The Holy Spirit – His Work

THE wide scope of this important subject will not permit more than a brief consideration of the activities of the Spirit of Cod in a fivefold aspect of truth. In this paper we shall deal with His work in Creation, Conviction, and Conversion.

In our next paper we hope to consider His work in the Christian Believer and the Church of God.

The work of The Spirit in Creation. Verse one of the Bible declares the fact of creation : “ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1. 1). Here it seems was God’s original creation of the heaven and the earth, and as such, we can only believe, it was good and perfect, ft is striking, therefore, to find in verse 2 the earth described as being “ waste “ and “ void," and that “ darkness was upon the face of the deep.” In Isa. 34. 11 the same Hebrew words are translated, “ confusion “ and “ emptiness.” We can only gather from this that a condition of chaos and disorder replaced the original order of creation. It is not our purpose here to attempt an explanation of this, as it could at best be only sug-gestive. It is, however, in connection with this condition of things that the Spirit of God first appears. Here He is represented as “ brooding over the face of the deep.” A beautiful foreshadow-ing this of the work of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual awakening of souls in darkness. lie broods over the chaos and darkness of our fallen nature, bringing order out of chaos and light out of darkness.