In Creation And Genesis

by J. Miller | Category: The Holy Spirit And His Work: | Feb 1952

God is a trinity of Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Such a view of the Deity is provable from many portions of the Holy Scriptures. That God is not one Person is shown in the plural word for God used in Genesis 1.1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The Hebrew word for God here, as scholars tell us, is Elohim. In the Hebrew there are three numbers, singular, dual and plural. This Hebrew word Elohim being plural shows that God is more than two Persons, and many scriptures show that there are not more than three Persons in the Godhead. Scholars also tell us, that while Elohim is masculine, plural, the Hebrew word for created (bara) is masculine, third person, singular. Thus in Genesis 1.1 we see the Trinity, the one true God, acting as One in the creation of the heaven and the earth.

Between Genesis I. verse 1 and verse 2 there is a hiatus, and I know of no portion of scripture which sheds any light upon it, or why it should be that the earth was waste and void, as in verse 2. Clearly from Isaiah 45.18 we learn that "He created it not a waste: He formed it to be inhabited." I feel I cannot do better in referring to this matter than to quote the words of a learned and able expositor of the Scriptures written about one hundred years ago

"It may interest some of our readers to know that it is no mere modern exposition, adopted to square the Bible with geological research, to take the first verse of Genesis, as an account of the original creation of the heaven and the earth, and the second verse, as a sketch of the chaotic condition which immediately preceded the state of things which God ordered during the subsequent six days, with a view to the creation of man, and His own moral dealings here below. If I am not mistaken, several of the so-called fathers, in spite of their lack of spiritual intelligence, had light enough to see this; and Luther, in some editions of his German Bible, separated the first two verses from what follows, making the first day's work commence, and that justly, with the third verse, and not with the first. How many years, or thousands of years, may have elapsed, is not said, because the Spirit hastens to God's moral history of man; and it is very clear that man did not exist before Adam. Hence the mere physical arrangements, and their catastrophes, which may have intervened between the first formation of the universe, and the Adamic earth, are passed by; for, however interesting to the natural philosopher, they are nothing in a moral book, and that a revelation from God to man is and must be. Still it was of great value to know that the heaven and the earth had a beginning. Almost all the ancient sages were in the dark about it; whereas every Jew, even the most ignorant, knew it with certainty. Next, it was interesting to learn that, after some interval, less or more, and from whatsoever disturbing causes, all was in ruin just before God formed all afresh, in order to the trial of man upon the earth, and the display of His own ways."

How much in advance is geological science to-day of the sages of ancient time, to whom this writer refers, in its knowledge of the origin of the earth or the catastrophe which overwhelmed it? Little or none, I believe. The Scriptures are our only source of exact information on such matters.

As in the creation of heaven and earth the Spirit of God played His part with the Father and the Son, creating all for Their own pleasure and according to Their own will, as Revelation 4.11 clearly reveals, so also in the re-formation of the earth, and in the creation of vegetable and animal life upon it and in the creation of man, the last and greatest of all God's earthly creatures, the Spirit is seen at work. In beginning to form the earth anew "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Genesis 1.2). The Hebrew word for Spirit here (ruach) may mean spirit, wind, breath, and is used to describe the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63. 10, 11), the spirit of man and the spirit of beast (Ecclesiastes 3.21), wind (Genesis 8.1), breath (Job 9.18); there may also be other shades of meaning in the use of this word. The passages quoted above are but a few of many which might have been given. Here the Holy Spirit moved (Gesenius "to brood over," Tregelles "was hovering") upon the face of the waters. It is used in Genesis 32.11 : "As an eagle - fluttereth over her young," and in this sense there is the idea of softness and tenderness in the word. Consequent to this hovering, fluttering or brooding of the Spirit, God said, "Let there be light: and there was light."

We have a counterpart of the work of God in relation to the earth in the case of every human soul which is brought out of darkness into light. No one can deny who has a modicum of understanding that a great catastrophe overwhelmed the human race by the entrance of sin. The whole of man's being was changed towards His Maker, and in consequence of this the Lord says that men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil (John 3.19). Man morally is enshrouded in darkness as truly as the earth was in darkness in Genesis 1.2. But it is also true that the Spirit of God moves in the darkness of the human soul. Has not the convicted sinner the knowledge of this inward fluttering of the Spirit of grace? The Lord said of the Comforter (a word which bespeaks the softness and tenderness of the Spirit's movement as of old):"For if I go not away, the Comforter will not com' unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you. And He, when He is come, will convict

the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement"

(John 10. 7, 8).

That kindly moving of the Spirit in the sinner, bringing home the knowledge of sin and bearing witness to Christ (John 15.26), is sometimes, perhaps all too frequently, resisted and repelled, and the touching words of the hymn "Almost persuaded" have fulfilment

"Seems now some soul to say,

Go, Spirit, go Thy way,

Some more convenient day

On Thee I'll call."

The terrified Roman governor Felix was of this class when he said, "Go thy way for this time; and when I have a convenient season, I will call thee unto me " (Acts 24.25). But, blessed be God, there are others to whom the words apply: "Seeing it is God that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light (Greek, "illumination") of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4.6).

It is not who shined into our hearts, but who shined in (Greek en, in) our hearts. Here the Spirit in a free rendering of Genesis 1.8 links the work of God in translating the world from darkness to light with the sinner's translation from darkness to light. The means is the same in both cases-the spoken word of God. In the sinner's case it is the life and light giving message of the gospel

applied to the sinner's heart in the power of the Spirit.

As with the making of all men, so was it in the making of man at the beginning: Elihu in speaking to Job states the work of the Spirit in regard to man

"The Spirit of God hath made me,

And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life" (Job 33.4).

The process is different; Adam was made of the dust of the earth and man ever after is formed in the womb, but the Divine Worker is the same, the Spirit of God, arid the result the same, in that a human soul is created. Spirit in this verse is ruach, and breath, neshamah, and in Genesis 2.7 we read, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (neshamah) of life; and man became a living soul."

The Spirit's work is also seen in regard to animal and vegetable life in Psalm 104.80

"Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created;

And Thou renewest the face of the ground."

Thus the creation of animal life is attributed to God's Spirit and

also the renewal or repairing of the face of the ground in the new life of spring time, the type of resurrection life. This comes about by the quickening power of the Spirit of God, acting in conjunction with God the Father and God the Son, as other scriptures show.

In Genesis 6.8 we have reference to the Spirit's work in men in the dark days which preceded the Flood of Noah. God said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever, for that he also is flesh:

yet shall his days be an hundred and twenty years."

Some have quite wrongly assumed that the 120 years here mean that the ark of Noah was this time in being built. In Genesis 5.32 Noah is stated to be 500 years old, and the flood came when he was 600 years of age (Genesis 7.6), 50 that some time between these ages Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD and was afterwards told to build the ark to save his family. We cannot say how long the ark was in building, but it certainly was not 120 years.

The word "strive" in Genesis 6.8 (Hebrew dun) may mean "to rule over," "to judge," " to procure justice, to punish, to carry through a legal proceeding." The word is found in Job 19.29, where it is rendered "judgement," "That ye may know there is a judgement." Rule and judgement were identical in the east. It seems to indicate that in man's inner consciousness the Spirit of God ruled, or judged, or strove with man to keep him in the way of righteousness, but, despite all God's striving, man was bent on corrupting God's way for him and plunged into all forms of wickedness. God shortened human life from hundreds of years and allowed man normally 120 years of probation on earth in which to be prepared for the life after death, to believe in the Divine Redeemer who was promised on the day of man's fall. This striving of the Spirit of God with men is, we believe, what God has ever done to turn man from sin, that he should fear God and work righteousness (Acts 10.35), even in lands that never heard of the Divine Redeemer promised in the Old Testament Scriptures. This finds a more accentuated form in the light of the world-wide message of the gospel, in the conviction of sinners by the Holy Spirit to which we have already referred (John 16.8).

Whilst we have no allusion in Genesis to the work of the Spirit in the birth of Isaac, we are told in Hebrews 11.11, that "by faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was past age, since she counted Him faithful who had promised." The quickening power was the work of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 4.21-81 we have a contrast drawn between Ishmael who was born after the flesh and Isaac who was born after the Spirit. Both Abraham and Sarah were as good as dead, so far as having a child was concerned, but the Spirit of God quickened them and in consequence the son of promise was born. We, also, are told, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise."

The last reference to the Spirit's work is in connexion with Joseph in Egypt when he revealed to Pharaoh the coming of the years of plenty and the years of famine:

"Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" (Genesis 41.88).

Well Pharaoh knew that only God could reveal what Joseph had told him about his dreams, and that such knowledge did not reside in the wisest of men. Joseph was Zaphenath-paneab, the revealer of secrets, and the saviour of the world.

We cannot fail to trace the Spirit's work in the enlightenment of Jacob in regard to Joseph's sons, in the crossing of his hands and giving the birthright and blessing to Ephraim the younger, nor can we fail to see in the prophetic words of Jacob and Joseph regarding the deliverance of Israel from Egypt that inspiration which was characteristic of all that men ever spake from God:

"No prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1.21).

J. Miller | Feb 1952
The Holy Spirit And His Work: