e be light: and
there was light." We may take this account to refer either to the original
creation of the universe, or we may take it as the deeper students of the
Word are more and more inclining to take it, as the account of the
rehabilitation of the earth after its plunging into chaos through sin
after the original creation described in v. 1. In either case we have set
before us here the development of the earth from a chaotic and unformed
condition into its present highly developed condition through the agency
of the Holy Spirit. We see the process carried still further in Gen. ii.
7, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, _and breathed_
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Here
again it is through the agency of the breath of God, that a higher thing,
human life, comes into being. Naturally, as the Bible is the history of
man's redemption it does not dwell upon this phase of truth, but seemingly
each new and higher impartation of the Spirit of God brings forth a higher
order of being. First, inert matter; then motion; then light; then
vegetable life; then animal life; then man; and, as we shall see later,
then the new man; and then Jesus Christ, the supreme Man, the completion
of God's thought of man, the Son of Man. This is the Biblical thought of
development from the lower to the higher by the agency of the Spirit of
God as distinguished from the godless evolution that has been so popular
in the generation now closing. It is, however, only hinted at in the
Bible. The more important phases of the Holy Spirit's work, His work in
redemption, are those that are emphasized and iterated and reiterated. The
Word of God is even more plainly active in each state of progress of
creation. God _said_ occurs ten times in the first chapter of Genesis.

CHAPTER VII. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTING THE WORLD OF SIN, OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
AND OF JUDGMENT.

Our salvation begins experimentally with our being brought to a profound
sense that we need a Saviour. The Holy Spirit is the One who brings us to
this realization of our need. We read in John xvi. 8-11, R. V., "And He,
when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on Me; of
righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold Me no more; of
judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged."

I. We see in this passage that _it is