The Holy Spirit & The Promised Holy Spirit

On the Holy Spirit and the Promised Holy Spirit

1. When the Lord Jesus had been baptized in the river Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him (Lk 3:22).

2. It was only after He had resurrected and ascended to heaven that the Lord Jesus received the promised Holy Spirit
(Acts 2:33—the Lord Jesus was the first to receive the promised Holy Spirit!).

There is obviously only one Holy Spirit; who can say that there are two? The Holy Spirit referred to in these two passages (the “Holy Spirit” and the “promised Holy Spirit”) are clearly not the same, yet who would dare say that they were different?

The concept of the Holy Spirit appears to be analogous to the concept of God:
The Father is God, and so is the Son. Nevertheless, there are things the Father knows that the Son does not (Mt 24:36). Moreover, the Father has His will, yet the Son has His own will, which differs from that of the Father (Mk 14:36). Given these differences, who can say that the Son and the Father are identical? They are the same God and the same Spirit, but they have different manifestations, functions and abilities. They are the same, yet at the same time very different.

Our understanding of the Holy Spirit would be much clearer if could understand it as we understand God:

A. Since
1. The Lord Jesus was baptized, received the Holy Spirit and became the beloved Son of God (Lk 3:22).
2. The Lord Jesus only received the promised Holy Spirit after He had resurrected (Acts 2:33).

B. Therefore
1. When a person is baptized, the Holy Spirit dwells in him; he becomes the son of God in spirit, and his body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19–20).
2. After a person has died, been buried and resurrected with the Lord through baptism, he shall receive the “promised Holy Spirit”(Acts 2:38–39).

C. In other words:
1. Only the Holy Spirit which dwells in our hearts upon baptism allows us to become sons of God.
2. The “other” Comforter (Jn 14:16 “another Comforter”) received outside of baptism is the “promised Holy Spirit”. He is a witness and power (Acts1:8) but does not enable one to become a son of God.

D. Thus,
1. A person who comes up out of the water after baptism has been born of water and the Spirit (Jn 3:5–6); he has been born again. He has at that instant become a son of God.
2. A person who has received the “promised Holy Spirit” but has not yet received water baptism has not yet been born of the Spirit, has not yet been born again and is still not a son of God.

Conclusion:

• After a person has gone through water baptism for the forgiveness of sins, he becomes a son of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within him. Following this, he shall receive the promised Holy Spirit in order to be a witness and to obtain power.

• This is similar to how the Holy Spirit descended upon the Lord Jesus and confirmed that He was the beloved Son of God when He came up out of the water after His baptism. After He had been crucified, buried, resurrected and glorified, He received the promised Holy Spirit from God in order to obtain the witness of His authority and glory (cf. Mt 28:18; Jn 7:39).