Creator and Redeemer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 26, 1905

Creator and Redeemer

In the very first verse of the Bible God is revealed to us as the Creator. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But it is not sufficient for the purpose of the revelation to state simply the general truth that God is the Creator. In simple language which is evidently intended to be understood by the common people it is clearly stated that the heavens and the earth, together with all living beings, were brought into existence by the direct power of God’s word, and by a series of special steps, each one of which occupied an ordinary day. The record in detail is found in the first chapter of Genesis. The summary is found in the fourth commandment: “In six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.”

There are other declarations of the Scriptures which may be read with profit as bearing directly upon the fact and the manner of creation. Paul exhorted the heathen to turn “unto a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is.” In holy vision John heard the four and twenty elders say, “Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.” The psalmist declares: “By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. . . . For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Through the apostle John it is stated: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.” The apostle Paul writes to the Colossians: “All things have been created through him [the Son], and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.” And the same apostle writes to the Hebrews: “By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear.” And in the same epistle the Son is mentioned as “upholding all things by the word of his power.”

From these statements of the Bible it is clear that the work of creation was wrought by God the Father through the eternal Word, the Son, in whom “all things consist,” who upholds all things “by the word of his power.” It is further evident that this work did not occupy an indeterminate period of many millions of years of gradual development, that matter and living beings were not evolved from some original germ, but that there were certain unique acts of creation at a definite time, as the result of which “what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear.”

A plain distinction is also drawn between the original work of creating all things and the constant work of maintaining all things. “As regards this earth, Scripture declares the work of creation to have been completed. ‘The works were finished from the foundation of the world.’ But the power of God is still exercised in upholding the objects of his creation.” “Upholding all things by the word of his power.”

These facts and principles concerning creation are fundamental truths of the gospel of salvation from sin. It is not merely by chance that the first chapter of the Bible contains the only authoritative and reliable account of the creation

of the world. And this is not done simply for the purpose of writing history, but to lay the foundation of the gospel strong and deep. In doing this the particulars as to both the time and the manner of creation are essential. This will clearly appear as we proceed.

After he had finished the work of creation in six days, the Lord rested on the seventh day. Then he placed his blessing upon the seventh day, and made it into the Sabbath, and gave it to man. His thoughts concerning it are expressed through his servant Moses as follows: “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Again through the prophet Ezekiel the Lord said: “Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah that sanctifieth them.”

The bearing of the fact that God is the Creator of all things upon the plan of redemption is plain from the following scripture: “But now thus saith Jehovah that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. . . . I am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. . . . Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth; every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made.” It thus appears that redemption is creation, and the Redeemer can not possibly be any other than the Creator. This is clearly recognized in other passages of Scripture: “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.” “If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation.” “For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” The love, the life, the power of God, went out through his Son in the creation of the heavens and the earth, “and God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” The same love, the same life, the same power of God, went out through his Son in redemption, for a new creation. It is by the same word of God that the redemptive creation is accomplished: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” And the seventh-day Sabbath is the sign for both the old and the new creation.

The time and manner of the original creation, and the distinction between the special acts of creation in the beginning and the work of upholding the things that are made, are of importance as teaching gospel truths. The same God who through his eternal Son created something out of nothing, and that, too, through the immediate action of his word, and not through the indirect method of development from primordial elements, can create a new heart in the repentant sinner through the immediate action of the same word. Furthermore, the delusive hope that righteousness can be developed out of the elements already existing in the sinner, if only a sufficient time is allowed, will end only in disappointment and loss. The original creation was not accomplished through evolution, and evolution is not the method of the new creation. In the original creation “what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear,” and in the same way the new creation is not the mere development of the good already in man. “The theory that God did not create matter when he brought the world into existence, is without foundation. In the formation of our world, God was not indebted to pre-existing matter. On the contrary, all things, material or spiritual, stood up before the Lord Jehovah at his voice, and were created for his own purpose.” Such is the truth concerning creation, and such is the application of the truth in the teaching of the gospel.

From this brief study of the principles involved, it is easy to understand why in this last generation geology has come “with its message that the world was not made in six days,” and why anthropology has come “with its message that man was not created six thousand years ago,” and why evolutionary science has come “with its message that man was not made perfect,—he has been developed gradually, like all other animals, from a germ,”—and why a leading interpreter of the newest things in science and the newest things in religion declares that “all days are equally creative,” and further says: “Every day a creative day. That is the word of science.” We call special attention to this claim. “Every day a creative day,” is the watchword of the evolutionist. This breaks down all distinction between the original work in the creation of all things and the continuous work of upholding all things. This discards the Biblical revelation of six literal days of creation, and substitutes for it the indefinite periods of development. This destroys the foundation of the seventh-day Sabbath, and substitutes the idea that all days are holy unto the Lord.

This whole evolutionary conception of the universe, when logically carried out in its application to religion, ends in the claim that all men are holy, that “God is in all humanity,” and that it only needs proper environment to develop the godlike in every man. All this is bound up in the apparently beautiful and religious sentiment, “Every day a creative day.”

The basis of the threefold message of Revelation 14 is found in the announcement, which is to be made “with a great voice,” “Worship him that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.” Thus the message for the last generation, when men are turning away from the personal Creator to “an Infinite and Eternal Energy,” is based upon the fundamental truths of the revealed account of creation, and this is necessary in order that the gospel may not be deprived of its power to save men from their sins. Only he who can create something out of nothing, and can uphold all things by the word of his power, is a sufficient Redeemer, a complete Saviour. This personal God gave himself for us in the person of his Son, and gives himself to us in the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. This is the message of Christ and his righteousness. In this message is found the only antidote for the evolutionary Christianity which is now being taught under the guise of a better philosophy than is revealed in the Scriptures. It is time for this message to be given with a loud cry.