The Holy Spirit in Creation

INTRODUCTION

In our last study together we asked the question, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”

We said this question can be answered in two ways: according to false teachers and according to biblical revelation.

When we examined it according to false teachers, we looked at false teachers in the early church and in the modern-day church.

There were three individuals we looked at in the early church:

Montanus (150 AD) - He had two followers with him, Prisca and Maximilla. They taught that new revelations were still given and this was the age of the Paraclete.

Sabellius (215 AD) - He taught that god is a unity but that He revealed himself in three different modes or forms. These three forms were three roles or parts played by the one God. This was the first major attack on the Trinity. (TD Jakes is a good example of this today).

Arius (325 AD) - He distinguished the One Eternal God from the Son by saying that the Son was generated from the Father and therefore had a beginning. He also believed that the Holy Spirit was the first thing the Son created. (Jehovah’s Witnesses are a good example of this today).

Now we also asked looked at what is being taught in the modern-day church concerning the Holy Spirit.

Jehovah’s Witnesses - “a force”

Christian Science - “Divine Science”

Spiritualism - “The spirit of a holy person who once lived”

Mormonism - “Influence of deity” “like electricity”

Unification Church - “a female spirit”

New Age - “Psychic force”

Hinduism - No belief

Baha’i World Faith - “divine energy”

Islam - “Gabriel / Jesus”

Evangelical Church - “power, influence, passive”

The second part of our question was Who is the Holy Spirit according to biblical revelation?

We said that the Bible teaches that He is a spirit—He is referred to as being a Spirit and called “Spirit” in both the Hebrew and Greek language.

He is also a Person—He possesses intellect, will, and emotion—and personal pronouns are used when referring to Him (always the masculine gender).

He is also God—He is called God, He possesses the same attributes as God the Father in that He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, sovereign, eternal, truth. He is also presented in Scripture as being equal with the Father and the Son.

Now I want to ask a second question, “What does the Holy Spirit do?”

As we consider this question, we will answer it in five ways: in relation to creation, in relation to the Bible, in relation to Christ, in relation to unbelievers, and in relation to believers.

So let’s begin tonight with asking, “What does the Holy Spirit do in relation to Creation?”

I. Who is the Holy Spirit?

According to False Teachers

According to Biblical Revelation

II. What Does the Holy Spirit Do?

In Relation to Creation

He created the world

Edwin Palmer says, “Although we do think of the Father chiefly as the Creator, yet because of the basic, essential unity in the Trinity, it may also be said that the Son and the Holy Spirit created” (The Holy Spirit, 20).

Scripture does ascribe Creation “to all three persons of the trinity: the Father (Rev.4:11), the Son (John 1:3), and the Holy Spirit” (Henry Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 251).

Palmer goes on to say that “In this world there are special functions and works performed by each Person of the Trinity in distinction from the other two. When we think of creation, for example, we think chiefly of the Father, and not of the Son or the Holy Spirit. On the cross, however, it was Jesus who died, and not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit. Jesus even distinguished Himself from the Father on the cross, when He cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ and “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” And when we think of sanctification and the working out of salvation in our lives, we do not think chiefly of the Father, nor the Son, but of the Holy Spirit. He is the One who dwells within Christians” (20).

Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“God” is the Hebrew word Elohim.

This is “the name of God which stresses His majesty and omnipotence.

This is the name used throughout the first chapter of Genesis.

The im ending is the Hebrew plural ending, so that Elohim can actually mean ‘gods,’ and is so translated in various passages referring to the gods of the heathen (e.g., Psalm 96:5).

However, it is clearly used here in the singular, as the mighty name of God the Creator, the first of over two thousand times where it is used this way.

Thus Elohim is a plural name with a singular meaning, a ‘uni-plural’ noun, thereby suggesting the uni-plurality of the God-head. God is one, yet more than one” (Henry Morris, The Genesis Record, 39).

John Walvoord says that “every use of the term implies a work not only of any one person, but all three persons” (The Holy Spirit, 39).

Genesis 1:1 says “Elohim created”

It was ex nihilo (out of nothing)

The Hebrew word for “created” (bara sheith) occurs in the creation account 6 times (1:1, 21, 27 [3x]; 2:3]

It primarily refers to creating out of nothing, without preexisting material

John 1:3, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

Isaiah 45:8, “Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the Lord, have created it.”

It was everything

God created “the heavens and the earth” is a way of saying God created everything in the universe

Everything that exists, whether you’re talking about galaxies or nebulae or solar systems, or those things that are the farthest reaches of the universe in space, or whether you’re talking about the smallest grain of sand or whether you’re talking about a bacterial microbe on the planet earth, absolutely everything was created by God

He is the creator of all things visible and invisible

All things means everything, from various ranks of angels, every form of life from whales and elephants to viruses, everything

All things includes every form of energy, every form of matter, the speed of light, nuclear structure, electromagnetism, gravity, every law by which nature operates was created within the framework of this creation (MacArthur)

Genesis 1:2 says, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”

All three members of the Trinity are mentioned in verse 1 by the term Elohim, but in verse two, the third member is specifically mentioned by name as “moving over the surface of the waters.”

RC Sproul says in The Mystery of the Holy Spirit, “There is a question concerning the exact meaning of the Hebrew word in Genesis 1:2 that is sometimes translated "hovering" and other times translated "brooding." The word occurs only two other times in the Old Testament. We find it in Jeremiah 23:9: My heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake.[emphasis added] Here the word conveys the idea of shaking or trembling.

Again we find the word in Deuteronomy 32:11: As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings . . . [emphasis added] When we think of the activity of a mother bird "brooding," we are inclined to think of her sitting on her eggs to keep them warm before the eggs hatch. In the imagery of Deuteronomy, however, the eggs have already hatched.

G. C. Aalders comments, The word brooding just does not fit once the eggs have been hatched and the mother is involved in training her young. Thus it is more likely that the word here refers to the mother bird watching over her young as they learn to fly. When they falter in flight she swoops beneath them and rescues them from falling. When all is considered the translation "hovered" still has the preference.

Aalders continues in his explanation of this passage: What then is the purpose of this hovering of the Spirit of God over the waters? It is obvious that it does not indicate a mere presence of the Holy Spirit. The purpose apparently is that an active power goes forth from the Spirit of God to the earth substance that has already been created. This activity has a direct relationship to God's creative work. Perhaps we can say that the Spirit preserves this created material and prepares it for the further creative activity of God by which the then disordered world would become a well-ordered whole, as the further creative acts unfold.

When we consider the full meaning of "create" (bara) in Genesis, we realize that what God creates, He also sustains, upholding all things by His power.

Creation is not a staccato work. It is, to use another musical term, sostenuto, sustained. We think of staccato notes in music as short, crisp, striking tones. Their duration is quick and terse. A sustained note lasts. It has endurance. It is never abrupt. A note on an organ can, in theory, last forever, so long as a key is being pressed. Creation is like such a note.

Part of the Spirit's work is to "hover" over creation, keeping things intact. In this regard we see the Spirit as the divine Preserver and the Protector. The Spirit works to maintain what the Father brings into being.

Most striking in the Genesis passage is the Spirit's role as Orderer of creation. The Spirit brings order out of disorder. His presence precludes the possibility of chaos or confusion. Here we see the Holy Spirit bringing integrity into the world. What I mean here by integrity is the structure of wholeness, the integration of the parts of the cosmos with the whole. It is because of Him that we have cosmos instead of chaos.

It is noteworthy that there is a clear parallel between the Spirit's work in creation and His work in redemption. As our Sanctifier He hovers over His children to produce integrity in their lives. He orders and preserves what God creates and redeems.

As the Spirit "hovers" over the waters, there is no more formlessness. The unstructured universe gains a marvelous structure. The intricacies of that structure become the focal point of scientific inquiry. It is because the universe is ordered and governed by coherent laws that science is even possible. Scientists could not do their work in an irregular and chaotic world.

Before the Spirit "hovers," the unfinished universe is marked by emptiness. Of the three descriptive terms of Genesis 2, perhaps this one is the most frightening to the soul of man. Human despair is often expressed in terms of a dreadful feeling of emptiness, a sense of the hollow, the threat of the void. In the darkest mood of the pessimistic existentialist we hear talk of the abyss, the Stygian darkness of the absolute void, the pit of nothingness. Even in human relationships we have a nagging sense of the threat of emptiness, which we identify with poignant loneliness.

The Holy Spirit fills what is empty. He conquers the void. When His work is finished, the once lonely universe is teeming with a plethora of flora and fauna. The barren wasteland becomes a pulsating arena of life. Here we need the Holy Spirit of God as the One who fills all things. Added then to His role of Former and Preserver is His role as the Filler of life” (83-88).

John Owen says that without the Holy Spirit moving over the face of the waters, “all was a dead sea; a rude inform chaos; a confused heap covered with darkness: but by the moving of the Spirit of God upon it, He communicated a quickening prolific virtue, the principles of all these kinds and forms of things; which in an inconceivable variety compose its host and ornament were communicated” (Quoted by John Walvoord, The Holy Spirit, 37).

Henry Morris says, “Since the universe was everywhere in need of activation, that person of the Godhead who is both omnipresent and energizing is appropriately mentioned as working in the creation at this point” (52).

Describing the word “moved” in Genesis 1:2 “in modern scientific terminology,” Morris, says, “the best translation would probably be ‘vibrated.’ If the universe is to be energized, there must be an Energizer. If it is to be set in motion, there must be a Prime Mover.

It is significant that the transmission of energy in the operations of the cosmos is in the form of waves—light waves, heat waves, sound waves, and so forth. In fact (except for the nuclear forces which are involved in the structure of matter itself0, there are only two fundamental types of forces that operate on matter—the gravitational forces and the forces of the electromagnetic spectrum. All are associated with ‘fields’ of activity and with transmission by wave motion.

Wave are typically rapid back and forth movements and they are normally produced by the vibratory motion of a wave generator of some kind. Energy cannot create itself. It is most appropriate that the first impartation of energy to the universe is described as the ‘vibrating’ movement of the Spirit of God Himself.

As the outflowing energy from God’s omnipresent Spirit began to flow outward and to permeate the cosmos, gravitational forces were activated and water and earth particles came together to form a great sphere moving through space. Other such particles would soon come together also to form sun, moon, and stars throughout the universe. There was now a ‘compass’ on the face of the deep, and the formless earth had assumed the beautiful form of a perfect sphere. It was now ready for light and heat and other forms of enlivening energy” (52).

John MacArthur says “the fact that earth alone, of all known planets, seethes with life, is directly owing to the Holy Spirit’s activity described in Genesis 1:2. The entire Bible testifies that the Spirit of God is the source of all life and creation” (The Battle for the Beginning, 78-9).

Job 26:13 says, “ By His Spirit He adorned the heavens” (NKJV). The NASB says, “By His breath.”

The word “adorned” “translates a root meaning ‘sparkling, bright, pretty’ (WD Reyburn, A Handbook on the Book of Job).

It this is translated ‘by His Spirit’ rather than ‘His breath,’ it means that the Holy Spirit made the heavens “glorious or beautiful” (Palmer).

Edwin Palmer says, “Thus Job tells us that the Spirit took the heavens that were already created by God and caused them to be as beautiful as we see them now, with the constellations, the Milky Way, the planets reflecting the light of the sun, the different colors of the stars, the largeness of the moon and the steadiness of its light, and the brilliance of the sun. In other words, just as Genesis 1:2 indicates that the Spirit perfected the world that had been created, so here the implication is that the Holy Spirit put on the finishing touches in the heavens, drawing out the glory and beauty that were possible in the hosts of heaven” (23).

Isaiah 40:12-14 says, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, And marked off the heavens by the span, And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains in a balance And the hills in a pair of scales? 13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has informed Him? 14 With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge And informed Him of the way of understanding?

John Walvoord says “The Holy Spirit is described as the untaught, uncounseled, and omnipotent God, who without need of instruction or assistance measured the waters, the heavens, the dust of the earth, and the mountains” (38).

Ps.104:1-30

He created the hosts of heaven

Ps.33:6 says, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath [Spirit] of His mouth all their host.”

Henry Thiessen says, “It seems evident that expressions such as His Spirit (breath), Spirit (breath) of His mouth, Spirit (breath) of the Lord, Spirit of His Son, and Spirit of Jesus, all have reference to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity (Job 26:13; Ps.33:6; Isa.40:7; Gal.4:6; Acts 16:7, respectively) [252].

In Job 33:4 He is called “the breath of the Almighty.”

The Bible teaches that the angels were created. The Spirit’s creative work would have also included the angelic hosts.

Ps.148:1-5 says, “Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! 2 Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! 3 Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! 4 Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens! 5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, For He commanded and they were created.”

Satan, who is an angel, was also created

Ezek.28:13-15 says, “You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx and the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. 14 "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 "You were blameless in your ways From the day you were created Until unrighteousness was found in you.”

He created man

Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God [Elohim] said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God [Elohim] created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Here “one member of the uni-plural Godhead was addressing another member or members” (Morris, 72).

This is “the first clear indication of the triunity of God” (MacArthur).

Job 33:4 says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

CONCLUSION

The Bible teaches that God the Holy Spirit was also involved in the Creation with the other two members of the Trinity.

In the words of R.C. Sproul, the Holy Spirit “keeps things intact.” He is “the divine Preserver and Protector.” He “maintains what the Father brings into being.” He is “the Orderer of Creation.” He is “the Former and Preserver...of life.”

Or in the words of Henry Morris, the Holy Spirit is “the Energizer...a Prime Mover...He imparts energy to the universe” in a “vibrating” movement “over the surface of the waters” (Gen.1:2).

As Creator, He creates spiritual life in every person God has chosen before the foundation of the world.

Has He performed that divine act in your heart?

My prayer is that you will surrender your life to Him by calling on Jesus to save you.

Let’s pray.