Everyone's a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology by R.C. Sproul

Author:R.C. Sproul [Sproul, R.C.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: KEYWORDS
Publisher: Reformation Trust Publishing
Published: 2014-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Part Five

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PNEUMATOLOGY

Chapter 31

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THE HOLY SPIRIT

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The most significant event of my life was my conversion. At the time, I was engaged to be married, and I attempted to explain to my fiancée in great detail the circumstances of my conversion to Christ and what it would mean for our relationship. We communicated mainly by letter and telephone because we attended different colleges, and we carried on this discussion for many months. I felt I was getting nowhere. Finally, she came to visit my campus, and I decided to take her to a prayer meeting. I spent the entire morning beforehand on my knees praying for her and for that occasion, and to my great delight, she was converted to Christ at that meeting, and I went on to marry her. On the day of her conversion, she said to me, “Now I know who the Holy Spirit is.” I thought that was a fascinating response to her awakening to Christ, and over the years I have reflected on it quite a bit. It is significant that she said, “I know who the Holy Spirit is” rather than “I know what the Holy Spirit is.”

A common misconception in the world’s perception of Christianity is that the Holy Spirit is a kind of impersonal force or simply an active power of God rather than a true person, a member of the divine Trinity. But Jesus and the Apostles referred to the Holy Spirit as “He.” Scripture shows us that the Holy Spirit has a will, knowledge, and affections—all the things that make up personhood are attributed to Him.

A major point of confusion about the Holy Spirit concerns the differences between His activity in the Old Testament and His work in the New Testament and in the lives of Christians today. The activity of the Holy Spirit goes all the way back to creation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:1–2a). The unformed world is described as dark, empty, and formless. Carl Sagan, in his work Cosmos, makes the dogmatic assertion that the universe is cosmos, not chaos, which is the difference between order and confusion.* In biblical categories, it is the difference between pure darkness and light, between a vacuous universe ultimately empty of anything significant and that which is filled and teeming with the fruit of the Creator. In the beginning verses of the book of Genesis we find a dramatic proclamation of cosmos, yet the world was without form, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

However, in the next clause of Genesis 1:2, we meet the Holy Spirit for the first time: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Another word for hovering is brooding. This is the idea that was communicated when God sent the angel Gabriel to visit the peasant girl Mary in Nazareth to tell her that she was about to become a mother.

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