The Work Of The Holy Spirit In The Material Universe

The Holy Spirit’s work goes beyond humans to include the whole material universe. He helped create the world and everything in it, sustains all life, and brings order from chaos. The Spirit’s activity moves creation from simple to more complex forms, culminating in mankind and ultimately in Jesus Christ.

While creation is important, the Bible emphasis es the Spirit’s greater role in redeeming humanity.

Many think of the work of the Holy Spirit as limited to man. But God reveals to us in His Word that the Holy Spirit's work has a far wider scope than this. We are taught in the Bible that the Holy Spirit has a threefold work in the material universe.

I. The creation of the material universe and man is effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

We read in Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” We have already seen in our study of the names of the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit is the breath of JEHOVAH, so this passage teaches us that all the hosts of heaven, all the stellar worlds, were made by the Holy Spirit.

We are taught explicitly in Job 33:4 that the creation of man is the Holy Spirit's work. We read, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Here, both the creation of the material frame and the anointing of life are attributed to the agency of the Holy Spirit. In other passages of Scripture, we are taught that creation was in and through the Son of God . For example, we read in Colossians 1:16, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him.”

In a similar way we read in Hebrews 1- 2 that God “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” In the passage given above (Psalm 33:6), the Word as well as the Spirit are mentioned in connection with creation. In the account of the creation and the rehabilitation of this world to be the home of man, Father, Word, and Holy Spirit are all mentioned (Genesis 1:1-3). It is evident from a comparison of these passages that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all active in the creative work. The Father works in His Son, through His Spirit.

II. Not only is the original creation of the material universe attributed to the agency of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, but the maintenance of living creatures is as well. We read in Psalm 104:29-30, “When you hide your face, they are dismayed, when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.” The clear indication of this passage is that not only are things brought into being through the agency of the Holy Spirit, but that they are maintained in being by the Holy Spirit. Not only is spiritual life maintained by the Spirit of God, but material being as well. Things exist and continue by the presence of the Spirit of God in them. This does not mean for a moment that the universe is God; it means that the universe is maintained in its being by the presence of God in it.

This is the great and solemn truth that lies at the foundation of the awful and debasing perversions of Pantheism in its countless forms.

III. But not only is the universe created through the agency of the Holy Spirit and maintained in its existence through the agency of the Holy Spirit, but the development of the earlier, chaotic, undeveloped states of the material universe into higher orders of being is effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit. We read in Genesis 1- 2:3, “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.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” We may take this account to refer either to the original creation of the universe, or we may take it as the deeper students of the Word are more inclining to take it, as the account of the rehabilitation of the earth after its plunging into chaos through sin after the original creation described in verse 1.

In either case, we have set before us here the development of the earth from a chaotic and unformed condition into its present highly developed condition through the agency of the Holy Spirit. We see the process carried still further in Genesis 2:7, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Here again, it is through the agen cy of the breath of God that a higher thing, human life, comes into being. Naturally, as the Bible is the history of man's redemption, it does not dwell upon this phase of truth, but seemingly, each new and higher impartation of the Spirit of God brings forth a higher order of being.

First, inert matter, then motion, then light, then vegetable life, then animal life, then man; and, as we shall see later, then the new man, and then Jesus Christ, the supreme Man, the completion of God's thought of man, the Son of Man. This is the Biblical thought of development from the lower to the higher by the agency of the Spirit of God as distinguished from the godless evolution that has been so popular in the generation now closing. It is, however, only hinted at in the Bible. The more important phases of the Holy Spirit's work, His work in redemption, are those that are emphasized and reiterated, and reiterated. The Word of God is even more active in each state of progress of creation. God said occurs ten times in the first chapter of Genesis.