When do you get the Holy Spirit?

Acts 2:38-39 teaches, “And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as
the Lord our God shall call to Himself.” We commonly use the term “indwelling” of the Holy
Spirit to represent this promise.

This wonderful promise in the book of Acts clearly tells us that when a believing, repentant
sinner is baptized (immersed in water), they receive the Holy Spirit as a free gift. This simply
means that in the moment of Christian baptism the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy
Spirit Himself, enters into our lives in a special way and remains there, using each individual
Christian as a dwelling place, for as long as we continue to trust in the saving power and blood
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

​We can expect and believe the reality of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit because the Bible
teaches it, using this very terminology. The inwardness of the Spirit’s presence was part of the
pre-Pentecostal promise. It was prophesied in Ezekiel 36:27, “I will put My Spirit within you.” In
John 7:38, Jesus said the Spirit would be like “rivers of living water” flowing up from the
believer’s innermost being. In his writings the Apostle Paul uses the language of indwelling when
describing how the Holy Spirit is related to us. In 1 Cor 6:19 he says, “Or do you not know that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you
are not your own?” The Greek word for “temple” is naos, which means a temple, shrine, or
sanctuary associated with the divine presence. The Holy Spirit of God is literally “in you,” says
Paul, the Spirit “whom you have from God,” the one whom you received as a gift from God in
your Christian baptism. What a wonderful promise!

The Apostle Paul assures us that when we received the Holy Spirit, He began to use our body as
His dwelling place. Paul uses similar language in Romans 8:9-11. “You are not in the flesh but in
the Spirit,” he says, “if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you” (v. 9). The verb for “dwells” is
oikeo, which is related to the noun oikos, meaning “house.” To say that the Spirit of God “dwells
in you” simply means that He treats our body as His house, His residence, His dwelling place.

The Holy Spirit is not just paying us a visit; He has moved in to stay! Our body is where He lives,
and it all began at the moment of our Christian baptism! Praise!