In Birth of The Holy Nation, volume 1, the idea that the Creation resides in the Eternal was presented.  In a previous blog, I stated that this positions us “in” the heart of God.  That means He is not only aware of us but is ever with us.  In this blog, I round out the work of the Holy Spirit in a complementary role for the believer.

In Genesis 1:2, we see the inaugural work of the Holy Spirit of The Living God, insofar as scripture is concerned.  This Spirit hovered over the waters of the Creation.  This term, “waters,” seems to refer to something much more inclusive than rivers and lakes and oceans and such.  It implies the very matrix of that which was created – at least in its initial state.  Creation was a deliberate process from the mind and purposes of God that took six days to complete.  There are disputes even about the meaning of “six days,” but those disputes are not the subject of this work.  This work is to consider certain aspects of the work (and nature) of the Holy Spirit.  He is important enough that God gave over to Him the watching of that which was under way at the beginning of the existence of creation.  We have no evidence that He left off “hovering” over the creation as it progressed.  In this instance, hover seems to mean the same thing as watching or protecting that over which one hovers.  It means “lovingly caring for” so far as I am concerned.

The Father in the Godhead entrusted the care of the Creation to the Spirit.  He also entrusted the activities of creation to the Son (John 1:1-4).  If it be true that the Godhead consists of these three entities, then the entire Godhead (Father, Son and Spirit) was involved in bringing the Creation into being.  Each played His part: to authorize, to act, and to protect.

Let us, for a few moments, think of the Holy Spirit as the “protector” of the Creation.  In this point of view, the Godhead authorizes and requires that the Holy Spirit take on the work of “caring for” that which the Godhead brought into being – both during and after the processes involved in creation and sustainment.

Now, the Spirit of God is an integral component of the Godhead.  As such, He existed in the Godhead before there was a Creation.  He has the same characteristics to His existence as do the Father and the Son from the perspective of the Eternal.  It cannot be true that He has somehow departed from the Eternal in order to protect the Creation.  It must be that He remains in the Eternal while being “present” in the Creation.  So long as He is here with us, He is in both the Eternal and the Creation simultaneously.  We know that He knows the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-12).  We know, that in some sense, Jesus “sent” Him to us after His own departure from the limitations of the Creation (John 14:16-17).

We also know that Jesus, as man, is no longer present in the Creation, having “returned” to His normal state in the Eternal and in the presence of the Father.  We know that most of what this is all about is to be found ultimately in their relationship.  Fortunately, we also know that the outworking of Their relationship has a lot to do with us.  We are, even in the flesh, part of the matrix of Their relationship.  The Spirit plays an ongoing role in these matters.  While He is a component of the Godhead, He was present here at the beginning of all things.  He remains involved with the Creation right up to the present.

Let’s view that a bit more closely.  One of the implications of the discussion above is that the Spirit of God has never been absent from the Creation, but he has not always been noticeably active in the sense of causing things to operate per their typical patterns.  By this I mean He is not constantly performing miracles like enabling people to walk on water.  We know that He can, and has done, such things but they are not constantly being manifested.  First Corinthians 12 tells us that He does “cause” things, but mostly He is not visibly active as the world would see such things.  His constant activity remains invisible (most of the time) to humans.

We are saying, in a sense, that the work of the Spirit bridges the two spheres of existence: the Eternal and the Creation, the uncreated and the created.  He, in that sense, seems to be able to cross between the two existences.  That is not actually correct.  What is correct is that, to Him, the two are fully equally accessible, and He inhabits both simultaneously.  He does not fetch commands from God to come here and perform them.  He always, and in all matters, already knows the mind of God and does not veer from it in what He does.  To Him there is no barrier between the Eternal and the Creation.

If the Creation exists in the bosom of the Eternal, and each of us exists in the heart of God, it is also true that the Spirit of God is intimately associated with us.  It is the presence of the Spirit of God that is the dwelling place of the spirit of the human in the context of the Creation.

If those things be so, then the Spirit is never separated from the Creation by whatever barriers confine the Creation to its created state.  He “moves,” if you will, with full freedom in both spheres.  In Him, then, it might be possible that we can “see” into the Eternal from our place as creatures confined, for now, in the Creation.

Let us go further and suggest that the so-called barrier between the Eternal and the Creation is really only the dimensionality of the Creation that confines it according to the purposes of that which is eternal.  This suggests that we, as creatures, are confined in some sense, but that the Godhead is unconfined in its being.  It is everywhere and the Spirit of God is the facet of the Godhead which we most commonly interact with because that is the function of the Spirit of God.  He brings the mind of God to us.  He sustains us, in some sense, as we live out our created existence inside the confines of the Creation, but He is not confined by that which confines us.

Perhaps miracles are those instances when the human is allowed, by the Holy Spirit, to peer momentarily into the Eternal from the confines of the Creation.  Could it be that part of the ongoing work of the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit) permits those times when we can simply be both here and there?

One thinks of a bush that would not be consumed.  Was Moses simply, for that brief time, permitted to see through the barrier that confines the Creation and into the Eternal for a purpose of God?  Could it be that the bread that kept not-running-out in Jesus’ hands was simply being supplied to Him from a source in the Eternal?  Considering such questions may lead us to a clearer understanding of the relationship between that which is created and that which is uncreated.  If that which is created resides within that which is not created, then it seems clear that the uncreated holds the superior position in the relationship.  In that case, that which is uncreated is not obliged to follow the same “rules” as are imposed on that which is created.  Indeed, then, the uncreated provides into the created that which is lacking in accordance with the will of God through the activities of the Spirit of God.

The One who hovered over the creation in its beginning still cares for it.  He may “hover” as far as you are concerned, in your understanding of this matter, but He remains supremely concerned about its welfare.  He may be viewed as caring for it as a mother hen cares for her chicks.