This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 22, 1987.

This morning we are reading from Ezekiel 37, and some of you know what is coming. We are beginning from the first verse. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He carried me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of a valley that was full of bones. He caused me to pass by them all around. There were very many bones in the open valley, and indeed, they were very dry.

He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, You know.” Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’” Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews upon you, bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you. You shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking. The bones came together, bone to bone. When I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them on the outside. But there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are cut off for good.’”

Therefore, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, all my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. Then from John chapter six, verse sixty-three, it is the spirit that giveth life. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.

With me briefly. Our Father, your servants called of you speak with that word which is given them by you, and Lord oversee their consciences that they would not speak except in keeping with your word. May their voice then be but a witness to the word, which, in company with the Spirit, brings life to those who are dead. Father, may we, quickened by you, live continually by the power of your Spirit, consciously seeing our lives as those that are beneath your gaze, preserved by you. For Christ’s sake.

There was a young man who attended my father-in-law’s church for a couple of months. After that time in that congregation, the young man approached my father-in-law with his question. He was what you might call a spirit-filled Christian. During his months under my father-in-law’s preaching, he had concluded that there was no experience for teaching about the Spirit in his church. My father-in-law was not hesitant, and I think that those of you who know him realize that he is not one to hesitate.

Responded by calling the young man’s attention to the classic statement concerning the work of the Holy Spirit that appears in the confession and in the catechisms of this church. You want to talk about the work of the Spirit? The work of the Spirit undergirds everything that I say. For, you see, we cannot speak about the application of redemption and salvation without speaking about the Holy Spirit. How are we going to speak about the effectual call? My father-in-law went on. How are we going to speak about justification or adoption or sanctification? Turning to the apostles, he began to expound on the last paragraph of that section, which concerns our belief in the Holy Ghost. But not only that—recognizing as well that this section goes on to relate the Holy Catholic Church to the Holy God, to the Holy Ghost, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. The Holy Spirit, he concluded, is utterly indispensable to the message of this church. And if you have not understood that, then you haven’t really been listening.

Our time has been described as a period of crisis with regard to the third person of the Trinity, a crisis surrounding the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The trauma arises from the latter part of the last century and continues into our own. It has taken two forms. One is seen in the reaction of modernism toward the traditions of the church and the traditional confession with regard to the Spirit and his operation. The other is seen in the rise of the holiness movements and the Pentecostal movements, which we know well. The trauma overtook the Reformed church at the turn of the century, when an alliance formed between those who might be called somewhat Pentecostal and those who were fully modern.

They wanted to bring about change in the creed. They looked at the Westminster Confession of Faith and decided that, since the confession did not have a special chapter on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit had somehow been neglected. They believed a new chapter should be added to speak specifically about the Holy Spirit. But the issue at stake in that debate was not whether the Holy Spirit had received adequate attention in the confession. Rather, the question was, when all the arguments were set aside, whether the attention the Spirit had received expressed the views of those now dissenting. The confession’s position regarding the Spirit focused on the Spirit’s work in applying redemption.

You may recall in your confession and in your catechism that those sections are strongly Calvinist—uncompromisingly Calvinist. It was this Calvinism to which those who were objecting were, in fact, objecting through their questions and arguments about the Holy Spirit.

Now, this is not to say that the Holy Spirit is not worthy of our special attention and our special study. Nor is it to say that there may not have been some neglect by theologians in the Reformed tradition during that period. Yet, from that period came some remarkable contributions to the Reformed church’s understanding of the Spirit and His work. I have in mind two Dutchmen: one named Abraham Piper, and the other named Herman Hoeksema. Hoeksema was a statesman, a politician, and an educator.

He was also an editor of a newspaper, and he wrote a devotional for that newspaper, week by week. When he had completed a series on the Holy Spirit in those devotional sections, the collection would comprise over six hundred pages in a volume now entitled The Work of the Holy Spirit. Kuyper’s interest in those essays and devotionals was this: that the Holy Spirit is deeply involved in, and interested in, our daily lives, and we must be conscious of His operations day by day. His presentations of this theme were very popular, quite direct, easily understood, and easily digested.

The other Dutchman was Gerhardus Vos, a transplanted Dutchman who lived in this country. His approach to the Holy Spirit was much more theological, certainly from the perspective of a professional theologian. But no less intense. Vos’s understanding of the Holy Spirit pushes the Reformed church in a direction that, formally, you have been unwilling to go.

For thus realize that the Holy Spirit is actually the one who mediates to us the realities of our hope. It is the Holy Spirit who is specifically called the down payment of our inheritance, the earnest of that which is promised to us. The Spirit comes from another world and is given to us as a gift, and His presence means to us the mediation of the realities of the world to come.

And though a little more difficult to grasp, no less practical, no less compelling, no less meaningful, for the Christian in the Christian daily walk. The direction that was struck by these two Dutchmen has been enhanced by a theologian of our own time, and one who has stood in this pulpit and preached to this church, Richard Gaffin. He has carried on that work with regard to our vision of and appreciation of the Spirit in terms of the certain availability of the Holy Spirit to the Church. There is no question about that. Dr. Gaffin has pressed that upon all who will listen.

The Spirit was given to the church at Pentecost. Therefore, the issue is not the arrival of the Spirit. Rather, the issue is our experience of being filled with the Spirit. The issue is not our access to the Spirit, but our being filled with the Spirit. This concerns the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Even if it is true that in Reformed circles there was a certain neglect due to God’s providence, there have been men raised up to help us and encourage us in our doctrine of the Spirit, in our thinking about Him, and in our experience of Him.

Regarding my own ministry in relation to the person of the Holy Spirit, it could be said—and said well—that my ministry is characterized by a concentration upon Jesus Christ. I would expect each of you to say the same if you were to describe my ministry or my preaching along certain lines.

Indeed, the concentration has been upon Jesus Christ, the Son. It has been upon His person and work, and upon the grace that is ours through Him. A model for this pulpit could well be Colossians 3:11: “Christ is all in all.” At the same time, the ministry of this pulpit could be characterized by devotion to and passion for God the Father, in keeping with the goal stated in 1 Corinthians 15, where it is said that the Son delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, and in verse 28, “God is all in all.” Or, somewhat more subtly, the ministry of this pulpit could be characterized in terms of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit standing central in our law. As we reflect upon the message of the New Testament regarding the Spirit, and as that Spirit is contrasted negatively.

Settle her again. For instance, the flesh and the spirit are in antithesis, representing two dominions. The spirit is the principle of operation and life in one, while the flesh is the principle of operation and spirit in the other. These dominions are in conflict—one under judgment, the other adorned with glory.

Truly, as Paul says, the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. But this pulpit could also be described as relating to the Holy Spirit in a covenant. This covenant seeks to help you appreciate the sentiments of the apostle Paul in Second Corinthians, chapter three, verses.

Not the letter, for the letter kills. Rather, the ministry of the Spirit stands opposite the ministry of the letter. The letter brings us into bondage and leaves us under the sentence of condemnation. The Holy Spirit is central to the ministry, just as the flesh is contrasted with the spirit, and the letter is contrasted with the spirit. Yet this contrast is not only negative. The Holy Spirit is also central to the pulpit and ministry of this church and to your lives, because the spirit is identified by the apostle Paul as the fountain of liberty. Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty; there is freedom.

One need only think of the Spirit as the principle of the age to come. Consider the age to come, its vast expanse. There you have room to move. True liberty abounds in the glory of the world and the age to come, and it is the Spirit who now mediates to you the realities of that world. You are set free, so that you might live beyond the oppression of sin, beyond the oppression of the law, beyond their tyranny, in the realm of liberty and freedom.

That the Spirit, as we have seen this morning and as we have read, is also the fountain of life. Over against this, the Spirit is specifically identified as the giver of life. It is often said that the Spirit is like the one described in Second Corinthians three. The Spirit is like righteousness, as stated in Romans eight. One of the passages we have read this morning is from John’s Gospel, chapter six, verse sixty-three.

Once more, these words are on the lips of Jesus. The Spirit is what gives life. Now it is at this final point—when the Spirit is recognized as the fountain of life—that He becomes the focus.

For us, in our consideration of our Calvinistic confession, we are at the fourth of the five points of Calvinism: our doctrine of the Holy Spirit, primarily considered under the doctrine of irresistible grace. Why did the Calvinists insist upon this point? Because they were convinced of the biblical foundation, as it relates to the fact that our Scriptures tell us that the Spirit is the giver of life, the fountain of life, and life itself. This testimony is found throughout Scripture, and it is nowhere more evident than in the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John, in its first twelve chapters, could well be called the book of signs. As your mind reflects on these chapters, you recall the mighty works that Jesus performed. He turned water into wine in John two. He healed the son of an official in John four. He healed a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years in John five. He multiplied the loaves and fishes in John six. He healed the man who was born blind in John nine. And in John eleven, He raised Lazarus from the dead.

All of these signs, but signs of what? Signs that life is flowing through Christ. Signs of that life that is running through Him by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is one. And thus, as we move through these signs, it is as if we are going through a progression. I often think of those chapters in John’s Gospel as a sequence of events, similar to a competition where the difficulty increases with each step. You begin with water turned to wine, and you end with the raising of a man who has been dead for four days.

The theme, then, is the progressive revelation that life is attached to Christ, and He supplies that life through the Spirit. But as we come to this conclusion, we easily look back through all the other chapters and realize that this has been the message of John all along. We think of that passage in the message where it says, “My life is found nowhere else, and it is found specifically in the Spirit.” This is the same message Jesus gives to Nicodemus in John 3. The sovereign activity of the Spirit is what is emphasized: it is the Spirit.

That is why, unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. The Spirit blows where He wills. You cannot tell where the wind comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. In John chapter one, it speaks about those who are sons of God: they are born not of human will or the will of the flesh, but of God. God gives them birth.

Here is the culmination of all the Old Testament expectations regarding the appearance of the Spirit, the Spirit of promise. In Joel chapter two, the prophet says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” Zachariah says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord. What can be said or added to what we have read in Ezekiel chapter thirty-seven? That remarkable story of the dry bones, except for the Spirit, represented in this chapter by the breath or the wind called for by the prophet, the bones do not live.

The testimony of Scripture is overwhelmingly clear: we are dead unless the Spirit gives us life. And if the Spirit gives us life, then truly we are alive. Who can resist His power? Yes, the doctrine of the Spirit, known as irresistible grace, may be neglected by those who have been preaching the gospel and preaching it truly. I do not think the message has been absent. Yes, we are made alive by the Spirit. We are not dead in our sins.

Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for the word concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Though it may be true, our Father, that Your Church has not reflected as much upon the Spirit and His work as she ought, yet there has been a constant line of testimony, a voice that is heard repeatedly concerning the ministry of the Spirit in the lives of the saints. O Lord, we pray that Your grace may abound to us, Your children, as we reflect upon the Spirit and His call. For surely by His call we have been brought near to You, and now by His power we remain near to You.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.