220703 From the Beginning

Introduction: Emphasis on the Spirit

We noted that King David was indwelt with the Holy Spirit which he begged God not to remove at one point.

We noted that Jesus receives the Holy Spirit at His baptism by John.

The disciples receive the Holy spirit when Jesus breathed upon them

And we noted that believers that make up the Body of Christ the Church are not indwelt with the Holy Spirit forever.

This must have been huge considering the number of places we find that the promise is made.

John 7:37–39 (NASB95) —

John 14:26 (NASB95) —

John 15:26 (NASB95) —

John 16:7–15 (NASB95) —

παράκλητος [parakletos /par·ak·lay·tos/] n[1]

The two words

Para is to stand to one’s side

Kaleo is to be called

Summoned or called to one’s side.

So, who and what is the holy Spirit and what is the relevance of the third person of the Godhead who is God and who indwells every church age believer and order to empower that believer to be and to accomplish and bring the believer into glory?

Opening Hymn: The Solid Rock

Prayer

The Holy Spirit at Creation

So let us trace the Holy Spirit throughout the bible.

The first mention of the Spirit goes all the way back to the beginning in the Creation Narrative.

Genesis 1:2–5 (NASB95) — 2 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. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

In the account of creation, we find much about the ministry of God the Holy Spirit when related to the working of the Holy Spirit to save and to grow the believer.

First, we find the principle of common Grace.

Common grace

Common grace is the grace by which God cares for creation and fallen humanity by upholding and providentially guiding creation despite the devastating effects of the fall. Left to itself, sin would have destroyed and decimated creation. But God did not leave creation or humanity alone and allow sin to wreak complete havoc.

In short it is the grace that is extended to the unsaved and wicked world.

That is there is the presence of the Holy Spirit when the world was at its worst. In Fact, it was dead. It had no redeemable qualities. The very thought of the religion of evolution is ridiculous to think that given any amount of time such nothingness could bring itself out of its dismal state of being.

The god that is worshipped in evolution, needs millions of years to create what our creator God took in six days to do. The god of the disciples of evolution hate man because he sees man as an unwanted intruder that disrupts the delicate balance of the earth. So, such a god gives nothing to man while the Creator God loves and cherishes his creature who he created in His own image and gives freely His own spirit.

This parallels the condition of the heart of lost man. Totally depraved, dead in its relationship to Christ. the first experience of God’s grace apart from life itself is the fact that over a depraved heart the presence of the holy Spirit is brooding over that heart which is sick and depraved and evil from its youth.

But whether we ever realized it or not, the spirit was at work even when we were at our worst as God haters and ready for the next stage of Creating life where life did not formally exist.

Brooding ministry of the Spirit

What we also see is that the spirit was not dormant. He was not just a potential power waiting to be used but He was moving.

1. Piel, to brood over young ones, to cherish young (as an eagle), Deut. 32:11;

2. figuratively used of the Spirit of God, who brooded over the shapeless mass of the earth, cherishing and vivifying.

This tells us of the personality of the spirit caring for the lost.

The principle is that without the Holy Spirit there is salvation.

Questions

1. Where do find in Genesis the first mention of the spirit of God?________ _______________________________

2. Common Grace is best described

a. As Grace extended to all believers

b. Grace extended to all the Lost

c. Grace over commoners

d. Grace to our enemies

3. What is the best way to describe the spirit moving over the waters of the deep? ________________________ ________________________________

Effectual Grace

The next work is the effectual grace. Theologically it is the effectual calling.

To bring light out of Darkness. To bring light of the dark heart of the unsaved.

Genesis 1:2 then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

The word for light is אֹור[ʾowr /ore/] n f. which is different than the word which is used for the luminaries that are created on day 4

It is light that relates to God himself

1 John 1:5 (NASB95) — 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

This light has a literal and metaphorical concept.

The first illumination allowing one to see. The second is the lifting of spiritual blindness.

God is infinite and man is finite. Man cannot know God or the things of God apart from God revealing it to him.

1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (NASB95) — 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

It is through illumination of the heart that God sheds light upon the Gospel message that the spiritually dead cannot comprehend apart from the work of the spirit.

2 Corinthians 4:6 (NASB95) — 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

This is efficacious grace in that it is God makes effective salvation in the life of the one who responds to God’s grace by the means of faith.

As apart of this effectual grace there is the result of regeneration. That is God taking that which was formally dead and bringing about life. and not only life but life in abundance.

It is the Holy Spirit that makes the Gospel understandable that is he causes that light to shine where there was no understanding and then he takes the faith response to the grace and makes it effective for regeneration.

Faith comes through hearing and hearing the message of Christ.

He who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says.

Within the narrative we also have the convicting ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

God saw the light was good

How could any of us by our own standard know what is good and pleasing to God. and apart of the holy Spirit we do not.

For those of us who are saved. Really, how much did you humanly understand the Gospel message. Did you even question the idea that this Jesus died for you? Does it make any sense that it took place 2000 years ago? But yet how quick was it that you responded to it when the eyes of your heart were opened?

That light was good, the holy spirit attested to that, and he bore witness to our souls.

John 16:8 (NASB95) — 8 “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;

It is from that point that the Lord began to bring order out of Chaos within the world over the next six days creating that which God deemed as good and acceptable. This is what he is doing with the believer after causing light to shine out of the heart.

Shining the light out of hearts at the point of Salvation is that it is God’s light, and he has put a seal upon us that we are his.

This is the transforming nature of God the Holy Spirit that takes the one that will rule with God’s Son and takes him out of the slave market of sin and begins to renovate the human being into and being an imager of Christ.

Questions

1. What are the two different concepts of Light? ___________________________ ________________________________

2. How does God bringing light out of Darkness connect with our salvation __ ________________________________________________________________

3. Define regeneration _______________ ________________________________

The Restraining ministry of God the Holy Spirit

The next place we see the spirit is the time of Noah. There seems to have been remaining the presence of God’s spirit among those who were calling upon the Lord.

This was much needed in the antediluvian period prior to the flood. Left to his own devices man would in short order destroy himself.

Man started out on a high note

Genesis 4:26 (NASB95) — 26 To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

But when we find that the barriers that restrained Sin and evil were broken down then the depravity of man reached its climax

Genesis 6:1–3 (NASB95) — 1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

1777. דִּין dîyn, deen; or (Gen. 6:3)

דּוּן dûwn, doon; a prim. root [comp. 113]; to rule; by impl. to judge (as umpire); also to strive(as at law):—contend, execute (judgment), judge, minister judgment, plead (the cause), at strife, strive.[2]

Whereas man’s negative volition brought man to the very limit of his own destruction, the removal of the spirit from man sealed his damnation.

There is the restraining ministry of The God the holy Spirit that holds back man from going that limit.

Romans 1:28–32 (NASB95) — 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

Note what they were filled with.

Romans 1:29 (NASB95) — 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,

πληρόωa: (derivative of πλήρηςa ‘full,’ 59.35) to cause something to become full—‘to fill.’ ἣν ὅτε ἐπληρώθη ‘when (the net) was full’ Mt 13:48; ἦχος … ἐπλήρωσεν ὅλον τὸν οἶκον ‘a sound … filled the whole house’ Ac 2:2.[3]

There was no room in the house for the righteousness of God any longer and thus the restraints of sin and evil were no more.

The Lord said to Cain after Cains offering was rejected.

Genesis 4:7 (NASB95) — 7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

2 Thessalonians 2:4 (NASB95) — 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

2 Thessalonians 2:7 (NASB95) — 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.

This might be considered the part of the Common grace package. Man is not even allowed to destroy himself apart from God first removing the restraining power of God the Holy Spirit.

Questions

1. What restrains sin and evil in the world from bringing it to its full conclusion and the destruction of man? ________ _______________________________

2. Do you suppose that once God hands one over to a depraved heart that there is any future hope for that individual to be saved?_______________________ ________________________________

The Spirit during the times of the Patriarchs

Man continued to rebel against God when they refused to leave the city of Babel and was under the dictates of the one world leader Nimrod. They spoke one language and were under one world religion which gave no space for the Spirit of God.

When God confused their languages, they were forced to abandon their building project and move out into the world. but they took their pagan religion with them into the world.

Then God called Abraham out of the Ur of Chaldeans, and it would be through Abraham that God would advance his plan to redeem man.

God would have direct contact with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs but I don’t know of any intervention with God the Holy Spirit to lead and to direct. God would communicate to the patriarchs in dreams and visions and theophanies,

And since Abraham would only hear from the Lord now and then with much time between Abraham would have to wait.

There would however be the foreshadowing of the Spirit in the work of the Holy Spirit of calling out of a bride for the promised Son.

Isaac was Abraham and Sarah’s promised Son from the Lord.

It fell upon the father to seek out just the right bride for the son. And it was that Abraham would call his servant and task him to go out of the land and to seek a bride for his son. (Genesis 24-25)

The Servant is identified as it is the Holy Spirit is nameless

The servant would travel out of the land as it is the holy spirit is sent from heaven in search of calling out a bride

The servant brought gifts and the Holy Spirit distributes gifts.

And I have to believe that in the travels back to be united with her future husband that the servant communicated much to her about her husband whom she had never met face to face.

The presence of God in Israel

When the people of Israel after spending 400 year in Egypt were brought out into the wilderness. God had the people erect a mobile worship center call the Tabernacle. IN that tabernacle was a tent with two sections. One with the holy place and the other with the Holy of Holies.

It was designed in such a way as to duplicate the relationship between man and his creator in the garden.

But there stood between the holy place and the holy of holies a vail that separated man from the presence of God which existed above the mercy seat.

The Spirit of God tabernacled with God’s people in the midst of the people.

This was where God would remain with His people until the dreadful day when the glory of God would depart the temple in the days of the Ezekiel. ( Ezekiel 10)

We mentioned this in the previous classes, how the globalist are seeking to advance their agenda setting the stage for the anti-Christ to create a one world order.

What they fail to recognize is that God also is working on a great global physical and spiritual reset on this world.

It is Christ who begins by reversing the sinful decision of the woman who first took for that tree and did what she failed to do in the wilderness testing.

It was Christ the last Adam to do what the first Adam failed to do. Jesus was obedient all the way to his death on the cross.

The great reset continued in part with the return of the Holy Spirit to every Church age Believer to empower the body of Christ, the ruling dynasty of Christ, to teach them all things and recall to mind those things he had forgotten.

Also, at Antioch in Acts 2 there the reversal of the language barrier which was created at Babel when man began to speak in tongues to evangelize.

There will come in the future a great spiritual reversal in Israel when the holy Spirit will come upon that nation and the whole nation will be spirit lead.

No, the holy Spirit is no small deal. The power that is at work bringing order out of Chaos who has been at work throughout the ages is the very one who is at work in the Sons of God to teach, to convict, to comfort, to help, to mold his faithful ones into Christ imagers.

Where there was a temple that shekinah Glory was behind the vail we church age believer is now the temple that takes the spirit with him and her out into the world.

Closing Hymn: When we all get to heaven

Prayer

[1]Strong, J. (1995). In Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship. [2]Strong, J. (2009). In A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible(Vol. 2, p. 30). Logos Bible Software. [3]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 597). United Bible Societies.