Saturday, December 4, 2010

Book Review: The Mystery of the Holy Spirit

Mystery of the Holy Spirit. R.C. Sproul. 1990/1994. Tyndale. 191 pages.

The poets tell us that in the spring a young man's fancy turns to love. 

This one is subtitled: Discovery the Work of the Living Spirit of the Living God. It's divided into ten chapters:

Who is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit is God
The Mystery of the Trinity
Essence and Person: Probing the Mystery of the Trinity
The Holy Spirit in Creation
The New Genesis: The Holy Spirit and Regeneration
Safe and Sound by the Holy Spirit
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
The Fruit of the Spirit
The Other Comforter

I enjoyed this one. I found it very enlightening. This was one of the first R.C. Sproul books I read--the very first was Chosen by God. I am glad I reread this one. I think it is one of the more reader-friendly Sproul books!

 I especially enjoyed the chapters "The New Genesis: The Holy Spirit and Regeneration" and "Safe and Sound by the Holy Spirit."

God is consistent. God is coherent. In a word, God is rational. He is more than just Reason itself, of course. But He is--if we follow the Bible--a consistent Being. Those who favor a God of contradictions and inconsistencies must create their own God, for the true God will not suit them. (49)
The reason we do not cooperate with regenerating grace before it acts upon us and in us is because we cannot. We cannot because we are spiritually dead. We can no more assist the Holy Spirit in the quickening of our souls to spiritual life than Lazarus could help Jesus raise him from the dead. It is probably true that the majority of professing Christians in the world today believe that the order of our salvation is this: faith precedes regeneration. We are exhorted to choose to be born again. But telling a man to choose rebirth is like exhorting a corpse to choose resurrection. The exhortation falls upon deaf ears. (104)
The Christian life is a pilgrimage. In the imagery of the Scripture, it is a journey that we travel by foot. Walking is a relatively slow mode of transportation. Most of us move along this journey at a snail's pace. We do not race and leap through the obstacle course of temptation. There are barriers that impede our progress. At every point we face the speed-bumps of the flesh. (161)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

No comments: