Hi all,
I commonly receive questions about tongues, often saying they don’t have that gift. They see there are gifts of healings, gifts of the word of knowledge, gifts of helps, gifts of giving, mercy ,and serving, but they lack the gift of tongues.
This results in a “have and have not” understanding of God. Sometimes they are convinced it isn’t for them by God’s choice. Sometimes they have had hands laid on them and nothing happened, and sometimes gibberish was heard by those trying to ‘coach’ them in tongues. Sometimes they have been taught tongues has passed with the original apostles, but are seeking the truth.
This study may require you to rethink what you have assumed to be true for years.
What Jesus taught
In Luke 5: 36-38 Jesus spoke a parable: “You cannot put new wine into an old wineskin, because the new wine would destroy the old wineskin. You must first make the wineskin new, then you can add the new wine, and both will be preserved.” The wineskin is the human spirit, the new wine is the Holy Spirit. A wineskin in that day was a leather pouch, a bottle. Old ones would dry out and crack, and filling them full with new wine would cause them to leak or split.
The wineskin/human spirit must be made new. Can you imagine having a regular human spirit, someone who isn’t born again, suddenly having the Holy Spirit put into them? Jesus said it would destroy them.
But when we make that decision for Jesus, the Holy Spirit is thereby licensed to recreate our human spirit. We are ‘born again’ to quote Jesus in John 3: 3. That is the new birth, being born again in your spirit. Then the new wine, which is the Holy Spirit, may be added. Therefore as seen in His parable, it is possible for a person to have a new wineskin (born again) but not have the new wine yet (Holy Spirit).
The new wineskin is capable of having wine poured into it, but it doesn’t have to have wine in it; it is still a wineskin. This means a person can be born again, but they may or may not have the Holy Spirit in them. It shows us a gap of time between the making the new wineskin and the adding of the new wine. All that and more in this little parable.
New wineskin:
In John 20: 22 the risen Jesus is seen by His disciples, and He breathed on them: “Receive the Holy Spirit…”, talking about the action of the Holy Spirit to recreate their spirits. Their ‘wineskins’ were made new when they believed in the risen Lord. They were born again at that point. But they did not yet have the new wine added – they hadn’t received the Holy Spirit Himself to abide within them; their spirits were recreated by Him, though, so they could move in the things of God.
Think about that – most people don’t know what Jesus taught. Many Christians think a person receives the person of the Holy Spirit as soon as they believe. Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit makes their spirit new, but receiving the Holy Spirit is a separate process: It is the filling of the wineskin.
40 days later Jesus told them: “Wait for the promise from the Father, for you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days….You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…” That is the new wineskin being added to their new ‘wineskins’. Jesus showed Himself alive for 40 days and it was 10 days later that Pentecost came. Acts 1: 5, 8
They were born again upon seeing the resurrected Lord, but they didn’t have the person of the Holy Spirit until Pentecost. There was a total of 50 days between Jesus’ resurrection and Pentecost. This gap of time between being born again and later receiving the Holy Spirit was common in their day too. This is why about 20 years after Pentecost, in Acts 19: 1-6 Paul comes upon about 12 men who he assumes have been born again, asking: “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?”
This shows us that even back then, just 20 years after Pentecost, there was often a time-lag between being born again (new wineskin) and receiving the Holy Spirit (new wine). It shows Paul’s belief a person could be born again, but NOT HAVE the Holy Spirit. “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?” Adjust our theology to the Bible.
In Acts 10: 39-48 Peter is telling the (Roman) Gentile household of Cornelius that Jesus was raised from the dead by the Father, and all who believe in Him will receive the remission of sins. Immediately after these words the Holy Spirit came on them all…And they (Jewish) who came with Peter were astonished; “For upon Gentiles was the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out.”
The gift of….?
Most English reading Christians understand that verse to mean the gift of the Holy Spirit is tongues. Actually, the Greek says the gift is the Holy Spirit, with tongues merely being a manifestation of someone having received the gift which is the Holy Spirit.
That is why in Acts 2: 38 when Peter is asked by the people what they must do, Peter responds (Greek): “Peter then to them repent he declared and be baptized every one of you to the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins of you and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit IS the gift.
I quote Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words: “the gift of the Holy Ghost,” the “gift” being the Holy Ghost Himself; Reference (Acts) 10:45; 11:17 and the phrase, “the gift of righteousness,” Romans 5:17.”
Acts 11: 16-17 make if clear what happened in Acts 10 at Cornelius’ house was about the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter retells the story saying: “So if God gave them the same gift He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I resist God…?”
Vine lists Acts 10:45 as the same grammatically, where the Jews with Peter in the Gentile home of Cornelius are shocked that God poured out ‘the gift of the Holy Spirit’ on Gentiles – the Holy Spirit IS the gift, the evidence of having that gift was tongues. But tongues isn’t the gift in these passages, it’s just a manifestation of receiving the Holy Spirit.
Vine also points out the same grammar used in Romans 11: 17 with the phrase ‘the gift of righteousness.’ The gift IS righteousness. There is nothing secondary, righteousness IS the gift, as in Acts 2: 38 the Holy Spirit IS the gift, and Acts 10: 45 where the Holy Spirit IS the gift.
Let that sink in…
All these years you have probably read the “the gift of the Holy Spirit” in Acts 2: 38 and 10: 44-45 as the gift of tongues. What a shock to learn the gift both Peter and Paul saying the gift IS the Holy Spirit. Tongues is merely something others hear that confirms a person has received the Holy Spirit, who is the gift. The question is: Do you want the Holy Spirit? I said at the start this series may be a cause to reexamine what you believe, lol.
Next week, walking through Acts to see what Peter and Paul and the rest believed….until then, blessings,
John Fenn
