THE SIGNS OF CREATIVE POWER.
By G. B. Thompson
It has been clearly shown that it was Jesus Christ who created all things, being associated with His Father, and that He was the active agent in the execution of plans formed with the Father in the council chamber of eternity. Thus the Creator and the Redeemer are the same. The same Being who created a world by His word saves a soul by the same word, by the same power. In creation is seen manifested the power of God; in the Gospel is the same power. Rom. 1:16. Therefore in the record of creation as given in Genesis is taught the Gospel, and those who substitute something else for the account the Lord inspired Moses to write, pervert the Scriptures. They reject the Gospel of their own salvation, and teach "another gospel." That untiring enemy of God, the devil, desires the simple story of creation to be discredited, and the power of God to be correspondingly hidden. The Lord designs this power, which is the power of our salvation, to be everywhere known and remembered. He therefore made a "memorial of His great creation." Ps. 111:4, Jewish translation. Six days were occupied in the stupendous and unfathomable work of creation. So great was the power herein displayed that the "morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Job 38:7. As the crowning act in the achievements of the celestial Architect, man was made, formed in the image of his Maker, and given dominion over all the earth. A new world was added to the family of worlds, the home of human beings, designed by their Creator to glorify Him. "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Gen. 2:2, 3. Who rested? Who blessed the seventh day? Who sanctified it, or commanded its observance? — As Jesus Christ was the active agent in creating all things, He of course is the One who rested, and who blessed and sanctified the seventh day. He made the Sabbath, for "without Him was not anything made that was made." John 1:3. Jesus made the Sabbath; "therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:28. Let those carefully and prayerfully meditate on this who, while professing to love and adore their Redeemer, trample every week beneath their feet the day He made and gave to men as a memorial of His great creation. The reasons for the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath are given in the fourth precept of the Decalogue, which was handed down amid the grandeur of Sinai, and written by the Creator's finger on the agate of the mountain: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore [for this reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11. The Lord directs our minds back to creation as the reason for keeping the Sabbath. It is a memorial of creative power. Its existence is based on the facts of creation. Some wrote learnedly on the abolition of the Sabbath. Vain effort! Alexander Campbell once truly said that the only way the Sabbath could be changed would be for the Creator to go through the work of creation again, and rest upon another day. So long as the facts of creation remain true, so long will the Sabbath, made in Eden, for man, exist. When it is no longer true that the Lord worked six days, rested on the seventh, and blessed and sanctified the day, then the seventh day will cease to be the Sabbath binding on men. But these facts will be true through the unending ages of eternity; therefore the seventh day will be the Sabbath of the redeemed in eternity. Isa. 66:22, 23. The Lord having instituted the Sabbath as a memorial of creative power, those who keep it are led to remember that the Saviour, who redeems them, had power to create the heavens and the earth. "It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed." Ex. 31:17. The Sabbath is not kept in order that men shall be saved; but those who truly keep it holy do so because they are saved. "Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Eze. 20:12. It is an outward sign of an inward work. Simply having the sign without the thing which it signifies — viz., sanctification — is equivalent to a sign-board on the front of a building announcing articles for sale when there is no merchandise within. By observing the Sabbath we say: "I am a Christian. The Lord is sanctifying me. He is saving me from my sins. He is my Saviour, having redeemed me from all my iniquity." Since it is the sign of creation, and redemption is a creation, — a new creation of a sinner, — the Sabbath is the sign not only of creation but of redemption also; and every soul who is redeemed by the power of Jesus Christ from all his sins should observe the Sabbath, — the sign of this power, — as a sign that he has been redeemed. When the Lord led the children of Israel from Egypt, delivering them from the hosts of Pharaoh, He reminded them of the Sabbath. Why? — Because it took creative power thus to deliver them. It took the same power to separate and congeal the waters of the Red Sea that it took to make a world. Creative power was displayed. The Gospel was manifested. The Lord, by His power and by His outstretched arm, had delivered His children from Egyptian bondage and darkness; "therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Deut. 5:15. He was not instituting a new memorial; but, having displayed openly the power of which the Sabbath is a sign, He commanded them to keep it. By nature we are in sin and in the bondage of which Egypt is a type. This is the unfortunate condition of all who are not converted. When we are converted and delivered from this law of darkness and death, we should remember to keep the sign of this power? Reader, have you been converted? Has the Lord by His power and outstretched arm delivered you from spiritual Egypt? If so, "the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath." Deut. 5:15.