ion, "You have told us of the
necessity of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, but who can have this
baptism? The church to which I belong teaches that the baptism with the
Holy Spirit was confined to the apostolic age. Will you not tell us who
can have the baptism with the Holy Spirit?" Fortunately this question is
answered in the most explicit terms in the Bible. We read in Acts ii. 38,
39, R. V., "And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise, and
to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord
our God shall call unto Him." What is the promise to which Peter refers in
the thirty-ninth verse? There are two interpretations of the passage; one
is that the promise of this verse is the promise of salvation; the other
is that the promise of this verse is the promise of the gift of the Holy
Spirit (or the baptism with the Holy Spirit; a comparison of Scripture
passages will show that the two expressions are synonymous). Which is the
correct interpretation? There are two laws of interpretation universally
recognized among Bible scholars. These two laws are the law of usage (or
"usus loquendi" as it is called) and the law of context. Many a verse in
the Bible standing alone might admit of two or three or even more
interpretations, but when these two laws of interpretation are applied, it
is settled to a certainty that only one of the various possible
interpretations is the true interpretation. The law of usage is this, that
when you find a word or phrase in any passage of Scripture and you wish to
know what it means, do not go to a dictionary but go to the Bible itself,
look up the various passages in which the word is used and especially how
the particular writer being studied uses it, and especially how it is used
in that particular book in which the passage is found. Thus you can
determine what the precise meaning of the word or phrase is in the passage
in question. The law of context is this; that when you study a passage,
you should not take it out of its connection but should look at what goes
before it and what comes after it; for while it might mean various things
if it stood alone, it can only mean one thing in the connection in which
it is found. Now let us apply these two laws to the passage in question.
First of all, let us apply the law