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One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism: Spirit Baptism & Christian Unity
Faith in Jesus should produce in His followers a natural love toward others and a desire for unity within the body of Christ. Sadly, heated debate over the baptism of the Holy Spirit has often threatened that unity, resulting in unloving dismissals and accusations on differing sides. Situating the conversation within the context of brothers and sisters in dialogue, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism offers a historical theology of the doctrine of Baptism in the Holy Spirit via a critical analysis of the history of denominationalism. Additionally, the volume constructs a biblical theology of "Spirit Baptism," that paves the way forward for healing the legacy of a divided church-healing enveloped by love, generosity, and unity within the family of God.
223 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 12, 2022
6 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
J.R. Miller
12 books1 followerThere is more than one author with this name
Dr. Miller is currently a professor in Southern California teaching a variety of courses in Practical Theology and Leadership. In addition, he coaches multiple church planters. Dr. Miller has a diverse educational background earning his B.A.E from the Pennsylvania State University, M.Div from Oral Roberts University, and D.Min from Biola University. Joe has several years of pastoral experience and has authored multiple books on church history, biblical theology, and most recently a devotional for building teams entitled, "More Than Cake." Joe is married to Suzanne and they live in San Diago, California with their 3 sons.
Dr. Miller is currently a professor in Southern California teaching a variety of courses in Practical Theology and Leadership. In addition, he coaches multiple church planters. Dr. Miller has a diverse educational background earning his B.A.E from the Pennsylvania State University, M.Div from Oral Roberts University, and D.Min from Biola University. Joe has several years of pastoral experience and has authored multiple books on church history, biblical theology, and most recently a devotional for building teams entitled, "More Than Cake." Joe is married to Suzanne and they live in San Diago, California with their 3 sons.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 7, 2023
It’s funny how bad I am at guessing what topic I think a book is going to cover based on the cover. I end up reading a lot of books that I might not have chosen to read if I spent some time educating myself about the subject matter of a book before I begin reading.
So I started One Lord One Faith One Baptism because I recently baptized my youngest son and I was all kinds of excited that all four of my kids have now been baptized. And in the midst of my excitement – I saw the cover of this book and thought – oh I want to read a book on believer’s baptism.
Well it isn’t on that. It’s on the second baptism of the Spirit practiced by charismatics.
Shawn misses again.
But I took the ride and I am glad I did. My knowledge on the second baptism of the spirit is spotty at best. I’ve never really seen it as biblically based and it has been since seminary that I read a book on the controversy of a second baptism signified by tongues or other miraculous works.
One Lord One Faith One Baptism by JR Miller is easy to read, well written, and a strong defense on why we should only hold to one baptism of the Spirit, a baptism which occurs at salvation, because a second baptism brings disunity where the baptism of the Spirit described in both Acts and Paul’s epistles was meant to bring unity.
There are two distinct books in one in One Faith One Lord One Baptism by JR Miller, I found that slightly humorous that a book where one is in the title three times and it is basically two books. But I am kind of a book nerd so no one else may appreciate that humor.
In the first half Miller recounts the history of the introduction to Spirit Baptism into the church. What I found most revealing in this section was how almost every group or sect or denomination in the church from the Mormons to the Dispensationalists to the Reformed, everyone had their own little hand in the coming of Spirit Baptism as a second work of the Spirit.
It came from this odd mixture of influences from every major group, the section on Mormonism surprised me the most because I have never read of that before. But I thought it was rather eye opening to walk through the history of Spirit Baptism and to see how disruptive and destructive it was.
Since it was so disruptive and the baptism of the Spirit was intended to be a unifying work of the Spirit, this might be a strong indication that it wasn’t a genuine work of the Spirit in the church.
I found the second half of the book where Miller examines the Biblical material to be better than the first. I enjoyed Miller’s approach of Scripture. I especially liked how he put longer portions of Scripture in the book and was clearly not basing his exegesis on singular verses ripped out of context but he was exegeting the entire section, portion, or narrative which discussed baptism of the Spirit.
His second to last chapter, Experience or Scripture, was excellent which almost made me laugh that I found it to be such a good and insightful read because who would have thought that a chapter on how positivist philosophy (I even need to put the spelling on the bottom of the screen because I am not sure on my pronunciation) but positivist philosophy and how it relates to spirit baptism who knew it could be both engaging and convincing but it was really good and it helped to reveal the danger of basing our theology on experience and practice as opposed to the concrete revelation of the Word of God.
The bulk of the examination in the 2nd half of the book comes down to one specific issue. Why do we have all these cases in Acts where groups like the Samaritans or John the Baptist’s disciples received a special baptism of the Spirit that could easily be mistaken or understood as, depending on your perspective, a second baptism of the Spirit?
And it comes down to one specific reason. The Lord through His Spirit was working to bring unity to the church. Miller shows us that the passages in Acts used by charismatics to present an argument for a special baptism of the Spirit are not about empowering certain Christians with power for service that others don’t possess. But it is about unity of the Spirit.
The Lord was making it abundantly clear that Samaritans, Gentiles, disciples of John the Baptist who also believe in the Messiah that John pointed to – they are all part of one church, one body. Those passages, you could say, were one progressively building picture of the unity that should bind the church together.
The baptism of the Spirit is meant to teach we have One Lord and One Spirit and so we are one body. It is meant to draw us together. Which is why the charismatic movement of the last several generations has been so tragic. It has taken a teaching which is meant to unite and used it to further fracture the church between those who have the baptism of the Spirit along with the charismatic gifts vs. those who do not.
I really appreciated Miller’s work. I enjoyed and gained more from the second half where he dove into the Biblical text but I think I have an even greater respect for his work on the first half where he went through the history. It isn’t always easy to tie all of that together but he did a great joy and really helped the reader make sense of it along the way.
If you are concerned with or curious about or maybe even exploring the legitimacy of a 2nd Baptism of the Spirit in your life, I highly encourage you to read One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism by JR Miller to get the whole story first.
This is a transcript for a video review. You can watch the review on YouTube.com/revreads
So I started One Lord One Faith One Baptism because I recently baptized my youngest son and I was all kinds of excited that all four of my kids have now been baptized. And in the midst of my excitement – I saw the cover of this book and thought – oh I want to read a book on believer’s baptism.
Well it isn’t on that. It’s on the second baptism of the Spirit practiced by charismatics.
Shawn misses again.
But I took the ride and I am glad I did. My knowledge on the second baptism of the spirit is spotty at best. I’ve never really seen it as biblically based and it has been since seminary that I read a book on the controversy of a second baptism signified by tongues or other miraculous works.
One Lord One Faith One Baptism by JR Miller is easy to read, well written, and a strong defense on why we should only hold to one baptism of the Spirit, a baptism which occurs at salvation, because a second baptism brings disunity where the baptism of the Spirit described in both Acts and Paul’s epistles was meant to bring unity.
There are two distinct books in one in One Faith One Lord One Baptism by JR Miller, I found that slightly humorous that a book where one is in the title three times and it is basically two books. But I am kind of a book nerd so no one else may appreciate that humor.
In the first half Miller recounts the history of the introduction to Spirit Baptism into the church. What I found most revealing in this section was how almost every group or sect or denomination in the church from the Mormons to the Dispensationalists to the Reformed, everyone had their own little hand in the coming of Spirit Baptism as a second work of the Spirit.
It came from this odd mixture of influences from every major group, the section on Mormonism surprised me the most because I have never read of that before. But I thought it was rather eye opening to walk through the history of Spirit Baptism and to see how disruptive and destructive it was.
Since it was so disruptive and the baptism of the Spirit was intended to be a unifying work of the Spirit, this might be a strong indication that it wasn’t a genuine work of the Spirit in the church.
I found the second half of the book where Miller examines the Biblical material to be better than the first. I enjoyed Miller’s approach of Scripture. I especially liked how he put longer portions of Scripture in the book and was clearly not basing his exegesis on singular verses ripped out of context but he was exegeting the entire section, portion, or narrative which discussed baptism of the Spirit.
His second to last chapter, Experience or Scripture, was excellent which almost made me laugh that I found it to be such a good and insightful read because who would have thought that a chapter on how positivist philosophy (I even need to put the spelling on the bottom of the screen because I am not sure on my pronunciation) but positivist philosophy and how it relates to spirit baptism who knew it could be both engaging and convincing but it was really good and it helped to reveal the danger of basing our theology on experience and practice as opposed to the concrete revelation of the Word of God.
The bulk of the examination in the 2nd half of the book comes down to one specific issue. Why do we have all these cases in Acts where groups like the Samaritans or John the Baptist’s disciples received a special baptism of the Spirit that could easily be mistaken or understood as, depending on your perspective, a second baptism of the Spirit?
And it comes down to one specific reason. The Lord through His Spirit was working to bring unity to the church. Miller shows us that the passages in Acts used by charismatics to present an argument for a special baptism of the Spirit are not about empowering certain Christians with power for service that others don’t possess. But it is about unity of the Spirit.
The Lord was making it abundantly clear that Samaritans, Gentiles, disciples of John the Baptist who also believe in the Messiah that John pointed to – they are all part of one church, one body. Those passages, you could say, were one progressively building picture of the unity that should bind the church together.
The baptism of the Spirit is meant to teach we have One Lord and One Spirit and so we are one body. It is meant to draw us together. Which is why the charismatic movement of the last several generations has been so tragic. It has taken a teaching which is meant to unite and used it to further fracture the church between those who have the baptism of the Spirit along with the charismatic gifts vs. those who do not.
I really appreciated Miller’s work. I enjoyed and gained more from the second half where he dove into the Biblical text but I think I have an even greater respect for his work on the first half where he went through the history. It isn’t always easy to tie all of that together but he did a great joy and really helped the reader make sense of it along the way.
If you are concerned with or curious about or maybe even exploring the legitimacy of a 2nd Baptism of the Spirit in your life, I highly encourage you to read One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism by JR Miller to get the whole story first.
This is a transcript for a video review. You can watch the review on YouTube.com/revreads
May 14, 2023
This book was well researched and makes a strong case against the concept of a 2nd baptism of the spirit separate from conversion. Miller shows how this position, held my many pentecostal and charismatic churches, is not supported by Scripture. Miller makes a strong case that the theory of a second baptism has done great harm to unity in the overall church and is an arrogant, divisive position. I do wish the author had gone into detail about churches that have gone too far to the other side and implicitly teach a cessation concept of spiritual gifts, which isn’t supported by scripture either. Think he missed the mark on that. Giving 4 stars but would have given 3.5 if that was an option.
January 25, 2026
The major thesis I affirm, and the historical sketch is straightforward and helpful. But the exegesis of some passages, the omission (or ignorance?) of some stronger, clearer arguments for his position, and the irritation of editorial and typographical errors made this a less profitable book than I was hoping for. The push for unity was also welcomed.
July 25, 2025
I liked the background information for both sides of the debate.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews