There are many Christians, and certainly many in the Cayman Islands, who present to the world a version of the Holy Spirit that emphasizes excitement, loudness and extreme manifestations of joy.

While the more standard Christian doctrine of Baptism regards it as a Baptism both in water and the Spirit some churches tend to separate water-baptism and Spirit-baptism, so that for them there are two classes of Christians, those who have been baptised with the Spirit, and those who have only been baptised in water but not in the Spirit. For them, a Christian becomes empowered or complete or effective as a Christian when he undergoes this second baptism, and the sign of having done this is when he speaks in tongues.

Although the New Testament is referred to to support this scenario, it is still very questionable in a number of ways. The New Testament clearly presents the Holy Spirit as the third Person of a divine Trinity, and definitely not as an alternative concept of the whole Godhead, and with the New Testament presentation the mind of the catholic and apostolic Church is in agreement. We may not deny that the Holy Spirit empowers Christians and empowers the Church, but in the New Testament there is a great variety in the ways in which this empowerment takes place, and we should not suppose that we can pin down the action of the Spirit that Jesus declares blows where He wills, and we do not know from where He comes or to where He will go.

After the coming of the Holy Spirit to the waiting Church on the Jewish feast of Pentecost that followed ten days after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, the apostles were empowered to preach the Good News. Before that they did not possess this power: they were pretty much in retreat, or even in hiding. The emphasis of the account in the Acts of the Apostles of this manifestation of the Holy Spirit among them is in the gift of the ability to communicate intelligibly the praise of the Lord to men of other tongues gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. For this initial group of the Church, one could say that their water-baptism and their Spirit-baptism were separate events, but as the story of the spread of the Good News unfolds in the Acts of the Apostles, we see these two aspects coming together in the lives of converts to form one category, a “mystery” or sacrament of initiation into the Spirit-filled life of the Body of Christ.

Some today teach that the baptism of the Spirit gives completion to the incomplete Christian disciple who has not experienced it. St. Paul’s remarkable teaching in Romans 8: 22-27, however, confirms that those such as ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, as he puts it, experience a great sense of incompleteness as we wait for what he calls “the redemption of our bodies”.

St. Paul elsewhere talks in such terms as not having himself yet attained the resurrection, pressing forward for the prize of his high calling, having treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us, possessing strength through weakness, and so on. The New Testament therefore shows us, first, that every baptised Christian, baptised with water in the Name of Jesus or in the three-fold Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, being upheld by and exercising the faith declared at his Baptism, is normatively Spirit-filled.

Secondly, the New Testament shows us that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness now but does not by any means remove it. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what he sees?”

We should never therefore be fooled by the knowledge of our weakness or incompleteness as the disciples of our Lord into thinking the Spirit has not been given to us. On the contrary, it is the Spirit that is making us aware of our incompleteness and weaknesses, and the Spirit will help us, even in this condition, to keep on pressing on to what we hope for.

On this Whitsunday, the anniversary of the great Pentecost event after the Ascension, it is appropriate to reflect that the Holy Spirit is still fulfilling the task of helping the disciples of Jesus in our weakness.  It was never the Spirit’s task to make us instantly complete as disciples in the world, but He will enable us to keep our heads above water in difficult times, and to continue to communicate intelligibly to our contemporaries the eternal truths of the Lord.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org