The Spirit does a great work, both without and within. A proper appreciation of His mighty deeds should stir up a spirit of submission and praise, for He accomplishes far more than inspiring spontaneous utterances within the occasional assemblies of believers.

There’s a poem for children by Christina G. Rossetti that captures at once something of the wonder of the wind, as well as the concreteness of its work:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

The wind is never seen but is clearly known by its work.

Jesus compared the will of the wind to the work of God’s Spirit (John 3:8). Those who have seen His work know His reality. And yet very little of the Spirit’s work is properly recognized by God’s people today. As a consequence, too much focus is placed on the subjective experience of the Spirit rather than the broader dimensions of His reality. Let us consider first the objective work of the Spirit and then His subjective work.

The Wondrous Work of the Holy Spirit Outside the Believer

First, the Holy Spirit created and sustains all life. Equally with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is the source of this universe and all that is in it. The creation narrative of Genesis informs us that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Just as an eagle broods over its nest to bring forth life, so the Spirit of God served as the life-infusing agent at creation (Gen. 1:2, NIV [1984] throughout; Deut. 32:11). When the psalmist speaks of the earth as “full of . . . creatures” and the sea as “teeming with creatures beyond number,” he declares, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps. 104:24–25, 30). The molecules, the atoms that constitute everything in this earth, and the gravitational forces that bind the world together all derive their functioning power from the sovereign creating and sustaining Spirit.

Not only in creation but also in the accomplishment of redemption, the Spirit of God plays a primary role. For apart from His marvelous, mysterious work, there would have been no incarnation of the Son of God. The Spirit was the One who caused the conception of Jesus in the womb of the virgin. Luke 1:35 reports that the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary and that the power of the Most High overshadowed her. Apart from the Spirit, there would have been no incarnate Savior.

The objective working of the Holy Spirit in creation and redemption deserves careful attention. This great God the Spirit, this all-powerful person of the Godhead, must be appreciated for all that He is and does. He is not a milquetoast will-o’-the-wisp who comes only as a divine after­thought in the progress of redemption. From creation to consummation, He is the Great One who continually performs wonders.

The Wondrous Work of the Holy Spirit Within the Believer

In similar fashion, the scope of the Spirit’s work within the life of the redeemed must be appreciated in all its fullness. Note seven works of the Spirit among the elect, the favored of the Lord:

First, the Spirit regenerates. How often the clear words of Jesus have been misunderstood. People universally rewrite “You must be born again” so that it reads instead, “You must born yourself again.” Not only does this misinterpretation make no sense grammatically (an intransitive verb has no object), but it makes nonsense of a profound spiritual truth. Just as we did nothing to cause ourselves to be born into this fallen world, so we can do absolutely nothing to bring ourselves into the divinely renewed world of redemption. We must be born “of the Spirit” (John 3:5, 8). We cannot coerce the Spirit of God to effect our regeneration. The wind blows where it will—and it is the Spirit’s will, not ours, that causes a person to be born from above (v. 3). Indeed, if our wills are renewed by the regeneration of the Spirit, we will choose to cry out to God for salvation, just as a newborn baby cries out once born. But give the divine Spirit the glory He deserves. The cry for salvation comes as a consequence of the new birth and could never be the cause of regeneration. The Spirit Himself sovereignly does this great work of total renewal.

Second, the Spirit assures. We keep on sinning even after we have been born again, don’t we? So how can we be so sure that we are children of God?

We can be so bold because of the assurance of the Spirit. In this most wondrous of works, “the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom. 8:16). Nothing less than the Spirit’s constant working could keep the sinner certain of his salvation. After all, who would dare contradict the witness of God’s own Spirit? Because of His personal testimony within our own spirits, we can be at peace. Be assured: if His witness is there, you are a son of God.

Third, the Spirit seals. The gummed seals that we use today on an ordinary letter are not so impressive. They can be easily ignored and violated. But in the days of old, dripped wax with an official stamp of the king made it a perilous thing to break the royal seal.

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