We Were Born Inside It
What Pentecost actually means for how we live now
What’s the deal with baptism in the Spirit and tongues?
Nothing gets Christians debating like the topic of tongues and conversations about the Spirit.
Pentecost is the day the church seems least sure what to do with.
On Good Friday, we remember the death of Jesus, we enter it, feel it, reflect on it and celebrate our cross-shaped victory. On Resurrection Sunday we look into the tomb and find it empty, we celebrate, there’s new life, resurrection power now and to come, death has lost its sting.
On Pentecost Sunday, we remember that the church was born of, is energised and animated by the Holy Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives life to spirit. We remember Joel’s prophecy, anticipating an age where God’s Spirit would be made available to all God’s people, young and old, women and men. By the Holy Spirit, we will dream, vision and prophesy. That is to say, we will all relate to God directly, no middlemen, no middle system. The empowerment, the grace, the voice will be available to us all. We remember the words of Ezekiel about God taking our hearts of stone and giving us instead a heart of flesh. We think of the valley of dry bones and the breath of God and words of prophecy bringing life to otherwise dead multitudes, and we think of Psalm 92 and the expectation of fresh oil.
Pentecost is the day the church was baptised in the Spirit. John prophesied it, Jesus said, “Wait for it,” and later in Acts they recalled it. It happened. The church has been baptised by the Spirit. We have crossed over from the old covenant and paradigms to the new. We are not like those early disciples born in the crossover, discovering Jesus on one side of the threshold and crossing over through the cross, burial, resurrection, ascension, waiting and Pentecost. We are born into a Pentecost reality, we come to know Jesus in the first place through a church already baptised in the Spirit.
And that changes everything about how we approach Pentecost and every Sunday. We’re not straining toward something that hasn’t arrived yet. We’re not waiting for God to show up. We are living in the age of the Spirit, and the question isn’t whether he’s been poured out. It’s whether we’re awake to what we’ve inherited and willing to live inside it fully.
Which is exactly why what we believe about all of this matters.
There are great debates in the church as a whole and even within Pentecostal churches about how best to understand “the baptism in the Spirit,” “being filled and refilled,” “how to understand speaking in tongues,” and the like. These debates are welcome and needed. We need both a real, tangible experience of the Spirit in our churches and an honest theological framing to understand them within. We need faith, hunger, expectation and the manifest presence of God touching lives in undeniable ways, and biblically accurate ways to talk about such experiences.
Let me lay my cards out.
I believe in miracles. I’ve seen them, I pray for them, they are for today.
I pray and sing (poorly) in tongues. I didn’t receive the gift in a moment like some but opened my mouth in prayer on my own, a few years into my Christian journey. I felt awkward at first and wondered if it was just me speaking gibberish, but have persisted in faith.
I believe we are filled with the Spirit at conversion. Where and when exactly I’ll leave to the mysteries of God. But I believe when we repent, believe and are baptised, God is good on his promise to give us his Spirit.
I believe we need to constantly be filled with the Spirit to be transformed into Christ’s image and to do the good works he has purposed for us.
I believe I can have greater measures of anointing (the power and grace of the Holy Spirit upon my gifts and work) and that God responds to faith, to humility, to hunger, to dependence and surrender.
So I’m a Pentecostal. I will be laying hands on people this Sunday believing for people to be filled with the Spirit, I will be laying hands on people believing they will receive gifts like the ability to speak in tongues, but I’m not one who believes we must have a “second experience/blessing” evidenced by the ability to speak in tongues, and without that we are somehow a second-class Christian.
Now here’s where I want to push back on a few things we say.
I think a basic reading of Acts at a surface level alone is a poor way to develop our Holy Spirit theology (I know there’s a proper word for that but I’m writing for the people). I believe Luke writes the narrative in a certain way to make certain points about the church, the new people of God, birthed, energised and animated by the Spirit. I believe the reason we see definite and evidenced Holy Spirit fillings at certain expansion points of the gospel is intentional: in the upper room, with the Samaritans and with the Ephesians. There seems to be a clear point being made. The people who it’s easy to assume are outsiders are insiders. God is including all these people in his purposes, they are full members, they are the temple too.
I believe how we talk about things matters. So here’s some language worth examining.
On “baptism of the Holy Spirit” — the Bible only uses the term “baptised in the Spirit” to refer to what happened on the day of Pentecost, and we should too. There isn’t multiple baptisms in the church and life of the believer, a water one and a Spirit one. There’s just one. We are baptised in water and in that one baptism immersed into the triune life of Father, Son and Spirit. The Bible and even the book of Acts talks about people being filled, or the Holy Spirit coming upon them. That’s good, clear language for us to use.
On “the Spirit in you is different from on you” — I get what we’re saying, I understand the distinction we’re making. It’s become common among second-blessing people and others to say yes, the Spirit is in you at conversion, but on you when you are baptised in the Spirit. Setting aside the baptism language, there might be some truth to that. But that’s not the language the Bible uses. It may be a way of understanding it, it may be the best way, but we shouldn’t peddle these lines like they are gospel. The Bible is unclear on how exactly to differentiate the Spirit in you illuminating and glorifying Christ, giving new life and sustaining the believer, and how he works upon our gifts and ministry to the Lord and others. What we do know is he is in us and he does want to work through us.
On “tongues are for everyone” — I believe tongues are still available to believers today, and for many people they can become a deeply meaningful part of prayer, intimacy with God, and spiritual strengthening. At the same time, I think a lot of Christians unnecessarily resist the gift, sometimes because of fear, sometimes because of pride, and sometimes simply because of the church tradition they’ve inherited. But I also don’t believe speaking in tongues is the measure of salvation, spiritual maturity, or whether someone truly loves Jesus. The Holy Spirit distributes gifts as he wills, and whenever we turn one particular gift into a hierarchy of spirituality, we drift into territory the New Testament seems careful to avoid. Paul’s question in 1 Corinthians 12:30 is important here: “Do all speak in tongues?” The implied answer appears to be no, particularly in the context of public gifts expressed within the gathered church. And yet I also think many more believers could experience a private prayer language if they were open, willing, and expectant. What’s helpful in all of this is avoiding the extremes. We shouldn’t become ashamed of tongues, obsessed with tongues, or divided over tongues. And we need to resist both the assumption that tongues have completely ceased, and the pressure that treats tongues as the universal proof of spirituality.
Now, gifts and fruit. We can’t talk about the Spirit without talking about both, and I don’t think we should pit them against each other. Paul spends significant time in 1 Corinthians on the gifts, but he sandwiches it with chapter 13 for a reason. Gifts without love are noise. But that’s not a reason to soften the gifts. It’s a reason to pursue the fruit. God has given us both, and we need both. In fact I’d go further: the gifts exist so there can be a maturing of fruit in the body. Healing happens so people experience the goodness and nearness of God. Prophecy happens so people are built up, encouraged, consoled. Tongues build up the one praying so they can love better. The gifts aren’t the destination. They’re the environment in which character is formed, they are the graces we can serve each other towards the image of Christ. A church with gifts but no fruit is loud, exhausting, and a train wreck about to happen. A church with fruit but no gifts quietly becomes self-contained and safe. We’re after neither. We’re after a community that looks like Jesus, powerful and gentle, full of Spirit and full of love.
So what do I want for you this Sunday?
Come expectant. Come with open hands. If you’ve never experienced the Spirit in a tangible way, ask. If you’ve walked with Jesus for years but quietly closed the door on certain gifts because they felt theologically inconvenient or just a bit awkward, maybe this is the Sunday to open it again. If you already pray in tongues and feel the Spirit moving in your life, don’t keep it to yourself. Let it overflow in intercession for those around you.
Pentecost isn’t just a day on the Christian calendar. It’s the ongoing condition of the church. We were born inside it. The Spirit hasn’t gone anywhere.
Come and meet him.