THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
ORTHODOX RENEWAL
Part 4

The first work of the Holy Spirit is to bring painful conviction upon the sinner, to lead him to repentance and to draw him to Christ and to a personal commitment to Him as Savior and Lord.

The second work of the Holy Spirit is to make a new creature out of the repentant sinner by means of the second birth (rebirth, regeneration). He renews and regenerates the believer through the operation of His supernatural, transforming power.

Faith that Jesus truly died and arose from the dead for our sins releases the life-changing power that regenerates the believer. He has to appropriate to himself the atoning blood that was shed on the Cross in an act of faith and total surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. Being "in Christ," he becomes a "new creature." In water baptism he dies with Christ; he is buried and rises together with Him in "the newness of life."

The "newness of life" is the life in the Holy Spirit. It is sharing in the divine life. It is resurrection life. It is the life of spiritual victory. It is the result of being "born again," namely, "born of God" (1 John 3:9).

When you are born again, dear reader, naturally you are "born of God." Since the Holy Spirit is God's gift, rebirth is a gift freely given by God. It is the work of grace. It doesn't come with our own efforts and wisdom. It is not an earthly birth, but a heavenly one, because it comes "from above (anothen)."

Rebirth requires faith in the promises of Christ and total surrender to Him in repentance and confession of our sins. Jesus lays down rebirth as a condition that every man and woman has to meet in order to be saved from eternal Hell and to inherit eternal life.

Jesus told Nicodemus: "Verily, verily I say unto you, Unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3), and subsequently He elaborates this fundamental truth by stating: "Verily, verily I say unto you, Unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" " (John 3:5).

Rebirth, therefore, involves being born of both water and of the Holy Spirit. Two necessary elements are involved in man's second birth: on the one hand, water; on the other, the Holy Spirit. There is one that is visible (physical), and the other that is spiritual (invisible).

Two baptisms are clearly enunciated here by the Lord. Both must be received by the believer for salvation: baptism of water and baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Until a man is born again (regenerated), he lives his old nature of sin and remains a "child of wrath." He lives the animate life only, destitute of spiritual life. He lives in the flesh. Everything he does is of the flesh and in the natural and destined not to survive. Jesus made it crystal clear to us: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" " (John 3:6).

In which category do you find yourself, dear reader? Are you still living the life of "the old man?" Are you living in the flesh, born only of the flesh? Or have you been truly born of the Holy Spirit and now destined for Heaven? Make sure. Don't go by guessing and mere hoping.

I have to disagree with my Pentecostal and Evangelical brothers and to affirm here that water baptism is not only symbolic, it is regenerative. This has been the teaching of the Universal Church from Christian antiquity. This means that water baptism is necessary for salvation (except in cases of a repenting sinner who accepts Christ in faith moments before his death).

The doctrine of regenerative baptism accounts for the historical practice of infant baptism. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Every human being, regardless of age, is born under the curse of Adam and cannot see the face of God apart from a second birth in the Holy Spirit.

Until we are born again in the Holy Spirit, we live on the natural and organic plane, and, if an individual dies on that plane and level, he has no right to everlasting life, because there is no place in God's kingdom for corruptible flesh. Paul says, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (1 Corinthians 15:50).

In the second birth we receive the inheritance of incorruptibility, because the Holy Spirit indwells within us by faith. By living on the inside of us He quickens our mortal bodies in anticipation of the final resurrection of our bodies after death. We gain that marvelous promise, the foretaste of glory that is to come.

Though our bodies are still corruptible, we bear on the inside of us the seed of immortality, the seed of incorruptibility given to us through the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the mystery of rebirth. I will discuss the difference between water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism further on in this study. Suffice it to say at this point that we receive the Holy Spirit by faith not only for regeneration in water baptism, but also for an enduement with supernatural power from on high which we need for becoming initiated into the miraculous dimension of Apostolic power.

Are you living below your privileges, dear reader? Have you entered into the fullness of your spiritual inheritance? Or, are you living a wilderness experience and all the while the promised land lies within reach? Are you letting your baptism do the maximum for you?

Apostolic power in the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples of Christ to fulfill the Great Commission. Without that "power from on high" they would have failed. The Great Commission consists of three parts:
1. Preach the Gospel.
2. Heal the sick.
3. Cast out demons.

It is one thing to be commissioned or ordained to carry out this threefold ministry, but it is another thing to receive the necessary supernatural provision that enables one to be effective in discharging the Great Commission. Without the Holy Spirit baptism, for example, preaching the Gospel can be ineffective; it can have less impact on those who are hearing it. Paul said, "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4).

The parting words of Jesus to His disciples just prior to His ascension were essentially promises that He would send down the Holy Spirit upon them "not many days hence."

Though the disciples were in the close company of their divine Master during those three years; though they knew Him in the flesh, they had heard His teachings, they touched Him even after the resurrection; nevertheless, they lacked the divine power to discern the mysteries of God and to be effective witnesses of His Gospel.

Prior to Pentecost the human frailty of the apostles stood in the way of a successful ministry. They were still in the natural. Jesus spent those forty days upon earth after His resurrection training His disciples, preparing them and instructing them on the things of the kingdom. Before ascending into Heaven he left them the wonderful promise of the descent of the Holy Spirit:

"Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49).

That heavenly power was none other than the Holy Spirit. We find the same promise recorded in Acts 1:4: "While staying with them Jesus charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father which He said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water but not many days hence you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

The age of fulfillment was ushered in. Pentecost signals the beginning of the period known as "the last days." As Peter declared on that great day, the coming down of the Holy Spirit was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel which he quoted verbatim from the Old Testament: "In the last days, the Lord said, I shall pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…" (Acts 2:17, Joel 2:28). If the disciples were to have rushed out of Jerusalem and were to have begun their Apostolic ministry prematurely, they would have ended in failure. If they had not waited for the day of Pentecost, nothing would have worked out successfully. They would have given up in frustration and even in unbelief.

Is it any wonder that today many priests right out of seminary rush to do God's work and exert themselves to the point of exhaustion, very often without seeing any encouraging results? Too many of them try to be successful by leaning on the arm of flesh rather than relying on the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is not important how much we say and preach, but how much of it is anointed by the Holy Spirit and "confirmed with signs following." Experience proves that "the kingdom of God is not in word but in power" (1 Corinthians 4:20). There is no substitute for power, dynamis!, the power of the Holy Spirit.

Do you wonder where the expression "baptized in the Holy Spirit" comes from? Is it really Orthodox, you might ask, or is it Protestant? For some of us anything religiously unfamiliar in the Church has to be Protestant, regardless of how spiritually beneficial it may be. We look for Protestantism under every stone and behind every tree!

What did you say, Jesus?
"For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence" (Acts 1:5).

What did John the Baptizer say?
"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but…He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Matthew 3:11).

The fact that these words of St. John the Baptizer are recorded in each of the four Gospels indicates their essential importance: the doctrine they affirm is an integral part of the Apostolic kerygma (preaching). It is a basic teaching that cannot be taken casually and lightly. It is fundamental to the understanding of a sound theology of the sacraments of Baptism and Chrismation, free from scholastic and Tridentine influences.

Since the expression "Holy Spirit baptism" is scriptural, it is, of course, Orthodox. St. John the Baptizer first spoke of it and then Jesus confirmed it just prior to His ascension into Heaven. But why is the notion of "Holy Spirit baptism" so strange to us today?

Making the distinction between water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism confuses many of our priests and bishops. It is true that ordinarily we do not distinguish between the two baptisms. In the seminary course on Dogmatics, seminary professors usually do not teach a twofold baptism. They teach the sacraments of Baptism and Chrismation, but never refer to one as "water baptism" and to the other as "Holy Spirit baptism."

Such nomenclature is not familiar to the Orthodox theologian of today. From what I have gleaned from my studies, Apostolos Makrakis was probably the first modern Greek Orthodox theologian to speak of Chrismation as "baptism in the Holy Spirit." This is extremely interesting since the Pentecostals were totally unknown to Makrakis. He lived before the rise of Pentecostalism which restored "Holy Spirit baptism" as a fundamental doctrine. The Pentecostal movement accomplished what even the Protestant Reformation failed to do: reaffirm the Scriptural teaching on the baptism in the Holy Spirit as the necessary sequel to baptism in water.

Apostolos Makrakis states the following in his Sacred and Holy Catechesis of the Orthodox Church: "The baptism with water is preparatory, but the baptism of the Spirit makes perfect. The baptism of Christ is baptism in the Holy Spirit. The baptism of water is a means. The baptism of the Spirit is an end and objective. The two baptisms, because they are joined together and inseparable, properly constitute one baptism.

"The baptism of water, as a type of the death and resurrection of Christ, cleans and purifies the soul from all sin, original and voluntary. The baptism of the Spirit sanctifies the soul, adorns it through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and makes it live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, as men live who are destitute of the Spirit. The soul becomes the temple of the indwelling Spirit" (p. 91).

Unlike St. Symeon the New Theologian, Makrakis relates the baptism in the Holy Spirit exclusively to the sacrament of Chrismation. It is not an experience that the Orthodox believer can claim after the sacraments of water baptism and Chrismation have been administered to him.

St. Symeon, however, who lived in pre-scholastic and pre-Tridentine times, teaches that the believer receives the Holy Spirit baptism as a result of repentance and a reconversion of Christ in an anointing with an invisible unction of the Holy Spirit. He stresses the necessity of personally experiencing the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. The reality of the Holy Spirit baptism lies in that very experience. It is self-evident to the individual who has that experience. It is not viewed as a sacramental act in the scholastic sense.

"He that lacks awareness of his baptism," St. Symeon says, "and was baptized in infancy, accepting it only by faith, having effaced it by sins, but refuses the second one-I mean the baptism of the Spirit, given by God in His love to those who seek it in repentance-how can he ever be saved? Not in the least!" (Catechesis 32).