Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0804 – January 27, 2008 – Acts 1:1-8 – The Promise Of The Holy Spirit

Turn to Acts 1; remembering that the nature of the Book of Acts is transition. Transition on at least seven levels. we pointed out the doctrinal transition, from naivety to maturity, the communal transition from inside Judaism to outside Judaism, the focal transition from kingdom to Church, a geographic transition from Jerusalem to Rome, the gospel is going out, a theological transition from Christ present to the Spirit present and lastly a national transition from Jewish majority to Gentile majority. All misuse, or at least most misuse of the book of Acts stems directly from the simple mistake of failing to recognize the act is transitional, it’s a transition book. And people always want to stop, put on the brake, halt the movement and make Acts the norm for the rest of the Church Age. And it’s wrong; the Church is an infant in the book of Acts. And I would no more like to go back to the Church in the book of Acts than go back to my crib. And that’s exactly what people who want to “get back to the Church in Acts” want to do; they want to go back to the crib, go back to the nursery.

The minor theme in the book of Acts that isn’t so strong as the major one but it’s there, it’s an apologetic that Luke is doing, is that Christianity deserves the support of the civil authorities. He’s interested in showing that Christianity is not a subversive movement, its kingdom is not of this age, Christianity is not trying to cause civil disobedience to governmental authorities. Of course he doesn’t add that Christianity is going to transform the Roman Empire but it does so peacefully and in submission to authority. 

Acts 1:1-5 Τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον ἐποιησάμην περὶ πάντων, ὦ Θεόφιλε, ὧν ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησοῦς ποιεῖν τε καὶ διδάσκειν, 2ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας ἐντειλάμενος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου οὓς ἐξελέξατο ἀνελήμφθη. 3οἷς καὶ παρέστησεν ἑαυτὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τὸ παθεῖν αὐτὸν ἐν πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις, διʼ ἡμερῶν τεσσεράκοντα ὀπτανόμενος αὐτοῖς καὶ λέγων τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ· 4καὶ συναλιζόμενος παρήγγειλεν αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων μὴ χωρίζεσθαι ἀλλὰ περιμένειν τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ πατρὸς ἣν ἠκούσατέ μου, 5ὅτι Ἰωάννης μὲν ἐβάπτισεν ὕδατι, ὑμεῖς δὲ ἐν πνεύματι βαπτισθήσεσθε ἁγίῳ οὐ μετὰ πολλὰς ταύτας ἡμέρας. (NA27)
Acts 1:1-5 The first book I prepared, O Theophilus, about all Jesus began to do and also to teach, 2until the day he was taken up having given instruction to the apostles whom He had chosen by the Holy Spirit. 3To them He presented himself alive after He suffered with many decisive evidences, appearing to them throughout forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God, 4and while eating with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father which you heard from Me, 5that “John baptized by water, but you shall be baptized by the Holy Spirit.” (Author’s Translation)
Acts 1:1-5 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (NASB95)

Verse 1, The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach. This is another book, a logos, that word is very specifically placed there because it refers strictly to a historically credible account, it’s not a muthos, a “myth”. If Luke had wanted to write a myth he had a perfectly good vocabulary word to do that. He’s very fluent in Greek, he writes in classical Greek, he’s got an advanced vocabulary he’s a very refined individual, highly educated, we know he was a medical doctor and so, turn over to his first book, Luke 1. 

Now, it’s very clear from these verses the author’s purpose. It’s not to give some mythology, it’s to give a historical basis for exercising faith. You have to have real history underlying your faith and that’s what’s under attack today. What do we always hear? “Why can’t you fundamentalist Christians be more like neo-orthodox theologians and admit that really what you’re dealing with here is your own private religious experience. So c’mon, you’re not talking about knowledge.” Well, if you’re going to do that what’s left to believe in? You erase the nuts and bolts of this thing and what’s left? So people get into religious experience, some mindless mysticism that has no absolutely basis in reality, has nothing to do with the Bible. Luke wasn’t interested in new age, yoga, contemplating your navel or a private religious experience, he was interested in public events that happened in history. “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, 2just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word,” He didn’t get this by hearsay he’s a direct eyewitness. He saw these things with his own eyes. “it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus;” 4so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.” So, why are we concerned with the facts? Because you’ve got to have the historical facts before you can have the faith. That’s the whole point. Like Paul said, if the resurrection is just an old campfire legend you can forget it, you’re wasting your time, go get drunk or something. Now here’s Luke, he’s a medical doctor, highly trained, highly respected individual and what do you thinks going to happen to his medical practice if he starts believing in some mythology, you come into the office and Luke bases his diagnosis on some private religious experience. Not going to have many patients after awhile. This man’s not stupid, this man knows that the facts are what count not your religious experience. So he writes the exact truth to Theophilus, not approximate truth, exact truth. Now, we don’t know who this man is exactly, his name just mean “friend of God” and some people have posited that this is no particular man it’s just written to all the friends of God, all the Christians, but notice he’s called “excellent Theophilus” and that’s a Greek title used to address people of rank and authority. So he’s either Luke’s benefactor or a high ranking Roman official. The only other place this title is used is of Felix (Acts 23:26; 24:2) and Festus (Acts 26:25) in the Book of Acts and they were both Roman officials. So, most likely Theophilus is a Roman official of rank. He’s investigating Christianity to see if it’s a rival Empire, to see if it’s a threat. See, the Roman officials were responsible to look out for potential rival kingdoms and with all the talk of King Jesus and His kingdom the question was, “Is Christianity trying to overtake Rome? Is Christianity a rival Empire?” and I showed you last week that you find Paul going before Roman authorities to make a defense for Christianity. And the conclusion of these investigations was that Roman authorities like King Agrippa, Festus, Felix, and others didn’t perceive it as a threat, it was just a religious sect from their perspective. If anything it was more peaceful than Judaism. And another point Luke makes is that the kingdom was not coming then, the kingdom was offered but as you go through Acts it gradually phases out and the Church is growing and the Church is operational within the Roman system. It’s not going to rise up and rebel against Rome. It may overturn it from the inside but it’s not going to start a war with Rome. The kingdom is in the future. So, it’s written to Theophilus to prove that point.

Now what was the first book about? What was Luke about? It was about all that Jesus began to do and teach. That’s the works and words of Jesus Christ. What He did and what He taught while he was present. Verse 2, until, still talking about the contents of Luke, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, so, that’s why you have Luke ending with the Ascension and Acts beginning with the Ascension because this is just a continuation of the story. And what’s the implication of the word until? Now that Jesus is gone is Jesus done doing things and teaching things? No, Luke just goes up to that point but Acts is a continuation. But now what Jesus is doing and teaching is carried on by means of the Holy Spirit. So, Jesus departs and the Spirit arrives, that happens in Acts 2 just a few days after Christ’s departure. So, we hear a lot about the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ but we rarely hear about the ascension of Christ. This is the third great event and hardly a Christian gives it a dimes worth of attention, so we will in vv 9-11 because it’s so often overlooked. 

after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. So His ascension occurred right after these orders. And by the Holy Spirit goes with His choosing of the apostles, not with the giving of orders. He did not give them orders by the Holy Spirit; He chose them by the Holy Spirit. So, this looks back to when he chose them as apostles in Luke 6:13 and you have 12 apostles and note that one of those apostles He chose was Judas Iscariot. Yes, Jesus chose an unbeliever to be an apostle. But his choosing of Judas set up his betrayal. This wasn’t some surprise betrayal. Jesus knew all along who was going to betray him and it was necessary to fulfill the plan of God because did you ever ask, “How is Judas going to lead the Roman authorities at night to arrest Jesus?” This was the time of Pentecost and you had over a million Jews around Jerusalem camping out, thousands of them on the Mount of Olives and how in the world are you ever going to find Jesus among thousands of Jews at night? Unless you’re close to Jesus and you know where Jesus hangs out, see, and Judas knew very well, so he was chosen too but for a different purpose. In fact, the verb chosen is a middle voice meaning Jesus chose them all for Himself, to fulfill His purpose. He had a purpose for each one. So this is all a part of the plan of God. But now we’re down to 11 apostles, Judas hung himself on the night of the betrayal and later in chapter 1 you get his replacement. So the 11 got commands, really it’s a singular, they got instruction from Jesus before the ascension. What was it? Turn to Luke 24:44, now remember, these guys were in shock over the recent events. Everyone knew what happened, everyone had the facts but the issue was, how to interpret the facts. That’s why Luke has just recorded the event of the two strangers on the road to Emmaus. They had the facts and they were having such an intense discussion of the facts that when this 3rd guy shows up on the road they didn’t even know he was there for about five minutes and then they’re like, “Hey, where’d you come from?” And Jesus had just been listening to them expound the facts but what Jesus is interested in is whether they are spiritually discerning enough to put it all together, to see what the facts mean, to see the interrelatedness of these events and, of course, they didn’t, Jesus said “You slow of mind,” meaning, they didn’t have a depth of knowledge, this was 99.9% of believers, so weak spiritually they can only recount the facts, they can’t connect the dots, so Jesus has to come in and connect the dots for them and you can tell he’s a little peeved about it. Jesus was always interested in someone that had some spiritual depth. So, they’re on this seven mile walk to Emmaus and those of you who are going to Israel, I’m hoping we’ll get to travel this road, this is the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem today and it’s an important supply line to Jerusalem. In the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict that supply line got taken over by the Arab’s and you had these Jews starving in Jerusalem because that was the only way in and it wasn’t this nice paved road, it was narrow and curved and these young Israeli’s were desperate to get supplies to Jerusalem down this road and so they got all this armor and put it on school buses and by that time they were so heavy you could only go about 5 mph so they were sitting targets for the Arabs and finally you have an American Col Mickey Marcus who came up with a plan to cut through the mountains and make another route so they built a road unknown to the Arabs and made a way through to get the supplies to Jerusalem. But on that main road today you can still see the school buses that didn’t make it, all shot up in these valiant attempts to get food to these people. And that’s the road these guys were walking down for seven miles and what this was about a 6 hour Bible study led by Jesus as He explained to them Moses and the prophets, that’s the whole OT. Boy, I would have liked to have been at that Bible study. They didn’t have 30 minute baby talks back them, they went for hours and hours. And the discussion they had was evidently intense because they asked Jesus to stop and go in with them and discuss some more. Then we come to the orders in v 44, because look here, here are the apostles and they’re also slow of mind, no spiritual depth, just a fog over all the events. They knew the facts but they weren’t able to connect them, get the spiritual understanding and this is an encouragement to me when I see believers not putting it together because here Jesus was with these guys for years teaching them and they didn’t see it. They should have but they were lazy spiritually, always going to sleep. So in v 44 Jesus has to straighten them out too, “Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” See, He’d already told them all this it just wasn’t clicking. “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,” This had to happen because he’s about to ascend in v 50 “and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48“You are witnesses of these things. 49“And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” So, these are the orders, I know you’re confused about what happened but I’m the guy and now you go out with this message of repentance for forgiveness and we’re not just going to limit this to Israel, this is for all the nations but its going to start in Jerusalem, that’s home base, and I’m not going to leave you alone I’m going to send a Helper and then He departs. But He had to get this understanding in them before He left, now those are their orders. 

Verse 3, To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs. This is the presentation of His person in a resurrection body after His suffering, that’s the pascho, Jesus is the Paschal Lamb or Passover Lamb, so that’s His crucifixion on the cross and three days after that He presented Himself alive by many convincing proofs. That’s the Greek word for a “decisive evidence”. It’s only used by Luke here. It’s a powerful word. It’s crucial that Jesus Christ rise from the dead. If Jesus Christ is not risen from the dead then you can forget Christianity. So, there needed to be high power proofs for his resurrection and thus he appeared to them over a period of forty days. To see this turn over to 1 Cor 15:3, this is the great resurrection chapter. And this is Paul’s clearest statement of the gospel. You’ve got to present the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order to present the gospel. And in v 3 he says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. Alright, you’ve got four things there, “death, burial, resurrection, appearance”. Two of those are giving you the gospel and two of those are giving you the historical evidence of the truth of the gospel. The structure is very clear in the Greek text that you have Christ died for our sins and note the phrase “according to the Scripture” because you see that again, but not after the burial, you see it after the resurrection, “he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” So, the death and resurrection are the central components of Christ’s work and are central to the gospel, then you have the two historical evidences. What’s the evidence that Christ died? Well, he was buried, you can go down and check out the tomb yourself, it’s still there today. Alright, fine Paul but what’s the historical evidence that He was raised from the dead? Well, his appearance. “Hey look,” Luke is saying, “If you want some evidence I got 500 people that saw this thing, just go ask them. People forget this, that if you were living then and you had any doubt, and people did doubt, Thomas himself doubted, but you could walk around for about 40 years and get 500 interviews. He ate in a resurrection body, He drank, He had bread crumbs on his lips. Now, you don’t have to eat in a resurrection body. What’s all this for? Because Jesus knew that time and again you would have people raising the idea of no physical resurrection, and trying to replace it with the idea that “You just thought you saw Him” and sure enough you had the Docetics and the Ba Hai claiming Jesus was just some sort of phantom, just a spirit that appeared to be human. So Jesus eating and drinking and saying, “Alright guys, touch Me, check out the scars,” that was all directed at these fake docetic ideas. When Jesus was done with this thing there weren’t any loose ends. He left people with no other explanation. This thing wasn’t done in some back alley. This was out in broad daylight, everyone knew about this. Not some secret society. 

So for forty days this went on, high powered proofs, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking around, and Luke says, speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Now that’s interesting, not the Church but the kingdom. The kingdom of God is not the Church, Jesus makes that real plain vv 6-8 that there’s a split. The kingdom of God is future and if Jesus is leaving then this can’t be the kingdom because the kingdom can’t come unless Israel repents. That’s one of the most important points of the kingdom, that it is contingent. What’s it contingent on? Israel’s repentance. You can’t get around this in Scripture. What did John the Baptist come preaching? A message of repentance. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:2). What did Jesus come preaching? Same message. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17). Why that message? Because to get the social and political fruit of the kingdom Israel first has to meet the spiritual pre-requisite, acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. And until that happens it’s not coming. That generation rejected His Messiaship so Jesus pronounced judgment on that generation (Matt 12). So, a program shift occurs here in Acts. Jesus teaches them about the kingdom for forty days then He leaves and Peter preaches two evangelistic sermons that are re-offering the kingdom, Israel is getting a second chance. But at the same time Jesus is starting something new. When He ascends to heaven He’s not saying “My work is done,” no, no, He’s sending the Spirit to continue His work and bring in a new program, the Church. The Church is to grow in doctrinal loyalty to Jesus Christ in order to be prepared to reign in the Kingdom as co-heirs with Christ.

Verse 4, Gathering them together, and that’s the word for having a meal, they were preparing a meal here, lounging at the table, and He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised. Now, you always here people of the Charismatic flavor talking about tarrying for the Holy Spirit and you go in your closet and tarry waiting for the Spirit to come upon you so you can have some ecstatic experience. This passage has nothing to do with that. If He just meant tarry they could have gone up to Galilee and tarried there. The point is that God’s new program was going to start at Jerusalem so they were not to leave Jerusalem because that’s where God’s program was going to be initiated. It was only a week away, Pentecost means 50 and so Acts 2 happened 50 days after Passover. It was not 50 days after the Resurrection as a lot of Christians think. It was 50 days after the Passover because Acts 2 is a Jewish Feast Day and that was the day the Holy Spirit was sent so all the Jews would be there to see the new thing God was doing. So, Jesus died, spent 3 days in the tomb, appeared over 40 days totaling 43 days. That leaves only 7 days to get to Pentecost. So, Jesus ascended on the 43rd day after Passover and there was only one week till Pentecost. 

So wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; Now what did the Father promise? Turn to John 14:26 and 15:26, these are controversial passages in early church history that actually caused the division of the Western Church from the Eastern Church so today you have Roman Catholicism in the West and Eastern Orthodoxy in the East and they all divided over this little question of “Who sent the Holy Spirit?” Did the Father send the Spirit or did the Father and the Son send the Spirit.” And so they call this the Filioque clause which means “and Son”. We adopt the Filioque clause because it’s pretty clear that both the Father and Son are involved in sending the Spirit. John 14:26, 26“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” and 15:26, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,” Now, that’s pretty direct that the Father and the Son are involved in the sending coupled with the fact that Jesus has to depart before the Spirit can come. Why? Because He’s somehow involved in the sending, both the Father and the Son are going to send the Spirit to do a new work that is totally unique to the church. So, the apostles had already heard about this promise back in the Upper Room and what is this new work? v 5, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Fact is it’s only seven days away but Jesus doesn’t tell them that; “You guys just wait in Jerusalem,” they may have guessed it, the Day of Pentecost would be very strategic timing with so many Jews present. But the new work which is a work of the Spirit is baptism. Now, this is a confusing one for people. This is where the NeoPentecostals come down the pike and say, “Oh yes brother, you’ve been baptized by the Spirit but have you been baptized in the Spirit? We have a second baptism for you and it’s a baptism for power, some of you will get tongues but all of you will get power.” And then they instruct you how to pray and tarry to get the second baptism and people fall into this trap. They don’t know any better; have no experience with the original languages, never been taught the word beyond a 3rd grade level so they just fall in. But again the passage has nothing to do with that. It has to do with waiting in Jerusalem for God’s program and I dare say 99.99% of these second baptism folks are not waiting in Jerusalem; they’re spending time in their closet contemplating their navel. There is no such thing as two Spirit baptisms. There is only one baptism of the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:5; 1 Cor 12:13) and all believers receive it at the moment of faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the norm and that’s the doctrinal explanation given in the Epistles. But Acts is a transitional book and by definition transitions are abnormal. So, with Spirit baptism you don’t feel anything, it’s not experiential, you don’t seek for it, you don’t tarry for it. That’s why v 5 it says you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit, it’s a passive voice. The apostles didn’t do anything to get this, all they did was stay in Jerusalem. No one is ever commanded, “Hey, get baptized by the Spirit,” because it’s not a command to follow, God is the author of Spirit Baptism and it puts you in the body of Christ, the Church (1 Cor 12:13). It doesn’t do anything else. I would venture to say it was only connected with tongues on four occasions, Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 10 and Acts 19; Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles and Disciples of John the Baptist. Why only four occasions? Because when a new group entered the church a sign of authentication was needed that this was a legitimate work of God and by using tongues God was shutting down any rival movements that these groups might get started. So they were a sign that God was doing this, God is putting this new group in the Church, they are all going to be one in Christ. Do you realize how hostile these groups were to one another? Jews and Samaritans. This was like blacks and whites before Civil Rights. There was a cultural animosity, a racial animosity and you weren’t going to get these people together. As John said, “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:19). Jews and Gentiles. Did they get along? It was even worse; Jews divided the world into Jews and Gentiles. “Extremely orthodox Jews would have nothing to do with Gentiles. Even Jews like the apostles, who had grown up alongside of Gentiles, avoided contact as much as possible.” In Mark 7:27 Jesus referred to the Gentiles as dogs. And the issue is, “How in the world are you ever going to get all these people together? How are you going to keep them from setting up rival churches? A Jewish Church, a Samaritan Church, a Gentile Church and a John the Baptist Church? So, you had these cultural, ethnic and social barriers that had to be overcome to get unity and that’s why you have tongues because God has got to authenticate to these Jews that this is His work, He’s bringing them in. And that’s why you read on several occasions that Peter goes up for the occasion and when the word gets back to Jerusalem there’s a real hesitancy by the Jews to accept them so Peter would give the explanation and they could move on. But you don’t see this if you miss the transitional nature of the book and people today are causing division over the tongues thing and it’s just plain ignorance of Scripture. Yes these things happened but why? And why after the purpose has been met do you keep on trying to propagate it? And ever since the 1st century Satan has been stirring up this phenomenon to get people focused on an experience rather than the word of God. Now the focus must be on the word of God. The Church’s responsibility is to learn loyalty to the word of God not seek a tongue’s experiences. People in tribes and cultures all over the world that have nothing to do with Christianity claim to speak in ecstatic tongues and I ask you, “Is that the Holy Spirit?” Of course not. Then what is it? Obviously its demonic activity or learned behavior patterns. Lots of children and adults are trained to speak in tongues, trained in the proper palate formation to make sounds and they’ve brought expert linguists in and they’ll tell you it’s just jibber jabber, means nothing, usually a lot of repetition. So, it’s one or the other but it’s not the Holy Spirit and we’ll get into more of that later. 

So verse 5 gets into this whole Spirit baptism thing. For John had baptized with water or rather by water. John baptized by means of water. Water was the agent but the new baptism will be by the spirit, meaning the new baptism will be by means of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Agent. There’s so much confusion with baptism that translators said, “The heck with this, we’re not messing with the word, we’ll just transliterate.” So, it’s just a Greek word. It means “to plunge, to dip”. It was used of dyeing fabrics because you’d take the fabric and dip it in dye. But very few people understand baptism because, once again, they lack spiritual depth and can’t connect the dots. There are actually eight baptisms in Scripture and that usually shocks people, they don’t have a clue. That’s okay, there was a time when I didn’t have a clue, just know there are eight baptisms. Five of them are dry, they have nothing to do with water, nobody gets wet, no human performs them they are done by God. They are what we call “Real” baptisms. They are 

1.	Noah’s Baptism (1 Pet 3:20-21)
2.	Moses’ Baptism (1 Cor 10:2)
3.	Cross (Mk 10:38)
4.	Spirit Baptism (Acts 1:5; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:27)
5.	Fire Baptism (Matt 3:11-12)

The other three baptisms are wet, people get in the water, God doesn’t perform these, only men perform these, and these are what we call “Ritual” baptisms. 

6.	John’s Baptism (Mk 1:4-8; Acts 1:5)
7.	Christ’s Baptism (Matt 3:13-17)
8.	Believer’s Baptism (Acts 2:38; 8:16)

And, obviously in Acts 1:5 we have one baptism from each group, John baptized by water and that goes back to the Jordan River over here when the Jews were coming out from Jerusalem and getting baptized in water (Mk 1:4-8). It was a Ritual baptism dedicating themselves to genuine repentance in preparation for the Messiah. Then the second is a dry baptism carried out by the Spirit. Here it’s totally in the future, they don’t know what it’s going to accomplish but they know it’s a work of God and it’s going to take place in a few days in Jerusalem because that is where the new program of God is about to start called the Church and Spirit Baptism is absolutely unique to the Church. We only have seven references in the entire Bible to Spirit baptism. Four occur in the Gospels and they predict Spirit Baptism (Matt 3:11; Mk 1:8; Lk 3:16; Jn 1:33). Two occur in Acts and one is a prediction (Acts 1:5) and the other references back to what happened on Pentecost (Acts 11:15-16). One occurs in the Epistles and it’s the doctrinal explanation (1 Cor 12:13). 

So, the important thing here is that Jesus is promising that in a few days the Holy Spirit is going to come and they are going to be baptized by the Spirit, no water involved, but a Real Baptism and they need to stay in Jerusalem until that happens because Jerusalem is where God’s program for the Church is going to start.