Jr. Behold, The Holy Spirit

Magnifying the work of the Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 979-8-31781374-1
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten

Reihe: Behold, The Holy Spirit

Discover the transformative power of God's love and grace through the Holy Spirit with vivid storytelling that will bring the Bible's timeless narratives to life. Reveal how the Holy Spirit works to deepen your faith and enrich your everyday life. With fresh insights and a compelling narrative, this book invites readers to experience God's presence in a personal, profound way.

James T. Darnell, Jr., serves as senior pastor at Netafirm Inc. and has over two decades of experience being a pastor. Alongside the dedicated board of directors at Netafirm, he works tirelessly to combat biblical illiteracy in both American and global churches. He is passionate about teaching the inductive approach to scripture and holds a B.A. in philosophy and religion from Elizabeth College, an M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary, and an M.Ed. from Indiana University. Along with his pastoral experience, James has served as an adjunct professor of New Testament and philosophy and is a certified group leader through the former Bureau of Studies in Adult Education at Indiana University. Additionally, he has experience in the medical field and founded a physician's practice management company that aims to enhance medical accessibility and technology for doctors.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jr.,

Leseproben

1

The Sovereign Plan and Design: God’s Way

To understand the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, we must start with God Himself. The only way to do that is to start at the beginning. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This statement in the Torah has changed all of history. The word created in Hebrew or “bara” implies God created out of nothing. Science and atheism have no answer as to how this is possible. Deists would say that God created everything but is not directly involved with his creation. But the upfront truth of the Bible is God is intimately involved in everything He creates. Scripture reveals that God is Trinity, meaning God is one in essence while existing in three distinct, coequal persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (See Figure 1 at the back of the book). Each person of the Trinity is unique, and all contribute to assure all creatures of the creation that they are not alone, and that God has sovereign authority over all His creation. The Trinity’s sovereign plan for the world and purpose for life on earth was designed before the foundation of the world.

It was the British and American Puritan writers during the seventeenth century who made an effort to explain God’s intimate love and grace for humanity through the Trinity’s sovereign plan of salvation. Their efforts to explain the Trinity’s plan for the world materialized into a pre-creation covenant or conversation within the Trinity. This internal dialogue within the Godhead is not recorded in scripture but can be surmised from compiling the record we have of the Trinity’s plans throughout the Bible. This exercise calls upon a sanctified imagination as we seek to understand God’s plans through scripture within a constructed Trinitarian dialogue before the foundation of the world. The conversation could have gone something like this:

God the Father said, “Out of our great holiness, power, and love, let us create mankind in our own image. To my Son, I will give you this new creation (the earth and cosmos) as a gift. I will bring people to you, by faith, who will worship and glorify you as their lord and king. I will establish your kingdom forever and ever. Yet, sin will dominate for a time, and then judgment and death will be my only choice as a holy Father.”

The Son said, “I will voluntarily enter into creation, and I will lay down my life for believers to redeem them from all sin and death.” His act in human history will forever be called the heart of the Gospel.

The Father responded, “I will judge the evil one, in whom wickedness has been found, and destroy him and his followers, making all of your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

The Holy Spirit declared, “I will breathe life into creation and manifest our truth and power. I will be an advocate for the Son and for His ministers on earth. I will empower Him to triumph over Lucifer, perform many wonders and miracles, and live a sinless life. I will search the hearts and minds of all men, giving new life to those who belong to the Son, and they will respond to the good news of the Gospel. Upon the Son’s redeeming work on the cross, I will raise Him up, and He will overcome death for all who believe. I will guide the believer to a life of holiness by indwelling them. I will remind them of all truth, convict them of their sin, strengthen their regenerated hearts, and sanctify them. I will be their comforter, working with their weaknesses that cause their bodies to suffer and interceding for them when they do not know how to pray. I will equip them with gifts to serve the Kingdom and bring glory to the Son. I will walk with them and help them persevere in difficult times.” So, after reading this probable scenario, it is easy to see how many people overlook the planning of God for creation and overlook the Holy Spirit’s role, who is God and is intimately involved with the Father and Son. Only the Trinity could plan such a magnificent orchestration of history in which evil is defeated, and God’s righteousness and love are revealed and imputed to those in the flesh. As the only savior, Jesus would eliminate the sting of death through the cross. The Holy Spirit will raise believers to life just as Christ’s resurrection. All of God’s people are redeemed and taken into the Son’s kingdom with finality and glory to live in peace forever. With this great plan of God in mind, let’s take a closer look at each person of the Trinity, beginning with God the Father.

The Sovereign Father

In the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites used many different names for God, each of which describes a different aspect of God’s character. For example, Elohim, found first in Genesis 1:1, means creator, might and strong. El Shaddai (Genesis 17:1, 28:3) is used to express “God Almighty.” Although these names described God’s greatness, they lacked the intimate closeness that the Israelites held with God as ones created in His image. Since Israelites were unable to use Yahweh, especially after the Babylonian captivity, or YHWH (“He is” or “he will be”; Genesis 15:2) due to their reverence for God’s supreme holiness, they used Elohim along with Adonai (Lord) making it possible to sufficiently describe a personal address of affection. Therefore, the Israelites could recognize God as Creator, God Almighty, sovereign over creation, and affectionately, Lord of their lives. Yet the Father wills the Creation and the Son, and the Holy Spirit plays a major part in the Creation. Looking a little deeper into the Creation account in Genesis 1:1, there is another very interesting fact. The word “Elohim” is used as a plural noun referring to the one true God. Yet the word “created” is a singular verb. This means God Himself was the creator, singular, of the heavens and the earth, but the entire Trinity, plural, was involved.

All the names of God and the relationships of the Triune God find their origin in God’s nature, which is love. Love is not a character trait He possesses, but rather God is love itself; as 1 John 4:8 states, The true essence of God is love. “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” This means that He will always and only express himself in a loving way towards His creation. And by default, He will always solve every problem with love according to His eternal purposes. This is displayed as God’s heart emanates love and grace for His creation in the garden. He provided the perfect environment for man to flourish and have perfect fellowship with Him, requiring that they choose obedience. God proclaims, “Let us create man in our image in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). We know the story: sin became part of our nature when Adam chose to rebel against God’s command. Yet, out of love for the Creation came grace. God clothed Adam and Eve to cover up their shame and banished them from the garden. In light of God’s nature as love, believers consider Adam and Eve’s banishment as an act of God’s mercy and love. God said to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, “The man has now become like one of us {the Trinity} knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever” in an evil state of existence (Genesis 3:22). God knew that if He would allow them to remain in the garden, they would have eaten from the tree of life and would have turned eternally evil with no hope for redemption. So, God’s sovereign judgment, plan and design are acts of love that are always for the benefit of His people and for His glory. This act of protection is a truth for our present day.

The Holy Spirit at Creation

The next person of the Trinity mentioned in scripture at creation is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the least understood person of the Trinity. He displays all the attributes of God. The Holy Spirit is described in Genesis 1:2.

The Spirit of God in Hebrew is ruach, and translates to “a mighty wind,” “a divine wind,” or “a wind from God.” Notice the word, hovering, in Genesis 1:2. Some translations use the phrase, was moving. This means the Holy Spirit actively hovered over the Creation of the heavens and the earth, and moved over the formless, empty, deep darkness and prepared the land in which God chose for mankind to live.

Moses used the same word, hovers, in Deuteronomy 32:11 when he described the Lord’s care in creating the nation of Israel, “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.” The concept of hovering is similar in both Genesis 1:2 and Deuteronomy 32:11. The Holy Spirit, like the eagle, is preparing the environment for His creation to thrive. The Holy Spirit’s role was vital for God’s sovereign plan and design to become a reality. As the Father shaped the idea of creation, the Holy Spirit superintended its purpose. The Word, Jesus Christ, spoke the plan into existence (John 1:3-4). All three persons of the Trinity worked together then and continue to work together today.

The Holy Spirit was also involved in creation with the formation of mankind, as seen in Genesis 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.’”

The words, let us,...