The Light That Liberates Part Three

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.[a] 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 NLT)
In the beginning God, with this inspired phrase the book of book opens. Life as we know it did not self originate out of some primal ooze eons ago. All life in this world and all worlds beyond owe their very existence to the will and plan of almighty God. It is not my intention to draw attention to the wonders of his creation.
It is rather my intention in this present work to draw attention to the comparison we can draw between the creative life giving force embodied within the creator and draw certain comparisons or conclusions from the data so considered. No matter how the Triune God decreed that life would begin, and however long it would take to do so, it was all done at the express will of the almighty.
From the very beginning we see the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters, brooding if you will in silent contemplation. He was and is the life giving force of the almighty and began the work of creating life from lifelessness.
No less critical and no less inspiring is the work of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of the human soul and spirit. Man through the fall of Adam shared a fate not unlike that of this planet all those eons ago. It is only through the light of the glory of the divine that the human spirit can soar beyond the limited understanding of our own blighted wisdom.
Holy Scripture describes the condition of the world of that time as formless and empty. A vast darkness covered the surface of the planet and the world itself, its surface was covered by water. There was not even one scintilla of life anywhere.
How closely does this description describe the state of the soul or heart of the man or woman lost without God? Man through the fall like the planet earth eons ago is empty and formless. The human soul whose wisdom and inner consciousness is limited to its own self awareness is one of total darkness. Man in the fall became a capricious self absorbed being.
It is not that man in the fall has ceased to exist or is incapable of achievements. The human race after all still retains some of the dominion and creative abilities that the God of all existence deposited in Adam, made in his image, so long ago. It is the fact that the life force that is man has been perverted by sin. The base of human existence apart from God is devoid of truth. The soul or heart of man, the very center of his being like the world of long ago is void, formless, surrounded by the vast darkness from which all his creative impulses and wisdom originates.
Down through the stream of time from the very beginning the human race has walked in darkness. Ever since Adam choose to follow his own course in direct opposition to the divine will he has lived in a world of internal darkness. Scripture informs us that after the fall God drove man out of the garden.
Yet in a very real sense man drove himself out of Eden. Eden was far more that a beautiful garden. It represented the ideal that Father God intended for the human race from the very beginning. It was not a world of idle ease that was in the heart of the Father. Eden was a place of great activity. Adam was given the task of taking dominion over all the created works that Father had brought into existence.
Yet this work was not driven by the twin pillars of hell, greed and lust in all its forms that seems to drive the heart of fallen man. Adam every day knew that in the cool of the evening he would walk with the eternal one. Life as it was supposed to be was one of eternal partnership with the divine. Death was never to have been a part of man’s world.
Yet in the day that Adam fell the lustful impulse entered his heart to seek wisdom apart and separate from the truth revealed by Father God; he entered a world of self imposed darkness. Eden represented the divine ideal of God. It was far more than a garden. It was a place of simplicity in the sense that man’s heart was full of the light and noble ideals of his creator.
Mankind did garner a new understanding he had never known before through the fall. This wisdom was gained at the expense of something far more precious. Mankind through the fall gained an internal understanding of evil, but in so doing lost the capacity for doing good.
Jesus came on a divine mission over two thousand years ago to bring back into the world an understanding of truth that had been lost. The gods created by men since the fall were a mirror image of mankind’s own warped inner being. His gods were cold, calculating, debased beings. They were filled with all the same lust inspired impulses that could be found in man. Lust and pleasure, cruelty and murder, stalked the council chambers of the gods of Olympus. They were no different than the mortals they purported to rule over, just more powerful.
Into a world such as this Jesus Christ was born. He was the very God of the universe. He was born into the world of men. He was in fact through his birth forever more human. He came to live a life unlike any that had ever been seen before. He ministered life and gave of himself freely to others. He showed the world the nobility of the true God. He healed the sick, raised the dead, took dominion over the forces of nature, and freely laid down his life to make a way for man to make his way back to God.
After his resurrection he ascended back to the Father, and the Holy Spirit was sent into the world as the life giving force of God to bring life to all those who would accept the divine sacrifice of Christ, and make him the Lord of their lives.
So our story has come full circle. Fallen man is just as dark and empty as he ever was. Like the world of long ago we are formless. In the divine mind this means that man through the fall has apart from God lost the ability to even know what good is. He is covered by the dark waters of his own awareness. He is surrounded by the demonic influences of hell.
His environment is an inner and outer awareness of darkness. Yet all is not hopeless. Like the world of that day the Holy Spirit is there hovering over the face of the waters. Poor lost sin sick heart he is there for you. He is brooding in quiet contemplation over your heart.
There comes a time in every believer’s life when he through the Spirit gains an awareness of the existence of God. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. The Holy Spirit, the life force of the almighty is waiting for a sign from you of your desire to be free. In our next installment in this series we shall examine the work of the Spirit in the human heart.