Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Jun 1959

The work of the blessed Person of the Holy Spirit can be traced throughout the entire volume of the Holy Scriptures, from Genesis I to Revelation 22. In Genesis 1. 2, it is said that "the Spirit of God moved (or was brooding) upon the face of the waters," and in Revelation 22.17, the Spirit is heard saying, together with the Bride, "Coma," to all that are athirst, that they should come and "take the water of life freely."

The brooding of the Spirit upon the waters was vital to the work of God (Elohim, the triune God), in His making the heaven and the earth, and earth's inhabitants in six days. These six days' work must not be confused with the creation of the heaven and the earth "in the beginning." The work of the Spirit in that past time is like the work of the Spirit in the darkness of the human soul, in which He moves until the moment when God says, "Light shall shine out of darkness", (which is a free rendering of the words in Genesis 1.3, "Let there be light") "who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4.6). Evidently there was light in each of the first three days of Genesis I the day being made up of periods of evening and morning, of darkness and light before the fourth day when He set the sun and the moon to give light upon the earth, and besides other things, to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness (verse 18).

Reference to the Spirit's work is made again in Genesis 6 . 1 where we read

"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 "

The Hebrew word for "strive" is Duwn and means "to rule or judge," and it is suggested that it also means "to strive, as at law." As the Spirit of God is seen at work in the dark physical night of this world, in Genesis I, He is seen in the world's dark moral night, in Genesis 6. God said that His Spirit would not rule in the heart of rebellious man, or strive with man, plying His case at the bar of the human conscience, for ever; His striving would have an end more quickly than it had been heretofore, for man's life was to be cut down from almost a millennium to but one hundred and twenty years. This time has nothing whatever to do with the length of time which Noah took to build the ark. Noah took much less than a hundred years to build the ark. This is easily proved by the records that Noah was five hundred years when the first of his sons was born (Genesis 5.32); his three sons grew up and married; and then, Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came (Genesis 7.6).

The Spirit of God is again seen at work in a time of world extremity, in the famine in the days of Joseph. It was a world-wide corrective to general human disorder, and besides, disorder had seriously invaded the chosen family of Jacob. We have but to mention one or two matters to show how sad and sorrowful had been Jacob's experience with his sons. In his family were cases of fornication and adultery, murder, and man-stealing in the stealing and selling of Joseph into Egypt by his brothers. Joseph was sent before them to preserve them a remnant in the earth, and to save them alive by a great deliverance (Genesis 45.7). Well did Pharaoh say to his servants about Joseph, "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? " (Genesis 41.38). Why did Joseph become so great? The answer is, because he was indwelt by the Spirit of God, and that he himself lived according to the principles of truth and uprightness, and the Spirit found him a fitting instrument for His service.

When we pass from the wide-open spaces of the book of Genesis, we enter an area of much more restricted yet far greater activity. Israel is in captivity in Egypt. The events flash quickly before the mind, Moses' birth, his rejection, his return to be their deliverer. The Spirit of God finds again a man through whom He can work, but in time through his many labours and the murmuring of the people his noble heart is crushed and God gives him some relief in placing the Spirit which was on Moses upon seventy elders to help to bear his burden. The great worker in it all was the blessed, Holy Spirit.

Throughout the Old Testament the work of the blessed Holy Spirit is manifest, and this becomes the more evident when we reach the book of Exodus. The Spirit was upon Moses, the leader of God's people (Numbers ii. 17). Also, the Spirit was in Joshua (Numbers 27.18), and also Caleb (Numbers 14. 24). Bezalel was filled with the Spirit of God that he might build the tabernacle, working in wood and copper, in silver and gold, and in precious stones. Even upon such a wicked man as Hainam came the Spirit, that he might prophesy, saying all that, but no more than, God intended him to say (Numbers 24.2), though he would have cursed Israel if he could. In the book of Judges the Spirit of the LORD came upon Othniel (3.10), on Gideon (6.84), and on Samson (14.6, 19). The Spirit of God came upon Saul the king of Israel (1 Samuel 11.6). In Saul's case, although it is a sad episode, we can see clearly the great distinction between the giving of the Spirit to certain outstanding servants of God in the Old Testament, and the giving of the Spirit to all believers in this dispensation. It says, Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him" (1 Samuel 16.14). When David sinned, we hear him say in his confession to God, in Psalm 51.11, " Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." This would have been a spiritual calamity for him, but God forgave the sin of His heartbroken servant and restored unto him the joy of His salvation; not salvation itself, but the joy of it. Many, alas, have lost the joy of salvation through sin, but they could not lose God's salvation which is eternal (Hebrews 5.9). While it was possible for God to take His Holy Spirit from men in a past dispensation, God will not take His Holy Spirit from believers now. He abideth in them and shall be with them for ever (John 14.16, 17). They are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God unto the day of redemption (Ephesians 1.18, 14; 4.30), which is the same day as that of their adoption (Ephesians 1.5), when the bodies of believers will be redeemed (Romans 8.28.)

One of the great phases of the work of the Spirit is the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and of this miracle Peter writes, No prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1.21). Here was a divine movement, mighty, far-reaching, and more permanent, than when God the Spirit moved on the face of the waters, in Genesis 1.2. Heaven and earth will pass away with all the waters of the great deep, but God's word shall never pass away (Matthew 24.85; Isaiah 40.6-8). Such words as were uttered by the feeble lips of men, thrown on the air by a disappearing breath, and committed to papyrus or parchment by the stylo in a faltering hand, were yet permanent and abiding as the mount Zion above. When weary mortals, kings and priests, counsellors and merchants, and men of the common herd, have wended their way in the vast sepulchral procession to the dust whence they came, the word of the LORD, changeless as his very Being, shall shed its life-giving undiminished rays, though the hands that wrote the word have crumbled into dust. Here are the living Oracles, here is the light to direct man's way heavenward and a lamp to keep his feet from stumbling. God's word is no more rare or scarce, it may be had for a few pence, yet because, perhaps, it is plentiful, it is despised ; its jewels are counted as stones in the street to be trodden on. Did not the Lord say one day, no doubt grieved at men's unbelief, " Neither cast your pearls before swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you" (Matthew 7.6) 9. That some men behave like swine toward God's precious word is without the least doubt, and some of these are men of education, according to the world's standard.

Though the A.V. says that "holy men spake," yet more than holy men spoke, for we have such cases as those of Balaam in the Old Testament and Caiaphas in the New Testament who prophesied as God's Spirit moved them. The normal way of course was that God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have been since the world began" (Acts 3.21). Sometimes in the dealings of God with His people we have a number of prophets who lived at the same time who like great springs gushed with the water of life, as, for instance, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and sometimes the prophetic message was rare, when there was no open vision, and men sat dreary by what seemed a dry fountain. The fault was not God's, for it is His delight to speak to men by His Spirit.

J. Miller | Jun 1959
Jottings