The Revelation of God in Creation

by Bruce Mills

I have returned from vacation in the mountains of north Georgia. I stood on the top of Brasstown Bald, the tallest mountain in Georgia, and looked out over four states. The leaves were changing into brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges. The skies were deep blue, the breezes were cool, and the temperatures were hovering in the 70s. The sunsets on some evenings were gorgeous.

As I took in all of this glorious beauty, I was reminded that all of this beauty came into existence by the Word of God (John 1:3, 2 Peter 3:5), that it continues to existence by His power (Heb. 1:3), and that it exists for Him (Col. 1:16). But what strikes me as being most important about enjoying the beauty of God’s creation is recognizing that it’s purpose is to reveal God’s eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:2). Creation’s beauty should tell us how infinitely beautiful He is. Creation’s glory tells us how infinitely glorious He is. Creation’s intricacy and detail should tell us how infinitely powerful He is. And when we see all of that glory, majesty, and power revealed in what has been made, we should conclude that it could only happen by the actions of an infinitely mighty and glorious God.

Most of our society imagines that all this created glory came into existence on its own through a long evolutionary process which took place entirely by accident. Why do they draw such a conclusion? Because, according to Rom. 1:18-25, mankind suppresses the innate knowledge of God which has been revealed in creation, choosing instead to worship the creation rather than the Creator. They consider themselves to be wise, but in reality, they are fools. Rejecting the revelation of God’s glory that comes through creation, they develop futile speculations, and descend into darkness. Their actions bear out the truth that is stated in John 3:19—“men loved darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

Now I understand that the only reason I am able to fully appreciate God’s revelation of Himself is because the Spirit of God has called me to be one of His children, and for that I am eternally grateful. But all mankind is capable of observing nature and recognizing God’s eternal power and divine nature in what has been created. That is what theologians refer to as “general revelation,” and all people are capable of understanding that aspect of God’s revelation of Himself. But the fact that most people willfully reject that revelation simply reveals the depths of their depravity. Oh, how I wish all people would look at the glory of God revealed in creation and seek to know the Creator who is our glorious Lord and Savior! Because when man looks at the “general revelation” of creation with an eye to genuinely know the One who created it, God provides that person the opportunity to receive knowledge of His “special revelation,” who is Jesus Christ.

So be amazed at creation. Marvel at its intricacy, its beauty, its glory. All of it exists to reveal the glory of the God who created it. And the more you desire to know Him, the more of Himself that He will reveal to you. And knowing Christ and marveling at His beauty is the greatest treasure of all.

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

by Bruce Mills

I introduced Romans 8 in my Sunday School class this past Sunday. In doing so, I presented a brief overview of pneumatology--the study of the Holy Spirit--because the Holy Spirit's role in initiating and maintaining our salvation is the focal point of Romans 8. After being mentioned only four times in the previous seven chapters, the apostle Paul mentions the Holy Spirit 16 times in Romans 8. When I was finished with my brief overview of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, several people in the class told me that it would be greatly appreciated if I would put the information on the blog so that they could review it later. So that's the purpose of this post.

There is no member of the Trinity about who there is more misunderstanding today than the Holy Spirit. Yet there are few subjects more important to the believer than understanding who He is and the nature of His work in the believer’s life. So who is He? My one sentence definition goes like this: He is the eternal Spirit who is a member of the eternal triune Godhead and who is the source of the Christian’s spiritual life, both as to its origin and its continuation.

The Holy Spirit is to our spiritual lives what the Creator is to the universe. Without God as Creator, the universe would never have come into existence. And without God as the continuing, sustaining, preserving power, the universe would crash out of existence. In similar fashion, without the Holy Spirit of God, the Christian would never have been born again. He would never have come into existence as a believer. And without the Spirit’s ever-present, sanctifying influence, the spiritual life of the Christian would drop back into spiritual deadness from which it came.

So who is the Holy Spirit, and how are we to understand Him? Well, first of all, the Holy Spirit is not some kind of impersonal force that flows through the universe and the objects in it like the force of Star Wars fame. That is a pantheistic concept which arises out of eastern philosophical mysticism. So He is not some influence or some energy that somehow emanates from the presence of God. Rather, the Holy Spirit, as the third member of the Godhead, is a person possessing a complete entity and personality of His own, just like the God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son.

The Holy Spirit should never be referred to as “it,” but as “He.” That’s the way He is always referred to in Scripture. And if you need some proof that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, a person, you need only to study the Scripture and find out that the Scripture ascribes to Him intellect, emotion, and will, which are the three essential ingredients of personhood.

The intellect of the Holy Spirit is indicated in 1 Cor. 2:10, where it says, “The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” The intellect of the Holy Spirit is such that He can plumb the depths of the knowledge of the eternal God.

The emotion of the Holy Spirit is indicated in Romans 5:5, where it says that “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit…” His emotion is also presented to us in Isa. 63:10 and Eph. 4:30 where it says that He can be grieved.

As to the will of the Holy Spirit, we are told in 1 Cor. 12:11 that the Holy Spirit makes decisions, “distributing [spiritual gifts] to each one individually, just as He wills.” So, because He possesses intellect, emotion, and will, He thus manifests all of the elements of personhood, and thus orthodox Christianity has historically held that He is a person.

Further, Scripture indicates that He is revealed as one who speaks (Acts 13:2, Rev. 2:7). He prays in Rom. 8:26-27. John 14:26 tells us that He teaches us. He guides us, according to John 16:13. He commands us, as he did with Paul in Acts 16:6-7. And 2 Cor. 13:14 says that He fellowships with us. Scripture also says He can be lied to (Acts 5:3), He can be tested (Acts 5:9), He can be resisted (Acts 7:51), and He can be blasphemed (Matt. 12:31, Mark 3:29). So He is a person in every sense.

Further, we have to understand that the person of the Holy Spirit is also God. There can be no doubt about the deity of the Holy Spirit. He is God and always has been. This is made plain in three ways: His attributes, His works, and His titles.

Thinking first about the attributes of the Holy Spirit, it tells us in Scripture that He is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy, and glorious. All those are attributes of God.

And then when we look at the titles of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, we find that He is called by titles which demonstrate that He is God.

Rom. 8:14; Phil. 3:3 – the Spirit of God

Luke 4:18; 2 Cor. 3:17 - the Spirit of the Lord

2 Cor. 3:18; Heb. 10:15-16 – the Lord

Judges 3:10 – the Spirit of Yahweh

Isa. 61:11 – the Spirit of the Lord God

Matthew 10:20 – the Spirit of the Father

2 Cor. 3:3 – the Spirit of the Living God

Acts 16:7 – the Spirit of Jesus

Phil. 1:19 – the Spirit of Jesus Christ

Rom. 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11 – the Spirit of Christ

Gal. 4:6 – the Spirit of His Son

Those are all titles of deity; titles showing a relationship of equality with the Father, and a relationship of equality with the Son. Therefore, by attribute and by title, He is clearly God.

Furthermore, if we study the works of the Holy Spirit, we find evidence of His deity. Gen. 1:2 makes it clear that He acted in creation. It says, “the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Yet in John 1:3, speaking of Jesus, it says that “all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” So if Genesis says that it was the Holy Spirit who acted in creation, and John says it was Jesus who acted in creation, then they must both be God. Both are eternal members of the Godhead and both acted in creating all that is.

It is the Spirit who acts to convict men of sin (John 16:8). It is the Spirit who enables men and women to serve God, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. It was the Spirit who energized the writers of Scripture and breathed out His word, so that they precisely and exactly penned the inerrant Word of God (2 Peter 1:20-21).

During the life of Christ, the Spirit was the agent of Christ’s birth and He was the means by which Jesus was identified by God as the Messiah at His baptism. The Spirit was there to strengthen Jesus in His temptation. The Spirit anointed Him for ministry. The Spirit was the source of His teaching and the power behind His miracles, so that blaspheming His miracles was blaspheming the Spirit. The Spirit even participated in His death, burial, and resurrection.

When it comes to mankind, the ministry of the Spirit continues as He convicts of sin, as He calls men to Christ, as He bears witness to Christ, as He regenerates and brings about the new birth, and then glorifies Christ as He indwells the believer and imparts the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.

He seals the believer, communes with the believer, fellowships with the believer, teaches the believer, comforts the believer, sanctifies the believer, and empowers the believer for service. With regard to the church collectively, He forms the body of Christ, appoints those who are to lead it, and gives guidance to the church through His word and those men.

So that’s a short study on the Holy Spirit. He is God, He is a person, and He indwells all who are genuine Christians. I hope this brief study is helpful for you. If you want to read more on the Holy Spirit, I recommend getting a good Systematic Theology reference book, such as those written by Robert Duncan Culver, Wayne Grudem, Millard Erickson, or Lewis Sperry Chafer and study the Holy Spirit in depth. If you can find it, an older book which is unfortunately out of print, written by Rene Pache and titled The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit is outstanding.

Sin and the Glory of God

by Bruce Mills

I spent Thursday through Saturday of this past week at the Ligonier National Conference in Orlando. The teaching that took place was incredible, with men of God such as Sinclair Ferguson, Alistair Begg, Derek Thomas, and D. A. Carson opening up the Scriptures on various aspects of the holiness of God. I was absolutely blown away by D. A. Carson's message on the church as God's holy people, and quickly realized why he was my son-in-law's favorite professor during his time in seminary. But there was one message which stood above all of them in moving me emotionally. It was Thabiti Anyabwile's message titled "Cosmic Treason: Sin and the Holiness of God." He masterfully worked his way through Numbers 25, drawing out point after point about the horrendous nature and treasonous character of sin.

Two of Anyabwile's points were particularly thought-provoking. The first was this: "Sin poisons our sympathy so that we side with the sinner in his sin rather than God in His holiness and justice." Think about that. If we should see God's judgment fall upon an individual, a nation, or a people because of sin, rather than crying out for God to vindicate His name and to continue to execute His justice until the sinner repents and God's name is glorified, we find ourselves sympathizing with the sinner who is receiving the just punishment for his sin. We forget that sin is open rebellion against an infinitely holy God, and the slightest offense deserves eternal damnation in hell. By its very nature, sin is an incalculable malevolence against God's glory. But instead of seeing God's judgment as the demonstration of His supreme holiness, we begin to wonder why He would take such drastic action against someone for what seems to be such a petty offense. We question God's goodness and love, and thus, we demean His holy character. We are willing to accept a God who punishes sin, but only to the degree that we think it should be punished. And when we do that, we have diminished God's holiness to a level equal to ourselves, and we have diminished the nature of sin to that which can be expiated with a minor slap on the wrist.

The second point which I found to be equally profound was this: "To care about anything more than the supremacy of the glory of God is itself treason against God." That statement exalts the glory of God to a level which most people have never considered. God’s glory is the sum total of who God is, and He is defined by His attributes. He is the infinitely sovereign Lord who is holy, righteous, just, loving, merciful, and gracious in all of His ways at all times. Unless we have a high view of God, recognize Him for who He is, and seek to exalt His supreme glory in every moment of our lives, our attitude and actions toward Him are treasonous.

Such a view of God will greatly magnify one's view of the sin in his own life. And as our sin is magnified and we see it for what it truly is, the infinite love of God as demonstrated by His sending His only Son to die for our sin becomes a staggering thought. To think that virtually every moment of my life I am sinning because I don't seek to exalt the supremacy of the glory of God in that moment, yet He loved me so much that Christ came to die for me. That thought simply blows my mind.

There is one last aspect of this that I want to mention quickly. Having such a high view of God and His glory is why Phinehas took the immediate, drastic action that he took in Numbers 25 to stop God's plague of judgment against the people for their sin. And it will do the same for us. A high view of God and a view of our sin as treason against Him will cause us to take every step necessary to kill sin in our own hearts and lives. That may be difficult, but Jesus said we are to take whatever steps are necessary, no matter how drastic, to cut out sin from our lives (cf. Matthew 5:29-30, 18:8-9). His language was figurative--He didn't mean we are to literally cut off our limbs or pluck out our eyes--but He did mean that we are to take sin seriously and do everything it takes to rid ourselves of it. And when we see God in all His infinite glory and majesty, and recognize our sin as a rebellious slap in the face of our Creator, those who are genuine Christians will begin to do just that.