Genesis 1:31, commentary and pictures

The verse closes the sixth day, when God looked on everything He had made and declared it very good, with evening and morning completing six days of work leading into rest on the seventh day. That verdict means a perfect world in which even His all-seeing eye could find no spot or stain, no defect or crookedness, with no trace of sin, disease, decay or death anywhere. Its crowning work was man made in the divine image, male and female, physically perfect and beautiful in form, blessed to be fruitful and fill the earth and given dominion over every living thing. It belongs to a creation week of seven literal days, each following the same evening-and-morning pattern as every day since, and not to vast indefinite periods covering thousands or millions of years. The finished six-day work leads directly to the seventh day, which God blessed and sanctified as holy rest, founded as the Sabbath memorial of a Creator infinite in goodness and mercy.

Sixth Day Completed

Genesis 1:31 records the close of the sixth day, when God saw everything He had made and declared it very good, with evening and morning making the sixth day. It completes six days of creative work in which the heavens and the earth were finished. That finished work leads directly into the seventh day, when God ended His work, rested from all His work which He had created and made, was refreshed, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it as holy time. This proclaims His will to all the earth and sets an example of what people are to do, with Sabbath rest spent looking at the work of His hands and remembering His mighty power and wonderful goodness. The day then blessed and sanctified is the day specified in the law given in Exodus 20 to be observed as a memorial of creation.

The last crowning work closed by the verse was making man in the divine image with a personal form like His own, male and female. God blessed them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and fill it. He gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the cattle, all the earth and every creeping and living thing. He gave them every seed-bearing herb and every fruit-yielding tree for food, and gave every green herb to every beast, fowl and creeping thing with life. Adam was thus appointed monarch of the world under God.

The making of man in that six-day work involved the Father speaking to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning. Christ was present at creation as Commander in the heavenly courts, and all things were made by Him. God took six full days to make the world, though He could have spoken it into existence in one day.

Literal Week Affirmed

The verse belongs to a creation week of seven literal days about six thousand years ago, with six literal days of work and a literal day of rest, not tens of thousands of years. Just how God did it He has never revealed to mortals, and His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence. Each day, including the sixth closed by the verse, follows the same evening-and-morning pattern as every day since, proving each period was a literal day. It was not a vast indefinite period covering thousands or even millions of years.

The heavens and earth and all their host were made at once by the word of the Lord, by His breath, because He spoke and it was done and commanded and it stood fast. This denies long ages in which the earth evolved from chaos. He who calls unnumbered worlds into existence by speaking needs no long time for His work, and His word must not be violated to account for it. The claim that millions of years were required for evolution from chaos rests on inferences erroneously drawn from facts observed in nature, producing only a supposed conflict between science and revelation.

Bones of men and animals, instruments of warfare, and petrified wood found in mountains and valleys showing much larger men, beasts, and trees belong to the time before the flood and to the great changes that took place in the earth at the flood. They give evidence of a state of things differing in many respects from the present, and are not proof of great age. Geology alone can prove nothing about their time, which can be learned only from the Bible record. The manner of His working is among the secret things that belong to the Lord, and human science cannot search out the secrets of the God of Heaven.

Conjecturing beyond the Bible record is innocent only when it does not contradict the facts of Scripture. Seeking to account for creation upon natural principles apart from the word of God leaves men upon a boundless ocean of uncertainty. Attempts to explain creation from natural causes, and the suppositions of geologists that dispute this record, are infidel fables and vain reasoning that obscure God's law, turn what God gave for benefit into a curse, and lead fallen men to rebel against God's government. Reinterpreting the days to accommodate the Bible to geology undermines and destroys the force of the word of God.

The Mosaic record of Genesis 1:1-31 is the authentic, plain account of creation found only in God's word, showing the power that laid the foundation of the earth and stretched out the heavens. It comes fresh from the fountain of eternal truth with its purity preserved by a divine hand and by His own mind through all ages, the only history of the human race unsullied by human prejudice or human pride. It shines light into the far distant past where human research seeks vainly to penetrate, and is the most comprehensive and most instructive history men possess. It gives sufficient evidence on which to base faith, presenting God as maker of the heavens and the earth.

Those great facts of creation are pillars of the Christian faith to be accepted with implicit confidence as the guide of life. To reject those facts wholly or in part, to cavil at them and to spiritualize and explain away their most important truths by human reasoning or the suppositions of geologists as a mark of wisdom and independence, is infidelity prevailing to an alarming extent not in the world merely but in the church. It is inconsistent to declare what God revealed in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation too obscure to understand while eagerly receiving mere suppositions about what He has not revealed in contradiction of this revealed creation account. The plain six-day accomplishment is the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment.

To say the first week required seven vast, indefinite periods makes indefinite and obscure what God made very plain. It charges God with commanding men to observe a week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom, and is infidelity in disguise even among those professing to believe the creation record.

World Perfectly Beautiful

The verdict means a perfect world set before the universe, in which even the all-seeing eye could find no spot or stain, no defect or crookedness, no trace of sin and no imperfection. It was fresh from the Creator's hand at the close of the sixth day, wholly excellent and declared very good. Each part stood in its assigned place and answered the purpose for which it was made, fitting together like parts of a great machine in perfect harmony. Peace and holy joy filled the earth, with no confusion and no clashing.

There was no disease afflicting man or beast, and the vegetable kingdom was without taint of corruption. There was no disease, decay, or death anywhere, but life and beauty throughout, with every spire of grass, shrub, flower, leaf, and tree, and even the atmosphere itself, filled with life. That life displayed skill and glory, reflecting like a mirror the wisdom, excellence, and love of the Heavenly Father. The earth came forth exceedingly beautiful, like a noble palace with pure and healthful air.

It was not one extensive plain but was diversified with hills, mountains, and plains, interspersed with rivers and other waters regularly dispersed. The hills and mountains were regular and beautiful in shape, not high and ragged as now, and no bare high rocks were seen upon them, for the rocks lay beneath the surface answering as bones to the earth. Hills, mountains, and plains were adorned with plants and flowers and tall, majestic trees of every description, many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are. Angels beheld the wonderful and beautiful works and rejoiced.

The newly created earth was holy and beautiful, with every flower, shrub, and tree answering its Creator's purpose. Everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of God's love, and every sound was music in perfect harmony with God's voice. These were tokens of love from the Father and His dear Son, revealing infinite wisdom and knowledge. The work pronounced very good was wrought out by Christ.

All things His own hands had made were an expression of the thought of God, with qualities and powers He Himself had imparted. Everything was fitted and adapted for the end for which it was made. That fitness testifies to marvelous adaptation to the needs and happiness of men and all living creatures. God looked upon the fair earth with satisfaction and joy, as One well pleased with the fruits of His wisdom, goodness, and glory, and His rest afterward was not from weariness.

Heaven and earth were filled with rejoicing over the finished six days. Peace brooded over the earth because it was in harmony with heaven, while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. The finished heavens and earth, with Eden blooming, included free access to the tree of life, with no taint of sin or shadow of death marring the fair creation. The surrounding loveliness gave clear evidence of the Creator's wisdom, power, love, and care.

Adam and Eve could trace God in all that natural loveliness and answered with songs of affection and praise rising sweetly and reverentially to heaven, in harmony with the songs of exalted angels and the carefree caroling of happy birds. In Eden they continually discovered some new beauty and additional glory, delighting in the bright-plumed little birds warbling happy, cheerful music around them and uniting with them to raise harmonious songs of love, praise, and adoration to the Father and His Son, with hearts filled with deeper love and lips speaking gratitude and reverence. The Sabbath stands as a witness that an omnipotent One infinite in goodness and mercy created all things, pointing Him out as Creator and as God above all other gods, before sin entered to mar it.

Humanity Crowned Perfect

While each successive day's work was called good, man formed in the image of his Creator was pronounced very good, showing the high value placed on the human family, a value confirmed when all was lost by sin and the dear Son was given to redeem the fallen race, because the will is that people not perish in their sins but live using their powers to bless the world and honor their Creator, so that professed Christians who do not live to benefit others follow their own perverse will rather than the divine will and will be called to account by the Master for abuse of the blessings given them. Together with the making of man in the divine image in Genesis 1:26-27 and Ecclesiastes 7:29, the verdict that everything made was very good means humanity, including the first man in the highest sense both intellectually and physically, was made physically perfect, perfect in organization and beautiful in form, a perfect physical condition since woefully lost through deterioration. Adam was the best work, formed in the image of the Creator and made lord over creation, a noble physical being standing in Eden in the glory of manhood as a grand specimen of perfect work, with grandeur, beauty and perfect symmetry, and with intellect unaffected by the curse, walking and talking with God, communing face to face with His Son and with holy angels as companion of the highest order of intelligences.

Man came from the hand of God complete in every faculty of mind and body, in perfect soundness and therefore in perfect health, perfectly holy and happy, with the vigor and glory designed for human life to be and to remain, while the fair earth as it came from the hand bore no blight of decay or shadow of the curse and testified in marvelous adaptation to the needs and happiness of men and all living creatures. Adam and Eve were made perfect in every physical, mental and spiritual endowment, pure and upright with no indwelling sin and no corrupt principles, propensities or tendencies to evil, as faultless as the angels before the throne, the Father united with the Son in creating them in perfection and innocency in a world of unsurpassed loveliness and glory with fruits, vegetables, grains and every variety of trees for usefulness and beauty, and how such a faultless being could fall is inexplicable now and will be made plain when seeing as seen and knowing as known. In that sinless completeness with nothing wanting to make them happy they wore no artificial garments but were clothed with a covering of light and glory such as angels wear while living in obedience to God, and out of extra love a garden was planted especially for them as home and special residence, where part of time was pleasant and invigorating and not wearisome labor in dressing it and part was receiving visits of angels, listening to instruction, and happy meditation.

That very good condition included nearly a thousand years of life and superior size and physical strength, so filled with vital force that more than a thousand years, even more than two thousand years of indulgence of appetite and passion and general violations of physical law passed before violation was sensibly felt upon the race, decay beginning to show in the third generation from Adam and degeneration proceeding more rapidly after the Flood. The proof is endurance through six thousand years of ever-increasing disease and crime, for if Adam had possessed no greater physical power and endurance than men now have the race would ere this have become extinct, although people before the Flood gave themselves up to sin without restraint, and the race has since dwindled through the original curse with its accumulated transgression and violation of natural law and through flesh eating after the Flood to brief existence marked with disease, decrepitude and imbecility. The present feeble condition of sickness, suffering, debility, deformity, decrepitude, disease, premature death and mental, moral and physical feebleness is not the work of Providence or the appointed lot of humanity but the work of man brought by wrong habits and abuses violating the laws made to govern existence, for continual transgression of nature's laws is continual transgression of God's law, with appetite and passion enthroned over reason and intellect and infirmity and disease pressing more rapidly and heavily with every generation since the fall through temptation to indulge appetite, weakening vital force and transmitting disease and enfeebled powers from generation to generation.

Adam, formed in the divine image, was pronounced good after being instructed in all wisdom pertaining to the material world and learning the history of creation from the Creator, and having witnessed the events of nine centuries and remaining among descendants for hundreds of years while seven generations lived contemporaneously, he imparted knowledge with unrivaled advantage through direct consultation and unimpaired oral transmission aided by great physical vigor, strong memory and mental power. Before the fall he possessed a high value greater than fallen man yet still less than the divine Son, and since sinful fallen man cannot atone for man and no offering of lesser value than man in unfallen perfection can ransom him, only the spotless Son equal with God and of greater value than unfallen man can by voluntary sacrifice atone, rescue man from his fallen condition, elevate him and bring him back to his first estate. Marriage itself was formed in Eden by the sixth day, the marriage law given when the Sabbath law was given in bestowing the two great gifts of woman as helpmeet and the Sabbath as rest, so that marriage is a sacred institution ordained for holy wedlock and the raising of honored families as part of that goodness and twin with the Sabbath for God's glory and human benefit, later given decided sanction by Christ at the beginning of His public ministry, binding as the law of marriage for all Adam's children to the close of time as the law of highest blessing and development and permitting no dissolution except for unfaithfulness.

Woman in natural and symmetrical form is the most beautiful object on earth and the most beautiful of created works, made perfect, and the human body was fashioned without mistake as beautiful, healthy and perfect and part of everything lovely and glorious in nature, needing no correction, so that to compress the body and strive to change its shape and proportions by modern improvements in dress deforms the perfect work, produces disease and suffering, and insults the Maker, requiring obedience in every particular to the natural laws established for dress, appetites and passions. Man came from the hand declared very good and was put on probation to develop a perfect character amid beauty and plenty, with every good fruit-tree giving variety and inexhaustible supply and freedom to eat of all except one under warning of death, but basely yielded to the tempter through flattery of a higher and happier life, with appetite, curiosity and ambition triumphing over reason in Eve and equally inexcusable sharing by Adam, plunging the race in ruin for which man alone is responsible, leaving for six thousand years the taint of sin in soul, body and spirit with accumulated guilt from transgressing moral and physical law and sickness, pain, sorrow and death as its fruits, whereupon Infinite Wisdom devised redemption and placed man on a second probation with the great Redeemer to help form a perfect character, to be tested just where Adam and Eve were tested with indulgence of appetites and passions as the greatest moral evil. Man was created perfect and his life chosen for him, but he corrupted himself by choosing to follow Satan's fallacies so that understanding darkened, affections perverted, will depraved, and he became a bond slave despite having the Word and the knowledge of Christ and the example of His pure and holy life, turning from light and knowledge to gratify perverted sinful appetite and reaping as he sows, while God sent His Son as the true pattern of what humanity may be. Equal use of the mental and physical powers was part of the plan in the beginning.

Sabbath Memorial Founded

The declaration that everything made was very good marks the finished work over which there was satisfaction and joy at the institution of the Sabbath, when all was declared fully good and heaven and earth were filled with rejoicing, leaving the Sabbath as a witness that an omnipotent One infinite in goodness and mercy created all things. At the close of creation week the Sabbath was hallowed for man while peace brooded over the earth in harmony with heaven, the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, and the completed creation was beheld as very good and rested in with joy. The completed six-day work leads directly to the seventh day, when work was ended and rest was taken from all the work created and made, with blessing and sanctifying because rest had been taken therein, proclaiming the divine will to all the earth.

The world was made in six days ending with the evening and morning of the sixth day, and the completion was followed by rest on the seventh day, being refreshed, and blessing and sanctifying the day of rest. That blessed and sanctified day is the day specified in the law given in Exodus 20 to be observed as a memorial of creation, given by the One who created the world and made man and gave man the laws of His kingdom, and the making of man in that six-day work involved the Father speaking to the Lord Jesus Christ who was with the Father from the beginning. The completed six-day making of the heavens and the earth leads to the seventh day, when work was ended, rest was taken from all work, and the seventh day was blessed and sanctified and set apart as holy time as an example of what people are to do. Keeping the Sabbath looks back to this very good creation, with rest spent looking at the work of divine hands and remembering mighty power and wonderful goodness, which points out the Creator as God above all other gods.

That rest marks the seventh day, not the first day or any common day, as blessed and set apart for sacred use to be kept holy because rest was taken on that day after completing the work. The judgment at the close of the sixth day that everything made was very good introduces the creation-week setting for the seventh-day Sabbath of rest, blessing, and holiness. The six working days ending on this sixth day are the sample and reason man is given the first six days of each week for labor, while the seventh day that follows was blessed and set apart as a day of rest in commemoration of the Creator's rest, which makes the reason given in the Sabbath command beautiful and forcible. That first week was measured off as the sample for every succeeding week to the close of time and consisted of seven literal days like every other week, with each day counted as a generation because a new portion of work was generated each day. The six days of work thus completed are the example and reason for giving man six days in each week to labor and reserving the seventh for rest in commemoration of rest after six days of creation, originating the weekly cycle and making the Sabbath reason plain only when the days are understood as literal.

The verdict closing six literal days of work laid the foundation of the Sabbath with the foundation of the earth, while the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, and even in Paradise when everything was very good a Sabbath was seen as essential for man and provided for his spiritual and physical health. The Sabbath was instituted to be taught to children outdoors amid nature, for when the earth came from the divine hand it was holy and beautiful, with every flower, shrub, and tree answering its Creator's purpose, everything lovely to the eye and filling the mind with thoughts of love, and every sound music in harmony with the divine voice. Sin marred that perfect work, so that thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are all the result of disobedience, yet though marred by the curse the earth still reveals goodness, forbearance, and love, with green fields, lofty trees, glad sunshine, clouds, dew, night stillness, starry heavens, moon, rain, and light all bearing witness to the Creator. Everything made was very good and beautiful and created for the happiness of man as tokens of love, with groves and bright sunshine, lovely birds making the air musical with happy songs, spires of grass, and gloriously tinted flowers in perfection perfuming the air proclaiming love and skill and showing forth glory.

Creation reveals the character as a tender, loving Father full of love, benevolence, beauty, and attraction, not stern and severe, and shows that prohibitions and injunctions are given for the happiness of children and not merely to show power and authority. Spending a portion of time in the open air in company with parents, contemplating and conversing upon the works of God and calling attention to beautiful objects in nature, gives children a correct knowledge and idea of God, attracts and interests young minds, draws them to love Him, quickens the heart with new love and interest, and fills it with awe and reverence. Shutting away from the beauties of nature leaves the heart unable to understand the skill and power revealed in creative works and unable to be spiritually minded.

Sin Marred Goodness

God made only what was good and like Himself, and evil, sin, and death were no part of His creation. Disobedience originated with Satan, and the forbidden knowledge sought by Satan and Eve brought painful consequences and the loss of humanity's Eden home. All that He created was pure, holy, and lovely, for He is love and the Creator and Benefactor of mankind, and cruelty does not belong to Him but is satanic, with impurity and evil entering only when sin was brought in by the first great rebel.

That perfect condition was afterward lost when Satan tempted Adam and he fell, so that sin entered the world, and death by sin. When man disobeyed, that first goodness was broken, and he was doomed to wrestle with evil and to earn bread by sweat and hard toil, which God purposed to use to make Satan's temptations ineffectual and stay the tide of evil. Against that original goodness stands the present condition where human sin has brought decay, deformity, and death, leaving the whole world tainted, corrupted, stricken with mortal disease, and groaning under continual transgression. Thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death and toil with cursed ground are all the result of disobedience and transgression of God's law, yet even in the fallen world nature still carries messages of hope and comfort of that original love. That contrast presents the choice between God's way leading to life and man's own way leading to sin and death.

As soon as the holy pair transgressed the law of the Most High the brightness from the face of God departed from the face of nature, and the earth is now marred and defiled by sin. Yet even in its blighted state much that is beautiful remains, God's object-lessons are not obliterated, and rightly understood and rightly studied and interpreted nature still speaks of her Creator and reflects divine truth as from a mirror. Through creation so studied the Creator becomes known and conviction flashes into the mind and lost sheep are guided back to God. The tide of divine love flowing to the human race, which Satan hoped to counteract by tempting man to sin, instead called forth new and deeper manifestations of God's mercy and goodness.

God's purpose is to remove every trace of sin from His handiwork and restore human beings to the purity of Adam when he came from the Creator's hand. The same divine verdict that creation is very good will be spoken again by the Lord over the earth at the second coming of Christ in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. Then the dominion once consigned to Adam over creation and forfeited by him is given to Jesus as King over all the earth, the groanings and lamentations of creation cease and become songs of praise and thanksgiving, the dead believers rise first in what is called the first resurrection, the animal kingdom changes its nature and is subdued unto Jesus, and universal peace prevails. Take away sin and the earth would soon be restored to that original loveliness when God and all the heavenly host looked upon it and declared it very good, for this very earth, purified from all the defilement that sin has brought, is to be the abode of the saints of the Most High.

Return To Design

The verdict of very good belongs to the original plan that man should subsist upon fruits and grains and no flesh, with every seed-bearing herb and fruit tree given for food. God's children followed that diet for nearly two thousand years after creation until flesh was permitted under peculiar circumstances. Pious and godly men such as Adam, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah before the flood, Daniel, and John the Baptist followed it. Adam and Eve were made perfect in every physical, mental, and spiritual endowment and placed in a world of unsurpassed loveliness and glory, where God planted a garden for them and surrounded them with everything lovely and attractive to the eye and required for their physical needs. He gave evidences of His goodness and love by providing fruits, vegetables, and grains and causing to grow out of the ground every variety of trees for usefulness and beauty.

God is trying to lead His people back, step by step, to that natural-products design of fruits and grains from the earth. Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord, meat-eating will eventually be done away and flesh will cease to form a part of their diet. Keeping this end in view and working steadily toward it, giving up flesh-eating, is in harmony with the light God has given.

In the beginning Adam and Eve lived simple in their habits in harmony with nature's laws, and in that order there was abundant supply for the needs of the human family, with fewer imaginary wants and more opportunities to work in God's ways. Selfishness and the indulgence of unnatural taste perverted God's natural provisions for man and brought sin and misery into the world, from excess on the one hand and from want on the other. The simple fare Jesus gave the weary and hungry throng shows His power and His tender care for the common needs of life. He does not draw people by gratifying the desire for luxury nor promise His followers the luxuries of the world. Their fare may be plain and even scanty and their lot may be shut in by poverty, but their need shall be supplied, with that which is far better than worldly good, the abiding comfort of His own presence.

Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it, and while they obeyed God their labor there was a pleasure and the earth yielded abundantly for their wants. When God finished His work of creation He pronounced everything very good, meaning everything was fitted and adapted to the end for which it was made. The earth was created to give forth its strength and holds blessings hidden in its depths and treasures for those with courage and will and perseverance to gather them. Without the blessing of God it can do nothing. Its capacity to yield harvest is revealed and enriched by practical, intelligent, persevering labor with strong arms and stout hearts who love the work.

The curse later brought upon the earth came in consequence of sin when man disobeyed, breaking that first goodness and dooming him to wrestle with evil and to earn bread by sweat and hard toil, which God purposed to use to make temptation ineffectual and stay the tide of evil. That curse is multiplied by increasing sin, by ignorance doing its baleful work, and by slothful servants increasing the evil by lazy habits, by unwillingness to earn bread by the sweat of the brow and refusal to till the soil. Diligent cultivation under God's blessing draws out the earth's original goodness. So fathers and mothers who possess a piece of land and a comfortable home are kings and queens.

God completed the making of the world on the sixth day after taking six full days, and He chose that pace though He could have spoken it into existence in one. The six days reveal God's orderly, unhurried way of working. They teach regular hours for work and sleep, stopping when rest is due, and preserving health and strength rather than turning night into day and day into night in exhausting overwork that breaks down body and mind.

In their original perfection all things Christ's own hands had made were very good, an expression of the thought of God with qualities and powers He Himself had imparted. To Adam and Eve in their Eden home nature was therefore full of the knowledge of God and teeming with divine instruction, with wisdom speaking to the eye and received into the heart as they communed with God in His created works with eye and ear and heart. They continually discovered some new beauty and additional glory in their home, and delighted in the bright-plumed little birds warbling happy, cheerful music around them, uniting with them to raise harmonious songs of love, praise and adoration. The Maker is Christ, who made all things, and His glory is reflected in His works, and with open face He may be beheld in creation. The natural things His own hand made remain His lesson book, containing far more than finite eyes and senses can comprehend, and God has spread the beauties of nature before human senses and watches with pleasure and a Father's joy at His children's delight in the beautiful things around them. As soon as the holy pair transgressed the brightness from the face of God departed from the face of nature, and the earth is now marred and defiled by sin, yet God's object-lessons are not obliterated and rightly understood and interpreted nature still speaks of her Creator and reflects divine truth as from a mirror, so through creation the Creator becomes known and lost sheep are guided back to God.

God spoke and His words created His works in the natural world as a reservoir of means made ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure, with nothing useless in that very good creation. The tares and confusion now in the world did not belong to it but came by the curse through the enemy's sowing, and rational beings alone now cause confusion. People should therefore live to God and honor Him as all-wise and all-sufficient, and Christ came to this world that His perfection might be revealed in them. The creative energy that called the world into existence is in the Word of God. This Word imparts power and begets life, transforms the nature and recreates the soul in the image of God, and the life thus imparted is in like manner sustained. Every command is a promise, and accepted by the will and received into the soul it brings with it the life of the Infinite One, for man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

God looked on the fair earth He had made and declared it fully good with joy and satisfaction, not resting from weariness. God created all things and constantly controls them, yet He has given people a power not wholly unlike His own, a measure of control over the forces of nature. As He called the earth in beauty out of chaos they can bring order and beauty out of confusion. Though all things are now marred with evil, completing good work gives a joy akin to His joy at creation.

The flowers adorning the earth are things God made that speak of the love of Jesus and display divine perfection. God tends them, keeps His all-seeing eye upon them, decks them with beauty, and pronounced them good. That goodness proves His still more tender guarding love and care for children formed in His image, surrounding each child with loving care. It calls for obedience, praise, and love toward Him always.

Everything God made, especially the Garden of Eden as mankind's first home, was very good and very beautiful, made for human happiness and joy. Eden had lovely fragrant flowers, trees bearing precious fruit for the use of man, and birds caroling songs of praise, in which Adam and Eve in untainted purity delighted, and similar sights and sounds are what God still wants man to rejoice in today. God's purpose and order was not for people to be huddled together in cities, but to live amid the scenes of nature with good air and plenty of room and ground for cultivation. Sin has marred God's purposes and brought all the want and suffering and care and anguish found in large cities. To care for the sick in quiet retirement away from city bustle and noise and to locate sanitariums amid nature follows God's order, and the more closely His order is followed the more wonderfully He works to restore suffering humanity, with minds more easily impressed and influenced by the Spirit of God. God created mankind for happiness, not to be kept in continual worry, and His people are to be a joyous people reposing in Him in realization of His goodness, mercy, and love.

The account of Genesis 1:1-31 gives the authentic account of the creation of the world, preserved in its purity through the ages by the divine mind and hand and found in the Word of God alone. It is to be the chief study in schools, lifting the minds of students higher and carrying them higher than now thought possible. It trains heart and mind to preserve purity by daily supplies from eternal truth and trains understanding to grasp divine revelation and eternal life. It guards against dwarfed minds absorbed in common ideas and gives converse with patriarchs and prophets. It shows what redemption cost the One who was equal with the Father from the beginning and sacrificed His life that a people might stand before Him redeemed from every common, earthly thing and renewed in the image of God.