Article August 26, 1950 Issue

EFFECTIVENESS

RALPH W. CESSNA

IN human endeavor success is the attainment of a desired end, or the continuing evidence of effectiveness. While it might be said that one can be successful in evil, the term usually refers to a righteous aim or activity. And in this respect a right understanding of God removes the fear or presence of failure and brings to human experience that which we all desire and which we call success.

To understand God aright we must see that His work, His creation, is perfect. One may ask how we could consider it otherwise. That is what we are doing when we accept the too common conclusion that man, the image of God, somehow has become considerably less than perfect. To think this of course is to say that God is not a perfect creator, or that there is some other creator and creation.

In Genesis we read (1:27), "So God created man in his own image,in the image of God created he him." In the same chapter it is further recorded, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The story of the false material concept of creation, beginning in the second chapter of Genesis, contradicts the spiritual account. Isaiah warns (2: 22), "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" The prophet understood that the only man to be accounted of is the man of God's creating, the spiritual image and likeness of the Father, whose identity and perfection remain intact.

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