Why Did God Create Mankind Knowing They Would Fall Into Sin?

Question: Did God know that Adam and Eve were going to sin? If He did then why did He create them?

Answer:  This is a two-part question, so let’s deal with in two parts.  The first question asks “Did God know that Adam and Eve were going to sin?”  In order to answer this question, we must know what the Bible teaches about God’s knowledge.  Orthodox Christian theology teaches that God is omniscient.  This is a word derived from Latin, which literally means “all-knowing.”  Does the Bible support the claims of orthodox Christian theology?  Let’s examine some passages:

“Rightly Dividing the Word — Law & Gospel”

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul instructs his young protege to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).  What does that mean?  It’s a call to all ministers of the word to present the word of God correctly — i.e., as it is meant to be understood and faithful to the overall message of Scripture.

Sadly, many modern day preachers are doing anything but rightly dividing the word of truth.  They bend and twist Scripture to fit their particular ‘pet theology,’ or they use Scripture to make a point to 21st century hearers that is completely foreign to the way it would have been understood to the original audience.

James warns his readers that they should be very careful in striving to be a teacher of God’s word because those “who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1).  We’re all going to be judged for our sins, but those who lead people stray with false teaching will be held to a greater judgment.

So how do we rightly divide the word of truth?  We need to understand the ‘meta-narrative’ of Scripture — i.e., the overarching story of the Bible.  Sermons not only need to be exegetically sound, but they also need to tie into the meta-narrative.  Every passage in Scripture has its immediate context, but it also fits into God’s story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation.  Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus that he was the central focus of Scripture (Luke 24:27).  The cross is the central point in all the Bible — it is the point where God’s law meets with God’s grace.

The following audio file is taken from a recent White Horse Inn radio broadcast and it shows how Scripture should be understood in terms of Law and Gospel.  Give it a listen.

White Horse Inn program #946:  Rightly Dividing the Word:  Law & Gospel (original air date: May 24, 2009)

Can God Use ‘Sinners’ to Accomplish His Will?

Question:  Exodus 2 records that Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. It also states that he did so “after looking around to make sure no one was watching,” which indicates this was a premeditated act.  Pharaoh did issue a death sentence against Moses, which caused him to flee Egypt; but apart from that, why did God not punish Moses more severely for such an act?  After all, isn’t murder still murder? And, despite such an act, God still chose to use Moses in a mighty way (which reminds me of how God used Paul, even though Paul had committed some heinous acts himself prior to his conversion).

Answer:  Your question strikes to the core of the overarching question “Why does God choose to use any of us to accomplish his will?”  The short answer to that question is that God is gracious.  God is gracious to work his sovereign and holy will through broken, imperfect vessels such as us.  It also underscores the point that Joseph made to his brothers when he said “You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20).  God is able to use us, warts and all, to accomplish his will.  Our failures and foibles in no way prove as hindrances for God ability to use us.

Is God Just in Saving Only a Few?

Question:  This is the response of a popular apologetics website on the issue of election: 

God’s choosing to be gracious to some is not unfair to the others. No one deserves anything from God; therefore, no one can object if he does not receive anything from God. An illustration would be a man randomly handing out money to five people in a crowd of twenty. Would the fifteen people who did not receive money be upset? Probably so. Do they have a right to be upset? No, they do not. Why? Because the man did not owe anyone money. He simply decided to be gracious to.

 

The comparison is off, and sugar coated.  It would be more accurate to say, if people were trapped in a burning house and God chose to save only a few, instead of all, he would be totally within his right!

And you say this is justified? But the people in the burning house were put there by God, through no choice of there own, they can’t help but be there, because they weren’t perfect and were born with (through no choice of there own) inherent sin. So, we are created by God with flaws, and because of this, we deserve hell.

My questions are, where is the logic and justice in this? And how is God worthy of worship because he lets so many suffer in hell and only chooses a few? How can a Christian be satisfied with this scenario?

Great is Your Faithfulness!

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23; ESV)

If the way we react to disasters and calamities is any indicator, we grossly take the grace and mercy of God for granted.  Usually whenever a disaster strikes, the inevitable response from believers and non-believers alike is “How could God let this happen?”  We have become so accustomed to grace that we bank on it – we expect the sun to rise every morning; we expect the rain to fall in season; we expect the crops to bear fruit in due course; and we expect to draw breath every waking moment.

Were the Apostles Wrong About the Timing of Christ’s Return?

Question: Hi, I’ve been going over this question in my mind for awhile now and I was hoping you could give a good answer.  Why did the Apostles expect Jesus to return in their lifetime?  Here’s a few verses that has me thinking this:

1 Peter 4:7 – “But the end of all things is near: so be serious in your behavior and keep on the watch with prayer.”

Romans 13:11 – “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.”

James 5:8 – “You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

There are a couple others…

Were they simply wrong?  I’ve kind of thought that since Jesus said no one would know when he would return, not even himself, but the Father.

“Why Women Are Unhappy”

I was reading through some Townhall articles (www.townhall.com), and came across this gem from Phyllis Schlafly.  If anybody know anything about Schlafly, she is a conservative columnist and political analyst and a constitutional attorney by trade.  In addition to all of that, she is an outspoken critic of feminism and the feminist movement.  As such, she receives the usual amount of vitriolic hatred that the political and ideological left spews on anyone who dares to disagree with their insane views of reality.

Her latest column, entitled “Why Women are Unhappy,” comments on a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that “shows women’s happiness has measurably declined since 1970.”  The authors of the study advance two possible theories to explain their findings:  1) Women’s liberation raised the expectations of women and unhappiness ensues when they fail “to have it all”; 2) Women are being overwhelmed by the pressures of being mothers in the workforce.

These are reasonable theories.  I can certainly attest to the fact that the world makes a lot of promises that it fails to deliver on, why should it be any different for a woman than it is for a man?  My theological worldview is such that we shouldn’t seek to find fulfillment in workforce, but in Jesus Christ.  It’s not that work can’t be fulfilling or rewarding, but if we treat our careers as the “be-all-end-all” of life, we’ll be sorely disappointed.  The second theory also makes a lot of sense — working 40+ hours a week in addition to trying to be mom and wife is demanding work; no doubt about it!

However, I think Schlafly has some better answers.  She postulates, and I agree, that the timeline of the study coincides with the feminist movement in America, and that correlation is too striking to be a mere coincidence.  She offers two further theories to explain the data:  1) The victimhood mentality that is fostered by feminism prevents women from ever being happy; 2) the unintended (or maybe intended) consequences of feminism which portrays men as superfluous and has led to many more instances of single-motherhood.  

I’d like to offer my own theory which lines up with Schlafly’s thesis.  The feminist movement has always sought to blur the distinction between men and women (which seems patently absurd).  The differences between the sexes go far deeper than simply reproductive organs.  God created men and women to compliment each other — what a man lacks in his physical/emotional/spiritual makeup a woman supplies with her physical/emotional/spiritual makeup, and vice versa.  God created both men and women in his image (Genesis 1:27), which implies that neither one alone bears the complete image of God.  That is why marriage is the union of man and woman into a one flesh union.  When you convince a woman that she should be unhappy with her God-given role in his creation, it’s no wonder why this would ultimately lead to unhappiness on the part of women — you are telling her she shouldn’t be the person God created her to be!

Shlafly closes her article with the following:

Despite the false messages of the colleges and the media, most American women are smart enough to reject the label feminist, and only 20 percent of mothers say they want full-time work in the labor force. I suggest that women suffering from unhappiness should look into how women are treated in the rest of the world, and then maybe American women would realize they are the most fortunate people on earth.

Give the article a read, it’s very eye-opening!

Did Jesus Lie in John 7:8-10?

Question: Why did Jesus lie to his brothers in John 7:8-10?  Here in this passage we see that Jesus is lying because he tells his brothers that he is not going to the feast and yet he goes afterwards.  Does that mean that Jesus was violating the commandment “Do not lie?”  Can we regard this as the sin of Christ?

Answer:  This is a very good question.  The short answer is “no.”  Jesus did not lie to his brothers, nor was he guilty of sin and breaking the commandment against bearing false witness.  The context of the passage is the annual Jewish festival the Feast of Booths (or Tabernacles).  This feast commemorates the time the Israelites wandered in the wilderness during their trek to the Promised Land.  During that time, the Jews would live in tents (or tabernacles).  This feast is one of the three annual feasts in which all Jews were required to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate.  Chapter 7 begins “After this…” which points back to the events in chapter 6 – the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’ quarrel with the Jewish leaders thereafter.  John records that Jesus would not go into the region of Judea because the Jews were plotting to kill him (v. 1).  This should not be understood in the sense that Jesus was afraid to die, but as John will make clear in a bit, the timing was not right for Jesus to make a public entrance into Jerusalem.

“Christ the Center of Scripture”

What is the point of Scripture?  Is it a collection of stories that tell the history of the Jewish people?  Is it a book of moral examples for Christians and Jews to follow?  Do they even tell a cohesive story?  Believers and unbelievers alike often question what the purpose of the Scriptures really are.  I know I struggled with that early in my Christian life.  I often wondered why is this story included in the Bible, or who cares about all of those genealogies?

There are two passages in the Bible that immediately come to mind when this question comes up.  The first is in John’s gospel and it involves a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees.  After healing the man at the pool of Bethesda, the Pharisees confront Jesus and question his authority.  At the end of that debate, Jesus tells them “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).  The point being is that the Scriptures don’t contain or provide eternal life.  They point to the One who has the authority to grant eternal life.

The second passage comes from Luke’s gospel as Jesus was in a discussion with two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  As they were discussing the event of the past few days, Jesus demonstrates to them that these events were necessary and prophesied centuries earlier.  Luke records, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).

Both of these passages teach that the story of Scripture is the story of Jesus, or more accurately the story of redemption.  Everything in the Bible serves the purpose of either  pointing ahead toward Christ (the OT), or pointing back to Christ (the NT).  The following audio clip from a recent White Horse Inn broadcast highlights this truth that Christ is the center of Scripture.  Give it a listen, it’s well worth 50 minutes of your time!

White Horse Inn broadcast #945 from May 17, 2009:  

Faith Comes From Hearing…

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17; ESV)

The most important component of the Christian faith is the gospel.  The Apostle Paul asserts as much at the beginning of his letter to the Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).  It is the gospel, and the gospel alone, that contains the power of God for salvation.  Sadly though, the gospel doesn’t have the central focus it should in today’s American churches.  As I say that last statement, maybe there are some of you who are thinking to yourselves, “That’s not true; our church presents the gospel at the end of every service.”  Altar calls at the end of the service aren’t the same as being devoted to gospel preaching.  Neither is street corner evangelism or the passing out of gospel tracks.  Bear with me; I’m not saying that there aren’t true conversions that result through these means.  The point I’m trying to make is that gospel preaching is more, much more, than just spending five minutes at the end of each service telling people that Jesus died for their sins and that they can enjoy eternal life if they but repent of their sins and receive Jesus by faith (all the while endless choruses of “Just As You Are” are being played in the background).