John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

It is startling to realize the work that the Holy Spirit does for a human being. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts a sinner, the Holy Spirit who regenerates one who trusts in Christ, the Holy Spirit who makes him a new creature. It is the Holy Spirit who comforts a Christian, who brings the witness and assurance of salvation into his heart. It is the Holy Spirit who helps a Christian to understand the Bible, helps a Christian to pray, brings to his memory the commands of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who works out and develops and produces the fruit of the Spirit, the Christian graces, in the Christian's life: "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5:22, 23). - John R. Rice [The Power of Pentecost, pg. 37]

Many people thoughtlessly speak of the Holy Spirit as "it." Perhaps when the matter is called to their attention they say, "Oh, I know better." Well, in one's head one may know better, but actually one has not come to realize that the Holy Spirit is a blessed and real and familiar person, if he speaks of the Holy Spirit as an impersonal, neuter "it." No woman who loves her husband ever speaks of him as "it" because she does not feel that way about him. She knows him as a living, loving person and so calls him by the masculine pronoun. And Christians everywhere who learn to know the Holy Spirit intimately speak about Him and speak to Him with the greatest reverence and with the masculine pronoun, just as we refer to God the Father and just as we refer to our Saviour Jesus Christ, God's Son. The Holy Spirit is a blessed and wonderful person with whom the Christian should become very intimately acquainted. - John R. Rice [The Power of Pentecost, pg. 38]

The Holy Spirit is the one person of the Godhead with whom the Christian has the most intimate and daily contact. For Christ, with a glorified, resurrected body, is in Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. But God the Holy Spirit literally lives within the body of the Christian, is with him all the time and represents the Father and represents Jesus Christ. - John R. Rice [The Power of Pentecost, pg. 39]

Did I say in the paragraph above, "God the Holy Spirit"? Yes, and that is exactly who He is. The Holy Spirit is GOD, just as Jesus, God's Son, is GOD and just as God the Father is GOD. - John R. Rice [The Power of Pentecost, pg. 39]

When a stone is put into the wall of a building and then covered over with mortar and other stones, it is submerged or buried or covered in the wall. It is "baptized" in the wall. in that sense the Holy Spirit baptizes every new convert into the body of Christ, makes him a part of this body, the group of Christians who will be called out when Jesus comes. - John R. Rice [The Power of Pentecost, pg. 44]

The fact that God put restrictions on what they were doing at Corinth shows us that what they were doing was wrong. When God rebukes what they were doing, it shows it is not miraculous, not God-given. God never gave a miracle and then rebuked somebody for the way he used it. God never gives somebody a miraculous gift and then be angry with the way they use it. No, miraculous gifts don't need rebuking, don't need a restraint put on them; but they did in the use of natural languages over in Corinth. - John R. Rice

To be baptized into the body of Christ simply means that one is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, has the Holy Spirit living in his body, and is now destined to be called out at the rapture of the general assembly and church of the first-born, when Jesus comes for His own. To be filled and covered or baptized with the Holy Spirit for service is another matter, as we will prove elsewhere. But to be buried, baptized into the body of Christ, is the usual and ordinary work of the Holy Spirit, which He does for every single person ever converted. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is another matter which many Christians never do receive, although they should. Every Christian is put into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. - John R. Rice [The Power of Pentecost, pg. 44-45]