The Spirit and Baptism

We are continuing on in our study of the Holy Spirit tonight. We have been looking at the Spirit and His personhood, the fact that He is a person, the fact that He is God. We have looked at His work in many different ways, His work in creation, His work in Scripture, giving Scripture, and also helping us to understand Scripture. We have looked at His work in unbelievers to convict of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and then to regenerate, to give new life, and that kind of bridges the gap between unbeliever and believer for the Holy Spirit to bring us into Christ and into new life is His work of regeneration. Then we have been looking recently at His ministry among believers that He is involved in sealing us, and we talked about that beautiful word picture of the ceiling of the Holy Spirit. His presence is God's seal of ownership and authority and protection over us. Then we looked last time at the indwelling of the Spirit, the fact that the Holy Spirit actually indweils us. He maintains an abiding presence with us, lives inside us, and that is a wonderful, blessed privilege. Tonight we are going to look at one of the more controversial ministries of the Spirit. We will take at least a couple of weeks on this one, and that is the Spirit and baptism. We are not talking about water baptism here, we are not talking about the ritual of baptism, we are talking about spirit baptism. But you will notice in the outline you have before you tonight we are referring to it as baptism in the Spirit. Most of the time this is called the baptism of the Spirit. We are going to see tonight that actually the baptism in the Spirit is a better way to say it. It is a more biblical way to say it. The picture, even the wording is more accurate. We will talk about the baptism in the Spirit tonight, and hopefully see what that is all about. We are going to begin with some confusion. You are saying, well John, that is typical with your teaching, isn't it? The begin with some confusion. I suppose it could be. But we are going to talk about some things first of all that are confusing about this particular ministry of the Spirit. Probably the baptism in the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit are the most controversial aspects of the study of the Holy Spirit. I have listed for you in your outline for different kinds of confusion about this particular doctrine. I just want to mention those, state them fairly briefly and see if you have any question about them. There is first of all a dispensational confusion about the baptism in the Spirit. When we talk about dispensations, we don't say a whole lot about that here, but I am a dispensationalist and we are a church dispensational in our theology as opposed to covenant theology. Again, we don't talk a whole lot about that, but there are lots of differences between the two, and that is not the purpose of our study to go into that tonight when we get into the doctrine of last things or prophecy, maybe we will. But primarily the mark of dispensationalism is that you see a distinct difference between God's dealing with Israel and God's dealing with the church. There are seven dispensations in all, dispensation being a different way of God working with His people, but the two major ones are the dispensation of law and dispensation of grace, or I prefer the dispensation of the church. Dispensation of the law, being basically God's covenant working with His people, Israel, in the Old Testament, the dispensation of grace, which I don't really like that term because God has always shown His grace, Old Testament, New Testament, He will again in the millennium, which is another dispensation. But I prefer the dispensation of the church because that's the hallmark of this particular age or dispensation that we live in is the church. So a dispensationalist sees a major difference between the way God dealt with His covenant, people Israel and the Old Testament, and the way He deals with us as the church. Lots of differences. In fact, one of the major differences is the covenant of law for Israel, covenant of grace with the church or the blood of Christ, but a major difference is the fact that God still has a purpose for Israel. If you're a covenant theologian, basically covenant theologians see that all the promises to Israel are fulfilled in the church, and it takes some real twisting hermeneutically or interpreting scripture to come up with that. A lot of spiritualizing and so forth of prophecies, but there are many, many Old Testament prophecies about a future for the nation of Israel, which we believe will be in the millennial kingdom. So that's a major difference, and we believe as dispensationalists in a distinction between the way God dealt with Israel and dealt with the church, and He still has a plan for Israel in the future. Having said that, let me tie that into the baptism in the spirit. Since baptism in the spirit is closely tied, and really has everything to do with us being placed into the body of Christ, into the church, if the church started way back with Abraham as covenant theologians teach, or even with John the Baptist, then it's hard to understand what the spirit baptism accomplishes. What is it accomplished if it does not accomplish the placing of a believer into the body of Christ, and we're going to see a little bit later that that's exactly what it does, and we're going to also see exactly when it started. So if as covenant theologians say the church goes all the way back to Abraham, then it's hard to understand what purpose the baptism in the spirit has. Jesus prophesied that it would be future during His ministry. It hadn't happened yet, and we can identify, as we'll see in a moment, exactly when it did begin, it began the day the church began. It is tied to placing us into the body of Christ. So if there's no distinction between Israel and the church, then what purpose does the baptism in the spirit have? None, really. And so the dispensational confusion leads to confusion, not only between church and Israel, but on the baptism in the spirit as well. I said quite a bit about the dispensations and so forth. Any question before we move on? I didn't tend to really get into that quite as much as it did. Any question? Yes, Guisty? I'm not sure what he means by leaky dispensationalist. He if he means he sprung a few leaks, I'm not sure. I do know that John MacArthur is reformed in his so tearyology, which basically means he's a five point Calvinist. Most five point Calvinists are also reformed in their eschatology or their doctrine of prophecy, which means they do not believe in dispensations. However, John MacArthur is different and John Piper is as well. Both of them are dispensationalists who are reformed in their so tearyology. So they would believe a lot of what covenant theologians believe as far as the way of salvation or the doctrine of salvation, but they are with us on doctrine of prophecy. So I think he may mean he's a leaky dispensationalist in the fact that he doesn't buy into everything dispensationalist teach. But yeah, I'm not sure who he's leaking either. I would think he would refer to himself as a leaking reformed theologian because as a reformed theologian, he's not typical. He doesn't follow reformed ecclesiology doctrine of the church or reformed eschatology doctrine of prophecy, but he does follow reformed so tearyology or doctrine of salvation. So I would think he would refer to himself as a leaky reformed theologian. He's not quite completely reformed. He's leaking in a few areas, but I'm not sure what he means by that term. Okay, any other question about dispensational confusion? Okay, a second area of confusion about baptism in the spirit is what I'm going to call ritual confusion and what I'm referring to there is the ritual or ceremony of water baptism. Here's the confusion. Some people overemphasize water baptism to the point that they say the Bible is always referring to water baptism unless it is clearly stated otherwise. And probably the only exception some of those people would see would be one verse in 1 Corinthians 12, 13. However, we're going to see tonight that there are probably several passages that use the word baptism that are referring to the baptism in the spirit and not water baptism. However, the two are closely tied in this way when people are speaking of water, when people are speaking of baptism in the spirit and the scriptures, never far from their mind is the idea of water baptism because that's the symbol that really communicates what's going to be done. And we're going to see that later. There is a baptizer, there is an element into which we are baptized, there is a mode of baptism in spirit baptism. All of that is true. And so it kind of draws the picture from water baptism, but the two are not the same. And I know people well, there are certain branches of baptists that do not believe in spirit baptism or baptism in the spirit and they take I had one on my ordination council and he grilled me on this very topic until preacher Jimmy who was who was the moderator of my council. And so we are not here to find out what you believe, we're here to find out what John believes has only Jimmy could do in his wisdom. But there are, there are, I have good friends who I think are confused about this topic, unritual confusion and believe that there is no such thing as baptism in the spirit, there's only baptism in water, only water baptism. Any, any common question about that one. I think there are both in the New Testament, water baptism and spirit baptism. Okay, a third area of confusion is what I want to call charismatic confusion, the charismatic movement associates spirit baptism with speaking in tongues or with the gift of tongues. Now we're going to see that in one instance at least in the New Testament, maybe a couple, but one in particular that's that's more well known, the two happen at the same time, but they are not necessarily linked. In other words, it doesn't mean you always have one with the other. So, charismatic believe that the spirit baptism is an experience that you have after salvation and it's only experienced by some Christians and it's always marked by speaking in tongues. And we're going to see that is that's wrong, that's a confusion, that's not true in the scriptures. And then the fourth kind of confusion is what I'm just going to call terminology confusion. There have been some really good men who are just confused in the terminology and they confuse baptism in the spirit with the filling of the spirit. For instance, D. L. Moody, bless his heart, D. L. Moody usually spoke of the filling of the spirit as baptism of the spirit. He confused the two and so did his protege, the one who followed him, R. A. Tori. I have a little pamphlet written by R. A. Tori, he was the second president of Moody Bible Institute after Moody and he spoke of the filling of the spirit as the baptism of the spirit. It was just an error in terminology, they used the wrong word, what they believed was very similar to what we believe, they just called it the wrong thing. So there's some terminology confusion as well. So you can see there's a lot of confusion on this, this baptism in the spirit. It's a reason why we're probably going to take a couple of weeks to try to go through it carefully and hopefully clarify some of the terms and some of the passages and some of the meanings of all of this. Hopefully we can do that. Okay, comments or questions about the confusing part of our study tonight. We'll take Kishti first because she's your mother-in-law. So we better take her first. Okay, Lindsey? Okay. Yes, yes. I think the filling of the spirit happened in the Old Testament as well. And we're actually going to spend a whole study on the Old Testament ministry of the spirit which will get into some other areas as well. But I think the filling of the spirit did happen in the Old Testament. It's usually spoken of differently. It's usually spoken of as the spirit coming on people to undo them with power for particular task. Okay, not your turn, Lindsey. We're going to see the reason for some of it in a little bit. Just some of the terminology even in the passages is a little confusing. And then there's a passage in Ephesians 4.5 says that there's one faith, one Lord, one baptism. And that's where the people who deny spirit baptism come up with that idea. If there's only one baptism, it's got to be water baptism. Well, that's a misunderstanding of what that passage is teaching. So like many areas of confusion, a lot of it just has to do with the misunderstanding of some scriptures. Surely there's at least the one instance where baptism in the spirit is closely identified with speaking in tongues. And so there's some people who take that and say, okay, it's got to be that way all the time. And that's not what acts to is teaching. So there's lots of reasons for the confusion. Yes, Kelly. I think most Charismatics would say, no, you can be saved and not have the baptism of the spirit. The baptism of the spirit is just seen as an experience after salvation that some Christians have much like we would see the filling of the spirit. Not every Christian is filled with the spirit, but they're still believers. And so they would see the baptism of the spirit same. Not the same as the ceiling? No, no. The ceiling, the indwelling, and the baptism, I think all happen at the same time. They happen at the moment of regeneration, at the moment of salvation, all of those happen. But they're just different ways of looking what the spirit does. The ceiling of the spirit is not an additional action of the Holy Spirit. The ceiling of the spirit basically means that because the Holy Spirit indwells us, he himself becomes God's seal of ownership. So it's not like the Holy Spirit indwells us and then he separately seals us. A ceiling is not a separate action. Sealing is just another way of saying, because he indwells us, he becomes God's seal of ownership and authority and security. So they're kind of tied together and indwelling and baptism are tied together too, as we'll see in a minute, a few minutes. I know it's a little, maybe we should add this fifth area of confusion, a little confusing sometimes to keep all of these ministries of the spirit straight. Okay, is this ceiling, is this endwelling, is this filling, is this baptism? So when you have that confusion, just pull out your notes and go through again and make sure you understand the difference. Alright, let's take a look at the major passages on the baptism in the spirit. And I think the things will begin to clear up now that we look at these major passages. You'll begin to see how the scriptures really deal with this. First of all, Matthew chapter 3, verse 11, this is John the Baptist speaking in his ministry. He's baptizing in water. Obviously, that's hallmark of his ministry. In verse 11, John is speaking to the Pharisees and Sadducees who've come to be baptized by him and he's talked with them, the verses prior to that. In verse 11, he says, I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. John is prophesying that one comes after him who, he's not even worthy to unillusion these sandals. Obviously, that's Christ. And while John is baptizing with water, Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now, if you have, most of you probably have a letter or a footnote or something by the word with, I have it in my Bible. I think most every Bible I have that I've looked at has this a footnote that says, or in. In other words, I baptize you in water and he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit. Now, as we're going to see in a moment, to baptize with water, the preposition, the Greek preposition can also be translated by or in. And I believe it's most appropriate in these passages as, as even the translators indicate is possible to translate it by the word in. Because when you baptize with water, you're not just taking, not scriptural baptism, not just taking some water with you to baptize someone, you're putting them in water. You're, you're baptizing, you're plunging them in water. And so it's probably most appropriate to use the word in. That's the reason why it's better to call this baptism in the Spirit. The Spirit is what we're baptized into and we'll see how all that works in just a little bit. But Jesus will baptize in Spirit. And that's something else that's different from what a lot of people say, a lot of people speak of the baptism of the Spirit in the sense that they say the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ. Well, everywhere else that's mentioned in the Bible, other than 1 Corinthians 12, 13, we'll get to that in a minute. It's always Christ who does the baptizing. Christ baptizes us with or in the Spirit. Okay, so it begins here in Matthew 3 with that prophecy. Then look at Acts chapter 1 and verse 5. This is just before the ascension. Jesus goes back to heaven. He says to his disciples in verse 4, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift. My father promised, which you have heard me speak about. They heard him speak about it in the upper room. Remember all the things times when Jesus said to them in the upper room, I will give you the Spirit necessary for you to go away. If I don't go away, he will not come. But if I go away, I will give him to you. He's talked about the giving of the Spirit quite a bit. Now verse 5, for John baptized with or in water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit or in the Holy Spirit. Jesus here refers to it as still future. It hasn't happened yet. It's still future. And he reminds them of what John prophesied back in Matthew 3, John baptized with water or in water. I'm going to baptize you in the Holy Spirit and he says in a few days. It's not happened yet. It's still future, but it's very close. It's going to be in a few days. Now skip over to Acts chapter 11. If you have a question about any of these passages, stop me. But Acts chapter 11 verses 15 to 17, this is when Peter takes the gospel to Cornelius' household. Cornelius is the first Gentile to receive the gospel and get saved. It happened in chapter 10, in chapter 11, Peter is back in Jerusalem, defending his actions, explaining them to the Jewish council, the church leaders in Jerusalem, and in chapter 11 verse 15, notice what he says. He says, as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Now when did the Holy Spirit come on the disciples and it would be referred to as the beginning? When would that have happened? Pentecost. Yeah, they have pentecost. That's when that would have been because we'll look back at Acts 2 in a little bit. But right now we're just talking about the passages referred to the baptism in the Spirit. But notice how Peter interprets that. Verse 16, then I remembered what the Lord had said. Jesus baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So Peter says, when I saw the gift of the Spirit come upon these Gentiles, just like he had on us in the beginning, when the church started, they had pentecost chapter 2. When I saw that, I remembered what Jesus said about the baptism in the Spirit. So this passage tells us that what happened to them in the beginning included the baptism in the Spirit. Although as we'll see later, that's not mentioned specifically in Acts 2. But Acts 11 says that's what it was. And that's what happened in Acts 10 with Cornelius. So Peter draws this conclusion in verse 17. So if God gave them the same gift, He gave us. Remember Jesus had said, wait for the gift of the Father in chapter 1. The gift of the Father, the Holy Spirit, who had been promised in the upper room discourse, came on the day of Pentecost. And now here he's referring it back. The same thing happened to Cornelius and his household. If God gave them the same gift, He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Who was I to think that I could stand in God's way? You see, he's defending his decision to take the gospel to the Gentiles. And he's saying, wait a second, God did this, not me. And I couldn't stand in God's way. And God even showed that he was doing the same thing with us or them, those Gentiles, that he did with us on the day of Pentecost. And he was tying the two together. And he clearly refers to it as the baptism in the Spirit. He said, when I saw what was happening, I remember that Jesus had said, I'll baptize you in the Spirit. That's what it was. Okay. Comments or questions there. Yes. That was true. In some cases, it wasn't true with Cornelius. Cornelius had heard the gospel for the first time and just gotten saved. But later on, it would happen. For instance, with some disciples of John in chapter 19, it would happen. And even in Acts chapter 8 with the Samaritans, it happened very similar to that. Although the baptism in the Spirit is not mentioned there, it's just the Holy Spirit indwelling them was true there. So in the book of Acts, you've got some of this transition between people who were already believers in the Old Testament sense, but now they're being transitioned into the church. So the indwelling of the Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit, all that happens to them, although technically they're believers from the Old Testament. You've got some of that crossover unusual stuff happening in the book of Acts. But with Cornelius, Cornelius is just now hearing for the first time in the gospel. So he's getting saved and the baptism of the Spirit happens immediately with him. Okay. Here's a key passage. Any other question before we move on? Don't know if it's all maybe a hand. Okay. So I just get in the dandruff out of their hair. Yes. Okay. First Corinthians 12. First Corinthians 12. Here's the passage that really states it very clearly. In this passage in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul is fully explaining the concept of the body of Christ, and he's comparing it to the human body. Now that context is important. In fact, let's get it in verse 12. First Corinthians 12. 12. Just as a body, not about the human body, though one has many parts, but all of its many parts form one body. So it is with Christ. Okay. So being a Christian, being in Christ is very similar. He's going to say to the human body lots of different parts, but all one body. And he makes the point in verse 13. For we were all baptized by, and I have again a footnote that says, or with or in, we were all baptized by one Spirit or in one Spirit. So as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink, and then he goes on to describe more about the body of Christ. So here he identifies baptism in the Spirit very clearly. We were all baptized by one Spirit, so as to form one body or into one body, and that body is the body of Christ. So this is clearly an action that is done to place us into the body of Christ. So this one identifies clearly that it happens at the moment of salvation. Okay. Questions about this one? We're going to come back to some of these verses as we talk about the six factors in the baptism in the Spirit as we get into that, but we'll come back to those. Now quickly, hopefully, we'll see, there are some other passages to that I believe may refer to the baptism in the Spirit. That's why I put possible others. There would be some that would disagree with this, and that's fine, but I think that at least possibly some of these other passages refer to the baptism in the Spirit. First of all, Acts chapter 2 verses 1 through 4, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven, and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now you notice baptism in the Spirit is not mentioned specifically here in this passage. It's the filling of the Spirit which is mentioned here. The enablement of the Spirit in his power to enable the disciples to speak in tongues. Now we're going to spend a whole study on the relationship of baptism in the Spirit to speaking in tongues. I don't really get into that here, but just to say, for purposes of our study tonight, this passage does not specifically mention the baptism in the Spirit. The emphasis of the author here is that filling of the Spirit, that enabling power of the Spirit to give the disciples the ability to speak in languages they've never studied. That's the speaking in tongues gift here. But it's clear that what happens here includes baptism in the Spirit or the baptism of the Spirit, some would say. And why is that clear? What did we just see? In Acts 1, Jesus said, it's still future. I'm going to baptize you in the Spirit in a few days. Okay. Acts chapter 11, Peter looks back on what happened to Cornelius and says, hey, that's the same thing that happened to us in the beginning. And I remembered that Jesus had said, I will baptize you in the Spirit. So if it's a few days in the future in Acts 1 and in Acts 11, Peter looks back and says, this is the same thing that happened to us that Jesus talked about baptism in the Spirit. Obviously, baptism in the Spirit happened in Acts chapter 2, even though it's not mentioned specifically. Okay. That you just process of elimination, it's got to be, has to be. What Jesus was prophesying would be in a few days and what Peter is talking about happened to them at the beginning. Yes sir. The tongues of fire. Okay. Yeah. Back in Matthew 3, 11 where John says, Jesus will baptize in the Spirit and with fire, he's probably talking about judgment there. The fire of judgment because we didn't read it, but in the next verse, he would say for he will get his winnowing fork, his threshing floor and separate the wheat from the chaff and that's a picture of judgment. And so Jesus is going to come baptizing in the Spirit and also introducing judgment to those who don't believe. That's the reference to fire in Matthew 3. In Acts 2, the fire, the tongues of fire, it's just a visible symbol of the Holy Spirit coming on each of them and it looked like fire, a tongue of fire. And no specific reason for that symbolism is given here clearly, but it's just the way it appeared. Okay. It may have been to the symbolism may have been cleansing their tongues enabling them to speak with power in a language that never studied, but the fire is not really important to what happened here. Okay. So Acts 2, obviously that's baptism in the Spirit, even though the term is not used here. Now, let's look at another couple of ones that are a little more controversial. Romans chapter 6, Romans 6. Baptism is clearly spoken of here and I think it is at least possible that the baptism spoken of here is not water baptism, even though that's the imagery in the background. What's really spoken of here may well be spirit baptism and here's why look at the verses. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase by no means? We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Now, there are two reasons why I believe this may refer to spirit baptism and not specifically to water baptism. Now, here's the two reasons why. You see how it's stated in verse 3, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus? Doesn't that sound an awful lot like 1 Corinthians 12 13? Baptized into His body, placed into His body? Sounds an awful lot like the same thing. So it could be the same thing as 1 Corinthians 12 13, spirit baptism which places us into Christ, into His body. Seems to be very similar terminology. And then whatever this baptism is, it seems to actually unite us with Christ. Verse 4, we were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. That seems to be talking about our actual union with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection. That is not accomplished by water baptism. Water baptism is a picture of our union with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection. This really seems to be talking about we are actually united with Him in His death, burial, resurrection through this baptism. So that's the reason I think it may well be spirit baptism. Now, we always use this passage of water baptism and the imagery, the mental picture of baptism in water is certainly not far even from the passages dealing with spirit baptism. It's like sealing. The ceiling of the spirit, that's a word picture. It's drawn from the ceiling of a document. And so that word picture would never be far from the mind of a person who thinks of the ceiling of the spirit. They'd be thinking of that document being sealed. Well, the baptism in the spirit, you would never be far from thinking about the actual image which gives it its meaning, the baptism in water. Although I think this passage may well refer to the baptism in spirit. Tommy? Yes. Yes. And there are a couple other passages we're going to look at, maybe not tonight, but we will look at them that also talk about how whatever this baptism is, it unites us with Christ. There are a lot of people who don't get to be baptized in water who are believers. They're in Christ, they're united with Christ, they know Christ, they're saved. By the way, let me just say this to maybe further confuse things. Because this seems to be so clearly referring to our actual union with Christ, this is one of the passages that church of Christ people turn to to say, see, baptism does unite us with Christ. And it's hard to argue against that if you take this passage in its flow of context of actually being united with Christ. So that's why I believe that probably we're talking about spirit baptism here, not water baptism. And again, I'm not just trying to get out of, you know, water baptism stages, I'm not just trying to get out of that. The terminology is pretty clear in verse 3, baptized into Christ Jesus, which is very similar, almost identical to 1 Corinthians 12, 13. We're baptized in one spirit into his body, placing us in Christ. So, you know, I'm not going to die on this hill. I'll still probably use this verse. I do in chapter 101 of water baptism because I think the imagery in the picture is there. But if you're going to press the details, I think it's talking about spirit baptism. Okay. Kiss me. It could be, it could be confusing to use verses like this of water baptism and then a person looks at it closely and says, wait a second, we're actually being baptized into Christ. We're actually being buried with him literally. That sounds like salvation. And I think that's Paul's point in the passage. So, it could be confusing, although I think, I don't want to say this. Most of us, when we just read through this, probably are not thinking that deeply. We just see baptism, we think of being united with Christ and we think of the picture and the actual water baptism. And we kind of understand the picture of it. But it could be confusing. Okay. Yes, Jerry. That's a great question. Is there any difference in the actual Greek word between the word baptism when it's used as spirit baptism or water baptism in the answer is no. It's the same word, which means to dip or plunge under same word, baptism, verb form. So, yeah, same word, no, no. It would really make it easy if it were two different words. And that way we'd know, okay, this one is this baptism and this one is the other one, it would make it a lot easier. But it's the same word. Good try. You thought that was kind of the ace up my sleeve, huh? Sorry, Jerry. I still think you're smart. Okay. Our time's up. So we'll have to stop there. Remind me next time. We are on Ephesians 4.5. It was the next passage. I'll mark it. But anyway, let's pray. Let's pray. We'll be done. Father, thank you for all of the ministries of the spirit. Thank you for the fact that Jesus baptizes us in the spirit, thus placing us into the body of Christ, uniting us with with Him. And we thank you for that great, great work of the spirit of God and of Christ placing us into the spirit, baptizing us into the realm of the spirit. Helps to understand that better and to be able to be thankful for that, which you've done for us in our salvation in the baptism of the spirit. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.