Baptized into One Body

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This is Today With Derek Prince. The internationally recognized Bible teacher and author presents to you Keys To Successful Living.

On yesterday’s program Derek Prince shared with us the primary purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the two ways in which it was administered in the New Testament. As he continues his theme ‘Immersion in the Holy Spirit,’ he will share more about the purposes of this gift in the life of the believer. Listen at the end of today’s program for our address and this week’s special offer.

Derek Prince:

Let’s look in Hebrews chapter 2 for a moment, verses 3–4:

“How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. God, also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.”

The writer of Hebrews gives three reasons why we should attend to the gospel message. Number one, the first person who proclaimed it was Jesus. Secondly, it was confirmed by those who were personal eyewitnesses of Jesus. But the third reason is the Holy Spirit bears supernatural testimony to the message with signs, wonders and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The unbelieving world has a right to expect from the church that that’s what we’ll do. We’re living below the level of the will of God if we just present an intellectual message and quote a few Scriptures. Some people will get saved, it’s wonderful, but it’s not God’s best.

Now, I want to give you one further reason for the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the baptism. It’s stated in 1 Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter 12 and verse13. This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the whole of the New Testament. Actually, it’s mistranslated and it’s mistranslated because the translators had a preconception of what they thought Paul was trying to say. I have to say I’ve learned Greek since I was ten years old, I am totally confident of the correctness of what I’m saying and if I weren’t I wouldn’t say it. The text that I have, and most of the other translations read the same. 1 Corinthians 12:13:

“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink from one Spirit.”

Now the wrong word there is ‘by,’ because the Greek says in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. And there is no suggestion anywhere else in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit ever baptizes people. People are baptized in the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit doesn’t baptize. We are born again of the Holy Spirit, that’s what brings us into the body.

Now, the word emphasized there is the word one. What Paul is saying is the purpose of the baptism is to produce unity in the body. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, we’re all given to drink of one Spirit. Three times he uses the word one. You see, I pointed out to you before with regard to the use of the word baptize in and into, when you are baptized you’re baptized in something and baptized into something. But in both the other cases, John’s baptism and Christian baptism, in actual fact, the people were already in what they were baptized into. For instance, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance but he wouldn’t baptize people who hadn’t repented. So, the baptism of John didn’t produce repentance, it was his acknowledgment that they had repented.

And then Christian baptism, baptism in water, we’re baptized into Christ. But when we are baptized we are already in Christ, otherwise we have no right to be baptized. So, being baptized in water doesn’t put us in Christ, it seals us as having been in Christ.

It’s the same with this. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, not that we weren’t in the body but this is the seal that we’re in the body. So in every case, baptize in, baptize into. In is the medium. With John’s baptism it is water, with Christian baptism it is water, with the Holy Spirit it was the Holy Spirit. What we’re baptized into is something that we’re already in but it marks us out as being in. In repentance, in Christ, in one body. But what we need to bear in mind, and this is one of the tragedies of recent church history, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is designed to produce unity in the body. But unfortunately we’ve been so carnal that instead of accepting unity we’ve often used it to produce division. And for that, all of us need to repent. So bear in mind the baptism of the Holy Spirit is designed to make you know that you’re part of one body and that every other true believer, no matter what denomination or what race or what culture, is a member of the same body. There’s only one Holy Spirit, there’s only one body.

That was God’s purpose and unfortunately like so many other things we’ve abused God’s purpose. For instance, the celebration of communion was designed for the same purpose, to emphasize the unity of the body. What has it done through our carnality? It’s divided us. But that’s not God’s fault, it’s our fault. All of us need to bear some responsibility. The non-Pentecostals, for being so critical; the Pentecostals, for being so arrogant. I mean, I’ve been a Pentecostal long enough, our famous slogan was ‘We’ve got it all.’ When I looked at some of them I’ve thought, ‘Whatever you have, it isn’t much!’ But you see, that attitude has offended a lot of people. We’ve had this attitude, well the Pentecostals have got it all. We’ve got the full gospel. We don’t have more than we have. We can have the baptism and speak in tongues and still be very short of God’s standard. It’s not a guarantee that you’re absolutely perfect. It’s not a seal of perfection, it’s a help to become perfect.

See, again a lot of Pentecostals have the attitude—I mean, I know it so well—you get saved, born again, baptized in water, speak in tongues and you’ve arrived. No, no, no, you’ve just started! It’s not a goal, it’s a gateway. But if you treat the gateway as the goal you’ll never get any further. Some of you Pentecostals need to give a little heed to that. If you are Pentecostal and you’re here, I love the Pentecostals, I owe my salvation to them. For a good many years I thought they were right about everything. And then I discovered they too had their weaknesses. But bear that in mind, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is to bring Christians into unity.

There’s one other thing we need to deal with which is physical manifestations. My opinion is most Christians are living what I call ‘bottled up lives.’ They’re not free to express what God has put in them because we have this standard of dignity: you speak with a quiet voice, you don’t get too excited, you sit upright in your seat, you get up, you stand up, you sit down, you kneel down and you walk out of church. I mean, I was in it for years so don’t tell me that isn’t so. That has very little to do with New Testament Christianity. It’s got very little to do with the experience of people in the Bible. They got excited. You read the Psalms of David. He roared, he cried, he wet his bed with tears. He was a man of strong emotion. Even Jesus, He groaned, He wept, He expressed His feelings.

See, I mean no one has got this background more than I. I was brought up at the very center of the old school tie tradition. If you know anything about Britain, I was educated in Eton and Cambridge. I was a bastion of the empire. But, one night God baptized me in the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t go to church, it happened in an army barrack room. I was so ignorant I didn’t know you had to go to church either to get saved or get baptized in the Spirit. I got both of them in an army barrack room in the middle of the night. But then when I began to move in the church I discovered that people didn’t make room for God. Now, I’m not a super-emotional person. I think most of you who know a little bit about me will — But the trouble is we quenched our emotions. We haven’t given free expression to what God has done in us. We are far short of the standards of the Bible and one main reason among us Anglo-Saxons, and whatever else we might be, is we haven’t expressed what the Holy Spirit has put in us. We’ve quenched the Spirit, we’ve suppressed the Spirit. We’ve tried to be dignified, we’ve been afraid of being too emotional or too excited.

I am not a super-emotional person but I believe in yielding to the Holy Spirit. I believe in expressing what the Holy Spirit has put in me. Let me give you just a little list of people, we have to keep going. Here’s some of the people who met God: Abraham. The Lord appeared to him and what did Abraham do? He fell on his face. How many of you would do that? Some of you would. I always smile when I hear Christians singing that hymn, ‘Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all. Let angels prostrate fall.’ I think those dear church members, it’s all right for angels to fall but not us. No, no, no. We are much too dignified for that. And then there was Israel. When the Lord accepted their sacrifice with supernatural fire it says they all fell on their faces and shouted. They didn’t just. . . . You know, the Bible says let us shout joyfully. I want to tell you, shouting is not singing aloud. Shouting is shouting. Some of you I’m sure go to football matches. Don’t put your hand up, you might be embarrassed, but you do. And when the right side scores a goal, what do you do? You stand up and you shout! Why? Because you’re excited. You can get excited about football, why not get excited about Jesus and the Holy Spirit?

And then Joshua. He met the Commander of the army of the Lord outside Jericho and there he was, flat on his face. In fact, I venture to tell you that most of the great men of the Bible have been on their face before God at least once. And then God said to him, ‘The Lord said to him, 'Take your shoes off your feet, you’re standing on holy ground.’’ Have you ever been in a place where you had to take your shoes off? We have. God moved in, in a conference we were in at Jerusalem two years ago and without anybody being instructed the people just quietly began to slip their shoes off their feet because they knew they were in a holy place.

The priests, when the fire of God, the presence and glory of God came into the temple, it says they fell on their faces. They couldn’t stand.

Announcer:

Tomorrow Derek Prince will conclude his teaching on ‘Immersion in the Spirit,’ by giving us seven basic requirements for receiving the Holy Spirit and Scriptural examples of physical reactions that may accompany the experience.

This week’s message is available on audiocassette No. RC4165 and also on video. Our special offer this week is the book Baptism in the Holy Spirit, in which Derek offers Biblical insights into this gift and addresses specific questions relating to it. To receive your copy of ‘Immersion in the Spirit’ write today and include a contribution of $5.00 or more for audiocassette RC4165 or $14.95 for the video teaching. Include a gift of any amount for the book Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Derek Prince also welcomes your letters and your prayer requests. Our mailing address is Derek Prince Ministries, Box 19501, Charlotte, North Carolina 28219. In Canada write to Derek Prince Ministries, Box 8354, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3K 5M1, and please give us the call letters of this station when you write.

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