We have the scripture ”Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, in the Book of Acts, but what about the reality of it in actual experience? Cessationism is a belief that the miraculous way the Holy Spirit is given was not continued after there were no more apostles left alive. In the West, actually the miraculous giving of the Holy Spirit on laying on of hands did continue for at least another century, as writings of eminent church leaders attested, because there was apostolic succession, so God still was recognising leaders by giving the Holy Spirit with signs attesting to it after these leaders laid hands on disciples. It was not until later that this appeared to cease. Yet outside of the West it has continued to this day. Protestant leaders did not know it was only the West which had lost this divine recognition of succession. Maybe they assumed the miraculous Holy Spirit manifestations had ceased for all after the apostles had died out. This belief is called Cessationism. It is preeminent among many Protestant churches still today. Yet it did not cease forever. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until the twentieth century, and perhaps in places still today, there were movement to firstly restore baptism of believers such that many church buildings became equipped with large baptistries and believers could be baptised whatever their age if they professed their belief openly. Then further movements restored gospel preaching to the masses in the open. Then further movements again led revivals of repentance and holiness. The preconditions of the promise of Peter in that verse in Acts were being fulfilled and the way was opening for receiving the Holy Spirit if you had believed and been baptised and had your life made more holy in readiness. Then in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, at last, first in Los Angeles, then New York and Calgary, Toronto, and from there across the West, people started to receive the Holy Spirit with miraculous evidence such as tongues and prophecy, along with all kinds of miracles and healings. It even spread to Catholic church groups, and made inroads into Protestant and Catholic mainstream churches. The teachings and church structures were put in place to bring in laying on of hands and those recognised by God to administer it, such that many could receive this gift, this seal, the mark of Holy Spirit. Is it available today? It depends on where you are, but if like Saul of Tarsus, you are called to this saintly life, God can send you where you need to be to receive it, as He sent Saul, who went to where Ananias the gifted disciple would reach him. So scripture can be fulfilled in lives across the West. Africa too, since missionaries took these blessings there as well, and all kinds of places not previously blessed with churches having this blessing. Unfortunately, this belief and experience is still denied by many Protestants and possibly Catholics too. Denominations formed before the Pentecostal movement started tended to have tenets of doctrines persisting their Cessationism stance, and they cannot easily change it, though some such as open Brethren are trying to embrace this miraculous blessing. On the other hand it seems many formerly Pentecostal churches are abandoning their emphasis on the miraculous gifts and calling themselves Evangelical instead. I hope the same dying out of this blessing seen in the third century does not happen again. The scripture remains, ”Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”.
