Baptized in Spirit—An Eschatological Concept: A Response to Norbert Baumert and his Interlocutors

This response to Baumert (see JPT 12.2) agrees with many of his criticisms of the dominant understandings of Spirit-baptism found among Pentecostals and Catholic scholars such as Montague and McDonnell. In particular, the author appreciates Baumert’s historical analysis, distinguishing current usage of this term from that in the New Testament. However, he finds Baumert’s position too individualistic and unable to do justice to the full challenge of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements to the whole Church. Hocken suggests that the language of Spirit-baptism in the New Testament is essentially eschatological, and that the Pentecostal decision to use this terminology was more prophetic than exegetical. He proposes that an eschatological understanding of Spirit-baptism both does justice to the full reality of the twentieth-century movements of the Spirit and avoids the problems inherent in the prevailing theological interpretations.