Ellen Brown
Well-Known Member
I see it as when a person truly repents and becomes baptized to Jesus, he becomes one spirit with the Lord(1 Corinthians 17), therefore that person is saved and has the Spirit within. But the bible does talk about going further and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit which comes upon a person and gives them power to witness; and it does seem that there always were utterances(prophecy or tongues) accompanied when it falls upon a person. As Jesus himself said in John 7:38-39, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.). So there seems to be a flow coming from the persons innermost being as evidence that the person has received the Holy Ghost. There are other examples like in acts 19 when Paul asks the disciples in Ephesus if you have received the Holy Spirit when you believed and they said no, telling us you can be a disciple and not receive the Holy Spirit, but going on when they did receive, they spoke in tongues and prophesied. And in Luke 11:13 it says, “...how much more will the heavely father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” in the context of a Father giving gifts to His child, so saying that His children(born-again followers of Jesus) should ask Him for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and He will give it to them.
Without being confrontational, none of us can regulate and dictate the path of another. I do not agree that tongues is evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. This argument has hurt far too many people.