“And it came to be in those days that He-came, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee, and was-baptized INTO the Jordan by John. And IMMEDIATELY, going up out of the water, He saw being-torn/being-split-open the heavens, and the Spirit, as a dove, descending unto Him, and a Voice came to be, out of the heavens, “You are the Son of-Me, the (One) Loved, IN YOU I-DELIGHTED!” ” Mark 1:9-11 (Lit. frm Grk text)
. I haven’t been able to turn away from this hunger to know Holy Spirit through the Grace-truth of the ripped veil of the New Covenant. Though I’ve sat for days in really mulling over the outpouring of Acts 2, and actually started writing concerning it, yet in seeking the Father to unveil the Scriptures so as to know Holy Spirit more accurately, realizing, moreover, that this revelation of Holy Spirit is wholly focused on the Father’s “wrapped up” heart for His Son, I cannot break away or skip over the chronological New Covenant unveiling of Holy Spirit.
. We looked the last time at the initial introduction of Holy Spirit in the birth of Jesus, from the very first page and chapter of the New Testament.
“…for the (One) in her begotten from-out-of Holy Spirit is! She shall, then, bring forth a Son, and you will call the Name of Him ‘Jesus’, for He-Himself will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:20b-21
Since then, what has jumped off of the pages of scripture is Jesus’s baptism. The study that follows is a foundation towards understanding John the Baptist’s words, God the Father’s heart, concerning Jesus coming to baptize US in Holy Spirit.
“… but the (One) after me coming, mightier than-me He-is … Himself, you will-He baptize in Holy Spirit and fire.” Matthew 3:11 (Lit. frm Grk text)
—The Acts 2 outpouring, in unveiling Holy Spirit through this event at the Jordan with Jesus specifically, will have a greater impact, I believe, to the church, without all the arguments for denying this as a present Grace-truth reality, the gift from Father God through Jesus.
. Too many believers have been robbed from of the Promise to us, which God our Father made centuries prior to the New Covenant with intent towards a radical Kingdom change in the spirit of our hearts and words.
. This has consequentially robbed hope for this life towards believing Jesus “from faith into faith into faith” augmenting (Heb. 11:1a, 6a; Rom. 1:16-17), towards seeing increased manifestation of God’s Kingdom through our lives, the restoration of all things for which Jesus’s sacrifice was made with His shed blood (Acts 3:21; Heb. 10:12-13).
—I have come to be in awe and joy over Father’s gift, Jesus’s baptism of us, pertaining to Holy Spirit. It was not my intent whatsoever for this unveiling study to go long, yet it poured out in my hunger to seek Father to know more accurately His Word concerning Holy Spirit. Please feel free and take the liberty to print this out if it will be easier reading and study. I believe you will never see Holy Spirit – Father’s breathed out heart towards us in Jesus – the same ever again.
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—It is not insignificant that Holy Spirit has Mark to start his gospel by indicating, in the immediate verses, that the “beginning of the Good News” starts with John baptizing in the Jordan. And it is here in these early verses that Holy Spirit is introduced, right at Jesus’s first appearance in this gospel, and specifically, at His water baptism.
” … going up out of the water, He saw … the Spirit, as a dove, descending unto Him,”
Father, I believe, intentionally chose to use the language of Greek to unveil the gospel because it is a language that carries nuances of very specific intention, showing, even in little details, the Father’s heart.
. These nuggets aren’t always carried through into common English. The phrase above isn’t just about Holy Spirit descending out of heaven, rather very directly onto and into Jesus.
. Seeing, then, this purposed direction of the dove from God is so key because it gives us understanding as to what Father would do on the day of Pentecost in the Acts 2 fulfillment of this Jewish festival; God was still pouring out very specifically onto and into Jesus when this Holy Spirit baptism was taking place onto and into those gathered believers fifty some days after the Passover of God’s offered Lamb (“Christ in us and us in Christ” – Jhn. 17:21, 23, Col. 3:3), (Jhn. 14:16).
. That Holy Spirit baptism, Beloved, was a benchmark being scarred, if you will, within the believers, as to the work of Jesus’s sacrifice, the very finished work of the cross, fulfilling in those believers what Jesus’s water baptism was meant to be.
—Holy Spirit, through the Greek text of the opening passage above, from Mark 1:9, reveals something exceedingly overt in Jesus’s baptism that takes us all the way back to the book of Joshua in the Old Testament.
. Father is literally unveiling, in Mark’s gospel, the mystery He’d set in the days of the Old Testament (Eph. 3:4b-5), of Jesus and the cross, as well as of Holy Spirit, in His Son’s water baptism, as His words are descending in the form of a dove with the sound of His words.
. The mystery of the dove takes us all the way back to one of Genesis’s early chapters, at the tail end of the flood in Noah’s day.
. The revelation of Holy Spirit – the purpose for His being sent in making known Father’s Heart for His Son towards US, wholly towards the intention of redeeming us completely, from out of wrath and judgment, from out of the authority and power and ramifications of sin and the kingdom of darkness, unto and into the Authority of all that is the dominion of the Son of His love, through all that is to us the gift of the Holy Spirit in us (Gal. 1:4; Col. 1:13; Eph. 1:13) – has it’s roots in the Genesis as well as in the Joshua accountings, where water (baptism) is a major part of both events.
—So lets go back to those events and unpack the mystery.
. This will set you in Awe of so great a God that is our Heavenly Father.
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Unveiling the mystery from Genesis
“So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark. And the dove came to him toward evening; and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked Olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent the dove; but she DID NOT RETURN TO HIM again.” Genesis 8:10-12 (NASB)
“Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, … ; never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.” ” excrpt frm Genesis 9:8-17 (NASB)
The waters of the flood were sent to cut off the flood of sin through man, which had spiraled so out of control in darkness, and concerning which Holy Spirit had Moses to write, in Genesis 6:5, of the wickedness then in man, “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY.”
. The flood brought about the Divine judgment to cut off this uncontrolled pervasive work of sin in the line of Adam by putting to death all flesh, save those in the ark.
—Understanding, through Romans 6:3-4, that baptism is really a work of death to sin, it becomes evident that the flood was actually the first baptism, as it were, pointing towards the intent of God the Father’s plan for our redemption in what was to mean, prophetically, the Jordan baptism of His Son.
. God covenanted, after the flood, with Noah, [after Noah offered exceeding sacrifice (which ascended as an aroma of rest – ref. this Kairos )] and with ALL of his seed, that is, with every single person born on this planet since that day, in every nation, tribe, and tongue, to never cut off ALL flesh by water again … because He was going to accomplish this very thing through ONE Son of Man, though not of the seed of Adam by blood.
. That is, God was going accomplish ‘cutting off the work of sin’ completely from all flesh, in a “greater than the flood” water baptism ( the cross– Lk3; 21-22; Lk 12:49) through what Jesus’s baptism was exactly destined to do.
—The prophetic indicator of the flood was an overt, though in mystery, intention showing what water “baptism” was meant to accomplish … and that was kill – put to death – “sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3; 6:3-7).
. It had to take something more than another flood, AND, completely impossible with man, someone NOT of the bloodline of Adam, in order to take care of sin in the flesh in the Adamic nature of ALL born into the bloodline of Adam, this issue in man, … and doing so without eternally destroying man.
. It had to be something, a gift, by God’s very own Spirit, to be able to achieve this kind of working, this kind of utter transformation, so that “Sin” would no longer have a life within the life of the seed of the first Adam (Rom. 5:12-19; 8:2-3).
—This, Beloved, was the “from eternity” plan of God the Father … a gift, … to us, to you and I, that would cost HIM, not us, in blood. (I Pet. 1:18-21).
. And His Spirit, God the Father’s own, “from out of Himself” Spirit, (that’s the exact denotation of the Greek text – Rom.5:8) Who is only Holy AND only intense in Love, was fully completely involved, woven, if you will, into this single focused intention, towards your and my redemption.
—Thus it was that, in Jesus’s baptism, is manifest the one major, huge difference than the accomplishment of the flood. Jesus’s baptism was going to accomplish for man in man, what that first baptism could not … and this has to do with the dove.
—Again, it is not insignificant that Noah, whose name means “Rest” (because his father’s heart was crying out for hope from what the work of sin had done to bring a curse to the earth – Gen. 1:17b-19a; 5:28-29), that he chose a dove to fly over the earth to know if the judgment, the waters of the flood, had indeed subsided, seeing that the ark was no longer afloat, but had come to rest on hard ground below it.
. All flesh, and thus the pervasive work of sin, had died in the waters of the flood. The Judgment was finished. The ark was now stationary, indicating that they were about to step out into a new kind of creation. The old had passed away.
. Noah would first send out a raven, but it did not return, so he sent out a dove, twice.
. Without going into all the details, we see that the dove flies back to him the 2nd time with an olive leaf – very specifically an OLIVE leaf. It was a prophetic indication of a resting place for the anointing (because the anointing is where is the light of revelation of the Life of God towards us & in us – (Ex. 37:17-23; 40:24-25; Jhn. 1:1-4,9; Mk. 14:32a; Lk. 22:39).
. The third time Noah would send out the dove, it did not return to him.
. The dove had not a resting place, yet, within man … because the nature of the first Adam was still alive (see Father’s words in the middle of Gen. 8:21) in Noah and his seed, as would become evident in the chapters immediately after the flood. Even so, the prophetic intention, Father God’s decree, had been released on earth as it was in heaven.
. We do not see the dove again, as it were, until Jesus’s baptism; for He would not be of the blood line of the first Adam … Thanks to God’s Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:34-35, 37).
—There would be one more indicator, however, in the days of the Old Covenant of the Father’s heart through “the dove”, which would show clearly God’s unwavering determined pursuit of mankind whom He’d created in His image, towards our redemption from the bondage of sin. This was through the prophet Jonah.
–Jonah’s name means “dove”. Though he did not carry the Spirit of God in his nature, in wanting wicked men to repent so as to come into the Mercy and Grace of God (Jon. 3:10-4:11; Ez. 18:23; 33:11; II Pet. 3:9), yet still we see the work of what Holy Spirit does in causing man to turn from sin to God and to His crazy awesome lovingkindness and unmerited grace.
Unveiling the mystery from Joshua
“… Jesus … was baptized INTO the Jordan by John. ” Mark 1:9
Much of this mystery was taught in a previous Kairos, but we will look at it again with some fresh bread.
. There is something that Father speaks as Jesus is receiving Holy Spirit, which points directly to God giving over His Son to sacrifice. We don’t realize it, that Father actually indicated this in His words over Jesus, in the first three gospels. John the Baptist does point towards this intent in John’s gospel, but the mystery is unveiled by Holy Spirit through the writer of Hebrews. We will look at the Jordan crossing in Joshua’s day to begin to unpack this awe of God’s heart towards us.
“Now the LORD said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses I will be (Lit.“I Am”) with you. You shall, moreover, command the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant, saying, ‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’ ” Joshua 3:7-8 (NASB)
—At this point Joshua speaks to the sons of Israel by telling them that, God being with them, they are going in to inherit as a result of the Ark of the Covenant specifically going into the Jordan. Doesn’t that seem an odd thing, to indicate as to why they will gain inheritance through dispossessing giant terror enemies … the Ark of the Covenant is going to go before them into the Jordan … that the waters of the Jordan flowing down would be cut off, and stand in one heap up stream? These details are not insignificant. Pay attention to the emboldened words in the above excerpt, and then in the following.
“So it came about … when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, … that the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away AT ADAM, …” excrpt frm Joshua 3 (NASB)
Verse 16 goes on to indicate that the flow downwards towards the “Salt Sea” (the Dead sea) was “COMPLETELY CUT OFF.” Everything in my heart is screaming, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear!” So let’s unveil this to understand why.
The Ark of the Covenant had a lid called the “Mercy Seat”, or “Propitiatory” (ref. Ex. 25:10-22), known from the Hebrew as the “covering” [- כַּפֹּרֶת -Kapporeth, from כֹּפֶר – kopher– (our word “cover”), which was the “price of a life –a Ransom“], because the blood sprinkled on it was to cover for sin (Lev. 16:14-15). Paul, in Romans 3:25a, makes it known that Jesus Himself, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, is that covering, is our Mercy Seat, as well as the propitiation, or satisfactory offering – the ransom price for our life!
—There is a clear link to Holy Spirit in this (Heb. 9:11-15), Who will in turn be poured out, at Pentecost, from this very place of heaven’s Mercy Seat … INTENTIONALLY … to bear witness INSIDE of those having believed into Christ Jesus to that speaking blood from the cross that is now on the Mercy Seat, in having cut off sin, yes, all the way back to Adam (Rom. 8:2 ff). Holy Spirit, accordingly then, bears witness inside of us to COMPLETELY cut off eternal judgement, Divine wrath against sin (Heb. 10:15,17-18; I Thess. 1:10; 5:9), that destiny to which we had been headed before Salvation came to us.
—So let’s return to the “beginning of the gospel”, as Mark writes in chapter 1, to Jesus’s baptism by John into the Jordan, the beginning of His service to the people amongst whom He lives, and see its tie in the fulfillment of this baptism at the completion of His ministry, from the Olive grove hill of “Gethsemane” – meaning, “oil press” – to the hill called Golgatha, the baptism of His cross, our death to sin … to the sin of all flesh (I Jhn. 2:2; Rom. 6:10a).
—The word “Jordan” denotes “descending”, having been derived from the verb used above in Josh. 3:11: “the waters which were flowing down (“yor’diym” in Hebrew) from above”. The Jordan flows from out of the Sea of Galilee, a body of water in & around where there is an abundance of life, of sustenance for life, but whose outflow river descends and so ends up in a dead sea, literally. It is a proverb, as it were, the Jordan, the tale of life (B.C. – before our life in Christ) of those born into the bloodline of Adam, ever descending through life to that ultimate judgment, a tale of life to death, that death clearly denoting “judgment/wrath.”
“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them … are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” excerpt frm. Jude 7 (NASB)
The Jordan River flows to the lowest place on earth, at which southwest end were then (and still are) the scorched remains, the scorching reminder, of what is Divine wrath upon those who ultimately reject God’s great kindness – His mercy and grace. Jude’s words are from two thousand years ago, yet some fifteen centuries past when that judgment had taken place, showing clearly that the sons of Israel surely had known the significance of that region of their land. The book of Genesis was written by Moses, the one with whom Joshua had spent many hours, especially in the presence of the LORD (Ex. 33:11). Joshua, keeping his eyes often in the pages of Moses’ writings (Joshua 1:8), would have known the account of Genesis 19, when that region, before known to have been like the Garden of the LORD (Gen. 13:10b), suddenly came to be forever like the lunar landscape of the moon in the judgment to which it befell.
–The crossing of the Jordan, which was at flood stage (Josh. 3:15b), had to be a supernatural working of God; and it was going to be accomplished purposefully because of the blood sprinkled covered Mercy Seat upon the Ark of the Covenant which was going to be carried INTO the Jordan. It is that Blood, Beloved, on the Mercy Seat that is the reason why the issue of the Ark of the Covenant coming into the Jordan cuts off all the way back to Adam final wrath and judgment. Are you listening, Beloved?
“But now apart from Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, … Christ Jesus; Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation (lit also, A Mercy Seat / a Satisfactory Offering), in His blood through faith.” Romans 3:21,24b-25a (NASB)
—Thomas Newberry, in his Greek interlinear, “The Englishman’s Greek New Testament”, translates this verse, “whom God set forth a Mercy seat through faith in His blood, “. It is the exact same Greek word used for Mercy seat in Hebrews 9:5. What we come to see of that Mercy seat satisfactory offering sprinkled blood is the testimony of what Joshua unwittingly prophesies in his description of how far back the Jordan stopped and heaped up.
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Roman’s 5:9 (NASB) (Ref. also Eph. 2:3-5; I Thess. 5:9)
—When Jesus stepped into the Jordan, His baptism was entirely different than that of every single other precious seed of Israel who’d stepped in. The Greek text of Mark 1:9 literally denotes that Jesus was baptized intentionally into the Jordan. From Paul’s unveiling of Jesus as our Mercy Seat/satisfactory offering, what we come to realize is that the true Ark of Covenant’s sacrifice- Christ Jesus our LORD– put His feet into the descending waters of a river that prophetically indicated a downward flow all the way to final judgement, in order to decree, by His baptism into THAT river, that He was come to cut off sin and it’s consequential judgement, both of which were entirely rooted all the way back to Adam (Rom. 5:12-19, 21). Nobody saw this when Jesus was being baptized. Father was, in effect, keeping the wool over the eyes of the devil. Nobody would understand the significance, to the Jewish people first and also to the world, the power of what was taking place at this baptism … into water AND Holy Spirit. satan would get taste of this in his failure to trip up Jesus in the desert, yet would still not see that it was a prophetic working of God Himself (through a son of man) to decree what He was going to do three years later from Golgatha’s hill through this Man, through His Son.
—What no one heard, in Father’s “Holy Spirit pouring out” words, as His Son is coming up out of the waters of the Jordan, was that He was declaring the Lamb He had seen for the sacrifice in Genesis 22:8, without defect (Lev. 1:10 et al), that is, without sin (II Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15b; I Pet. 2:22; I Jhn. 3:5b). God was overtly testifying to this concerning His Son in manifesting His own Holy Spirit as a dove coming, alas, to Rest upon and into a man, the Man Jesus. This will be, Beloved, the distinguishing factor henceforth of Holy Spirit, of God’s Spirit. Holy Spirit would unequivocally testify of Jesus, (Jhn. 15:26; I Jhn. 5:6-7; I Cor. 2:2,4) of this fact of Jesus, and accordingly, in power of the finished work of His cross in causing this to be manifest in kingdom advancement of such powerful transformation into His (Jesus’s) image (Rom. 8:26-27, 29, II Cor. 3:18).
—So, finally, let’s unveil the mystery that no one heard from Father’s words upon His Son, the weightiness of His Salvation.
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Holy Spirit, & the revelation of the Choice Sacrifice
—It is in Father’s baptizing His own Son in His Spirit, into Holy Spirit, through the words coming from out of His heart of love for His Son, that He actually declares High Priestly words concerning choice of this offering sacrifice, this, His own Lamb … something He’d waited to do since Abraham had decreed this prior to his offering up Isaac, back in Genesis 22.
“And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son. ” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “God will see for Himself the Lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” ” Genesis 22:7-8a (NASB)
—When I saw the tie from the Greek text in Hebrews 10 to Father’s words in the gospels upon His Son, via a prophetic statement credited to what Jesus by Holy Spirit spoke through King David back in Psalms, I was shocked. Look at Father’s last words as Holy Spirit rests upon Jesus.
” … in You I-DELIGHT!”
— Now behold what Holy Spirit, speaking of Jesus, says through the writer of Hebrews.
“Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken NO PLEASURE. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come … to do Your Will, O God.’ After saying above, ‘Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE IN THEM‘ (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 10:5-10 (NASB)
– The verb “to take pleasure”, (in some versions “to delight”), is the Greek word, “εὐδοκέω – eudokeó” (sounds like – “yoo-dok-eh’-o”), is the exact verb used by Father when He was baptizing His Son in His Spirit, “in You I-Delight“. He was literally declaring that His Son was the perfect sacrifice. His heart was overflowing with exceeding love for His Son.
“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay My life down that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.” John 10:17-18 (NASB)
Jesus’s delight to do God His Father’s will (see Ps. 40:8 from which passage the Hebrews 10 quote is taken), was the Father’s delight in His Son. Jesus willingly, open-heartedly, received the command from His Father, that is, from Holy Spirit, the Spirit of His Father, to both lay down His life and to take it up again … in order to redeem you and I. Let that sink into your heart a minute, Precious One. This is what was going on in the Baptism of Jesus into the Jordan and Holy Spirit, in Mark 1:9.
—All of those sacrifices for sin through the centuries, Beloved, offered in obedience to the command of the Law, God in them did NOT delight. For, like the flood, there was absolutely no transformative power; nothing in all of those sacrifices was a working of Holy Spirit, of God’s own Spirit, within any man to bring about a death to flesh, in order to free us from the Adamic nature of sin, from of the very law of sin in the flesh. God’s heart towards mankind created in His image was to get us back to His image, a living reality of His Holy Spirit inside of us wholly perfectly seen in Jesus Christ within the gospels, an image which Adam had willingly forfeited back in the Garden.
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” Romans 6:2-3 (NASB)
“how much more the blood of Christ, Who, through an eternal Spirit, Himself offered without-blemish/spotless to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God” Hebrews 9:14
—This issue of Holy Spirit living alive inside of us and us in Him, whereby our nature is born again through such power that the very words of our lips, daily, naturally, bear fruit to this evidence, had to come about through an offering that would accomplish exactly this that was of Father God His perfect delight. Because this would bear witness of Him, of the nature of Who He is as Love, not only towards us, rather far more, in and through us. We could never know this as a Grace-truth reality apart from this perfect Lamb baptized into the Jordan AND God the Father’s own Spirit. You must see and acknowledge this, Beloved. Water baptism is not a separate distinction of New birth from Holy Spirit baptism, which is so evident in the body of the scriptures throughout the book of Acts (ie. Acts2:38-39; 10:44, 47-48), even though a number of present day denominations have both separated these and some have completely rejected, as a Grace-truth of an unchanging God, Holy Spirit baptism.
—Jesus came to John the baptist to be baptized intentionally by him specifically; the Greek text of Matthew 3:13 & John 1:29 bears witness to this. None of this intention was apart from Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:15b, 39-44). John’s name in Hebrew is יוֹחָנָן – Yochanan, a compound of two words – “Yah” – the short form Name of the LORD – “YHVH”, and from “chanan”, denoting “Grace”. John was literally the “Grace of Yah”, God’s Grace sent to make ready a nation for the revelation of God’s Grace in the public manifestation of the true Mercy Seat, and the blood offering for that forever Mercy seat. Again, look at how the writer of Hebrews makes this known to us:
“But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with Glory and honor, that BY THE GRACE OF GOD He might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:9 (NASB)
John was literally the “Grace of God” to bring about the prophetic sign that Jesus had come to taste death, by God’s Grace, for everyone. John’s own words bear witness to this truth.
“The next day he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of world!” John 1:29 (NASB)
—What is significant is that the indicator that would cause John to know for Whom he had been sent to publicly bear witness was the revelation of … Holy Spirit!
” “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ And I did not recognize Him, but in order that He might be manifest to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” And John bore witness saying, “I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.” And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One Who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ ” John 1:31-33 (NASB)
God did not tell John that Holy Spirit would come as a dove, only that the One upon whom he saw the Spirit descending and remaining. I can’t help but wonder if John, through the hundreds and hundreds that came over the days and weeks and months to be baptized, if he was constantly looking and wondering at each baptism, upon whom Holy Spirit was going to come, and how exactly this would look like. Surely, though, the Holy Spirit caused him to recall the Genesis 8 account of the dove which had flown off, not having having found one upon whom to remain. John’s father, having been a priest, would have known the Tanakh (our Old Testament); and knowing the supernatural destiny of his son, Zechariah would have brought him up thoroughly in the scriptures. Holy Spirit in John caused him to grow strong as such (Lk. 1:67-80).
—The impact of Holy Spirit baptism as that which is linked to water baptism is a force and power, a Kingdom authority from a blood sprinkled Throne that is exceedingly more than what we have realized as Jesus’s body on earth, and as His Royal Bride anointed to rule with Him now, in this life (Jhn. 3:5; Eph. 1:17-23; Esth. 4:14b, 5:1-2, 8:7-8). The power, of which Jesus spoke (Lk. 24:49; Acts 1:8), in Holy Spirit baptism is wholly linked to what Jesus’s baptism into the Jordan fully was decreeing, in completely dying a death to sin for all men AND accordingly stripping satan of his right, authority, and power in and over the Adamic lineage … because of the eternal pure spotless blood, the very Spirit life in that blood. satan had no idea that his failure in the wilderness to cause Jesus to sin was the bold decree of God that His Son’s baptism into the Jordan was going to actually fulfill in man on behalf of man what the flood never could. The power of Holy Spirit inside of believers is that victorious witness, decreed in that desert testing and manifested with Jesus last breath from the cross. This is Holy Spirit’s witness inside of us of that blood presently on heaven’s throne, from which place He was sent to us.
—The voice of Holy Spirit through us, the Father’s delight spoken at Jesus’s baptism into the Jordan, is the forever living decree, through our lips, through our tongues, of full power of the accomplished victory of Jesus’s cross, His baptism of death for all flesh, for us and as us, from Golgatha’s hill two thousand years ago. It is a living fire that causes us, by Holy Spirit through us, to cause hearts to burn with the very truth of the Only Living God’s only plan of redemption of man through the promise and mystery of all that He was declaring through the timeline of the Old Testament, even as we’ve seen in this study.
—I believe the fire of Holy Spirit baptism, which Jesus intentionally came to cast into the earth, is going to bring about unprecedented change more than we’ve ever seen. I believe this impact is going bring about a reformation of transformation that will change society to the point of of seeing lawlessness broken where it has been common place, such as was witnessed for a period of time in the early 1900’s Welsh revival, but with an augmenting glory that will not at all fade. I believe we will see the works that Jesus did, and even greater, because Jesus declared this so with the coming of Holy Spirit (Jhn. 14:12-13), to a degree we’ve never seen; yet this too will increase, because Father’s intent to glorify His Son and to increase His government will indeed come to be as more and more believers grow from faith into faith into faith in leaning more and more on Holy Spirit inside them, intertwined with their increased private time with Father in His Word.
—Let be caused to grow your heart hunger towards knowing Holy Spirit, towards His searching the depths of God to make known to you the wealth of His Grace because of Jesus (I Cor. 2:7-12; Jhn. 14:21-23, 26, 16:13-15). Holy Spirit is way more desirous to unveil Jesus in His Resurrection glory than is our heart’s hunger to know Him. So let the Spirit of truth speak the truth from the scriptures that Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever, especially about Holy Spirit and Jesus’s willingness to sacrifice Himself to baptize you in Holy Spirit, an unfading present Grace-truth of Father’s heart and promise. For you will come to realize that the things of yourself that frustrate you will be effortlessly undone through Holy Spirit and fire.
—Soak in truths unpacked in this Kairos, Beloved. Let Father, our Awesome God, cause to burst up out of you the fountain of living water as you Awe Him in what He has done and is doing, through this baptism of Jesus, for you because of His amazing love. The glory of our Savior, of our Jesus, will glow through you to draw the world to know why this ‘lit through you’ hope.
“… giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the (true/detailed/intimate) knowledge of Him, …” excrpt frm Ephesians 1:16-17
You are greatly loved, Beloved. Mark D.
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** – Beloved, you are free to print this and any Kairos for your own study. Take the time to go through these scriptures, and let the Holy Spirit write them and bear witness to them in your hearts and minds. Let the Word of God and the Blood of Jesus and the witness of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you wash through you and renew your mind. These blogs are meant to be Bible studies, so you are free to print up any newsletter of this blog site for your own study. Feel free to copy and reset these Newsletter with lines in them for notes.
If you have never believed into Jesus Christ, you can do so now, from your own heart and words. If you wish help to pray, pray, “LORD Jesus, I believe You died for me and as me because You love me. I receive Your Forgiveness for my sin. Thank You for shedding Your blood to cleanse me, for making me clean, for breaking the power of sin in my life, for transforming me as a gift of Your Grace to me. I ask You to live inside of me. I thank You, Jesus, for giving me eternal life, that I might know You and Your Father, as my God, forever. In Your Name, LORD Jesus. Amen!”
For those of you who have believed into Jesus; take communion often (I Cor. 11:23-26; Lk. 24:30-31a). Let communion be a refreshing of the Blood and the Spirit (Heb. 9:14) to cleanse your conscious from sin consciousness to righteousness consciousness, that you are indeed clean, as a gift of His grace. You are no more, Dearly Beloved, under condemnation; rather, you are under justification – eternally! (Rom. 4:25b, 5:21;b; Heb. 9:11-12). You will find the Holy Spirit of Jesus unveiling Jesus to you from the scriptures like you’ve never seen Him before.
kairos – (Kahee-ros’) – Strong’s concordance defines this word: “an occasion, I.e. set or proper time.” The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible (NASB) defines this word; “season, time, but not merely as a succession of moments, which is chronos,” [from which we derive the English word ‘chronology’]. “Kairos, however, implies not the convenience of the season, but the necessity of the task at hand, whether the time provides a good, convenient opportunity or not.” This must be understood. Strategic times of the Lord do not necessarily imply good or convenient times. We are in Kairos times. Maybe not good or convenient times, but definitely strategic, opportune times because of the season we are in. We must have “ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” (Rev. 2:29), so as to respond correctly to the Kairos time.
* Some Scripture for this letter is taken from the (NASB) – NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, (c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other references translated from Grk. Txt as presented in T. Newberry’s Englishman’s Greek New Testament, Zondervan Publishing – 1982- originally published in London, Eng. 1877 Scripture references not showing a Translation in Brackets are this writer’s translation from the Hebrew Massoretic Text as it appears on the web-site “qbible.com”. Some definitions given to Hebrew words are also referenced from this website, as well as from Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, Baker Book House Company, (C) 1979
Several Translations and study guides to which this author refers are taken from biblehub.com website