This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 10, 1991.
To begin our scripture reading this evening in Romans chapter 8, starting at verse 12 and reading through verse 27. So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die.
But if by the Spirit you are put into death, the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons. by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility. not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now, and not only this, but we but also we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. And in the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. But we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
And he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Turning back to Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, “…in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and 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.” Now, O God, we rejoice in the order that you give to our world by your word, the order that comes by virtue of your constituting word and conferring structure and pattern for our benefit. Thank you for the ordering you give to us, your people.
Now you bless us, Lord, with those who serve for the sake of rule, those who minister as servants of yours in the office of the diaconate. Father, bless those whom you have called to these offices, even in our midst. May our prayers be on their behalf. May they serve even through our intercession. May it be our God that we are found agreeable to you, that you have set these men in our midst. May we respect them and give them the honor that is due to them. Be pleased, Lord, to raise up others who can help as well. And may we all be about the work of service as we present ourselves as sacrifices on the altar of that service which is rendered to you, O God.
Even now we would be instructed all the more in our service through the word that you give us this evening. We pray this in the spirit and through Christ. Amen. So we must remember, as we look at the opening of Genesis chapter one, we must remember the point that we have labored to establish, and here we are dealing with manifest impossibilities, not possibilities. In the beginning of God’s creating, that spoken for you there, laid out for you, declared for you at the beginning of verse two, in the beginning of God’s creating, God has made the earth in such a way so as to defy order and organization. We are told that the earth is without form. That is, the earth is without any kingdom structure. It is devoid of anything that could be called a domain. Not only is it formless in this sense, it is also empty.
That is, it lacks fullness. It lacks that in itself that can make it full. And beyond this, we are told that it is blanketed in darkness, encased in darkness. But even more than these realities, set out before us. As we have intimated, as we have suggested, this earth which God has thus far created has no inherent ability to generate order or structure from within itself. It has no ability to make for itself a kingdom or a domain. It does not have the ability within itself to fill itself up, to make itself full. It has no ability within itself to penetrate the darkness that enshrouds it. Earth, as it is portrayed for us then in the second verse of Genesis 1, is a seething, raging mass, indistinguishable from the raging waters of the deep that are spoken of there.
God then deliberately, with deliberation, has made the world in this fashion. He has made it thusly. The question is, what? Why would God begin his creation this way? Why would his creation at its primal stages be characterized by such impossibilities? Why would God create a world that is bounded by its own impossibilities?
Well, obviously. So that when something is done with the impossibilities, it would be evident that God alone did it. Only God himself has the power to resolve the impossibilities that are laid out for us in Genesis 1-2. And when God acts, when God acts, He works the impossible upon, even in the impossible. God works the impossible upon and in the impossible as a testimony to his incomparable power and hopefully as we shall see by and by as a testimony even to his great love for his creation so now We see, as we move to the end of that second verse, God going to work upon the impossible situation that his creation is presently in. He goes to work upon this resistant, impossible, raging mass specifically now as his spirit, as his spirit moves upon the face of the waters.
It is specifically then the spirit that interests us tonight. Some have called the Spirit the forgotten person of the Trinity. Some have charged that Reformed churches, Calvinist churches, have forgotten the Spirit altogether. I had a friend in seminary who wasn’t especially kind to us Presbyterians and Reformed folk, He said on one occasion, the trouble with you Presbyterians is that the Holy Spirit is a book by Abraham Kuyper. Abraham Kuyper has written a very large book about the Holy Spirit.
Well, it is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, that interests us tonight. He being spoken of here at the end of the second verse, as he is described as that one who moves upon the face of the waters. This is what we said about the Spirit in this context. We have said that the Spirit of God, even here, is to be understood as a down payment You know the word that is used in the King James, when the spirit is described as the down payment, the word is earnest. The spirit is given as an earnest, a down payment of that of which he alone is capable. Now we’ve matched this up. what we found here in Genesis chapter 1, with what later develops in the history of Revelation. We know that God’s Spirit will be the down payment, the earnest of that redemption which God accomplishes for his children. Notice how things match up then.
In terms of the impossibilities of which we have spoken earlier, just as God meets the impossibilities in His creation with His Spirit, Genesis 1 verse 2, so He will and now presently meets the impossibilities in us with His Spirit. What about those impossibilities in us? Under the sentence of condemnation, sold under sin, judgment resting upon us, it being impossible for us to rescue ourselves, the Spirit coming to us as a down payment. of our rescue and redemption, surrounded as we are by the impossibilities that face us, and even more. In and by His Spirit, God overcomes the impossible.
In His Spirit, He resolves the formlessness, the emptiness, and the darkness in the original creation, but now in the new creation, the new creation which we ourselves are becoming the new creation. This pattern itself is confirmed. For now, in the new creation, God is faced with a world that is formed, but subordinated to alien and evil principalities and powers. He is faced with a world that is full, no longer empty, but subjected to vanity. He is faced with a world that is lit with the lights of creation, and even claims to be illuminated, but in reality is shrouded with the deepest spiritual darkness.
When God goes to work on this raging, seething mass of rebellion and chaos, He will lead with His Spirit so as to bring about recreation, to bring about new creation. But now I want you to note something, and this somewhat parenthetically, but so very important.
God’s Spirit’s work for the new creation, Even though there is the pattern of God’s working in the original creation to be found there, God’s Spirit’s work for the new creation will not be for the sake of a mere restoration of the old order to its original form. So as to bring us back to the way things were when the Spirit moved initially upon the face of the waters. Instead, God’s Spirit’s work for the new creation will be for the sake of setting us in the eternal order of the Spirit, for which we were originally destined. As is made clear by Paul in Romans chapter 8, the spirit is not merely that one by whom God brings about the new creation. He is the one who characterizes that new creation in its entirety. It is the realm of the spirit, and in the spirit we walk. if we have been made alive by Christ. But now I’m considering the Spirit’s working a little more closely.
Let us set before us the fact, a fact which we know well, namely that the Spirit of God is God’s agent of transformation. That should be abundantly clear to us even from the text in Genesis, should it not? This is certainly confirmed for us throughout the entirety of Scripture, is it not? We hear again and again throughout the Old Testament about the Spirit’s power, the Spirit’s transforming power.
Those famous words from Zechariah’s prophecy, the fourth chapter, the sixth verse, where God’s word comes to Zerubbabel. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts. God’s agent of transformation, then, is his spirit. by which he then goes to work, by whom rather, he goes to work upon that which is impossible in terms of itself for any resolution whatsoever. Jesus, you recall, tells Nicodemus, that only the inexplicable transforming new birth from the Spirit opens up the kingdom of God. Later, after his death and resurrection, before he ascends into heaven, he tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will come upon them to transform them into witnesses for him. Acts 1A.
And Paul, the apostle, tells Titus, his son in the faith, that we are saved by the transforming renewal of the spirit, Titus 3.5. And do we not teach our children as much? You remember the Little Children’s Catechism, question number 40, where we ask, who can change a sinner’s heart?
The answer is Holy Spirit alone. So then it is clear to us, is it not, that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, is God’s agent of transformation. But in this we must realize as well that it is not just the dimension of transformation that interests us. that world being transformed into something else, there is a historical development here, as well as we look at Genesis 1, verse 2. And in that regard, we see the Holy Spirit not just as the agent of transformation, but the agent of transition. It is in and by the Spirit, then, that God moves His creation from one state to another. It is almost as if we can see the transition of the ages in what happens in Genesis 1 verse 2, it is as if the raging, seething mass is the old world, the old creation, while what God does in and by his Spirit in answering the formlessness, the void, and darkness is the new world and the new creation, as if in miniature here we have the pattern of God’s dealings laid out before us. The Spirit’s ministry, then, is presented to us, for just as he moves us from what we read at the beginning of verse two to what we read in the remainder of Genesis one, so he, the Spirit of God, moves us from this world to the next, from this world to the eternal world. You see the Spirit’s centrality, His operations described for you in Romans chapter 8.
As the creation itself is brought to the fullness of its own purpose and intention in the redemption of the sons of God, as they, those sons, are brought finally and completely into the realm of the Spirit.
But there is something else here too, as we move on to the conclusion of this message. In order to be the agent of transformation and the agent of transition, the spirit must effect, as it were, a new work. And this work is so new, so unique, that it appears as if The Spirit is present for the first time in order to perform it. It’s almost as if the Spirit had been there previously. His introduction at the end of verse 2 comes then as the announcement of something new.
Something new. is being done. Are we to imagine that the spirit was absent when God began his creating activity? God is already done something, has it he? The earth is there, even though it’s this raging mass. Was the spirit absent when God did that?
Yet the spirit is only introduced at the end of the verse. He comes as that one who is new, as if God is doing a new work. spirit was present, even as God made the raging mass. But now it is his introduction here at the latter part of the verse that helps us in understanding how the spirit in his person and in his ministry is focused and defined. It is as if, at the end… It is as if, at the end of verse two, you have now entered the age of the Spirit. which stands in contrast to the former age characterized as it is by formlessness, emptiness, and darkness. This transition that you observe here as you move into a latter period in which the spirit is present This transition that moves you into a consideration of the centrality of the Spirit and even to a consideration of the age of the Spirit will not only set before you the movement that is effected when we move from this present world to the world to come.
It is something that impinges upon the movement from the old order under the old covenant into the new order and the new covenant. Have you wondered as to why the Holy Spirit isn’t a well-defined figure or person or personality in the Old Testament? Yes, there are those references to him in the Old Testament, but the references are somewhat obliged, vain, confusing. And it’s almost as if when you come to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit steps out for the first time upon the line of God’s redemptive history and purpose, as if you’re seeing him for the very first time. And it will be in that context of the new covenant, of the new administration, which is principally an administration of the Spirit, that the Spirit in His person and His work is so wonderfully focused and so well-defined for us. The silence of the Old Testament with regard to the Spirit is like unto the silence of Genesis 1-2 at its beginning. And the plethora of references to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is like moving into the latter part of that verse, as if you have come into the age of the Spirit itself.
But this move now, from the first part of the verse to the latter, draws out for us better how He, the Spirit of God, does affect this transformation, the transition, the new age, if you will. That then, that changes the old world in its impossibilities into the new world. and the new order and the new creation. You see, we are told that the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters, but before that you’re told that the deep, the waters themselves, are enshrouded in darkness.
They are encased There is no way for God’s agent of transformation and transition to affect the change without coming into intimate contact himself, without subjecting himself to the impossibilities of the world that is set there before him. The Spirit subjects himself to the darkness. He subjects himself to the void. He subjects himself to the formlessness. as a testimony, yes, of God’s power, but of even more a testimony of God’s great love for that which he has made.
Later on in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, Paul will say, with reference to verse 3, And we will get to that next week. Paul will say, with regard to verse 3, that the light shined out of the darkness. How could we shine out, the light shine out of the darkness? if the source of the light was not in the darkness. Do you see the point?
God subjects himself to the conditions of his world out of his great love for his world. And the pattern that you observe here with regard to this point, is something that will come home again for you in verse 3, as the word of God is introduced to you. And God spoke the word. Is it not plain to you how this all comes to fruition and fulfillment then in the gospel which you have embraced? The gospel that tells you that God, even in His Spirit, has come into your world so as to meet the impossibilities that confront you and wrestle you. in order that you might live with Him.
Our Father in Heaven, we do thank You that You are with us. In your word, you confront us with the darkness that is even in shrouded our hearts, the emptiness of our lives. You have faced us there, Lord, with the formlessness of our existence apart from you. But we rejoice in your spirit. For in your spirit you bring transformation, transition. You bring a new world by root of a new act in which you have introduced yourself afresh in your spirit. We thank you for your spirit’s ministry on our behalf.
For we confess that we do not even know how to pray as we should. That your spirit overcomes the impossibilities of our even reaching you by making intercessions with groanings that are too great to be uttered. Receive our praise for so great a ministry on our behalf. Amen.
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.