Beginning Water & Spirit Doctrine

[Disciple4life]

Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord

John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

If Jesus' earthly ministry did not begin until he was baptized in water, with the Holy Spirit baptism descending upon Him, then why should we think it would be any different for us as believers?

I am not saying it should be any different for us.

I don't believe this is basing everything on "one scripture". There are a multitude of scriptures to correlate together that Jesus himself was baptized in water, and received the Holy Spirit. There are multiple scriptures that show that baptism in water took place, and that infilling of the spirit also took place in believers throughout the NT.

So if there is multiple scriptures (which there is) we shouldn't only use John 3.

I do believe that the evidence of the infilling of the spirit should not rest only in "tongues", but ALSO in the fruit of the spirit. Tongues can and mostly are a sign of the indwelling of the spirit in one's life, but the fruit of the spirit remain the real test as to whether a life has the spirit indwelling it.... or not.

One of my points is if you are going to preach baptism of water and spirit there are better scriptures to do it than John 3.