As I have testified and confessed so many times, even with all my Doctoral oral exams in New Testament Greek behind my name, in 1992, as a Dutch Reformed minister after a ministry of about 12-13 years, I never really discovered Jesus's title of “Baptizer with the Spirit” and certainly did not understand it!

Yes, even though I accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour on October 10, 1969, it was only in January to March 1992, in my three-month study of all the verses in the Bible that directly referred to the Person and the working of the Holy Spirit, that I really “discovered” this title of Jesus for the first time and began to understand it.

This is found in so many places in the New Testament.

Let me quote one or two here.

John the Baptist had already spoken about this in Matthew 3:11: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is greater than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” (Which is also repeated in Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, and John 1:33.)

Then we hear how Jesus taught His disciples the following after His resurrection from the dead:

“He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses to these things. And I will send you the gift my Father promised. But stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.”

We also read about this there in Acts 1.

“While he was at the table with them, he commanded them, ‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift that the Father has promised, which you have heard from me.’

John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.”

I hope you hear that Jesus will “baptize his people with the Holy Spirit”!

Let me now take you to the events of that day when these promises were first fulfilled, where Jesus, as the Baptizer with the Spirit, himself “baptized” and “filled” his people who believed in him with God the Spirit.

You must notice this important distinction: God the Holy Spirit, who has already lived in every believer since their rebirth, will now “come upon” them to supernaturally equip them with power and the gifts to be His witnesses. Because remember, it is every believer's calling to testify about an invisible God and to be used by this God to do "the same and even greater things that Jesus himself did!"

Therefore, the people of God in whom the Spirit of God already lives must also be "baptized" with this Spirit to be equipped with His power and His gifts!

This happened for the first time on that day of Pentecost, on May 30, after Christ, which we read about in Acts 2.

Here, God baptizes His people with the Spirit. And after this, we see it happen again, for example in Acts 4:31, but also in Acts 10:44 ff.

Although God does this here and there himself, as in Acts 2, most of the time it happens when new converts are baptized in water and then hands are laid on them by other believers and we hear them praying that Jesus as the Baptizer with the Spirit himself will “baptize” them with His Spirit and so supernaturally equip them with the gifts and power of the Spirit!

Go and read it yourself in passages like Acts 8:4-25; Acts 9:15-22; Acts 19:1-10.

Then thank Jesus again for the miracle of God the Spirit living and working in you. However, I also trust the Lord that you can testify how and when God the Spirit also “came upon” you and supernaturally equipped you for your calling and task!

This morning, I read again in John 14 what Jesus said to His disciples about the coming and pouring out of the Holy Spirit in and on God's people. Let me show you what I hear Him say.

First, listen to what He says about His own relationship with the Father.

John 14:6,7 – “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you knew Me, you would know My Father also. And from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Then Philip asks: “Show us the Father.”

To which Jesus then answers: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in Me and does His works. Believe in Me because I am in the Father and the Father in Me; or else believe based on the works themselves.”

In other words, Jesus tells His disciples, there is this “unity” between Him as the Son of God and God the Father. It is exactly this same “unity” that we will experience when God the Holy Spirit comes to live in each of us as believers.

That is why He says there in John 14: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

How then does it happen that Jesus Himself comes to live in us as God’s believing people after His ascension?

In John 14:25 and 26, Jesus explains this: “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you; but when the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is sent in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

In verse 28, He then continues: “You have heard that I said to you, ‘I am going away, but I am coming back to you.’”

To drive the point even further, He explains it further in John 16.

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” (John 16:7)

And: “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own authority; he will speak only what he hears, and he will declare to you the things to come. He will glorify me, for whatever he receives from me he will declare to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said, ‘Whatever he receives from me he will declare to you.’” (John 16:13-15)

Can I put my conclusion here on the table before you?

So many believers do not know exactly how to think or talk about the Holy Spirit. Yet it is very clear what God Himself says about the Holy Spirit in His Word. Listen to the following verses for yourself and hear how He reveals that He, as our God, is the one and only true God, yet He reveals Himself to us as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Listen to verses like 2 Cor.13:13: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

That is why Jesus himself tells us in Matt. 28:19 and 20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

So never doubt again the wonder that God himself lives in you as a believer in and through the Person of the Holy Spirit.

How well do we know that prophetic word in Isaiah 7:14 that came true with the birth of Jesus!

“In any case, the Lord himself will give you a sign: A young woman will conceive and bear a son, and she will call him Immanuel.”

When God the Son, in Jesus, became an ordinary man, it was “Immanuel”, God who came to live with and among us here on earth.

“Immanu” in Hebrew can be translated as “with us”. The “el” at the end of the word can be translated as “God”.

For about 33 years, here on earth, in Jesus of Nazareth, we experienced the incomprehensible miracle of God himself, as God the Son, who became an ordinary man and was here among us and with us!

This is the heart of the Good News, the Gospel, about Jesus Christ!

Then we hear how this Jesus, for example in John 14 and 16, tells His followers about the day when He will no longer be among them and with them as a man.

Hear how He tells this:

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:12-14)

Then He explains how this will happen. (I quote from the NIV translation)

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

Jesus explained that when God the Spirit comes to live in us, He, as God the Son, in and through the Spirit, will come to live in God’s people.

In the following verses He explains what He means. Namely that He will now be in and with them as God's new, born-again people in a spiritual sense through the indwelling of God the Spirit.

Each of us as God's believing children, who believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord, will be able to experience this intimate presence and love of God Himself through the indwelling of God the Spirit in us.

The Spirit in us will guide us, teach us, strengthen us, comfort us, constantly remind us that the Most High, Almighty Creator God, is now our "Abba", "Father", and is busy in and with us in the detail of everything happening in our lives.

I don't know about you, but in these promises I hear that name again, Immanuel, God Himself, in and with us!

In John 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus late one night, after dark. He was a spiritual leader who knew and understood the Old Testament and what was in it very well. You know the story.

He told Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

Then we read how Jesus answered him. I will try to rephrase it as I understand it:

“Nicodemus, you think you know how these things of God work. What you do not understand, however, is that to truly become a child of the God you speak of and think you know, one must be born again. You literally must become a new person.

Up until now, your spirit has been dead because of sin. Therefore, you have never been able to hear God’s voice and understand what He is saying. Hence, everything you have said, thought, felt, and chosen has only confirmed that you are spiritually dead.

You need to be born again and made new, before you can be acceptable to God and become part of His people and kingdom here on earth.”

Of course, Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus meant by this.

So, Jesus goes on and explains how this can happen. He explains that it is the work of God the Spirit inside us, which people cannot see.

To explain this further, Jesus uses the events in Numbers 21:4 to 9 to make it understandable to Nicodemus.

He explains that when the people in the wilderness became impatient again in unbelief and sinned, God sent poisonous snakes among them. The snakes bit the people, and everywhere, people were dying. The people then cried to Moses and confessed: We have sinned against God with what we said. Please pray to God that He will take the snakes away from us.

When Moses spoke to God about this, God told him: Make an image of a serpent of brass and put it on a pole where everyone can see it. Everyone who is bitten and looks at it will live.

So, Jesus then explains further to Nicodemus, God sent Jesus to this world to die on the cross for each of you and bear the punishment for your sins. Everyone who comes to Him (who hangs on the “tree”) and believes that what He did is sufficient to save and deliver you from death, is born again by the work of the Holy Spirit, where no one can see. He or she becomes new and receives God’s grace and eternal life.

Then we hear the most famous of all Bible verses from Jesus’ mouth, there in John 3:16 to 18:

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Whoever believes in him is not condemned; whoever does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

May I conclude by asking you very personally: Was there a day in your life when you deliberately looked up in faith to the One, Jesus the Christ, who hung on the cross, in April 30 AD, also for you, to bear the full punishment for all your sins, so that God could have mercy on you and forgive your sins?

If you have never done this deliberately, why don't you do it today?

Then you can know based on God's Word that you will not be lost but have been born again by His Spirit, and will live forever as God's child.