^ Of this property of God's activity there is on earth one most beautiful and instructive shadow — the love of a parent for his child. That love is the most disinterested, the purest, if not the strongest, of human passions. The parent hopes for nothing from his child ; yet he will work for it, suffer for it, die for it. If you ask the reason, it is because he has been the means of bringing it into existence. Certainly, if it lives, it may support and comfort him in his old age ; but that is not the motive of his anxious care. He feels the glory and the responsibility of fatherhood ; and this leads him to do what he can for the helpless infant which depends on him. Our Lord appeals to this parental instinct when He teaches us the efficacy of prayer. If men, evil as they are, give good gifts unto their children, how much more shall not a moral God — your heavenly Father — give the best of gifts, His Holy Spirit, to them that ask Him.^
' Lo! I have sought, he said, and striven To find the truth, and found it not, But yet to me it hath been given,
And unto you it hath been brought. This Host of ours our Father is, And we the children He begot.
Upon my brow I felt His kiss. His love is all about our steps, And He would lead us all to bliss;
For though He comes in many shapes, His love is throbbing in them all, And from His love no soul escapes. And from His mercy none can fall.*
2. Redemption. — If love was the motive for creation, it implies God's continuous interest in created life. If love urged God to reveal Himself by His work under finite conditions — and both David and St. Paul insist upon the high significance of
» H. P. Liddon. » Walter C. Smith.
GEN.- NUM. — 2
x8 THE CREATION AND THE CREATOR
creation as an unveiling of the hidden life of God — surely love might urge Him to reveal Himself yet more distinctly under finite conditions, as " manifest in the flesh." The formula that " time has no meaning for God " is sometimes used even by writers of consideration, in senses which are incompatible with the idea of creation. If it is not beneath God's dignity to create a finite world at all, it is not beneath His dignity to accept the conse- quences of His work; to take part in the development of His creatures; to subject Himself, in some sense, to the conditions imposed by His original act. If in His knowledge He necessarily anticipates the development of His work, so that to Him a " thousand years are as one day " ; by His love, on the other hand, which led Him to move out of Himself in creation at the first. He travails with the slow onward movement of the world and of humanity ; and His incarnation in time, when demanded by the supreme needs of the creatures of His hand, is in a line with that first of mysteries. His deigning to create at all. For thus God, having created the rational and human world, so loved it, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
^ It lies at the very root of all Christian religion that our Word of Eevelation should open, not with the Call of Abraham, or the Covenant of Circumcision, or the Law of Sinai, but with the Creation of the Heaven and the Earth. There is One Lord for the physical world and for the spiritual. True ; the salvation through Christ has come to us in history from the people of Israel. The work of Redemption, however, is not a Jewish event, but the continuance of the work of Creation, to be consummated in the days of "the Restoration of all things." The love that was manifested on the Cross is the love that was shown in the framing of the Universe. To us, with the Bible in our hands, the two epochs, if the phrase be permissible, are inseparable, that of Creation and that of Redemption. The whole teaching ■■^of Revelation springs, as it were, from the first chapter of Genesis. The God who made the world did not send it " spinning down the grooves of change," and then gaze at a distance upon its course, unheeding of its destiny, regardless of its inhabitants. The same God that created has also redeemed, even now sanctifies, even now encompasses us with mercies, and will hereafter, in a fashion and a manner yet to be revealed, restore. The Gospel of Genesis is one of hope.^
y^ ^ H. E. Ryle, On Holy Scripture and Criticism, 82.
GENESIS I. I 19
^ " When " (in the words of a Talmudic allegory) " the Almighty was about to create man, He called together before His Throne a council of the angelic hosts. 'Create him not!' so spake the Angel of Justice. *He will be unjust towards his brother man. He will injure and oppress the weak, and cruelly ill-treat the feeble.' 'Create him not!' said the Angel of Peace. 'He will stain the earth with the blood of men, his brethren. The first-born of his race will be the murderer 01 his brother.' 'Create him not!' said the Angel of Truth. 'Thou mayest create him in Thine own image, after Thy like- ness, and stamp the impress of truth upon his brow; yet will he desecrate with falsehood even Thine own Sanctuary.' And more they would have said, but Mercy — the youngest and dearest child of the Eternal Father — stepped to the sapphire Throne, and knelt before Him, and prayed : ' Father, oh. Father, Create him\ Create him after Thine own image, and as the favoured child of Thy goodness. When all others. Thy servants, forsake him, I will be with him. I will lovingly aid him, and turn his very errors to his own good. I will touch his heart with pity, and make him merciful to others weaker than himself. When he goes astray from the paths of Truth and Peace, when he transgresses the laws of Justice and Equity, I will still be with him ; and the consequences of his own errors shall lead him back to the right path, and so Thy forgiving love shall make him, penitent, Thine.' The Father of mankind listened to her voice, and with the aid of Mercy created man." ^