we would perform greater works, is His comment that we would be able to do the greater works, “because He was going to the Father”. The greater works that we can do because Jesus has ascended to the Father is getting people born again and filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus could not do those works when He was on the earth, for those works could only be done after He went to the Father. And so, Jesus has made it possible for His church to do those works which are far greater than miracles and healing, for they are eternal works and not temporary. There are five accounts in scripture of the saints being baptized with the Holy Spirit. And so, in this section we will examine each account, to learn from them what the saints can expect from this particular encounter with the Holy Spirit.
Michael E.B. Maher
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