Spiritual Gifts part 116: The link between current positional truth and deliverance in time

Pastor-Teacher

John Farley

Wednesday,

May 4, 2011

Schedule update:
NO class Wed May 11
NO class Thu May 12
Sunday service May 15 with recorded message

The Doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

C.  The Baptism of the Spirit is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in placing every new believer into permanent union with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Body the Church.

10.  The baptism of the Spirit could not occur until there was the strategic victory of Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict.  

Now there was the need for a universal priesthood, since every believer was now a target of satan, 1PE 3:21.

The baptism of the Spirit gives us the pledge of a good conscience toward God.

The possession of an old sin nature seems to make the pledge of a good conscience toward God impossible…

…until we understand that the baptism of the Spirit, under retroactive and current positional truth,  produces the answer.

Retroactive positional truth means to be identified with Christ in His death and burial.

Current positional truth is identification with Christ as He is seated at the right hand of God the Father in His resurrection, ascension, and session.

Good conscience depends on your relationship: you are in union with Christ!

Now we are in union with Christ at the right hand of the Father [current positional truth].

We have a good conscience toward God because we are accepted, not on the basis of who and what we are , but on the basis of who and what Christ is.

He is saying the baptism he is talking about here is NOT the removal of dirt from the flesh.  He wants to make sure the reader knows that he is NOT talking about water baptism.

The baptism he is pointing to is one that delivers you by answering your appeal to God for a good conscience.  It delivers you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

present active indicative of
σώζω
save, i.e. deliver or protect (literally or figuratively)

To heal, to save from disease and its effects; To make wholeTo restore[what follows is from Vine]"to save," …..

(a)  of material and temporal deliverance from danger, suffering(b) of the spiritual and eternal salvation granted immediately by God to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ

(c) of the present experiences of God's power to deliver from the bondage of sin

(d) of the future deliverance of believers at the second coming of Christ for His saints

(e) of the deliverance of the nation of Israel at the second advent of Christ(f) inclusively for all the blessings bestowed by God on men in Christ

(g) of those who endure to the end of the time of the Great Tribulation(h) of the individual believer, who, though losing his reward at the judgment seat of Christ hereafter, will not lose his salvation,

(i) of the deliverance of the nations at the Millennium, REV 21:24 (in some mss.). 
from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words

In his classic book Romans verse by verse, William Newell identifies five parts to our salvation:

1.  Christ’s propitiatory work toward God through His blood

2.  Christ’s identification with us as connected with Adam, “becoming sin for us”, releasing us from Adam, our federal head

3.  The Holy Spirit’s whole work in us, as “the Spirit of grace”

4.  Christ’s present work in Heaven: leading our worship and praise as our Great High Priest; and protecting us should we sin, as our Advocate with the Father

5.  Christ’s second coming to redeem our bodies, and receive us to Himself in glory; The Rapture.