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The
Holy Spirit in Creation By
Bob Myhan All
three persons in the Godhead took part in the physical creation. God the Father
planned it, the Son executed it and the Holy Spirit organized it. The
writer of the epistle to the Hebrews indicates that the Father made the worlds
through the agency of His Son. God,
who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by
the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has
appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who
being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and
upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our
sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much
better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name
than they. (Heb.
1:1-4) John
implied that all things were made through the agency of the Word of God. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and
without Him nothing was made that was made. (John
1:1-3) Paul
implied that a second agent acted on behalf of the Word. For
by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All
things were created through Him and for Him. (Col.
1:16) Moses
tells us who that agent was. In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was
hovering over the face of the waters. (Gen.1:1-2)
Notice,
what God called into existence was initially formless, empty and dark. But the
creation was not complete. Man could not have survived at this point. Verse one
records the fiat creation of undifferentiated matter, while verse two records
the consequence of the creative act, as well as the readiness of the Holy Spirit
to organize the formless mass into a cohesive whole by a process one might call
“differentiation.” In verses 3-10, we see that He differentiated between
light and darkness, between the upper and lower waters and between the lower
waters and the dry land. Then, in verses 11-13, we see that on the third day He
differentiated between the earth, grass, herbs, seed, fruit and trees. Having
formed the earth and having filled it with vegetation, He then puts lights in
the firmament in order to give man natural means for measuring time and to
provide seasons (verses 14-19). In verses 20-22, He creates fish and fowl and
differentiates them as to their very natures. Not only does each have its own
habitat but neither can survive in that of the other. Finally, in verses 23-31,
He creates all earthbound creatures, including man, who alone was created “in
the image of God.” Man is thus differentiated from all other creatures not
just outwardly, but also inwardly. Man alone is “the upward looking one”
(Greek, anthropos, from which
comes “anthropology”); only man looks upward to his Creator. Consider
the logical order in which the various kingdoms were created.
Consider
the process of nourishment.
Because
the seed of everything is in itself, there is no need for God to create things
now. That which began by creation continues by procreation, according to laws of
physical reproduction. The
three members of the Godhead had these same respective roles in the spiritual
creation, the church. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of
the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and
prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good
pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness
of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are on earth--in Him. In Him also we have obtained an
inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all
things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ
should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of
His glory.... To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace
was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from
the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through
Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made
known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. (Eph.
1:3-14; 3:8-12) “However,
when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth;
for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak;
and He will tell you things to come.” (John
16:13) “But
you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you
shall be witnesses to Me in But
as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into
the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all
things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man
except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of
God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that
have been freely given to us by God. (1
Cor. 2:9-12) The
Father initiated His eternal purpose, by planning it; the Son executed the
eternal purpose by providing the facts of the gospel; and the Holy Spirit
completed the eternal purpose by organizing the facts into a cohesive whole in
the minds of the apostles, and by enabling them to proclaim the gospel and to
confirm it as truth. (See Acts 2:1-36.) While
miraculous elements were of necessity involved in first century conversions,
both conviction and conversion are now accomplished according to laws of
spiritual reproduction. “The
seed [of the kingdom] is the word of God.” (Luke
8:11) The soil is the human heart. (Luke 17:21) Thus, the seed of the kingdom
must be “sown in the heart” (Matt.
13:18-23). This does not necessitate a direct operation of the Holy Spirit,
because we now have the written word of God. It is all that is necessary for the
continuation of the kingdom/church of our Lord. Not
only that, but the word of God is all that is needed for “the man of God” to
“be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim. 3:16-17) The
Holy Spirit continues His work by means of the fully revealed, fully confirmed
and fully preserved word of God. (1 Peter 1:22-25) Beloved,
while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I
found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the
faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude
3) There
is nothing more to be done in one, after one becomes a Christian, than can be
done by the word of God. & |