Q. How is one to know that one is baptized with the Holy Spirit?
A. By faith, founded on the Word of God. It is a positive result to every one who has believed the gospel of salvation. “In whom after that ye believed (or having believed) ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” etc. (Eph. 1:14). “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” etc. (1 Cor. 12:13). Besides, there is the absolute consciousness of it, in union with Christ. The consciousness of the believer is, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). This is not merely a new nature; all must have it to possess the other; but positive union with Christ by the Holy Spirit, received on believing, as well as union with all believers here upon earth. Do we not know this? We meet those whom we have never seen before, and are conscious of a closer tie than that of father or mother, brother or sister in the flesh.
If I am to ask a man how he knew his body was joined to his head; he would tell me that he had the positive sense of it. As my hand is united to my body, and acts directly with reference to the welfare of the whole body, not merely for itself in particular; so a member of Christ never has a mere exclusive capacity, or in his own individual interest; and the more he acts as a member of Christ’s body so far is the whole body served, or the reverse. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:26).