The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 70

THE CREATION

30

The Hebrew text shows that the work of the Holy Spirit moving upon the face of the waters was similar to that of the parent bird which with outspread wings hovers over its young to cherish and cover them.

The

figure implies that not only the earth existed,

but also the germs of

within

life

lead

it

and that the Holy Spirit im-

it;

pregnating these germs caused the

life to

come

forth in order to

to its destiny.

Not by the Holy

Spirit,

•

And when

created.

but by the Word were the heavens

the created heavens were to receive their

host, then only did the

moment come for the exercise of the Holy What " the host of heaven" means is may refer to sun, moon, and stars, or to the

Spirit's peculiar functions.

not easily decided.

It

Perhaps the passage means not the creation of the heavenly bodies, but their reception of heavenly glory and celestial host of angels.

fire.

But Psalm

xxxiii. 6 refers certainly

not to the creation of the

matter of which the heavenly host are composed, but to the production of their glory.

Gen.

i.

2 reveals first the creation

then their quickening

;

so

Psalm

of matter

and

its

germs,

xxxiii. 6 teaches first the prepara-

and nature of the heavens, then the bringing forth by the Holy Spirit. Job xxvi. 13 leads to a similar Here is the same distinction between the heavens and conclusion. their ordening, the latter being represented as the special work of the Holy Spirit. This ordening is the same as the brooding in Gen. i. 2, by which the formless took form, the hidden life emerged, and the things created were led to their destiny. Psalm civ. 30 and Job xxxiii. 4 illustrate the work of the Holy Spirit in creation still more clearly. Job informs us that the Holy Spirit had a special part in the making of man; and Psalm civ. that He performed a similar work in the creation of the animals, of the fowls and the "Thou fishes; for the two preceding verses imply that verse 27

tion of the being of their host

—

sendest forth

Thy

Spirit,

they are created"

—

refers not to

man, but

to the monsters that play in the deep.

Grant that the matter out of which God made man was already present in the dust of the earth, that the type of his body was largely present in the animal, and that the idea of man and the image after which he was to be created existed already yet from Job xxxiii. 4 it is evident that he did not come to be without a special work of the Holy Spirit. So Psalm civ. 30 proves that, altho the matter existed out of which whale and unicorn were to be ;

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