Ozias
Member
A major point of confusion about the Holy Spirit concerns the differences between His activity in the Old Testament and His work in the New Testament and in the lives of Christians today. The activity of the Holy Spirit goes all the way back to creation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was with out form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”(Gen.1:1–2).
The unformed world is described as dark, empty, and formless. Carl Sagan, in his work Cosmos, makes the dogmatic assertion that the universe is cosmos, not chaos, which is the difference between order and confusion. In biblical categories, it is the difference between pure darkness and light, between a vacuous universe ultimately empty of anything significant and that which is filled and teeming with the fruit of the Creator. In the beginning verses of the book of Genesis we find a dramatic proclamation of cosmos, yet the world was without form, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
However, in the next clause of Genesis1:2, we meet the Holy Spirit for the first time: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Another word for hovering is brooding. This is the idea that was communicated when God sent the angel Gabriel to visit the peasant girl Mary in Nazareth to tell her that she was about to become a mother. Mary asked the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke1:34). The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”.
The verb used to describe the Holy Spirit’s coming upon Mary carries the same connotation as the term used in Genesis 1 to describe the creative power of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit came into the formlessness and hovered or brooded. As a hen broods over her eggs in order to bring forth life, so the Spirit produced order and substance and light. God, as the New Testament says, is not the author of confusion (1Cor. 14:33).He does not generate chaos. The Spirit of God brings order out of disorder; He brings something out of nothing; He brings light out of darkness.
As we read the Old Testament, we cannot help but be struck by both God’s majesty and His power. When an earthquake occurs or a tornado sweeps through the Plains states, we see pictures of the devastation and feel overwhelmed by the power of nature. But those things are nothing compared to the transcendent power of the Lord of all nature. His power exceeds that of anything that happens on this planet. We see this power manifested in the Old Testament primarily by the Holy Spirit, who in the Greek language is called the dynamis of God. The word dynamis is translated as “power.” It is the word from which we get the English word dynamite. The Holy Spirit is shown to be the Spirit of power.
However, in the next clause of Genesis1:2, we meet the Holy Spirit for the first time: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Another word for hovering is brooding. This is the idea that was communicated when God sent the angel Gabriel to visit the peasant girl Mary in Nazareth to tell her that she was about to become a mother. Mary asked the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke1:34). The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”.
The verb used to describe the Holy Spirit’s coming upon Mary carries the same connotation as the term used in Genesis 1 to describe the creative power of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit came into the formlessness and hovered or brooded. As a hen broods over her eggs in order to bring forth life, so the Spirit produced order and substance and light. God, as the New Testament says, is not the author of confusion (1Cor. 14:33).He does not generate chaos. The Spirit of God brings order out of disorder; He brings something out of nothing; He brings light out of darkness.
As we read the Old Testament, we cannot help but be struck by both God’s majesty and His power. When an earthquake occurs or a tornado sweeps through the Plains states, we see pictures of the devastation and feel overwhelmed by the power of nature. But those things are nothing compared to the transcendent power of the Lord of all nature. His power exceeds that of anything that happens on this planet. We see this power manifested in the Old Testament primarily by the Holy Spirit, who in the Greek language is called the dynamis of God. The word dynamis is translated as “power.” It is the word from which we get the English word dynamite. The Holy Spirit is shown to be the Spirit of power.
