Not Drenched, But Drawn: Rethinking Baptism in the Spirit

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

—Romans 8:16

They told us to wait for the wind.

To pray until the fire fell.

To tarry until we were baptised again—

not in water, but in power.

And so we did.

We begged for signs.

For the sudden tongue,

the holy heat,

the trembling proof that God had come close.

But God had already come close.

The Language That Divides

The phrase “baptism in the Spirit” has become a boundary line—between the anointed and the merely saved, between the spiritually alive and the doctrinally dull. But Scripture speaks differently. It does not cast the Spirit as a second experience but as the seal of the first.

In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul writes:

“For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body.”

Not some. Not a chosen few. All. The Spirit is not a delayed second act. He is the very breath we inhale at new birth. The theology of “Spirit baptism” as a dramatic post-conversion event, often used to signal deeper intimacy or greater power, too easily fractures the body of Christ. It creates a hierarchy of holiness, a performance of spirituality, an upper room without a cross. But Pentecost was never a formula. It was the fulfilment of an ancient promise—God with us, within us, among us.

The Spirit as Union, Not Upgrade

Jesus breathes on His disciples in John 20 and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

No rushing wind.
No thunder.
Just breath.

No spectacle—only substance.
This is not emotional hype,
not a dopamine rush mistaken for doxology.
It is Genesis again: the Spirit hovering,
and then entering—God breathing into dust,
and dust waking to communion.

It is Ezekiel’s valley, bones strewn like broken hope,
and the Word, like a prophet’s cry, calling sinews and skin back to purpose—
but only breath makes them truly live.
Not machinery of religion. Not memory of tradition.
Only breathe.
Only Spirit.

This is no theatrical power (though it can sometimes happen, like in Acts 2).
No divine electricity waiting for a better switch.
The Spirit is not the upgrade to your faith.
He is its origin and its goal—
The bond that binds us into the Triune life.

To receive the Spirit is not to perform
but to participate.
To be drawn into the perichoresis—
that dance of Father, Son, and Spirit,
where love has no beginning and union knows no end.

He is not the sensation of holiness,
But the substance of it.
Not proof of ecstasy,
but the presence of intimacy.

“He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.”
—1 Corinthians 6:17

This is the deepest baptism—
not of water, fire, or even tongues or trembling limbs.
But of union.
Of soul sealed to Spirit.
Of a humanity lifted into the life of God.

Participation in the Triune Life

To be filled with the Spirit is not to overflow with noise,

But to abide in silence, thick with love.

To be caught up in the life of the Trinity.

The early church spoke of theosis—

that we become by grace what Christ is by nature.

“That you may become partakers of the divine nature.”

—2 Peter 1:4

Not a Second Baptism—A First Love

We are not waiting for the Spirit.

We are awakening to Him.

Not tarrying for power,

But turning to Presence.

The language of “Spirit baptism” has too often led us to look for a moment,

a manifestation,

a miracle.

But the Spirit is not a showman.

He is the Spirit of adoption.

He teaches us to cry, “Abba.”

To know God not in performance.

But in participation.

Not in a fire that consumes

But in flame that communes.