The essential element of the gospel of Christ is power. “It is the power of God unto salvation.” But it is not undefined and uncontrolled power. It is the power of manifested love directed to the accomplishment of a definite purpose, and that purpose is salvation from sin. This power of manifested love is otherwise called the righteousness of God. “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed.” In the gospel, therefore, the power of God’s love is manifested in changing the nature of sinful beings so that they will again bear his image and show forth his praises. Only infinite love could devise such a plan, and only infinite power could execute it. It is altogether the work of an infinite God. This transformation from sin to righteousness, from the old man to the new, is described as a work of creation. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” It is specifically called the new creation. “If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation.” This Biblical idea of a new creation is far removed from the modern philosophy of evolution. Creation is wrought by a power from without; evolution is wrought by a power from within. Creation demands a personal Creator; evolution demands only power under law. The gospel of creation is the gospel of a personal Saviour, who gave himself for us in order that he might accomplish a creative work in us. “Wherefore remember, that once ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision, in the flesh, made by hands; that ye were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace.” Thus it is plain that the work of restoring us to God is a creative work, the creating of a new man. Our salvation, therefore, requires the intervention of a Creator. But this new creation is not a work which is in a class by itself, apart from and independent of the other activities of God. It is part of his general plan for the making and peopling of the earth. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” It was the purpose of God in creation that the earth should be inhabited by those who bore his image—righteous beings. “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.” But sin came in to mar the image of God in man and to thwart the divine purpose concerning the earth, for “sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth4death,” and death would prevent the earth from being populated. In order, therefore, to carry out the original purpose in the creation of the earth and man upon it, and that all might again be “very good,” it became necessary to recreate both the earth and man. This was not an after-thought, a work of a different order, a new attempt to patch up by another process the failure of creation, but it was all involved in the first creative purpose. Creating all things, including man, involved upholding all things, including man. This was an essential part of creation. The Creator was of necessity the Upholder. When man fell, his restoration grew out of the plan to create and to uphold, and the Restorer could be none other than the Creator. The Redeemer is the Creator, and redemption is creation. “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.” The power for the original creation is the power for the new creation. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” says our Redeemer. The method of revealing this power in the original creation was through the word of the Lord. “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 same word is the power revealed for the new birth, or the new creation. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” The image of God in which man was created at the first is the image which he will bear as the result of being created in Christ Jesus. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Thus are creation and redemption only different manifestations of the same working of creative power, and there is but one Creator. The attacks of a false science and of a degenerate theology upon the Biblical record of creation have been made for a definite purpose. Redemption is simply one phase of the completed work of creation. To destroy confidence in the original creation is to remove the foundation of the hope of redemption. To establish the evolutionary theory of the original creation is to prepare the way for the acceptance of the evolutionary theory in the new creation, or redemption, and this discards the atoning work of our Mediator and High Priest, and makes each one the agent for developing his own salvation. But this is all a deception which will end in eternal disappointment and loss. There is no redemption except through the process of creation by the power of the living word of God. We may well adopt the prayer of David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” What a wonderful plan of salvation! What a wonderful Saviour! “O, let us contemplate the amazing sacrifice that has been made for us! Let us try to appreciate the labor and energy that heaven is expending to reclaim the lost, and bring them back to the Father’s house. Motives stronger, and agencies more powerful, could never be brought into operation,—the exceeding rewards for right-doing, the enjoyment of heaven, the society of the angels, the communion and love of God and his Son, the elevation and extension of all our powers throughout eternal ages,—are not these mighty incentives and encouragements to urge us to give the heart’s loving service to our Creator and Redeemer?” [The thoughts in this article may be found suggestive in connection with the study of the Sabbath-school lesson for February 10, the subject of which is “Creation and Redemption.”]