For ten anxious days they had waited in Jerusalem for the promised “Comforter.” How often their minds must have revisited that evening seven weeks earlier when the Lord pledged to send another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would abide with them forever. So in obedience to the Lord’s bidding a few believers gathered to pray for the arrival of this mysterious Someone and the advent of something they didn’t understand.
Suddenly, the quiet reverence of the corporate prayer meeting was overcome with the roar of rushing wind and the appearance of fiery cloven tongues descending on the saints. The Holy Spirit had come, just as the Lord had promised! He filled them all, taking up residence in their earthly temples.
What effect did this have on those at Jerusalem? Acts 2 records that those who witnessed this great manifestation of God’s power were “confounded,” “amazed,” “perplexed,” and “fear came upon every soul.” There was a Big Scare in progress.
In the past, God, for brief periods of time, disturbed the natural course of regular events on which we base our life. He had demonstrated His great power in delivering Israel from Egypt; in the forty-year desert experience which followed; during the prophetic eras of Elijah and Elisha; and more recently through the ministry of His own Son. Now, God was going to use common people to work these great signs and wonders to once more proclaim to the Jews that the Jesus they had crucified was their Messiah.
Thus, these mysterious signs and wonders had a specific purpose in the infancy of the Church Age. Looking beyond this inaugural display of spiritual activity, however, we are enlightened to several “initial works” of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer, whether present at Pentecost or saved since then through repentance of sin and acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Although the application of these unrepeatable and initial works in those early believers and the continued filling by the Holy Spirit is mysterious to us, these activities of God in the life of believers culminated to produce the Big Scare that shook Jerusalem!
The Big Scare comprises eight separate works of God performed once and only once at the conversion of a soul to Christ. These acts are not earned by man, or derived naturally from human experience. All these works are accomplished universally in all who know Christ as Saviour. It is after these initial acts that the Holy Spirit begins working in the life of the believer–as the believer submits to God and relinquishes control of self. Some of these ministries to the believer are teaching, guiding, comfort, sanctifying, directing, convicting, interceding, enabling, empowering, effecting worship, and giving discernment.
Baptism: Spiritual baptism was an historical act of the Holy Spirit that made the initial 120 individual believers into one Body. Since then, the believing soul comes into the good of that baptism when the Holy Spirit adds them to the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). Since this is the only purpose of spiritual baptism, it is never repeated (once you’re in you’re in, you cannot be pulled out, Rom. 8:39).
Water baptism, which follows spiritual baptism, is a personal act of obedience by the believing soul in response to the Lord’s command (Mt. 28:19). In so doing, a public profession of Christ is made to encourage the saved and witness to the lost (Acts 10:43-48).
Indwelling: Paul taught that every believer becomes the dwelling place of God (1 Cor. 6:19). The Lord demonstrated His wrath over a defiled temple twice during His earthly ministry. With scourge in hand He cleansed the temple by driving out impure and evil activities taking place there. He desires the same holy consecration of our bodies. What impurity would He desire to drive out of your body, His temple? He despises sin and impure thoughts. Let us strive to maintain God’s dwelling place as holy!
Gifts: We read in 1 Corinthians 12 that the Spirit distributes spiritual gifts to believers as He wills (v. 11). The number of gifts per believer will vary (v. 4), but every believer will get a gift (v. 7). The manner in which these gifts will be used also varies (v. 5). The beneficiaries of the gifts will be different (v. 6). The purpose of every spiritual gift is to glorify God. Through the mutual use of spiritual gifts by all believers the Church is built up, or added to, and God is glorified (1 Pet. 4:10; 1 Cor. 14:12).
Sealing: The seal of God, Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:13, is the Holy Spirit Himself. The eternal truth of this seal is likened to the seal placed on a letter or scroll. The seal protects and secures the letter. The seal indicates who the originator and owner of the letter is. In some cases the seal was used to indicate approval of a contract or agreement. In like manner the invisible Holy Spirit seals the believer. God indicates to all unseen powers and principalities that this soul is under the protection of God and is His personal possession, as transacted through the work at Calvary.
Cleansing: In the School of Christ by Dr. Gooding explains the washing of regeneration is an initial experience introducing two ideas:
In the first place, it is a washing, a cleansing away of evil and polluted things. In the second place, it is regeneration, the positive implanting of a new life, and a new order of living. The Holy Spirit washes us by bringing us to see the wrong and evil in our sinful attitudes and desires. He makes us feel their uncleanness, and leads us to repent of them and repudiate them. More deeply than that, He brings us to see that, in spite of all our efforts to improve ourselves, we cannot eradicate these evil powers within us: we need a Saviour. We cry out in the secret of our heart: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?”
Anointing: Priests, prophets, and kings were anointed when consecrated for the Lord’s use in service. Just as the Lord was anointed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38) at the commencement of His ministry, each believer is called for a purpose in the body of Christ according to the sovereign will of God. Not only does this anointing separate the believer for God’s purpose, the anointing also gives divine discernment of the truth and enablement to spread this truth (1 Jn. 2:18-27).
Regeneration: Regeneration is the implanting of a new life in what was dead, as discussed in the Cleansing section. This action brings about a new creation in the spiritual realm. The believer was dead, but now is made spiritually alive.
Earnest: When one makes an agreement with another to purchase a piece of property, there is generally a pledge made call an “earnest” by the one buying the property. The buyer places a sum of money to ratify his commitment to do everything he has agreed to do. Likewise, God has given us His Spirit as earnest to show that He will complete what He has started in us. The believer, as the espoused bride of Christ, has a pledge from the Lord that He will return to wed. This gives the believer a blessed hope. For one day the Lord will return, and in one final act, God will complete the salvation of every true believer by glorifying them. Paul writes, The Lord “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:21).
Seeing, then, the great work that God has done through His Spirit in the depths of our being, let us display the light of Christ through these regenerated clay vessels and endeavor not to hinder the Spirit’s filling through disobedience and pride. While it is true that the vast signs and wonders of the Apostolic age have passed, the same Spirit is still actively wooing a Bride for the Saviour today. As at the feast of Pentecost, the unsaved can still be left in wonder, amazement, and fear as a result of their contact with Spirit-controlled believers. Let them see the effects of the Big Scare.