The Everlasting Arms of God: Spirit & Word

“Both of these approaches leave the church weak and powerless.”

Deuteronomy 33:27 - “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

It was the arms and hands of God who shaped us from the dust of the earth. Then God breathed His life-giving Spirit into us and gave us life. Being formed in God’s own image we also have two arms and two hands.

Irenaeus, the most influential of the early church fathers in the second century, spoke repeatedly of the arms of God being the Spirit and Word. Irenaeus wrote a book Against Heresies because of the problem of Gnosticism, the most dangerous heresy to the early church. Many were speculating about the nature of creation and the nature of Jesus. So, Irenaeus brought an explanation that gave clarity. He distinguished the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from created beings, identified the three as the one Creator God, and secured the distinction of the Three. 

The creation process was by Word and the Spirit’s breath together. Psalms 33:6 states, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” There have been many attempts to explain the trinity in a picture but here is one that is straight from creation. God the Creator has two hands, the Word and the Spirit. These two are distinct yet can never be separated. We rely on both for most everything in our Christian life.

The hands of God shape us as He is the potter and we are the clay. The hands of God save us, guide us, comfort us, direct us, heal us, transform us, etc. Spirit and Word are involved in everything. We see Word and Spirit all over scripture.

Ephesians 1:13 - “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”

Salvation and all spiritual blessings come to us through the Word and the Spirit. Again, these two are inseparable! And it’s always a mistake to emphasize one of these and exclude the other. I have seen churches that will admirably emphasize the Word and Scriptures but be content to leave the Holy Spirit as part of their doctrinal statement. Some go as far as saying that the Holy Spirit is involved in our salvation and sanctification, but that His work that we see in the book of Acts has ceased.

Other churches will so stress the subjective voice and work of the Spirit that they neglect sound doctrine and the authority of Scripture. Both of these approaches leave the church weak and powerless. We need Word and Spirit. And we need not just a little of each to try to be balanced. We need as much of the Spirit and as much of the Word as we can get. We are to be 100% Word people and 100% Spirit people.

Every believer and every church should make it their goal to go deep into the Word of God and deep into their relationship with the Holy Spirit.