Baptism of the Spirit (Part 2)

The question arrises. How then should we think about experiences where people seem to have had some kind of life changing infilling of the Holy Spirit type of event?

I think it is more helpful to view Christian life as a continuum of growth and infilling with the Holy Spirit. A “baptism of the Spirit event” (in the Pentecostal sense) may be simply explained as a large leap forward on this continuum. Often these types of events comes as result of confessing all known sin repenting of unknown sin and committing themselves whole heartedly to him. It shouldn’t surprise us that a person experiences a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit as a result of this. Quite often such leap results in a renewed focus of prayer, reading of God’s word and growth in spiritual gifts.

Hence Grudem prefers to use the term being “filled with the Spirit” or the exhortation to go on being “filled with the Spirit”. This moves the focus from, a one time experience for the Christian, to something which is ongoing and may occur throughout their lives.
The scriptural evidence for this? Most obviously Eph 5:18 “be filled with the Spirit”. This has, according to Grudem, the implication in the original text of being an ongoing process. The repeated filling of the Spirit can also be seen in Acts 2:4, 4:8 & 31, 9:17 and 13:52.

Using our new terminology, (“filled with the Spirit”), we must note that being “filled with the Spirit” doesn’t always result in speaking in tongues. To check this for yourself here is the link for all occasions of "Filled with the Spirit" (click here).