The Gift and the Promise

Today I would just like to point out the correlation between “the gift of God,” “the promise of God,” and “eternal life.” I’ll begin by quoting a couple of scriptures that will start us off in the right direction: “And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the PROMISE of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence” (Acts 1:4,5). So Jesus clearly said that the promise of God IS the baptism of the holy Ghost which he was going to send to his followers several days after he left. Now we will jump to the day of Pentecost after this glorious experience came to these first believers in Jesus: “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the GIFT of the Holy Ghost. For the PROMISE is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:38.39). Now we see Peter refer to the same baptism of the Spirit that they had just received even as Jesus had promised, as both the gift of God AND the promise of God. I might point out that it is a pity that the only thing that the majority of God’s people see in this passage is the part about being baptized in water in the name of Jesus, because it really has nothing at all to do with the equation of receiving the baptism of the holy Ghost. Peter thought that it did because everyone who was present that day who had received this experience, had been baptized in water as a preparation FOR the experience. It had been a commandment of God to do so, but only for the sake of leading to faith in Jesus and receiving HIS baptism (Mk. 1:6-8; Gal. 3:24,25). Baptism in water HAD BEEN for the remission of sins up to Pentecost, but Jesus had newly become the high priest and mediator of the NEW covenant AFTER he ascended to heaven, and what he poured out that day was the NEW testament remission of sins (Heb. 1:3; Heb. 10:12-17). This is not a criticism of Peter, as anyone would have thought the same way and said the same thing.

Now let’s get back to the main course here, that being the gift, the promise, and eternal life. We have seen by the scriptures that it is an evident truth that the baptism of the holy Ghost, that being the same one that came on the day of Pentecost and still comes to those today who honestly repent and believe on Jesus for the remission of their sins; IS both “the gift” and “the promise” of God. So the remainder is quite easy to nail down, and it goes like this: “For the wages of sin is death; but THE gift of God is ETERNAL LIFE through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). Also, “And this is THE promise that he hath promised us, even ETERNAL LIFE” (I Jn. 2:25). So the evident conclusion, according to the scriptures, is that there is NO ETERNAL LIFE available to anyone apart from the experience of being baptized with the holy Ghost with the inseparable sign of speaking in other tongues, even as it was at Pentecost. And while it is true that there are other ‘gifts’ of God mentioned in the scriptures, there are no others referred to as THE gift of God. The same also is true for other ‘promises’ of God. No other promises are referred to as THE promise. The Spirit of God IS eternal life and there is no such thing in the scriptures as someone RECEIVING the Spirit apart from being BAPTIZED with the Spirit along with the sign of speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance (Jn. 16:7; Acts 2:4; Rom. 8:2). Any ‘gift’ or ‘promise’ other than the gift and promise of eternal life does not directly affect the hope of our salvation, but it is certain that no one will be saved that does not receive eternal life into themselves. You can use an exhaustive concordance to see that the Spirit baptism is referred to as the gift and as the promise in numerous other passages. These things are simply what the scriptures clearly show, whereas the modern Christian teachings of “getting saved” and “accepting the Lord as your personal savior” CAN NOT be found in the Bible. I believe that sufficiently covers the bases for now on this all important topic. God bless.