John the Baptist looked forward to Jesus as the one who would baptise with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8; John 1:33) and with fire (Matt 3:11; Luke 3:16)

Jesus reiterated this promise after his resurrection (Acts 1:5) and may have repeated it several times during his ministry 'I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say' (Acts 11:16 NASB)

Were the Gentiles in Cornelius' house baptised in the Holy Spirit when Peter preached to them in Acts 10 and 11?

• The Holy Spirit fell on them (10:44)
• the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon them (10:45)
• they spoke with tongues and exalted God (10:46)
• they received the Holy Spirit just as Peter and the Jewish believers with him (10:47)
• the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us (11:15)
• the Lord's word 'John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit' (11:16)
• God gave them the same gift (11:17)

Peter obviously regards what happened that day as being the same as had happened to the Jews at Pentecost. It would appear that we have at least two occasions on which people were baptised in the Holy Spirit.

When Paul writes about the manifestations of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:7) he emphasises:

• diversity of gifts but one Spirit (v4)
• diversity of service but One Lord whom we serve (v5)
• diversity of workings but One God who is working all this great variety of things in all this great variety of people (v6)

The Corinthians thought 'What I do is better than what you do' - Paul points out that each of these manifestations of the Spirit are for the benefit of all. (v7) They are the work of one and the same Spirit and it is His sovereign choice which he gives to whom. (v11)

There is one body which has many members (v12) and we (Paul includes himself and by implication all true Christians) were baptised into it. (v13)

The use of the aorist tense in v13 for 'were baptised' and 'made to drink' indicates an action that occurred at a point in time. Many take this to refer to Pentecost, but I would take it to be the point in time at which each individual believed. None of the Corinthian believers are excluded from this - there are none waiting for a 'second blessing'.

Every Christian should be submerged / plunged / overwhelmed (the meaning of the word baptism) by and drink deeply of the Holy Spirit at his conversion and baptism. The New Testament practice was for these events, conversion, being baptised in water and being baptised in the Holy Spirit to go hand in hand. We separate them at our peril.

Let us not overlook the fact that the manifestations of the Spirit were given for the good of all. Too often the contents of 1 Corinthians 12 have resulted in worse divisions than there were in the church to which they were originally written.