Baptism with the Holy Spirit

It is R. A. Torrey's account of the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a definite experience for the believer — distinct from regeneration and given for power in service and witness. Torrey sets out what it is, why it is needed, and the conditions on which he believed it is received, writing both from Scripture and from his own experience of a great turning point in his ministry.

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit is a full, systematic treatment of who the Spirit is and all he does. This shorter book focuses on one theme — the baptism with the Spirit for power — treating it more directly and practically. Readers often come to this one for Torrey's specific teaching on being endued with power for service.

He means a definite operation of the Spirit, distinct from the new birth, in which the believer is endued with power for service and witness. It is not, in his teaching, what makes a person a Christian — that is regeneration — but a further experience for those already saved, fitting them to labour effectively for God.

Because it marked a turning point in his own ministry. Torrey describes becoming convinced, after much study and thought, that the baptism with the Spirit was an experience for today and for him; he sought it, received a great blessing, and thereafter taught it earnestly, believing the church's weakness was largely a lack of the Spirit's power.

He lays out steps he draws from Scripture — such as repentance and turning from sin, open confession of Christ, obedience, an intense desire, and definite asking in faith, believing one receives. Torrey presents these not as a formula that compels God but as the scriptural path by which the promised gift is claimed.

Not in Torrey's teaching. He carefully distinguishes regeneration — the new birth that makes a person a Christian — from the baptism with the Spirit, which he sees as a subsequent enduement with power for service. A person may be truly saved, he argues, and yet still need this further experience to be effective in witness.

For believers who long to serve God effectively and sense that they lack power to do so. Torrey writes especially for Christian workers — preachers, teachers, and witnesses — pressing them to seek the enduement he believed transformed his own ministry, and the book has been influential in revivalist and holiness circles ever since.

At the beginning, where Torrey defines the baptism with the Spirit and distinguishes it from regeneration, then follows through its necessity and its conditions. Short and pointed, the book is meant to lead the reader not merely to understand the teaching but to seek the experience it describes.