John the Baptist – a reset for 2026 Part 2 - Baptism in the Spirit
John the Baptist is often overlooked. The warm-up act before the entrance, stage-left, of the Messiah: Jesus of Nazareth, and eclipsed, as we all are, by the Word made flesh.
He is mentioned in all four gospels, but here’s Luke’s account, which is the fullest.
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptised by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might be the Messiah.
John answered them all, ‘I baptise you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’
But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.
Baptism in the Spirit
Baptism, typically, requires three components: the person administering the baptism, the baptismal candidate and the element into which the candidate is to be baptised.
John prophesied that the Messiah would baptise not with water, but with the Holy Spirit – in other words, true Christianity has nothing to do with outward actions such as prayer, or hymn singing, church attendance, being born in a ‘Christian nation’ or being related to a Christian believer, or bible knowledge. What John foresaw was something radically new; men and women baptised in the Holy Spirit.
True Christianity, therefore, is all about being immersed, soaked in, plunged into the Holy Spirit, God Himself.
When Peter preached to Cornelius’s household, he summarised Jesus’s public ministry as:
‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him’ Acts 10v38
He demonstrated the life of a man baptised in the Spirit, but we don’t read of Jesus baptising the disciples and His followers in the Holy Spirit until after the resurrection.
‘And being with the disciples. Jesus commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘Which,’ he said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’ Acts 1v5
The disciples – who numbered approximately 120 by this time – did as they were commanded; they waited, men and women.
Ten days later, Luke records, ‘When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place…flames of fire sat on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them’ Acts 2 v1-4
A large crowd gathered to hear and see what was going on, and Peter stood up to preach the first sermon of the New Testament after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. At the end of which he said: ‘Repent, and let everyone of you be baptised in the Name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ Acts 2v38
I think we all know instinctively what repentance looks like. All excuses exhausted, finally we admit what we’ve done and ask for forgiveness, so that the breach in the relationship can be mended, and the tension and strain can drain away. Here, the principal relationship is between us and God, who is holy. We know that God knows, there is no hiding place, and we admit our need for cleansing, for forgiveness, and redemption.
The baptism (in water) is a sign that Jesus has indeed forgiven us, and our sins have been washed away.
But Peter doesn’t stop there. True Christianity is not limited to the forgiveness of sins, as wonderful as that is, it involves receiving a gift - the gift of the Spirit. We come to Jesus for Him to baptise us with the Holy Spirit.
Before John the Baptist, Ezekiel had foreseen this day and prophesied:
‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, Ezk 36v26,27
Paul put it like this:
‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His’ Romans 8v9
True Christianity, therefore, is wholly dependent on receiving the gift of the Spirit. Everything we do after receiving the Spirit of Christ (worship, prayer, church, loving our neighbour) flows from this. Later in the same chapter, Paul writes: ‘for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God’ v14
The repentance-baptism-gift of the Spirit is ideally a fay one experience for every new believer. In practice this is not always the case.
As I write this, a remarkable example of a Southern Baptist pastor receiving the baptism of the Spirit many years after believing is described in an interview. It transformed his ministry.
The link is below.
Revival Radio TV: North Georgia Revival