Holy Spirit-The force behind the coming new order (1976)
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HOLY SPIRIT The Force Behind the Coming New Order!
HOLY SPIRIT The Force Behind the Coming New Order!
"Your spirit is good; may it lead me in the land of uprightness."—Psalm 143:10.
DEDICATED to the Almighty Being whose active force makes certain the bringing in shortly of a righteous New Order for the everlasting good and happiness of all lovers of a clean, safe and peaceful earth.
COPYRIGHT, 1976.
by
WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY
OF PENNSYLVANIA
Publishers WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC. INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
FIRST EDITION:
2,000,000 Copies
CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE
The Superhuman Source of Holy Spirit . . . 5
Holy Spirit Active in the Invisible
Heavenly Realm . . . . .
Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible quotations and citations made in this book are taken from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1971 edition.
In connection with dates, the abbreviation B.C.E. means "Before the Common Era," and C.E. means "Of the Common Era."
The Superhuman Source of Holy Spirit
WHEN man and woman first met, they felt a force—the force of attraction. They fell in love with each other immediately. Although naked, unclothed, this first man and first woman were holy. That is to say, they were bright, clean, pure, perfect in body, mind and heart. For that reason they felt no embarrassment and could have uninhibited relationship with their Creator, God. They enjoyed their childlike relationship with Him in a clean and holy place. It was a place of pure pleasure, rightly called the Garden of Eden or Paradise of Pleasure. All the things that were around them to affect them were healthful and good. Holy spirit, God's holy active force, was fully in operation there.
2 The man and the woman, our first earthly parents, were human, that is to say, of the earth, of things that are found here at the earth. But what about their divine Creator? This One had to be superhuman. He was infinitely higher than man in the level of His heavenly existence. He was higher, too, in the kind of intelligent Person that he was.
He was, to say it simply, of finer stuff than man was. This is why he was invisible to man, whose powers of vision are limited in range. Naturally, then, the first man and woman never saw their Creator, their Life-Giver, their heavenly Father. Because of his superhuman, heavenly, invisible existence, he was what we call today "spirit." Because he is an individual Person, just as much as his creature man is, the Creator can be called "a Spirit." Outstandingly he is The Spirit. He is the unseen Source of holy spirit, for He himself is holy.
3 Before our earth and the heavens about it existed, this spirit Person existed and was active. The holy Book that gives us the historical account all the way back to before man's beginning opens up with these pointed words: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1.
4 Such a creative God is higher even than the heavens that he created and therefore so much higher than earthling man. So he is spirit in essence or in what he is. Thousands of years after the creation of man, the Founder of true Christianity called attention to that very fact. Alongside a well at the foot of Mount Gerizim in ancient Samaria he said to a Samaritan woman: "God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth."
(John's Gospel, chapter 4, verse 24) The true God does not need to be worshiped in any man-made religious building in any particular place on earth, not even at Jerusalem in the Middle East. Less than twenty years after the foregoing statement, an apostle of Christianity stood before the Supreme Court of the city of Athens, where many temples were to be found, devoted to the gods and goddesses of their religion. He said:
"The God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples, neither is he attended to by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all persons life and breath and all things. And he made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth." Acts 17:24-27.
More than a thousand years earlier that fact about the true God, who is a superhuman, superearthly Spirit, was known to the builder of the first known temple at Jerusalem in the Middle East. When dedicating this temple that he had built for God's name, the then king of Jerusalem said to Him in prayer: "But will God truly dwell upon the earth? Look! The heavens, yes, the heaven of the heavens, themselves cannot contain you; how much less, then, this house that I have built!"—1 Kings 8:27.
GOD THE SOURCE OF ALL ENERGY
The speaker of the above words, Solomon the son of King David, was the wisest scientist of times before our Common Era. When he said that even the heaven of the heavens could not contain the God to whom he had built a temple, he spoke the scientific truth. Our earth is a tiny part of a universe the limits of which the scientists are unable to reach or bring to view even with today's most powerful telescopes. Still, this as yet unmeasured universe cannot contain the true God. It cannot restrict or confine him. What already exists of the present universe, seen and unseen, the true God can surpass. He can go beyond it and create yet other things for the enlargement of the universe, out beyond its existing borders, out into endless space. What does this mean?
8 It means that God is bounded by neither time nor space. His life in times past is boundless. His lifetime in the future is unbounded. To this unbounded One the foremost lawgiver of pre-Christian times, Moses, said: "Even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God." (Psalm 90:2) This God lives to endless time, to keep on producing and creating beyond the present universe, expanding it. This signifies that he is the bottomless reservoir of all energy. All the things of the universe are bundles of particles of energy from him. These have been brought together into masses large and small.
The twentieth-century scientist Albert Einstein worked out this formula for it: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared (or, E=mc2 ). Little wonder, then, that this Source of all energy finds nothing impossible for himself.
For example, note the almost unbelievable claim that He makes for himself, as he tells us to raise our eyes to the skies by night and admire the stars. He says: "Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing." Isaiah 40:26.
10 Astronomers of today, with their most penetrating telescopes, can merely estimate the number of stars that they can bring within vision. Not so with the Creator of the heavens and the earth. "He is counting the number of the stars; all of them he calls by their names." (Psalm 147:4) He likens all the stars of heaven to an army of vast size. He knows how many are in this army of his. He knows each member of this army by name. By memory he can go through the roll call of them. When he calls the roll, not one member of this starry army fails to answer. Each one answers to its name and gives an accounting of its performance. Each one He finds fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. None is missing.
11 The "abundance of dynamic energy" that God has is immeasurable. It is inexhaustible. When we think just of the energy tied up in the sun of our solar system, which is a furnace of nuclear explosions like the explosion of hydrogen bombs, we are utterly amazed. And then when we think of the unnumbered billions of stars many of which are larger than our sun, we get some idea of the outflow of dynamic energy from God that the present starry heavens represent. And yet God is not played out, not exhausted. So, in full harmony with the facts it is said: "He is giving to the tired one power; and to the one without dynamic energy he makes full might abound." (Isaiah 40:29) He will never let our expanding universe wear out or run down. Forever it will remain to carry out the purpose for which it was created. Poetically an ancient observer of the stars said: "The heavens are declaring the glory of God; and of the work of his hands the expanse is telling. One day after another day causes speech to bubble forth, and one night after another night shows forth knowledge."—Psalm 19:1, 2.
12 Happily for us, God is invisible to mankind. Yet, in spite of this, he gives us so much evidence of his existence that the world of mankind is without excuse for denying or ignoring his existence and their responsibility to him. "For," as one Biblical writer wrote, "his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world's creation onward because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable; because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God."
(Romans 1:20, 21) In the face of all the evidence, they cannot successfully argue that God does not exist any more than argue that "God is dead." He still lives and has all the dynamic energy and the perfect memory to carry out his stated purposes, which have been declared and published now for six thousand years. How glad we can be for this!
13 We do not join the modern-day scientists in their denying that God is the Source of all energy now in operation. We know that he is also the Source of something else that scientists deny, not knowing anything about it. What is that? It is "spirit." And why should he not be the Source of spirit? "God is a Spirit," or, "God is spirit," as Jesus Christ pointed out nineteen centuries ago. John 4:24, and marginal reading.
14 From God there goes forth an invisible active force by means of which he gets his will done. It is not a mere influence such as a man might exercise over others by his powerful personality. It is a force that is operative, and it issues forth from God who is holy, that is to say, absolutely clean and righteous. He sends it forth to accomplish what is holy. So it is correctly called "holy spirit." It is so spoken of in God's written Word.
Jesus Christ himself recognized God as the Source of holy spirit. In evidence of this, he said to human fathers of his day: "If you, although being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will the Father in heaven give holy spirit to those asking him!" Luke 11:13.
15 A royal ancestor of Christ also recognized God as the Source of holy spirit. This recognition became manifest when he confessed his wrongdoing before God, begged forgiveness and said: "Do not throw me away from before your face; and your holy spirit O do not take away from me." (Psalm 51:11) For King David to be deprived of holy spirit would mean for him to be cut off from its Source. The results of this could be only very serious, disastrous. If we today have faith that God exists and is the Source of holy spirit, then, if we ask him for it, he will make it possible for us to get it. It is the force that we would like to have operative toward us, is it not? If this is what we would like, God will be able to accomplish much good through us and to preserve us holy in a very unholy world.
A FORCE, NOT A PERSON
16 In God's written Word, the Sacred Scriptures, the word chosen to name this invisible active force from God is appropriate, it being quite descriptive. In the opening book of those Scriptures it is called ru'ahh.
The earliest Greek translation of the first Bible book called it pneu'ma. Because the Hebrew word ru'ahh contains the idea of action and movement, English translators have rendered it as "blast, breath, breeze, tempest, wind, active force," as well as "spirit." For this reason the setting in which the Hebrew word finds itself helps to determine whether the word should be translated as "spirit" or otherwise.
17 For instance, in the second verse of the Sacred Scriptures the word ru'ahh occurs for the first time. How should it be rendered into another language? Well, the popular English version of the Bible, the King James Authorized Version, renders Genesis 1:1, 2 in this way: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." However, An American Translation, copyrighted by the University of Chicago in 1939, reads: "When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a desolate waste, with darkness covering the abyss and a tempestuous wind raging over the surface of the waters." Here, instead of the word "Spirit," the word "wind" is used, and the expression "the Spirit of God" is rendered as "a tempestuous wind." Thus An American Translation indicates that the word ru'ahh means something invisible and in motion or in action.
18 Holding in view that ru'ahh means an invisible force in action, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures puts Genesis 1:1, 2 into English in this way: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep; and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters." Thus this translation as well as An American Translation makes it clear that no person called "the Spirit" was moving invisibly over the waters that covered the entire globe. Rather, it was the impersonal active force of God that was moving to and fro over the unlighted surface of the waters.
19 Whatever manifestation of itself the invisible active force of God made, we do not know; it is not detailed in the original record. Certain it is, though, that God's active force was not moving to and fro for nothing, without positive effects. Possibly it served to remove any cosmic dust cloud in which earth may have found itself and which prevented the light from our sun from reaching the surface of the watery deep all about the earthly globe.*
20 At any rate, after such movement of God's active force back and forth over the surface of the watery deep, for an unstated length of time, the divine command followed: "And God proceeded to say: 'Let light come to be.'
Then there came to be light. After that God saw that the light was good, and God brought about a division between the light and the darkness. And God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a first day." (Genesis 1:3-5) Thus, in harmony with God's holiness, his active force or spirit operated in a good way, for a good purpose. It proved to be "holy spirit." By means of it God went ahead with his purpose for our first parents on earth to see by the light of Day.
21 From the very first mention of God's active force, he has used it for man's benefit. In appreciation of that fact we are drawn to the heavenly Source of holy spirit. The Biblical record of its operation over many thousands of years reveals that God has always employed it in a holy way. It has served God's righteous purpose. Never should we want to be in opposition to that invisible active force of God Almighty. We should feel like the Bible writer who said to him: "Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your spirit is good; may it lead me in the land of uprightness."—Psalm 143:10.
Holy Spirit Active in the Invisible Heavenly Realm
MAN MAY feel more interested in how God's holy spirit functions in the visible, material realm or universe as man knows it. However, what has taken place in the invisible, heavenly realm has greatly affected human affairs. How holy spirit is to be set in motion in the near future, within our own generation, is linked with what takes place in the invisible realm and is highly important to man. We should therefore want to understand how holy spirit works in such a connection so important to us now.
2 Modern-minded man may not like to acknowledge it, but mankind is dependent upon the invisible heavenly realm. If God the Creator were to turn away his face from us on earth, become "dead" to us, as it were, what would become of us? The Bible psalmist had it right when he said to God: "If you conceal your face, they get disturbed. If you take away their spirit, they expire, and back to their dust they go. If you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you make the face of the ground new."
(Psalm 104:29, 30) Consequently the principal study for man is not man himself, but, rather, the Creator, God. As far as God is pleased to reveal to us something about the invisible heavenly realm, this fundamentally deserves study by us.
3 Let us always keep in mind that "God is a Spirit," or, "God is spirit." (John 4:24, and marginal reading) Correspondingly, he dwells in a spirit realm. All alone, and without an agreeable environment? No! It would be shortsighted and unreasonable for us to imagine that God can create only material things visible to us and has not also created things in the invisible heavenly realm. Such things of a higher realm would be of a composition higher than that of the material creation of which we humans are a part.
4 When we think of all the wondrous, beautiful things that God has put here in the material realm, it fills us with awe when we try to think of all the wonderful, glorious things that he has created in the spiritual realm. There is no dependence upon the sun of our solar system for light up there. No night there! The Creator of the light-giving suns is himself a heavenly Sun, a source of light. Literally and figuratively, morally, it is true: "God is light and there is no darkness at all in union with him." (1 John 1:5) Long before the saying of the Bible writer John, the psalmist described the Creator as being as welcome as the sunlight of day, when he wrote: "Jehovah God is a sun and a shield; favor and glory are what he gives.
Jehovah himself will not hold back anything good from those walking in faultlessness."—Psalm 84:11.
It is not just reasonable to believe so, but the Holy Bible itself testifies that God has with him in the invisible spirit realm intelligent persons of a spirit composition. With these he can have direct contact. They can see him even as he sees them. Being of higher, superhuman composition, as to their makeup, they are not dissolved, disintegrated, annihilated at the mere sight of him. They can be in direct touch with him, serving in his personal presence. (Luke 1:19) Not to angels, but to men, God said: "You are not able to see my face, because no man may see me and yet live." (Exodus 33:20) So God said even to his prophet Moses.
How did those spirit companions of God get there? Well, how did the first human couple get here? We shall take the answer as given by those whom the Bible writer John saw in a vision, worshiping God in heaven. We quote these words of theirs: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory, honor, and power, for you created all things; by your will they existed and were created."—Revelation 4:11, An American Translation.
God made the first human couple flesh and blood. Prior to this, God had made his heavenly companions spirit, of a composition superior to that of man. On this point, Jesus Christ made a clarifying statement on the day of his resurrection from the dead. He appeared to his disciples in a locked room in Jerusalem. To do this, he appeared in a materialized body like that in which he had died, but they thought they were seeing a spirit. Well, what did he say to them? This: "A spirit does not have flesh and bones just as you behold that I have."—Luke 24:36-39.
After conversing with those amazed disciples, the resurrected Jesus vanished. He dematerialized or dissolved that clothed human body. He did not take that body and its clothing into the spirit realm with him. Had it been possible to do so, it would mean that a spirit person in heaven does have flesh and bones, at least in the case of the glorified Jesus Christ.1 Corinthians 15:50.
In view of all those facts, the Lord God made his heavenly associates directly spirit. He did not transfer human creatures of flesh, blood and bones from our earth to keep him company in the invisible heavenly realm. To describe what kind of persons God created directly in heaven, the Christian apostle Paul writes: "He makes his angels spirits, and his public servants a flame of fire." (Hebrews 1:7) Here the apostle Paul was quoting the psalmist David when he speaks of Jehovah God as "making his angels spirits, his ministers a devouring fire."
(Psalm 104:4) Accordingly, the testimony of God's own written Word is that he has power to create spirit creatures as well as human creatures.
10 The creating of spirit creatures predates the creating of human creatures. God's own words as disclosed to us in the first chapter of the Bible indicate this. There we read: "God went on to say: 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26) Now, when God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness," he was not talking to himself as if he were a two-in-one god or a three-in-one god. He was talking to at least one other heavenly person separate and distinct from himself and was inviting that spirit person to join him in the producing of an earthly, human creature.
11 However, at the time of the creation of man and woman, there were more than one spirit person in association with God. There were spirit persons whom God had created even before the creation of the earth. This fact was called to the attention of faithful Job of the land of Uz, when God said to him: "Where did you happen to be when I founded the earth?
Tell me, if you do know understanding. Who set its measurements, in case you know . . . or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars joyfully cried out together, and all the sons of God began shouting in applause?" (Job 38:1-7) That occurred many thousands of years before the final part of God's sixth creative day, at which time God created man and woman. (Genesis 1:27-31) Consequently those joyful "sons of God" were not creatures that had first been on the earth as humans and thereafter transferred to God's presence in heaven. They were God's spirit creatures from the start of their existence. God never populated the heavens from the earth's inhabitants.
12 Those godlike "sons of God" are superior to man. Hence the psalmist David, after recognizing the highness of God above the heavens, went on to say: "What is mortal man that you keep him in mind, and the son of earthling man that you take care of him? You also proceeded to make him a little less than godlike ones." (Psalm 8:4, 5) Who are those "godlike ones"? They are angels, for the Bible writer, when making an application of Psalm 8:5, says, in Hebrews 2:6-9: "You made him a little lower than angels." So, as regards level of existence and of powers, man is unchangeably lower than those "sons of God," those heavenly angels.
ASSEMBLIES OF SPIRIT PERSONS IN HEAVEN
18 Assemblies of those "sons of God" take place from time to time and the Most High God presides over them. He has revealed that fact to us in his written Word. The earliest reports that we find of such heavenly assemblies are recorded in the first two chapters of Job. "Now," in the earlier part of Job's life, "it came to be the day when the sons of the true God entered to take their station before Jehovah, and even Satan proceeded to enter right among them. Then Jehovah said to Satan: 'Where do you come from?' At that Satan answered Jehovah and said: 'From roving about in the earth and from walking about in it.'" Some verses later, in the next chapter, a second assembly of Jehovah with his heavenly sons is reported on, and again that spirit person called Satan takes advantage of the opportunity. (Job 1:6, 7; 2:1, 2) Those assemblies, invisible to our sight, are purposeful, and Almighty God maintains order at them. All present have to answer to him as to their whereabouts and their doings. Even the individual called Satan has to be respectful, even though he is what his name brands him to be, the outstanding resister of Jehovah God.
14 As regards such assemblies of spirit "sons of God" in heaven, we read further, in Hebrews 12:22, 23: "You," Hebrew Christians, "have approached a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels, in general assembly."
All those myriads of angels, who remain faithful to their heavenly Father and refuse to imitate Satan, make up one big heavenly family of God.
15 The Bible writer Paul refers to this heavenly family. When writing to Christians who recognize Jehovah God as their heavenly Father, Paul says: "On account of this I bend my knees to the Father, to whom every family in heaven and on earth owes its name." (Ephesians 3:14, 15) Every family owes its name to its father, and it should live up to the dignity and worthiness of that name. Having but one Father, those heavenly "sons of God" are all brothers.
16 A heavenly assembly took place in the latter part of the tenth century before our Common Era. The Israelite prophet Micaiah had a vision of it. Describing it, Micaiah said to two allied kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat: "Hear the word of Jehovah: I certainly see Jehovah sitting upon his throne and all the army of the heavens standing by him, to his right and to his left. And Jehovah proceeded to say, 'Who will fool Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' And this one began to say something like this, while that one was saying something like that. Finally a spirit came out and stood before Jehovah and said, 'I myself shall fool him.'"—1 Kings 22:19-21.
17 Let us note that the angel who proposed the successful method for fooling wicked King Ahab to his ruin in battle is called "a spirit." This signifies that all that "army" at God's right hand and left hand are likewise spirits, yes, intelligent spirit creatures. They are differentiated from us human creatures.
18 Are we humans of today aware of the fact that a judicial court session was long ago scheduled to be in heaven during our present twentieth century? A miraculous vision of this was given to the prophet Daniel while he was a captive slave in Babylon more than two thousand five hundred years ago. In his description of this he writes:
19 "After this I kept on beholding in the visions of the night, and, see there! a fourth beast, fearsome and terrible and unusually strong. I kept on beholding until there were thrones placed and the Ancient of Days sat down. There were a thousand thousands that kept ministering to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand that kept standing right before him. The Court took its seat, and there were books that were opened. I kept on beholding in the visions of the night, and, see there! with the clouds of the heavens someone like a son of man happened to be coming; and to the Ancient of Days he gained access, and they brought him up close even before that One. And to him there were given rulership and dignity and kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve even him.
His rulership is an indefinitely lasting rulership that will not pass away, and his kingdom one that will not be brought to ruin."—Daniel 7:7-14.
20 Is there any other spirit son of God in heaven who is honored so highly as this one who appears in Daniel's vision as "a son of man"? No! Who, then, is he? The psalmist identifies him. In Psalm 89:26, 27 he says: "He himself calls out to me, 'You are my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.' Also, I myself shall place him as firstborn, the most high of the kings of the earth." This statement of Jehovah does not refer to King David, with whom God made a covenant for an everlasting kingdom in his royal family line, nor to David's royal successor, Solomon. Neither of these kings were the firstborn sons of their fathers. (Psalm 89:28-37; 2 Samuel 7:4-17) The later facts show that Jehovah was referring prophetically to his own "firstborn" in heaven, the Son who had been with him for time indefinite before Jehovah God created man.
21 Naturally someone may ask, How could God have a "firstborn," when He had no wife in heaven at that time? In answer to that question, the one who proved to be that "firstborn" speaks for himself. In the Bible's last book, in Revelation 3:14, he says; "These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God."
The speaker of those words was the resurrected, glorified Lord Jesus Christ, who is a "faithful and true witness" and who does not lie about the matter. He himself says he is "the beginning of the creation by God." Hence God could have no wife before the one whom He created first.
22 Although he is a "creation" and not the child of a mother, Jesus continuously speaks of God as his own Father. (Revelation 3:21; 14:1) He also speaks of his Father as being his own God. In Revelation 3:12 he says: "The one that conquers—I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and . . . I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God." This agrees with what he said on the day of his resurrection to Mary Magdalene near the empty tomb: "Be on your way to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.'" (John 20:17) This was on Nisan 16, 33 C.E., the third day after he had cried out on the torture stake on which he had been impaled to die: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And, finally: "Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit."—Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46; Psalm 22:1; 31:5.
THE "ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON"
23 In words addressed to the Jewish ruler Nicodemus, what did Jesus Christ speak of himself as being? Listen: "God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) In speaking of himself as God's "only-begotten Son" he was identifying himself as God's "firstborn." God's direct, unshared creating of things out of nothing began and ended with this "firstborn," "only-begotten Son." In addition to Jesus' calling himself "the beginning of the creation by God," the apostle Paul adds a similar designation to him, saying: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." (Colossians 1:15) So, after God created "the firstborn of all creation," all things that were brought into existence afterward were other creations. When creating all those other things, God took into his employ his "only-begotten Son."
24 In bearing out this thought, the apostle Paul first mentions the "firstborn of all creation" and then goes on to say: "Because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible." (Colossians 1:16) Now we can understand the apostle John's words in John 1:1-3: "In the beginning the Word [Greek, Logos] was, and the Word [Logos] was with God, and the Word [Logos] was a god.
This one was in the beginning with God. All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence." In the Bible's last book, also written by John, he tells us that the glorified Jesus Christ bears the title "The Word of God," not God the Word: "And the name he is called is The Word [Logos] of God."—Revelation 19:13.
25 Upon the one called "the beginning of the creation by God" were conferred the dignity and rights of God's "firstborn," "only-begotten Son." As "firstborn" Son, this one had the preeminence over all future "sons of God." (Colossians 1:18) This included his being taken into association with his heavenly Father in bringing all other things into existence in heaven and on earth.
26 When the Word or Logos was used as the means by which all these countless "sons of God" were brought into being, holy spirit from God his Father must have operated powerfully upon him and through him. It was with him and active in his behalf. The manner of operation must have been then as it was later on when he became a perfect man on earth and performed miraculous cures. Hence he said that he expelled demons by means of God's spirit. (Luke 11:20; Matthew 12:28) Because the spirit of Jehovah God likewise operated by means of the Logos up in heaven, those "sons of God" that were brought into existence through him consider, not him, but Jehovah God as their Creator and Father.
They are not called the sons of the Logos. They are termed "sons of the true God."—Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7.
27 It is now evident, therefore, that when God said on his sixth creative day, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness," he was speaking to his "firstborn," to "his only-begotten Son." (Genesis 1:26-31) God might also have said "Let us" to this Son when God contemplated creating the heavenly angels, including the cherubs and the seraphs. Jehovah God as the Most High and the Creator of all things was the One to determine upon what should be brought into existence. The angels were to be sons of His. As a prospective Father, he exercised his will as to when to have more heavenly spirit sons. His spirit was the only active force by means of which further things could be made to exist.
28 In course of time cherubic "sons of God" became visible at the entrance of the Garden of Eden. Why? Well, the first human couple, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God and were driven out of their Paradise home. So the cherubs were stationed at the garden's entrance to prevent the two sinners from getting back in to try to counteract the death penalty. (Genesis 3:24) What Adam and Eve saw were materialized cherubs. The "sword that was turning itself continually" at the garden's entrance was certainly kept in motion by God's holy spirit, in order to keep out unholy humans.
29 In the eighth century B.C.E. the prophet Isaiah saw in vision seraphic "sons of God." These seraphs were attending upon Jehovah God in his temple. (Isaiah 6:1-7) In the following century, the prophet Ezekiel in Babylon was given a vision in which he beheld cherubic "sons of God." Ezekiel 1:1-25; 9:3; 10:1-20; 11:22.
80 Cherubs, as "living creatures," must be very speedy in flight when God sends them on errands. So, in response to an appeal to God for help, "he came riding upon a cherub and came flying, and he came darting upon the wings of a spirit." Psalm 18:10.
31 Evidently in the spirit realm tremendous distances must be covered in a short space of time. Distance did not keep speedy help from coming to King Hezekiah of Jerusalem after he went to the temple in a time of national crisis. He prayed: "O Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, sitting upon the cherubs, you alone are the true God of all the kingdoms of the earth." (Isaiah 37:14-37) To Jehovah God the cherubs are subject, as if he sat above them; and they will be associated with his kingdom that is to bring speedy relief to all mankind in its direst need. In accord with this blessed fact are the opening words of the prophetic psalm: "Jehovah himself has become king.
Let the peoples be agitated. He is sitting upon the cherubs. Let the earth quiver." (Psalm 99:1; also 80:1) Jehovah's superior position with regard to the cherubs was portrayed in the ark of the covenant that the prophet Moses was commanded to construct.—Hebrews 9:5.
82 This golden ark or chest was used as a receptacle for sacred articles. It had a cover surmounted by two golden cherubs with wings spread out to cover the mercy seat or propitiatory. When this ark was placed in the Most Holy of the tabernacle or temple, a miraculous light (the Shekinah light) appeared above the wings of the cherubs. (Exodus 25:10-22; 2 Kings 19:15) Thus Jehovah was represented as throning above the cherubs and giving instructions from there. Moses tells of his own experience in this regard, when he writes: "Now whenever Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him, then he would hear the voice conversing with him from above the cover that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubs; and he would speak to him."—Numbers 7:89.
AN UNSEEN PLACE OF ACTIVITY
33 Heaven is no place of ease and lounging around, like dangling one's feet over the edge of a slow-moving cloud. The most active Person in all the realm of existence, the central Source of all dynamic energy, is there!
His holy spirit as an active force is pervading all the unseen heavens. The activity of those inhabiting that realm and serving Jehovah must exceed by far all the activity that is going on throughout our earth today. Distances inconceivably greater than those possible on our earth or from here to the moon need to be covered in the service of the universal Sovereign, Jehovah God. Numberless are the things to be done, besides the giving of attention to our comparatively tiny planet, Earth. May we not blind ourselves to heavenly activities just because our weak eyes cannot actually see them. Every basis there is for us to see them by the eye of faith.—Hebrews 11:1, 27.
34 In harmony with the purposes of the Lord God, his heavenly sons lead a most active life. They are capable of accomplishing far more than we humans can. They are superhuman. Their power we cannot measure. According to Bible history, they have, by holy spirit, been enabled to do things for which Science cannot account.
85 David recognized their superhuman ability when he lifted his attention to them and said: "Bless Jehovah, O you angels of his, mighty in power, carrying out his word, by listening to the voice of his word. Bless Jehovah, all you armies of his, you ministers of his, doing his will." (Psalm 103:20, 21) In doing Jehovah's will, those armies of heavenly angels set an excellent pattern for earthly man to imitate.
If such mightily powerful superhuman creatures do not consider themselves to be too qualified in themselves to serve their Creator, then we frail, short-lived humans down here ought not to be so self-conceited and selfadmiring as to be rebellious against Jehovah God, feeling absolutely no responsibility to him. Better is it for us to bless him.
36 Holy spirit from God expresses itself in all the heavens as his only-begotten Son, his cherubs, his seraphs and all his angels lovingly serve him, the one living and true God. His spirit, imparted to all these loyal ones, produces among them a "oneness of the spirit in the uniting bond of peace," to borrow a phrase from Ephesians 4:3. They all cooperate together under the Most High God, Jehovah. By their united service in all the variety of their duties, they are really worshiping him. Such unity of service and worship will never be sundered, not even by demons.
37 Taking the lead in rendering such unswerving service and worship to God is Jehovah's "first-born," "his only-begotten Son." This one was once willing to serve as a sacrificial Lamb here on earth. No less so than we Christians, the faithful heavenly throngs appreciate such self-sacrifice. In confirmation of this, the apostle John is given a vision of the heavenly scene that now finds fulfillment in our twentieth century, as follows: "And I saw, and I heard a voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: 'The Lamb that was slaughtered is worthy to receive the power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.'
And every creature that is in heaven and on earth and underneath the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them, I heard saying: 'To the One sitting on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might forever and ever.' And the four living creatures went saying: 'Amen!' and the elders fell down and worshiped." Revelation 5:11-14.
38 How about us who are now on the earth, yes, on the earth's surface and not yet "underneath the earth" in burial places? There is a choice for us to make. Shall we take part in fulfilling that prophetic vision by joining in with the myriads of myriads of holy angels and giving due honor to the Lamblike Son of God and giving our heartfelt devotion to the One sitting on the throne, Jehovah God? If we choose to do this of our own free will, then, like the glorious heavenly throngs, we shall be favored with holy spirit from the Giver of every perfect gift, Jehovah God.—James 1:17.
The Spirit Behind the Present Old Order
THE PRESENT order of things is old—thousands of years old. Throughout all those millenniums of time one spirit has pervaded the human order of things. Has it been holy spirit? No one will talk so contrary to the facts of history as to claim that holy spirit from Jehovah God has been the invisible force activating all human society in its pursuits, or in its style of life. If it had been holy spirit that all along had been backing up and motivating this old system of things, the results would be far different from the world state of affairs today.
2 Holy spirit from Jehovah God, when at work in the lives of people, produces an identifying fruitage. Judged by the fruitage that it has had ample time to produce, this old order is not being led by God's holy spirit. The mass of mankind who go along with this old order show themselves to be persons needing to be restrained by laws that are enacted for criminally minded people, laws that therefore command them to refrain from all sorts of wrongdoing.
Nineteen hundred years ago there was a man who had come out from under such a code of laws. He wrote a letter to show that we need a better inducement, a superior force to be active in our lives, if we want to be different from the present old order. We need the spirit, the invisible active force that comes from One who is far better morally than this old world order, far better than any lawgiver of human society. To the holy force that can activate us aright the letter writer pointed, saying:
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning you, the same way as I did forewarn you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God's kingdom.
"On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control. Against such things there is no law."—Galatians 5:16-23; note also 1 Timothy 1:8-11.
a Quite a list of opposites, is it not? Certainly those who are producing the fruitage of God's spirit are not practicing the things called "the works of the flesh." They are looking forward to God's kingdom with a sincere desire to inherit its blessings.
What, though, about the present old order? We do not have to point out its faults. That is done for us by its newspaper reports, its magazine articles, its police records, the general insecurity due to a rising crime rate, the high-priced hospitals for mental ailments as well as dread social diseases, the political tensions along with the mounting threat of a global nuclear war. Inumerable other things could be cited to incriminate the old order as one abounding in the "works of the flesh." This old order will never help people to "inherit God's kingdom." It has no connection with God's kingdom. It is not pervaded, motivated or backed up by holy spirit from God. It is by no means holy, not even that part of it that is called Christendom.
5 How is it that God's spirit is back of no part of this old order? How did human flesh get into the state where it naturally desires to do works that are opposed to God's spirit? Human flesh was not that way at its start. At that time it was motivated by its Creator's spirit. God would never impart to newly created flesh that which is bad and in opposition to him. He is not the Source of badness. As a champion for the cause of right, the prophet Moses cleared Jehovah God of all responsibility for the wrongful tendencies in human flesh.
Moses said: "Perfect is his activity, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, with whom there is no injustice; righteous and upright is he. They have acted ruinously on their own part; they are not his children, the defect is their own."—Deuteronomy 32:4, 5.
The defect in mankind is not traceable to God. He made the first man perfect, a credit to His creative ability. There is no defect about God. With the cooperation of his only-begotten Son, God made the first man "in our image, according to our likeness." The first man, Adam, was an image of divine perfection, and so, to be a true image, he had to be perfect.—Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7, 8.
7 In the paradise Garden of Eden the first man walked according to God's holy spirit. On occasion he had conversation with God. In a way unseen to human eye and yet perceptible to the man Adam, God walked in that lovely Garden of Eden. There was unity between God and man. At that time there was unity between things heavenly and things earthly. Why? Because God's spirit was all-pervasive. All this made Jehovah God happy. He is "the happy God."—1 Timothy 1:11.
Here, now, was the groundwork for the development of a perfect order of things that would never grow old and get ready to pass away. But today we do not have a clean, righteous, perfect order of things.
Why is this? It is because there occurred a sin against the holy spirit. Committed by whom? Committed by the one whom Jesus Christ identified when he was talking to men who were eager to kill him for telling God's truth. To these would-be murderers Jesus said: "You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a manslayer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie."—John 8:44.
The first sinner against holy spirit is also identified by Jesus' disciple named John, who writes: "He who carries on sin originates with the Devil, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning." (1 John 3:8) The practicer of sin could have no other spiritual father than the one who started him off.
10 This calling the first liar in all creation a devil indicates that his lie was against God, for the name Devil means Slanderer. He left the truth and cultivated in himself the disposition to lie. In slanderous contradiction of what God had told Adam, the Devil told Adam's wife, Eve, that the penalty for eating from the forbidden tree would not be death: "You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad."
(Genesis 3:1-5) The liar made himself a Devil, primarily with respect to God.
11 The Slanderer against God could not guarantee that Adam and Eve would not positively die if they ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. His word was not mightier than God's. (Hebrews 4:12; Genesis 2:16, 17) But likely the Devil thought that he could maneuver Jehovah God into an embarrassing position where it would be inconsistent for God to put Adam and Eve to death, especially if the Devil directed the sinful couple to eat of the "tree of life" before divine sentence could be pronounced upon them.—Genesis 2:9; 3:22, 23.
12 Despite all this maneuvering, the Devil turned out to be a liar. His victims did die as human souls, for Jehovah God the Judge sentenced them to death and kept them from getting to the "tree of life" by driving them out of the paradise Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:17-24) Because of unlovingly inducing the death of the first man and his wife, the Devil became a "manslayer." For this he deserved to be put to death according to the rule stated by the Founder of Christianity: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea." (Mark 9:42, Revised Standard Version) Exactly so, endless destruction does await the manslayer, the Devil.
Such an end for the Devil was indicated when the Judge of all, Jehovah, likened him to the serpent that had been used to deceive the woman Eve into eating the forbidden fruit contrary to God's command. Directing the words really to the symbolic Serpent, Jehovah said: "Because you have done this thing, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild beasts of the field. Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life. And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel." (Genesis 3:14, 15) Thus the Devil became the one cursed of God. So it lies with God to have this cursed one put to death. But this would not occur before the cursed Serpent had the opportunity to have a "seed," offspring in a figurative or spiritual way. As a spirit, the Devil has no inherent reproductive powers like man.
14 Jehovah likened the Devil to a serpent that crawls on its belly and eats food dusted with particles of soil. Thus he indicated the deep abasement into which the cursed Devil was now thrown down. As it was the lowest station in existence, it was compared to the place that came to be called Tartarus.
In course of time the Devil came to be joined in this place by other spirits, by other angels who renounced the Fatherhood of God and adopted the fatherhood of the Devil. These spirits became his "seed."
15 In reference to this spiritual seed of the original Serpent, the Christian apostle Peter wrote: "God did not hold back from punishing the angels that sinned, but, by throwing them into Tartarus, delivered them to pits of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment." (2 Peter 2:4) The Christian disciple Jude refers to the same angelic "seed" of the Serpent, when he writes: "The angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place he has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day."—Jude 6.
16 At the time that the Devil tricked Adam's wife, Eve, into rebelling against God her heavenly Father, there was no "seed" of the Great Serpent. The Devil acted single-handedly. He did not choose to have an angelic associate who could become a rival in claiming control over the offspring of Adam and Eve. He coveted the sole control over all mankind. What position he occupied in God's original organization we do not precisely know. Many Bible students have understood the prophecy of Ezekiel 28:11-19 concerning the king of ancient Tyre to apply also to Satan the Devil, and hence they reason that the self-made Devil was originally a "cherub" among the heavenly "sons of God."
If this is so, then the degree of his abasement as the Great Serpent is all the greater.
17 The other angel rebels against God, who became the "seed" of the Serpent, share the Tartarean darkness with him, like cursed serpents. They no longer have the light of God's favor and counsel. At their rebellion God took his holy spirit away from them.
18 The future is pitch black for the Great Serpent and his angelic "seed." God's day of judgment awaits them, with the prospect of their being 'bruised in the head.' God will use the "seed" of his "woman" to do the bruising. (Genesis 3:15) The bruise inflicted is no mere scalp wound. It is the crushing of the head, which results in death to the Great Serpent and his "seed." There is no room for misunderstanding about this, for, at Romans 16:20, it is written to Christ's disciples: "The God who gives peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly." This is sound reason for Satan and his "seed" to be at enmity with the "seed" of God's "woman." At God's mention of the "seed" of his "woman," a mystery confronted both heaven and earth. The mystery or sacred secret that now roused universal curiosity was, Who is this woman's seed?
AN EARTHLY "SEED" OF THE SERPENT
10 The mysterious "seed" of God's "woman" did not prove to be Eve's firstborn son, whom she named Cain. Cain's being the firstborn son of all mankind did not give him the right to serve as that promised "seed." Moreover, Cain's heel never did get bruised by the Great Serpent, the Devil. As for bruising anyone in the head, Cain murdered his God-fearing brother Abel, possibly by striking him a crushing blow on the head. Instead of being blessed by God and receiving God's holy spirit, Cain became the second one in the Bible to be called "cursed," the symbolic Serpent or the Devil being the first one. (Genesis 3:14; 4:11) In this manner Cain made himself a part of the earthly "seed" of the Great Serpent, the Devil, whom he imitated in lying and committing manslaughter. He loved neither his brother, whom he could see, nor God, whom he could not see. Followers of Christ are exhorted to be the opposite of Cain, in the following words:
"We should have love for one another; not like Cain, who originated with the wicked one and slaughtered his brother. And for the sake of what did he slaughter him? Because his own works were wicked, but those of his brother were righteous." (1 John 3:11, 12) "Too bad for them, because they have gone in the path of Cain."—Jude 11.
20 Cain imitated the Devil, his spiritual father, "the wicked one," in sinning against God's holy spirit. This does not mean that Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, ever had the holy spirit.
His earthly parents had lost holy spirit because of willfully breaking God's commandment. But Cain saw the operation of holy spirit. When and how?
21 This was at the time that Cain presented to God an offering from his farming, whereas his younger brother Abel presented to God a sacrifice from slaughtered animals of his flock of sheep. Were the presentations of both of these brothers acceptable to God? Genesis 4:4-7 tells us: "Now while Jehovah was looking with favor upon Abel and his offering, he did not look with any favor upon Cain and upon his offering. And Cain grew hot with great anger, and his countenance began to fall. At this Jehovah said to Cain: 'Why are you hot with anger and why has your countenance fallen? If you turn to doing good, will there not be an exaltation? But if you do not turn to doing good, there is sin crouching at the entrance, and for you is its craving; and will you, for your part, get the mastery over it?' "
22 Of course, God did not appear to Cain and Abel on this occasion. How he looked with favor upon Abel and his sacrificial offering, we are not told. But there must have been some visible evidence of this. An operation of God's holy spirit this was. Cain saw this and, also, with no word from God. So he grew hot with great anger and his countenance fell. He did not react humbly and with repentance at the visible operation of holy spirit from the God to whom he was making an unacceptable offering.
23 Plainly, Cain was not doing right. God's voice out of the invisible explained to him the situation. Too proud to humble himself, Cain did not repent and turn to doing good, even though sin was crouching as if at the door of his home and craving to seize him as its victim. He did not want to get the mastery over it, no matter what God's holy spirit indicated to him. Not wanting an exaltation of his countenance, he schemed against the one approved by God and killed him. Thus he sinned against holy spirit.
24 This displeased God and brought his curse upon Cain. But it pleased the Great Serpent, the Devil, for he now saw an earthly son of his who acted in true copy of his spiritual father. The Devil himself had sinned against holy spirit. Besides seeing God himself, the one now the Devil had seen all the operation of holy spirit with regard to the heavenly realm and with regard to the creation of the earth and of perfect man upon it. (Job 38:7) During the time of being free from all selfish enticement, he himself had a due measure of his heavenly Father's spirit. What this holy spirit had enabled him to do, he knew. He also saw the "spirit of undeserved kindness" expressed by God toward Adam and Eve in providing for them to enjoy perfect human life in an earthly paradise.
And yet what did the heavenly 'son of God' do?—Hebrews 10:29.
25 He misrepresented the "spirit of undeserved kindness" by telling Eve that it was motivated by selfishness on God's part. Also, that the prohibition that God placed upon the eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad was motivated by God's fear that his human creatures might gain the ability to make decisions independently of him, decisions as to what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. So, when the spirit 'son of God' willfully and designedly twisted the plain facts of the case and lied to deceive Eve into sinning, he sinned against the holy spirit, a sin that has no forgiveness. He had let himself be enticed by the selfish prospect of wielding sovereignty over the earth and its human inhabitants and then acted to seize that sovereignty. At that he lost God's holy spirit. The fruiture of God's spirit in his life shriveled up and died. He made a Devil of himself, fit only for destruction.—Hebrews 12:29; 6:7, 8.
26 This first sinner against holy spirit made a demon of himself. Angelic "sons of God" who later joined him in rebellion against God became demons like the Devil. These demons became the "seed" of the Great Serpent, and thus the Devil became the "ruler of the demons," who came to be called Beelzebub. (Matthew 12:24-27) These are the promoters of demonism, to turn people away from worshiping the one living and true God, Jehovah.
They are classed as "unclean spirits." (Matthew 10:1, 8; 12:43-45) The practice of spiritism under the influence of these demons can result only in spiritual uncleanness to the practicer and make him unclean in God's sight. The practice of spiritism is one of the works of the fallen flesh and will debar a person from having any share in the kingdom of God and its blessings. The unclean spirits are opposed to God's holy spirit, and he condemns a person for having anything to do with unclean spirits. Deuteronomy 18:9-14; Galatians 5:19, 20; Revelation 9:20, 21; 21:8.
WHAT KIND OF "SPIRIT" IT IS
27 It is of the highest importance to us to know the above things. By knowing them we can understand the reason for the present state of mankind. Here we are today, in our twentieth century, a century that started off so promisingly from the human standpoint. By the count of time according to the Sacred Scriptures, we have progressed practically six thousand years from when the self-seeking 'son of God' rebelled against Jehovah's universal sovereignty and led Adam and Eve into a similar disobedience to God. After these two human rebels were put out of the paradise of Eden, a new human order was set up on earth, one different from what God their Creator has purposed for our planet Earth.
So by now we should be able to determine what kind of spirit is behind the now old order.
28 By "spirit" we mean an invisible active force, an animating, enlivening, energizing force that moves human society in common. It influences their course in life. It moves them in a certain common direction. Thus the people in general carry on in quite a uniform way almost unconsciously, without really giving thought to it. Things that they do become almost instinctive, moved by some inner urge so as to follow a regular routine and to weave a certain pattern of life. There may be little variations depending upon individual differences in personality, yet life and its aims have a common aspect that brands it as characteristic of human society now under the present system of things.
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