To keep a spiritual law, man needs a spiritual power!
The Spirit of God is the most powerful force in the universe. By it, God created the entire universe and renewed the Earth (Genesis 1:1-2; Psalm 104:30). When the Word, the One who used this Spirit to create, became a fleshly human being, it was the power by which He was begotten into Mary’s womb (Matthew 1:18). He had an immeasurable amount of it (John 3:34), through which He conquered Satan and sin and thus qualified to rule the Earth at His Second Coming. But perhaps most impressive is that this power can enter a carnal mind (a mind initially hostile toward God’s way—Romans 8:7) and make it capable of living the way God and the Word have lived for all eternity.
Humans were put on Earth, in fact, to become eternal members of God’s family. First, though, they must prove that they are worthy of such life—such power. God gave the first man, Adam, a choice, symbolized by two trees. One represented the Holy Spirit. God explained all this to Adam, but Adam still rejected God’s Spirit.
“… God pronounced sentence,” Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages. “God said, in effect: … [Y]ou have rejected power from me through my Spirit to live the righteous way ….”
Here is the most valuable lesson this story could teach us: To keep a spiritual law, man needs aspiritual power! Man needs the Spirit of God.
What if man had only the law and not the Spirit? Ancient Israel was actually God’s “guinea pig” to answer that question. “[God] was going to prove to the world that without His Holy Spirit their minds were incapable of receiving and utilizing such knowledge of the true ways of life. He was going to demonstrate to themthat the mind ofman … without the addition of God’s Holy Spirit, could not have spiritual discernment …” (ibid.). They were certainly given the law that we must keep to receive eternal life, for God had codifiedon physical stone, and in 10 major points, the way He had lived for all eternity. This actually happened on the day of Pentecost. But Israel was not given the Spirit to keep this law or develop His nature. Why? Because in Eden, the Word cut off access to the Spirit. Thus He would prove to man how integral the Spirit was in law-keeping.
On physical Israel’s first Pentecost, when God gave the Israelites the law, there was a tremendous display of His Spirit of power (Exodus 19:18, 21). A similar display of power occurred in the New Testament on spiritual Israel’s first Pentecost. Luke writes of a “rushing mighty wind” (Acts 2:1-2).
Pentecost is about the law and the Spirit ofpower, and about how those two are intertwined. God proved this by giving one on the first Pentecost with ancient Israel and not giving the other until the first Pentecost with spiritual Israel. You cannot keep the law without the Spirit, and you cannot keep the Spirit without the law (for God gives His Spirit to those who obey—Acts 5:32).
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