The Power of the Holy Spirit

Disciples Living in the Name of Jesus Christ

Traditionally we know the book of Acts as “Acts of the Apostles,” but I believe a better way of viewing the book of Acts is to think of this writing as the Acts of the Holy Spirit. I say this because when we read through Acts, we read about the Holy Spirit leading a movement of Jesus's people. That’s people who live in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In my experience, churches have given vast amounts of attention to programs, Bible studies, and strategies for doing church. None of these are inherently wrong except in the case where strategies morph into a legalism that replaces faith in Christ. Yet says to the apostles in Acts 1:5, “John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

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Now some Christians, so I’ve been told, will even try dismissing what Jesus is saying by suggesting that being baptized with the Holy Spirit was just for the apostles and not every disciple. Really? Tell that to Stephen, who, according to Acts 6:8, was “a man full of God’s grace and power, [who] performed great wonders and signs among the people.” Just where do we think Stephen received that grace and power? I think it takes some mental gymnastics to suggest that what Jesus is saying about waiting for the Holy Spirit is not necessary today.

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So when we think about participating in the mission of God, we should recognize that the church needs the Holy Spirit as much today as it ever did. One of the great deceptions Satan places before us is to tell us just how much we can accomplish on our own strength and ingenuity. And let’s be clear, with all of our education as well as our industrial and technological sophistication, we certainly believe we can accomplish much. Yet, participating in the mission of God as followers of Jesus means pursuing a calling that is more than what we can accomplish on our own strength and ingenuity.  This is why we need the Holy Spirit. As Jesus also says to his disciples in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The promise of receiving power from the reception of the Holy Spirit should encourage us. We shouldn’t be afraid of the Holy Spirit leading us because the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. We serve a Triune God: One God who eternally exists in Three Persons as The Father, Son, and Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is always going to lead the church to do the Father’s will that is revealed in the Son, Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is given so that we can live as followers of Jesus, embodying the very character and mission that Jesus lived. So it’s a good thing to have the Spirit because that’s how we live a life of love, how we show mercy and do justice, how we extend grace but also speak the truth as followers of Jesus.

Do we really believe what Jesus says about receiving power from the Holy Spirit? I want to, and some days I do, but some days, if I’m honest, I probably don’t. Yet, the disciples Jesus was speaking with in Acts did. There wasn’t any debate about what might happen or what it might look like to receive the Spirit that God has poured out on all flesh. The disciples just believed. In Acts 2, more people just believed, and consequently, they received Jesus Christ in baptism, and began living life in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, which we read about in the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

The relationship between the reception of the Holy Spirit and participation in the mission of God seems unmistakable as we read through Acts. Recognizing this relationship matters because 1) our particular life as followers of Jesus is formed by the Holy Spirit, and 2) it is the Holy Spirit that enables us to faithfully follow Jesus when the circumstances around us become difficult. As Justo González writes:

It is by the power of the Spirit that we have faith; it is by the power of the Spirit that we can live in hope even in the worst of circumstances; it is by the power of the Spirit that we know that we are loved children of God even while the world tramples us. But that power has been given to us, not just so that we may enjoy it in our own lives, but above all so that we may be witnesses to Jesus and to God’s reign.

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So receiving the power of the Holy Spirit is not the end itself. Rather the Holy Spirit enables us to live in the name of Jesus—an embodiment of the gospel—as a baptized community, becoming innovative communities of faith in society.

Perhaps the only question that remains is what God might accomplish through us when we pray for God to act in Christ, by the Spirit, through us.

1. Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

2. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3d ed., rev. Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 165, the word baptizō in v. 5 implies the reception of the Spirit, which includes the experience of the power of God manifest in the Spirit. Later in Acts, Peter will describe the conversion of Cornelius and his household, saying that they received the same gift of the Spirit as did the apostles (cf. 11:14-16).

3. Justo L. González, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 22. 

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K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura, and together they have three children.

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