In the Beginning
Holy Spirit Series
CCCAG July 23rd, 2023
Scripture- Gen 1:2
Intro:
When I was a child, and I attended worship services, everything was done in a very ritualistic way. We would walk into church, and see the worship song page numbers on the little block displays on the pillars, mark the page in the hymnal with our bulletin. Then we would go through the brief order of confession and forgiveness. Everything was very preplanned and set in stone.
In fact, there is an entire calendar sent down from the denominational headquarters that says exactly what songs to sing, what sermon topic to preach on, which scriptures to read, and how the service should be planned.
As part of this plan, they would occasionally recite one of the creeds of the church. Usually, it was the Apostle’s Creed since it was the shortest, but occasionally an older pastor would use the Nicene Creed which was much more in depth.
Is anyone familiar with the creeds? Basically, they are just statements of what we believe. I put it the Apostle’s Creed on the back of your bulletin if you are interested. It’s a good thing to memorize.
If you look at the Apostle’s Creed, you’ll notice there is a mention of the Father in the beginning, a lot about Jesus, and then one line toward the end about the Holy Spirit.
As part of being confirmed, you had to memorize and recite in front of a pastor two of the four creeds available. I chose the Apostle’s Creed, since it was the easiest one to do, and the Nicene Creed.
The Nicene Creed does a little better of a job describing the person and work of the Holy Spirit, when it says this-
I believe in the Holy Spirit
The LORD the giver of life
Who precedes through the Father and the Son
And through the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified
He has spoken through the prophets.
Soon after being confirmed, my parents didn’t make me go to church anymore, so I stopped going unless I was up north with my grandparents.
When I was living there, Church was non-negotiable.
Aside from my time up north, I spent the next 9 years living apart from God and His church, until April of 1993 when I accepted a friends invitation to attend his church’s Easter program that he was involved with. That was on a Friday night, and I let him talk me into coming to church on Sunday.
Talk about a culture shock.
I went from the extremely liturgical Lutheran Church of my youth- a service I could still quote to you verbatim today, to what seemed to me at that time to be a completely out of control, chaotic mess that was a Pentecostal service. People were dancing, waving their hands. Some guy stood up and rang a lap around the church clapping his hands.
I’m thinking, “What the heck did I just get into”
However, I felt a presence I had never felt before.
I can only describe it as an overwhelming weight pressing in on the deepest parts of me. It was both terrifying, yet I was also drawn to experience it more.
It was my first conscious experience with the Holy Spirit. This mysterious figure that we had only briefly touched on in confirmation classes was now becoming very real to me and I had no idea what that meant.
I tell you that because today we will begin our study in the Holy Spirit.
As I was praying about what to speak and teach on this year, God impressed upon me that I had not really talked a lot about one of the most important things that Jesus restored to us by his death on the cross- access to the Holy Spirit dwelling both on the inside of us, and being filled with the power He brings.
So this morning, we are beginning a study on the Holy Spirit. It will last a few weeks, and we will build on a firm foundation of who HE is before we talk about what He does.
Let’s open with a word of Prayer
Like everything, let’s start our study on the Holy Spirit in the beginning-
Turn to Genesis chapter 1, and we will see the first mention in the bible of the Holy Spirit.
I. In the beginning
I want to make a quick note for all of us from your local theology nerd. Genesis was originally written by Moses. Moses complied all of the oral tradition that existed before him, and wrote Genesis in the ancient Hebrew Language.
The Hebrew Language is considered to be a near eastern language, meaning it rides the lines between how people in the Far east (Asia) and people in the West (Europe) communicate.
The difference is when you read a language like Chinese or Japanese, they are using their language to draw you a mental picture of the idea being expressed. In the case of Hebrew, it’s also written backwards from the way we do it- they go right to left, not left to right.
English on the other hand is a very linear language where you express your thoughts in a stepwise fashion.
Keep that in mind when you read the Old Testament- let it draw an image in your mind.
Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Starting here, and throughout the Old Testament, we see that the Holy Spirit was instrumental in creation. In fact, although not clearly expressed here, all three members of the Godhead were there when the Father said “Let there be light”
We plainly see the Father and the Spirit in the Genesis account. If we go to the New Testament we see Jesus was there as well. Colossians chapter 1 -
Colossians 1:15-17 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And of course John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
I was writing the rough draft of today’s message as work after I discharged my last patient, and it occurred to me the importance of the last few verses here- Jesus is the light.
How did God start the creation process?
In verse 3 of Genesis the Father says, let there be light.
In other words, creation was started by the Father saying “Let there be Jesus!”
Creation starts and ends with Jesus. I almost jumped up and said Amen in the ER.
Let’s get back to the Holy Spirit
In Gen 1:2, the bible says that the Spirit was hovering over the surface of the water. There are two other ways to translate that Hebrew word. The first is trembling and the other is fluttering.
Has anyone here ever worked around high voltage electricity?
One of my first car accidents as a firefighter in Bristol, we went to a car versus utility pole, and the wire was laying across the car. There was no arching and the wire was still so we were not sure if the breaker on the pole had tripped or not, so we approached the car slowly.
Suddenly my lieutenant stopped and motioned for us to stop. He turned around and said, “Do you feel that?”
I said, “NO”
He said take one more small step.
I did, and suddenly I felt the soles of my boots vibrating hard.
My Lieutenant said, “Your fire boots are made with a couple of layers of metal to protect your feet from puncture wounds. Another thing they protect you from is this right here- when they get electrified, they vibrate to warn you that you are getting dangerously close to a live high voltage electrical source.
That sense of being close to raw power being held temporality at bay reminded me of the way that the Holy Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
He was like a racecar, being revved up for the green light to shine and start the race.
This also matches up with one of the New Testament descriptions of the Holy Spirit, which is the Greek Word dunimous, where we get our modern word dynamite from.
So God the Holy Spirits explosive power was seen at creation- ready to be released to assist the other two people in the trinity form everything that we see today.
The next place we see the Holy Spirit, is in the act of the creation of humanity.
Let’s talk now about another important theological concept called-
II. Imago Dei
The term Imago Dei is phrase from Latin that means “Image of God”.
When a new baby is born, most people, will immediately start saying that “they look like their mother, or they have their father’s eyes”. People immediately see the similarities between a parent and their offspring.
The term Imago Dei means something very similar. It’s a concept held by Christianity, by Judaism, and to a point, even by Islam- that humanity is made in the image and likeness of God.
It was part of the creation plan as seen in Genesis 1
Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
What we see in Genesis is God the Father is speaking to God the Son and God the Holy Spirit about His plan.
How He did it, and why it’s important for us here this morning is seen in verse 7 of Genesis 2. I want you to pay special attention here.
Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
We are going to break this down a little bit.
Remember how I said that the Hebrew language paints a word picture?
The reason I emphasized that earlier is to make this point right here.
That word for breathed is the Hebrew word Nash-ah’-wah. It is used one other place in the bible, in Ezekiel, to describe the exact thing happening here.
God blowing life into something not alive yet. The other place was Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones when God tells the prophet to speak to the bones and let the breath of life enter them.
This is not found ANYWHERE else in the bible, or attributed to anything else in creation.
I know there is a lot of talk about how some animals are pretty smart and can be trained to do specific tasks. That is true, but none of them have true higher reasoning skills.
Anyone ever have a dog on a chain in the yard? All the sudden you hear barking and whining and you look outside and see that he wrapped the chain around a pole and is almost hanging himself?
We don’t go out there and yell at the dog saying, “Hey dummy, just walk in the opposite direct and you’ll be free”
Why?
Because dogs can’t really solve complex problems like that.
It’s only humanity that can use reason, logic, and truly problem solve.
The early Hebrews recognized this truth. In fact, in the book of Job, Job is having a theological debate with his friends. One of the younger men. Elihu, who was there but silent until this point stood up for the truth when he said this-
Job 32:8 But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.
A few verses later, he also states-
Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
I bring this up to show you Imago Dei- the Holy Spirit was breathed into us at creation. The Holy Spirit imparted that divine essence that gives us our higher mental abilities. This has carried on throughout the ages and been also imparted to you and me.
Finally, that Imago Dei is seen in our created nature. God has eternally revealed himself in three persons- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three parts of a whole.
Humanity is revealed in three parts- Spirit is our created nature, body houses the spirit, and the soul is created from the union of the two.
Our spirit was never designed to exist apart from a body, which is why at the resurrection we get a new one.
So what happened? Why aren’t we showing the Imago Dei anymore?
Genesis chapter 3 happened. The fall of humanity through the first sin committed by Adam and Eve.
Humanities willful sin against God had some consequences-
Let’s read about them here-
Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Now earlier in Genesis it said that up until this point, the man and woman had been physically naked in front of each other and were not ashamed.
In fact, they didn’t know what shame was. It wasn’t part of their programing. That is, until they chose to rebel against God’s command. Then they unlocked a side of their souls that was never intended for them to access.
A modern way of understanding this- if you have a smart phone, or a computer, there is always a part of the operating system that isn’t available to the common user. Anyone ever heard of rooting or jailbreaking a cell phone? That just means you are accessing a part of the operating system that the engineers don’t want you have access to because you can brick your cell phone and it’s useless after that.
That’s a very basic way of describing what happened to Adam and Eve, and through them, you and I. Through giving in to satan’s temptations their eyes were opened to things that humanity was never intended to have access to, and it changed them to their core.
That’s what the bible is saying when their eyes were opened.
The other part here is the fact that they were naked.
The bible does not implicitly say this in Genesis, but you can see it elsewhere in the bible. It was at this point that the Holy Spirit, who had been in and upon them, was gone. When they chose satans path, the Holy Spirit up and left.
We have an example of this in Ezekiel 10
In Ezekiel 10, the prophet has been telling the nation of an upcoming judgment because of the sin of the people and especially inside the temple, which was the church of that time.
God gives Ezekiel a glimpse into the spiritual realm where he watches the Holy Spirit leave a temple that he is no longer welcome in.
Ezekiel 10:18 Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. 19 While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
The Holy Spirit continues this as the nation refuses to repent, eventually leaving the temple mount altogether.
The second proof of what is happening in Genesis three regarding them being naked is seen in the picture of the saints in Heaven.
Rev 7:13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” 14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb
Couple those two verses together and we see why they were naked- the Holy Spirit who had been intimately connected to their spirit, was now gone because of their sin.
For the first time, they had to face the father without the covering of the Spirit.
Pause
As we close today, I want to bring a New Testament perspective on what happened in Genesis 3.
Let’s consult a subject matter expert on this topic- the LORD Jesus.
What did Jesus say about this idea of being properly clothed in the HOLY Spirit?
He gave a parable to emphasis it to us.
In Matthew 22, Jesus tells of the King giving a great banquet- probably referring to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb that we get to experience after being raptured. The King arrives and notice- some of the people there are not wearing what is expected. What did the King do about this?
He ordered them tied up, and thrown out into the outer darkness.
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
This is a picture of a soul that refuses to come under the LORDship of Jesus Christ, and therefore is not clothed in the Holy Spirit.
It is a person chosing spiritual nakedness over repentance and being filled with the Spirit of God and changed- returned to Imago Dei within them.
Like it was, IN the Beginning.
Altar Call
