The Face of God
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How does the episode introduce the Holy Spirit as God’s intimate companion?
The Holy Spirit is the intimate companion of the Heavenly Father
who has the privilege of unveiling the Father's face so that we can see what the Father and the Spirit want to do for the children of God.
Indeed, the greatest blessing of the Christian life is to know God. But have you ever wondered how it's possible for us to understand a being who is beyond our comprehension? As we just heard from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, God has given us the means through the work of the Holy Spirit. Hello and welcome to this edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you for being with us today. We've begun a study of the Holy Spirit with Dr. Ferguson. Yesterday, he introduced the Holy Spirit as the one who brings order to chaos. And today, we'll join Dr. Ferguson as he explores the role of the Holy Spirit in drawing us to Christ and revealing the character of God. Here's Dr. Ferguson from his series, Who is the Holy Spirit?
Now in our introductory study, we were thinking about the beginnings of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and especially His work in creation, how He brings fullness into the emptiness of creation and then brings fullness and wonderful joy into the emptiness of our lives, and how He brings order into creation.
How does Sinclair Ferguson define the Spirit’s role in creation and ordering life?
And in the same way, all the way through Scripture, we are taught about the way in which He orders and reorders our lives for the glory of God. I want us in this study to think particularly about his ministry in what we call the Old Covenant. That is, especially in the days of the Old Testament as he works in men and women and prepares his people for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because, of course, somebody's biography in many ways is a clue to their identity. If you want to know who I am today, you need to understand, as it were, how I got here, what my history is. And in the same way, if we are going to be able to understand who the Holy Spirit is, and remember this principle that He is the Spirit, He reveals Himself to be,
then clearly one of the things we need to do is to trace the biography of the Holy Spirit that the whole Scripture gives to us. When we come to the fullness of His revelation in the person of Jesus Christ, then we're able to understand who He is who works so wonderfully. I said in our first study that the Spirit is the expression of the power of God, the personal expression of the character of God as God expresses Himself—Father and Son to Holy Spirit, Son to Father and Spirit, and so on—and in the same way as God expresses Himself to us. We might say then that the Spirit of God is the person in the Godhead who comes to make us conscious of God's presence. Think, for example, of what the Psalmist says in Psalm 139, in a very beautiful statement in a Psalm that's probably familiar to all of us.
The Psalmist speaks about not being able to go anywhere in creation and to run from the presence of God.
What Old Testament passages show the Spirit unveiling the face of God?
Where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. The Spirit of God and the presence of God. But there's a very fascinating and actually very attractive detail in the presence of God that the Scriptures of the Old Testament also take up. If you turn a few pages back to the 104th Psalm, you'll find this marvelously expressed in verses 29 and 30. When you, God, hide your face, they are dismayed. When you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Now clearly that's an echo of Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2.
When you hide your face, they return to the dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground. Now, I wonder if you notice there's a kind of parallelism here. It's a parallelism of opposites.
How do Psalms and Ezekiel illustrate the Spirit bringing life versus hiding God’s face?
When God hides His face, there is dismay and death, but when God sends forth His Spirit, there is life and renewal and joy. And the picture that's being painted for us here is that the Spirit of God is not only the expression of the presence of God and therefore brings to us all of God's glorious character, but the Spirit of God is the one who unveils the face of God for us.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How does the episode introduce the Holy Spirit as God’s intimate companion?
0:00–1:43
2
How does Sinclair Ferguson define the Spirit’s role in creation and ordering life?
1:43–3:57
3
What Old Testament passages show the Spirit unveiling the face of God?
3:57–5:18
4
How do Psalms and Ezekiel illustrate the Spirit bringing life versus hiding God’s face?
5:18–8:50
5
In what ways did the Spirit provide wisdom and gifts to Old Covenant leaders like Joseph and Daniel?
8:50–10:34
6
How did the Spirit work through Scripture and the prophets to reveal God’s Word?
10:34–13:03
7
What does Numbers 11 teach about shared versus special experiences of the Spirit under the Old Covenant?
13:03–18:32
8
How does the Old Testament point forward to the Spirit bringing rest in Jesus Christ?
18:32–26:25