The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 106

HOLY SCRIPTURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

66

Therefore the Holy Spirit introduces His work at the very beginning of the development of the race. The first germ of the mystery of Godliness was already implanted in Adam, and the first motherword of which the Holy Scripture was to be born was whispered into his ear.

This word was followed by the deed. God's word does not It is a plowshare it is not a sound, but a power.

return void;

Behind the word stands the propelling power and thus it becomes effectual, and changes the whole condition of things. We see it in Adam and Eve especially in Enoch and " By faith Abel obtained witness that he was righteous." subsoiling the soul.

Holy

of the

Spirit,

;

;

After these operations in individuals the Spirit's work in the family begins, partly in Noah, more especially in Abraham. The judgment of the flood had completely changed former rela-

had caused a new generation to arise, and perhaps had changed the physical relations between the earth and its atmosphere. And then, for the first time, the Holy Spirit begins to work Our Ritual of Baptism points emphatically to Noah in the family. and his eight, which has often been a stumbling-block to a thoughtAnd yet needlessly, for by pointing to Noah less unspirituality. indicate, in that sacramental prayer, that it is our fathers meant to tions,

not the baptism of individuals, but of

And

\\\q

people of God,

i.e.,

of the

emerges it was his family after the flood, Noah and history of the first in salvation of Noah and his family the point to correct to perfectly as God's first revelation of salvation for us and our seed. But the work of the Holy Spirit in Noah's family is only preliminary. Noah and his sons still belong to the old world. They formed a transition. After Noah the holy line disappears, and from Shem to Terah the Holy Spirit's work remains invisible. But with

Church and

Terah

it

its seed.

now Abraham goes out. not The promised son was still resting in the

appears in clearest light; for

with sons, but alone.

hand

since the salvation of families

of God.

God could

And he

could not beget him but dy faith; so that

truly say, "I

am

the Almighty God,";'.^., a

God "who

quickeneth the dead and calleth the things that are not as tho they

Hence Abraham's family is almost in literal sense the prodwork in that there is nothing in his life without faith. The product of art in Abraham's history is not the image of a pious shepherd-king or virtuous patriarch, but the won-

were."

uct of the Holy's Spirit's

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