“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink with one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
This verse, says the Doctor,“is the familiar argument [that] is being used . . . by those who do not believe in the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a separate experience. They maintain that this one verse is enough in and of itself. But that raises the real question — does the verse say that? I want to try to demonstrate, further, that the verse not only does not say that, but that this verse does not deal at all with the doctrine of the baptism with the Holy Spirit.”
To paraphrase the Doctor, in the original Greek the word “by” in ‘For BY one Spirit’ is actually translated, ‘For IN one Spirit’, and cessationists therefore argue that this verse says that we have been baptized “in” the Spirit into the body of Christ, and that this is established by the use of the Greek word en which, it is argued, ALWAYS means ‘in’ and not ‘by.’ It is extremely interesting then, Lloyd-Jones points out, that practically all translations (i.e. those available at the time he wrote this) and many authorities (Moffatt, the American Williams, Arthur S. Way, J. N. Darby) translate this word as ‘by’, knowing full well that the word en is used. The only answer is that the word en is used in a casual sense, and this is confirmed by the great lexicons (including Arndt and Gingrish). Examples where the word en is used in the instrumental sense, and furthermore that it would make no sense at all to translate it “in”, can be found in Matthew 26:52 (all they that take the sword shall perish with [en] the sword); Matthew 7:6 (neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under [en] their feet); Luke 1:51; and Romans 5:9 (Much more then, being now justified by [en] his blood). MLJ argues, therefore, that purely on the basis of grammar, there can be no objection whatsoever to translating this word en as ‘by’.
The Doctor then reinforces his argument by quoting extensively from a book called The Untranslatable Riches from the New Testament Greek, written by a famous Greek scholar from America, Dr. Wuest, who deals with this very verse. I will copy this quote here because of its importance in understanding the linguistics of this verse:
Baptize means “to place into” or to “introduce into” . . . The word Spirit is in the instrumental case in the Greek. Personal agency is expressed occasionally by the instrumental case. At such times the verb is always in the passive or middle voice. The Greek construction here follows this role of Greek grammar. The personal agent in this case who does the baptizing is the Holy Spirit. He places or introduces the believing sinner into the body of which the Lord Jesus is the living Head. We could translate therefore “by means of the personal agency of one Spirit we all were placed in one body.”
It is not the baptism with the Spirit, or of the Spirit, in the sense that the Holy Spirit is the element that is applied to us; it is the baptism by the Spirit. This baptism does not bring the Spirit to us in the sense that God places the Spirit upon us or in us; rather this baptism brings the believer into vital union with Jesus Christ. This means that the baptism by the Spirit is not for power, for in this baptism there is nothing applied or given to the believer.
then compares and contrasts this statement with the statement that you have in Luke 3:16 where John the Baptist said to the company, ‘But one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ And it is the same little word en there. Dr. Wuest takes that statement and John 1:31, with which we are dealing, and Acts 1:5, and Acts 11:16 and so on and states:
This kind of a verb is not found in the passages quoted from Matthew to Acts, but is found in 1 Corinthians 12:13. Therefore our rendering “baptized by means of the Spirit” is correct for the Corinthian passage, but not correct for those others commented upon. The phrase ‘with the Spirit’ therefore defines what baptism is referred to, and the words “by means of the Spirit” speak of the fact that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Agent who himself baptizes, the purpose of which baptism is to place the believing sinner into vital union with Jesus Christ and thus make him a member of the body of which Christ is the living Head.
That to me is most important because there you have one of the greatest authorities on these matters in this present century, and I could have quoted even more. His whole argument comes to this — that here in 1 Corinthians 12:13 there is something quite different from all the other mentionings of baptism with the Holy Spirit. This is not referring to the baptism with the Spirit, and he gives his grammatical reasons for saying that.
Excerpts from this past were taken from:
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones,
Joy Unspeakable – The Baptism and Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christopher Catherwood, Ed., Combined edition of Joy Unspeakable (1984) and Prove All Things (1985), Kingsway Publications, Eastbourne, England, 1995, “Something Worth Striving For”, chapter 18, pp. 329-333.
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