ASSEMBLIES OF GOD
Baptism in the Holy Spirit
by Edgar R. Lee
The brief biblical surveys of this series have pointed to a wealth of biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit and His work with the people of God throughout redemptive history. In recent years, theologians have carefully studied a number of Bible texts dealing with the Spirit that bring new clarity and focus to biblical pneumatology. Unfortunately, many theologians ignore, wrongly exegete or apply, or simply sweep aside as somehow irrelevant in the formation of doctrine and spirituality many of these fruitful texts.
The failure to tap these resources seems to parallel a certain blindness in large sectors of historic Christianity to the epochal work of the Holy Spirit that is proceeding apace around the globe. The explosive growth of the 20th-century Pentecostal-charismatic movement, continuing into the 21st century, represents one of the most significant Christian expansions of all time. In little more than 100 years, Pentecostals-charismatics — now over 600 million strong — have become the second largest family of Christian believers in the world, second in numbers only to the Roman Catholic Church.1 With justification, many have termed the 20th century, “The Century of the Holy Spirit.”2
Millions of believers in this burgeoning renewal movement seem to have grasped intuitively and experientially, if sometimes naively and simplistically, what apparently eludes many of the brightest theologians. Rapid multiplication of these believers, especially in South America, Africa, and Asia, has shifted the Christian center of gravity away from Europe and North America and into the southern hemisphere. The power of the gospel among them has not been nurtured by rationalistic theologies “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5) but by Pentecostal faith and fervor, often “with signs following” (Mark 16:20, KJV).
But there is nonetheless a remarkable convergence in our day between exegesis and evangelism. Pentecostal-charismatic scholars — ministers, missionaries, teachers — are drawing from, and contributing to, a flowering of biblical knowledge that directs and nourishes church growth around the world. This brief article hopes to focus some of their insights in a way that encourages continuing confidence and deepening maturity in Pentecostal theology, spirituality, and mission.
Ordo Salutis — The Missing Element
Each of the first five books of the New Testament places the promise of baptism [in] the Holy Spirit3 up front in its introduction (Matthew 3:11–17; Mark 1:7–11; Luke 3:16,21,22; John 1:29–34; Acts 1:5). The risen Jesus carefully prepared His disciples to receive the promised baptism in the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5; cf. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). And Luke meticulously crafted a narrative chronicling the first baptism in/with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, as well as several subsequent baptisms/fillings.
This pride of place given to baptism in the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the New Testament is remarkable. Nonetheless, baptism in the Holy Spirit is conspicuously absent from the ordo salutis (Latin, “order of salvation”) of the historic Christian traditions. Many of these traditions cherish the genteel soteriological work of the Spirit. However, they consistently neglect the supernatural work of the Spirit.
More than a bit of arcane trivia, “The ordo salutis describes the process by which the work of salvation, wrought in Christ, is subjectively realized in the hearts and lives of sinners.”4 Moreover, the ordo salutis is a biblical institution found in brief in Romans 8:29,30, “For those God foreknew he also predestined … those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Certainly an ordo salutis faithful to biblical teaching is crucial for establishing an accurate understanding of the events and processes of the salvation experience, and has enormous significance for evangelism and spiritual maturity.
The typical Reformed ordo salutis usually begins with regeneration or calling, and then moves to such topics as conversion, justification, the gift of the Spirit of adoption, sanctification, perseverance of the saints, and glorification.5 Baptism in the Spirit is absent from the soteriology of most Reformed theologians. If mentioned at all, it is usually metamorphosed into the new birth (regeneration) and denuded of its charismatic power — definitely not considered a primary rubric for the ordo salutis.
But as popular as one or another variation of the Reformed ordo salutis may be among contemporary evangelicals, its merging of baptism in the Holy Spirit into regeneration has not been accepted across the broad spectrum of Christian traditions. Wesleyan-Holiness theologians, for example, traditionally describe the order of salvation as “two works of grace.” As one prominent theologian of that tradition puts it, “The First Work of Grace consists of justification, regeneration, initial sanctification, reconciliation, and adoption; the second is Entire Sanctification effected by the baptism with the Holy Spirit.”6
Wesleyan-Holiness doctrine, more or less, equates baptism in the Spirit with and subsumes it under the experience of “entire” sanctification. Wesleyan-Holiness theologians rightly recognize that the Gospels and Acts show that baptism in the Spirit is subsequent to regeneration. But without adequate biblical warrant, they shoe-horned baptism in the Spirit into sanctification. More recently, however, there are signs of an increasing sensitivity to the empowering role of Spirit baptism.7
Even the Roman Catholic tradition recognizes that baptism in the Spirit is subsequent to regeneration. In the Roman Catholic view, the sacrament of baptism entails “purification from sin and new birth in the Holy Spirit.”8 The later sacrament of confirmation is the reception of “the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.”9 So Roman Catholics, too, discern the biblical sequencing of new birth and baptism in the Spirit, and thus understand baptism in the Spirit as a subsequent sacramental event.
Placed in larger ecclesiastical context, Reformed exegesis and pneumatology have by no means achieved universal acceptance. Moreover, the failure of the historic traditions to agree on the meaning and placement (or omission) of baptism in the Spirit in their ordo salutis is a failure of exegesis and theology, especially with regard to Lucan theology, that is increasingly apparent in the light of contemporary theological studies.
The Whole Canon
In framing our doctrine of salvation, it is necessary to bring together the full sweep of biblical evidence. Unfortunately, theologians in the interest of their particular traditions often pick and choose which biblical writer they wish to elevate. One scholar, who usually approaches the biblical text with considerable erudition, somewhat typically has written, “The mature expression of the fully developed New Testament view of normative Christian experience of the Spirit is found in Paul’s Epistles.”10 Such a view effectively establishes a “canon within a canon” and tends to rule out any witness outside the Pauline epistles that does not coincide with what the scholar assumes Paul teaches and/or what the critic’s presuppositions turn out to be. In effect, Luke’s witness to the work of the Spirit, and much of the larger biblical charismatic teaching on the Spirit, is ipso facto excluded from consideration.
Responsible theological scholarship must take seriously the contributions of the entire biblical canon. Both Luke and Paul loom large in the theology and experience of the Early Church. As we bring their theologies together, and draw from the wider Old and New Testament witness, Luke and Paul must inform us as complementary, inspired witnesses, neither of them to be seen as contradictory or unworthy as compared to the other. In truth, both Luke and Paul make significant contributions that need careful correlation rather than preemptory rejection based on outdated and erroneous hermeneutical criteria.
The need in our Pentecostal ordo salutis is not only to include baptism in the Holy Spirit as a main rubric, or topic, but to more carefully define it. Scholars have yet to present the relationship between regeneration and baptism in the Holy Spirit as cogently and compellingly as they could. At the same time, the basic elements of classical Pentecostal theology do seem viable and persuasive in the light of Old and New Testament pneumatology.
Neglected Pneumatological Emphases
Though modern evangelical doctrine focuses almost exclusively on the soteriological work of the Spirit, biblical revelation also has a great deal to say about His charismatic work. In addition to inferences that we may draw from Old Testament pneumatological texts, the Prophets specifically foretell a new covenant era in which both the soteriological and charismatic work of the Spirit will transform the people of God. Jesus, himself the subject of much Old Testament teaching on the Spirit, embodies and asserts the importance of that teaching en route to the new covenant fulfillment of Pentecost.
Soteriological motifs. Personal regeneration effected by the Spirit was not available to Old Testament believers, though Saul’s changed heart (1 Samuel 10:9) and David’s continuing experience of the Spirit “from that day on” (1 Samuel 16:13; Psalm 51:11) may well be a harbinger of things to come. But Jeremiah foresaw the time when a supernatural change of heart would transform the people of God, “ ‘The time is coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. … I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts’ ” (31:31–33). Jeremiah’s contemporary, Ezekiel, also sees such a future and makes explicit what undoubtedly is implicit in Jeremiah — the role of the Spirit: “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (36:27).
In Old Testament expectation, the Holy Spirit is the agent who will cleanse and renew the people of God in the new covenant era, planting God’s Word deep in their hearts and energizing their obedience. Jesus’ teachings on new birth mediated by the Spirit (John 3:3–8; cf. 20:22) and the inner abundance and ministries of the Spirit (John 7:37–39; 14:15–21 et al.) move the Old Testament promises toward fulfillment.
Charismatic motifs. Throughout the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Acts, the Holy Spirit uniquely is the charismatic Spirit. He most commonly reveals himself in powerful, experiential, almost palpable ways to equip the people of God for otherwise impossible mission tasks. Whether for craftsmanship, as in the case of Bezalel and Oholiab (Exodus 31:1–6; 35:30–35), for leadership as in the case of Moses and the 70 elders (Numbers 11:16–30), for military prowess as in the case of Gideon (Judges 6:34), or for the multiple duties of kingship as in the case of David (1 Samuel 16:13), the Spirit’s power and presence are unquestionably prerequisite to and apparent in the success of the people of God.
Even Jesus, though conceived by the Spirit (Luke 1:35), does not begin His ministry until anointed by the Spirit in keeping with the prophecies of the Servant Messiah (Isaiah 11:1–5; 42:1–7; 61:1–3). Both Jesus and His disciples attest the essential and powerful role of the Spirit’s anointing in His life and ministry (Luke 3:21,22; 4:18,19; Acts 10:38), an anointing that Jesus will “transfer” in due time to His disciples much as the Lord “transferred” the Spirit from Moses to the 70 elders (Numbers 11:25; John 1:32,33; 7:39; 20:22; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:5), and the Spirit was “transferred” from Elijah to Elisha (2 Kings 2:9,15).11
Democratization of prophecy. In both the Old and New Testaments, the charismatic Spirit of God is also the Spirit of prophecy (cf. Revelation 19:10), directly inspiring men and women to declare God’s will to His people. Though prophecy is the function of a restricted and divinely summoned order in the old economy, it is to be democratized in the new. That is, it will be the privilege of every believer. Pursuant to Moses’ wish-prayer, “I would that all the Lord’s people were prophets” (Numbers 11:29), the Lord, speaking through the prophet Joel, foretells just such a time: “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days” (2:28,29). The Spirit, often communicating through dreams and visions (cf. Numbers 12:6), will move the renewed covenant people of God to prophesy. Jesus himself, empowered by the Spirit, functioned as a charismatic prophet and miracle worker and taught that His followers likewise would experience the prophetic impetus of the Spirit (Luke 12:11,12; 21:15; 24:49; Acts 1:8).
The sign of prophecy. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament rarely, if ever, comes incognito. Various demonstrations of His power and presence are regularly in view. But on several occasions the biblical writers take special pains to highlight a particular sign of the Spirit’s coming. When the Lord “took of the Spirit that was on [Moses] and put the Spirit on the seventy elders…they prophesied,” a dramatic one-time experience observable also in the camp where two elders, for whatever reason, missed the meeting (Numbers 11:25,26). The same sign attended Saul’s anointing to kingship (1 Samuel 10:10) and, apparently, David’s as well, for “from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power” (1 Samuel 16:13).
When the expectant followers of Jesus were filled with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, their spontaneous response was “to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled (apophthengomai) them” (Acts 2:4). The unusual Greek term translated “enabled” adds emphasis that the tongues are prophetic speech. To clear up the confusion of the gathering crowd, Peter “addressed (apophthengomai — the same term for the Spirit’s enablement of the tongues)” the crowd with a prophetically inspired interpretation, “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). Speaking by prophetic inspiration, Peter interpreted the tongues as a type of inspired prophecy and as a clear sign of the coming of the Spirit that begins on the Day of Pentecost and continues thereafter.
In summary, the Old Testament and the Gospels cohere in their anticipation of an initiation into Christian faith that embraces two distinct actions of the Spirit, one soteriological and the other charismatic, that are fulfilled and articulated in the Acts narratives and beyond.
Expanding the Ordo Salutis
A proper understanding of the biblical salvation experience advanced through the unfolding revelation of the Scriptures calls for an initiation into Christian faith that embraces both the soteriological and charismatic actions of the Spirit. Moreover, the doctrinal formulation ought clearly to articulate these two activities of the Spirit in the ordo salutis.
Regeneration — the soteriological event. The first initiatory work of the Spirit in the believer is that of the new birth, traditionally termed “regeneration” (from the Greek, palingenesia, Titus 3:5). While James Dunn has popularized the term “conversion-initiation,”12 it seems less preferable in that “conversion” traditionally includes not only the work of the Spirit but also the action of the believer in repentance and turning away from sin. “Initiation,” in Dunn’s construct, stands for the public rites accompanying conversion. “Regeneration,” on the other hand, is exclusively the work of the Spirit by which one experiences the forgiveness of sins, spiritual rebirth, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, and initiation into the family of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As noted above, we draw this soteriological emphasis from deep wells in the biblical tradition. In addition to the Old Testament precedents and prophecies cited above, the doctrine draws from the teachings of Jesus, as in John 3:3–8, from Paul, as in Titus 3:5, and from Peter, as in 1 Peter 1:3, 23. Paul’s writings, especially Romans 8:1–17 and 1 Corinthians 6:19, among many other passages richly attest to the ongoing presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit who indwells from the moment of regeneration.
Assemblies of God doctrine specifically affirms that our salvation is accomplished “By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,” and that “The inward evidence of salvation is the direct witness of the Spirit” (Romans 8:16).13 In other words, from the outset, a new believer in Christ is born again, sanctified, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We then understand sanctification to be essentially a progressive work based on one’s identification with Christ and maturation in a Spirit-empowered life.14
The Pentecostal view of regeneration is essentially that of historic evangelical Protestantism. Classical Pentecostals do not deny the work of the Spirit in regeneration as people sometimes wrongly accuse them of doing. Historically, however, Pentecostals have observed that the doctrine of regeneration, as commonly developed, tends to neglect the dynamic issues of spiritual power for life and service regularly portrayed in Acts and throughout the New Testament.
Baptism in the Spirit — the charismatic event. The second initiatory work of the Spirit in the believer is baptism in the Holy Spirit that also entails a decisive empowering for Christian life and service. As noted above, Old Testament prophecy anticipated that the charismatic as well as the soteriological activity of the Spirit would characterize the new age. Moses, Joel, John the Baptist, and Jesus all bear witness to a coming charismatic endowment associated with prophecy that specifically enables the regenerated people of God to be powerful witnesses (Acts 1:8).
Given the frequency and prominence of the verbal phrase, “baptize in the Holy Spirit,” in the Gospels and Acts, Pentecostals legitimately use the noun phrase “baptism in the Holy Spirit” to describe charismatic initiation. In the Pentecostal ordo salutis, baptism in the Holy Spirit, as in Scripture, logically follows regeneration, and we should not confuse it with either regeneration or sanctification per se. As usually stated among us, “This experience is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth (Acts 8:12–17; 10:44–46; 11:14–16; 15:7–9).”15 We have not construed subsequence, however, to mean a lengthy chronological period. It may well be more logically, or theologically, distinct and subsequent as in what seems to have been the experience of the household of Cornelius (Acts 10:44–48).
In keeping with the term baptism and its radical implications of immersion or overwhelming, we are to understand baptism in the Holy Spirit as a decisive, further or additional, act of the Spirit, who already indwells the believer by virtue of regeneration. It is not as though the Spirit comes in regeneration and then recedes or departs for a subsequent return. The varied and shifting biblical metaphors inform our Pentecostal understanding. The disciples had already “received” the Spirit prior to Pentecost (John 20:22). Jesus afterward promised to “baptize” them in the Holy Spirit in the near future (Acts 1:5). Subsequently, the Spirit “filled” them at Pentecost (Acts 2:4) — and would again and again “fill” them and their newly converted colleagues for specific ministries (Acts 4:8; 4:31; 9:17; 13:9). The obvious point is that the Spirit may come again and again in many different ways for many different purposes. There is no incongruity between His coming in regeneration and a subsequent coming for charismatic initiation.
In keeping with the teachings of Jesus (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:5,8), we specifically associate the charismatic baptism in the Spirit with power for witness. To be “filled with the Spirit” — both upon one’s initiatory “baptism in/filling with” the Spirit as well as in subsequent “fillings” with the Spirit — describes, not one’s conversion, but a prophetic impetus to orally witness to the Lord Jesus (as a basic concordance search quickly proves). The terms baptism in the Spirit or filling with the Spirit are never associated with regeneration per se.
We need to note that the prophetic impetus comes from the Holy Spirit who in His own divine presence is redolent with the holiness of the Triune God and whose witness includes Jesus’ words of spiritual renewal, cleansing, and obedience. Thus the founders of the Assemblies of God correctly wrote, “With the baptism in the Holy Spirit come such experiences as an overflowing fullness of the Spirit (John 7:37–39; Acts 4:8), a deepened reverence for God (Acts 2:43; Hebrews 12:28), an intensified consecration to God and dedication to His work (Acts 2:42), and a more active love for Christ, for His Word, and for the lost (Mark 16:20).”16 It may be that the early Pentecostals did a better job of connecting the Spirit’s power and the Spirit’s holiness than we do. Our Wesleyan-Holiness friends are not all wrong in associating baptism in the Spirit with sanctification.
Let it be remembered that the Early Church could hardly have been “the salt of the earth,” “the light of the world,” “a city on a hill,” or “a lamp” on a stand (Matthew 5:13,14), providing powerful witness to an idolatrous and sensate first-century culture apart from the dramatic personal transformation engendered by an overwhelming experience of the Holy Spirit.
Signs — and the Sign
We can easily find signs of the Spirit-filled life in the New Testament. Prominent among them are the virtues in Paul’s “fruit” of the Spirit — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22,23). The fruit metaphor implies that the Spirit is vitally at work nurturing these character traits in the believer.
Paul uses the phrase “filled with the Spirit” only once, but he does so in a way that accentuates the charismatic dimensions of his pneumatology. Placing the verb “filled (pleroo)” in the present imperative, the language of continuing command, he writes “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:18–21, ESV).17
In this passage, Paul used four participial clauses, nicely retained in the English Standard Version quoted above, to describe the Spirit-filled life: (1) “Addressing” [lit. “speaking” to] one another in worship that edifies the community via “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” Certainly the “spiritual songs,” if not all three of those mentioned, represent charismatic praise, (2) “Singing and making melody” in personal worship to the Lord, (3) “Giving thanks” in perpetual gratitude,” and (4) “submitting” to one another. Spirit-filled life is full of worship (much of that worship being charismatic praise), mutual edification of the community, constant thanksgiving to God in all circumstances, and mutual submission in godly ethical family and community life. Brought together, the fruit of the Spirit and the four Spirit-filled behaviors — embracing the charismatic and the ethical in mutual worship and service — are indeed powerful signs of the Spirit-filled life (and show important signs of continuity between Paul and Luke).
But the question remains: Is there a first sign to signal the Spirit’s coming in charismatic power and endowment? In actual practice, the modern globe-girdling Pentecostal-charismatic movement really began to coalesce and then mushroom after a group of believers identified speaking with other tongues (glossolalia) as the initial sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Emerging from that early renewal experience, the classical Pentecostals framed their belief thusly, “The baptism of believers in the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance (Acts 2:4).”18
To be sure, there is no one passage that definitively spells out the doctrine any more than there is any one passage that definitively develops the doctrine of the Trinity, or many other doctrines. Like most doctrines, we infer the doctrine of the “initial sign/evidence” from the full sweep of biblical data. And in fact, the doctrine of the initial sign/evidence has greater biblical support than many other doctrines cherished by the various Christian traditions.
The validity of glossolalia as the initial sign/evidence flows out of its meaning and significance in the biblical text. Indubitably, prophetic speech was a sign of the coming of the Spirit in the Old Testament (Numbers 11:25,26; 1 Samuel 10:10). Unquestionably, prophetic speech is the great hallmark of the coming of the Spirit in the new covenant era, as Peter makes clear at Pentecost (Joel 2:28,29; Acts 2:17,18). Luke certainly placed glossolalic experiences strategically through the Acts in a classic narrative threefold pattern, going so far as to make it crystal clear that glossolalia was, at very least, one definitive sign of the Spirit’s coming (Acts 10:46). Moreover, one may legitimately infer that glossolalia was present even when Luke did not specifically mention it (Acts 8:18; 9:17–19, cf. 1 Corinthians 14:18; Acts 18:24–28). Interestingly, we know from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians that the church in Corinth practiced (and abused) glossolalia. Luke’s narrative strategy demonstrably omitted this information from his brief accounts of ministry in Corinth, and presumably the other churches established by Paul and his associates.
The glossolalia and prophetic praise of Pentecost function as a dramatic sign to the Jews and proselytes from all over the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin that God, having now fulfilled His purposes in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, is reaching out to Jews and, implicitly, Gentiles all around the world. Many see the Pentecost glossolalia as a sign of God’s reversal of the dispersion of the nations at Babel.19 Believers are preaching the reconciling message of the crucified and risen Jesus to the whole world, and all nations again may flow together in unity under His lordship. Glossolalia has theological and missiological as well as devotional and pastoral significance.
While charismatic phenomena associated with the initiatory and continuing ministries of the Spirit may be somewhat strange to modern ears, and while moderns may be more comfortable with a “genteel” ordo salutis minus supernatural phenomena, the key issue is whether or not the charismatic teachings of the Scriptures are intrinsic to its very nature and, therefore, relevant to contemporary church life and mission. Are those church traditions that have denied or minimized the charismatic, as a whole, more or less effective in the world-wide mission of the church? Can the modern Pentecostal-charismatic movement maintain its amazing vitality if it neglects its charismatic heritage?
Notes
1. David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, “Christian World Communions: Five Overviews of Global Christianity, A.D. 1800-2025,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research33, no. 1 (January 2009): 32.
2. See Vinson Synan, The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001).
3. Pentecostals normally translate the Greek preposition [en] literally, more clearly bringing out its intended sense, rather than utilizing the popular “baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
4. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1941 [1963 Reprint]), 415,416.
5. Berkhof,Systematic Theology, 418.
6. J. Kenneth Grider, A Wesleyan-Holiness Theology (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1994), 378.
7. Ibid., 388.
8. Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday Image Book, 1995), 353.
9. Ibid., 363.
10. H. Ray Dunning, Grace, Faith, and Holiness: A Wesleyan Systematic Theology (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1988), 424.
11. For a helpful study of these charismatic motifs, see Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1984), 13–32.
12. James D.G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), 7.
13. Assemblies of God “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” No. 5. http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_full.cfm#5
14. Assemblies of God “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” No. 9. http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_full.cfm#9
15. Assemblies of God “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” No. 7. http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_full.cfm#7
16. Ibid.
17. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, Wheaton: Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
18. Assemblies of God “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” No. 8. http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_full.cfm#8
19. Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 214–219.