Living with Tozer's God

Tozer Blogpost #11

 

The Holy Spirit - God's Divine Enabler 

In trying to lay the foundation for 'right thinking' about God, we have considered both the Father and the Son, now we want to think about the One many call the 'forgotten person' of the 'Trinity' - the Holy Spirit. If we want to think 'rightly' about God, that must include the Holy Spirit. HE is essential, yet He is often missed or overlooked. Why? Well...maybe (according to the KJV) it's because He's a 'ghost'! What do you say about a ghost?

All kidding aside, the truth is we really don't know what to do with Him. Yet, He is probably the most important person of the Trinity to us during this present age. Some have rightly termed it 'the Age of the Spirit'. It's also a somewhat unique subject to study. It's difficult to find 'experts'. You have men who are thought of as experts in the Old Testament, experts in the New Testament, experts in linguistics, archeology, in Christology, etc., but you don't often find someone who is considered an expert in the 'Holy Spirit'. Of course, some would like you to think they are, but the credibility is often suspect. And, let me hasten to add, I am not an expert either.

So...what do we do? The best answer is to just let the Scriptures be our guide, since He wrote it (i.e. via divinely inspired authors). What do we want to accomplish here? What is our approach?

I think the most fruitful approach, given the limited space we have, is to try to give an overview of how many aspects of our relationship to God are either governed by or dependent on the Holy Spirit. For a Person who is virtually unknown to mankind, it really is mind-boggling how much He is the key to so much in the Christian life!

'...the Spirit of the Lord came upon him...'

The presence of the Holy Spirit is first seen in the earliest moments in Genesis 1:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, 

and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and 

 the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters."  
Gen 1:1-2 NASU

Is  vs. 2 describing a stage in the original creation or the beginning of a 're-creation' after some act of judgment? We don't know. Since Scripture gives no plain answer, it's obviously not essential for us to know. What is clear is that the Holy Spirit was an essential partner in that creative process...just as He was in the creation of man.

"Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils

 the breath of life; and man became a living being."  
Gen 2:7 NASU

"The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." 
  Job 33:4 NASU

Yet, the most familiar description of the Holy Spirit is seen in the phrase 'the Spirit of the Lord came upon him'. It seems that whenever God wanted to do something special, some divinely-appointed task to accomplish His purpose, the Holy Spirit was God's agent in the world to accomplish it. He would come upon them to enable them to perform the task. Samson, Saul, David and many others experienced it. Jephthah was one example, when he defeated the Ammonites:

"Now the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, so that he passed through Gilead and Manasseh; then he passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he went on to the sons of Ammon...  Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them;

 and the LORD gave them into his hand." 
  Judges 11:29-32 NASU

Another Ammonite crisis produced one of the most famous 'divine interventions'...

"Then in the midst of the assembly the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph; 15 and he said, "Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: thus says the LORD to you, ' Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's. 16'Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the valley in front of the wilderness of Jeruel. 
 17'You need not fight in this battle; station yourselves,
 stand and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.'
 Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out to face them, for the LORD is with you." 
2 Chron 20:14-17 NASU

It also happened to Saul when the Ammonites came up against Jabesh-gilead:

"Now Nahash the Ammonite came up and besieged Jabesh-gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, "Make a covenant with us and we will serve you." 2 But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, "I will make it with you on this condition, that I will gouge out the right eye of every one of you, thus I will make it a reproach on all Israel."

"Now behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen, and he said, 
"What is the matter with the people that they weep?" So they related to him the words of the men of Jabesh. 6 Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul mightily when he heard these words, and he became very angry. 7 He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout the territory of Israel by...saying, "Whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen." 
Then the dread of the LORD fell on the people, and they came out as one man." 

  1 Sam 11:1-7 NASU

There are many other illustrations, but the point is clear. When God wanted to accomplish something or inspire someone to do something special, He moved in the person of the Holy Spirit and He became the divine enablement to accomplish His will. But, once the task was accomplished, however long it might take, the 'divine enablement' usually ended. The 'empowerment' was temporary. This is key.

But, the experience of the Holy Spirit is uniquely, permanently different in the New Testament, as we will see next time.

However, in the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, there was one last experience of the Holy Spirit 'coming upon' someone to fulfill a divine purpose...and it changed the world. It was the Virgin Mary's encounter as she became the vessel for the miracle birth...'the 'Word became flesh'.

"The angel answered and said to her, " The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

 and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; 

and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God." 
  Luke 1:35-36 NASU

Once this final act of 'divine enablement' was accomplished, the Lord Himself would begin to lay the groundwork for the New Covenant and the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit in born-again 'believers'.  We'll see more of the impact of this next time.....