GOD'S LOVE MANIFESTED IN CREATION.
By Frank Hope
THE love of God is the main point of all evangelical work; but the love of God as preached by many ministers is generally confined to the love of God as shown in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. The idea that the love shown in redemption is so much greater than the love shown in creation has gained such a firm hold upon many Sunday-keepers that God's love in the creation of the world is little thought of. Yet the Bible teaches that "God is love." Therefore every act of God is an outcome of love, and an act of love in itself, whether it be the creation, or the giving of the law, or the plan of salvation. Creation is an act of love. God created this world for man. Gen. 1:29, 30; Isa. 45:18. He then created man himself. Now God could have had no other motive in the creation of man than to make man happy. Man was not necessary to God, for nothing is necessary to complete the infinite. Thus Eliphaz the Temanite says: "Can a man be profitable unto God?" Neither was God compelled to create man, for God is bound by no law, because God made law; intelligence must go before ideas. If the moral law constrains God, then the law is God, which cannot be, for God is a person. Heb. 1:3. Thus the creation of man was an act of pure love and nothing else. And above all, God created man in his own image. What condescension! Thus David says, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him? for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" Surely this is wondrous love. And although man by sin has for a time hindered that great work of love, yet eventually it will be accomplished. Rev. 21:1-4. In Rev. 4:11 we see the four and twenty elders worshiping God and saying, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." Then man must have been also created for the pleasure of God. What is the pleasure of God? David, in speaking of the holy angels, says, "Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure." Ps. 103:21. Paul, speaking of these same beings, says, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. 1:14. From which we see that it is the pleasure of God to minister to his creatures; that is, the happiness of man is the pleasure of God. Thus the greater part of the ministry of Christ was in making people happy. But the only place where man can be really happy is in the kingdom of God, or in the original state that God made him. Therefore God's creating man for his own (God's) pleasure means he created man to make him happy. This is what Christ says: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32); or, in other words, it is the Father's good pleasure to place man in eternal happiness, which was the motive of man's creation. FRANK HOPE.