GOD'S PLAN
Free Will and Sin
One of the most common arguments posed against Christianity centers on the sinful nature of our world. They say, “If there is a god, why does He allow so much sin and evil in this world?” Or, “How could a loving god let my innocent child die of leukemia?” So many people lose their faith with sin and a corrupt world affects their lives.
As discussed in Why did God Create the Universe, Genesis 3:3 (KJV) shows that God gave us a choice. “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” That was the first verse in which the nature of man was addressed.
Prior to that in Genesis 3:1 (KJV), God lets us know that there is a wrong choice! “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” The serpent represents sin and Satan. Here, the serpent, or Satan planting doubt in the mind of Eve.
In Genesis 3:4-5 Satan (the serpent) challenges God and calls Him a liar. “ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Here Satan claims humans can have the power of God if we challenge God’s authority over us.
Background on Satan
Many people think of Satan at a figurative horned demon in a red suit with a pitchfork. That is what he wants you to believe, if you believe anything at all. In Scripture Satan has the personality traits of intellect, emotion, and will. He schemes, plots, and deceives (2 Corinthians 2:11; 1 Peter 5:8-9; Revelation 20:3). He was aware of Job’s strengths (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7) and Peter’s weaknesses (Luke 22:31). He displays the emotions of pride (Isaiah 14:12-14; 1 Timothy 3:6) and wrath (Revelation 12:12). He can communicate with others (Zechariah 3:1-2), including Jesus (Luke 4:1-12). Throughout Scripture, personal pronouns are repeatedly used of Satan. The Bible is clear that Satan is a real being, the second-most powerful being in the universe, and he is determined to destroy and defeat God and all His people.
What we know as Satan began as Lucifer, the highest of the Cherubim, or super angels. Although Ezekiel 28:1-11 starts out by describing the Prince of Tyrus, a city in the area now known as Lebanon, the language shifts dramatically at verse 12.
[Eze 28:12 KJV] Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
[Eze 28:13 KJV] Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Now the language is focused on the King of Tyrus and speaks supernaturally about a being that was in the Garden of Eden. The king of Tyre certainly was not, as there was no Tyre at that time. Ezekiel was written some 3500 years after the Garden of Eden. This is speaking of Satan, or Lucifer as he was known then. This makes it clear that the angels, including Lucifer (Satan) are created beings. Created by who? By God, of course.
[Eze 28:14 KJV] Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
“The anointed cherub” This is a high ranking angel. He “covereth”, which means he was over all things.
[Eze 28:15 KJV] Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
He was perfect until he sinned. Clearly, angels also have free will.
Satan's Fall
So, what happened that caused Lucifer to fall? Isaiah 14:12-15 explains the answer to that question.
[Isa 14:12 KJV] How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
[Isa 14:13 KJV] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
[Isa 14:14 KJV] I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
[Isa 14:15 KJV] Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
These are the five “I will’s” of Satan. Lucifer got a big head and thought he could be like God. Pride set in and corrupted this highest-ranking angel. God then let him know he wasn’t going to succeed in his plan. We don’t know when, but after Lucifer was cast out of heaven, his name was changed to Satan. This most likely took place as a consequence of his fall.
Where and When Did He Fall?
Isaiah 14:15 says he was brought down to hell, but that is the end of the story and not the whole story. There is something else that happened before he was, or will be cast into hell. We know this because the serpent is in the Garden in Genesis 3:1. It is Satan that deceived Eve. What was Satan doing in the Garden if he had been thrown out of heaven?
The question of when he fell can generally be deduced from his actions in the Garden. He intentionally deceived Eve and told her what he had already thought himself. He also was not in heaven but was on the earth. Although it is possible that a heavenly angel can visit the earth, the fact that he was deceiving Eve and was not in heaven give us circumstantial evidence that he had already fallen by this point. There are no scriptures that identify the timing any more specifically than that, because it really doesn’t matter to us.
Satan was in the Garden and deceiving God’s creation. Imagine you are the top ranking being under God and start to think you can do as good a job, or maybe even better job than God himself (pride). God then strips you of your duties, changes your name and casts you out of His presence and lets you know you are condemned to total destruction and eternal damnation! Would you be happy?
Satan was not happy and made it his mission to corrupt and ruin God’s plan. Here is the kicker. God put him in a place where he could have a chance to do so! Satan is not currently trapped in hell, suffering eternal damnation, as it says he will be eventually. We know he is imprisoned during the millennial kingdom per Revelation 20:2 (KJV) “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,” At this time, Satan will have no power over the people.
Prior to that he does. In Ephesians 2:2 (KJV) it says, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” Notice thie price of the power is in the air, not in hell.
When Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Satan claims to be the ruler of this world by claiming he could give it all to Jesus. “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Jesus does not challenge his ownership of this world.
To drive the point home, 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
Why would Satan be allowed to be in the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve? Why would God allow Satan to be the ruler of this world? To convey the answer to this question, let us use an analogy. Imagine you are the professor in a college class and the subject is Ethics and Morals. You tell all of the students what they have to do to pass the class, which is to learn ethics and morals and pass the test to prove it. You teach them the material and then give them a test. On the test you give them questions with multiple choice answers. Only one of the answers is correct and the rest are wrong for each question. This should be fairly straight forward and easy to understand so far. However, one of your former students is causing problems. He was in a prior class and tried to cheat on the test and got caught and failed the class. As a result of cheating, he was expelled from school. Now he is angry and wants to harm the professor and all his students any way he can. He is now going around and telling all of the students the wrong answers and trying to get them all to cheat. He’s offering study lessons and polluting them with the wrong information to cause them to fail or get caught cheating too. He tells them that cheating is way easier than studying and he has a sure fire way to avoid getting caught.
Since this is an Ethics and Morals class, as the Professor you warn your students about the dangers of such people and let them know they are out there and will try to trick you and you will fail if you listen to them. As the professor, you want to know if they will learn the good ethics and morals or will try to take the shortcuts the bad guy is offering and cheat on the test. The actual test is to see if they trust the professor or the bad guy who offers something that sounds easier. The questions on the written test tell if they studied the material, but the test that really matters is did they listen to the professor. If they did not, their grade does not matter, they automatically fail.
The Paradox of God’s Image and the Nature of Sin
Going back to the creation now, God knew before He started that we would be made in His image. God is perfect and all powerful. God is over all creation. To be made in His image means we have the natural desire to be perfect, all powerful and over all things. God created us as perfect beings. However, God did not create us to be all powerful or over all things. Yet we have the innate, god-like desire to be so. Pride is defined as “a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority”. God is indeed superior, so creating us in His image also creates in us a desire to be superior. However, God does not want that character trait in us, because we are His creation, not the creator.
Satan fell because of his pride. Satan is now present in our world to offer an alternative to God, as part of God’s Plan. Next, we will get into why.
Free Will
There is a lot of debate about this topic. Our “will” is the function of our choosing. Essentially, how we make choices. Some use the term “determinism” to describe the viewpoint that humans are pre-destined, and everything is already determined. This concept derives from the fact that God knows the end from the beginning, as expressed in Isaiah 46:10 (KJV) “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” This implies God already knows what’s going to happen and will do what He wants.
The alternative viewpoint is that we have free will and can make choices. The term “free will” is not found anywhere in the bible, but it can be inferred from many scriptures that demonstrate our ability to choose and our responsibility to choose correctly. We must pay the price when we do not. Ezekiel 18:20-21 spells it out for us. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.” God tells us if we change our minds, we can change our destiny. This makes it pretty clear that we have the ability to make choices and change our minds. We are NOT pre-destined or pre-determined.
The reason the Ezekiel verse makes some people think we are pre-destined is because they are not grasping what it means for God to exist outside of the universe, and time. God made the universe and He made time an aspect of physical existence.
To convey this concept, imagine you are watching a parade. You are standing on the street corner watching the floats come by, one at a time, in order, from start to finish. This appears very sequential and orderly. Now imagine you are in a helicopter hovering well above the parade. From that vantage point, you can see the entire parade at the same time. You can even see the staging area where they are getting floats ready to enter the parade and the de-staging area at the end where they are being disassembled. You can see both the start and the end and everything in the middle all at once. God can see the entire timeline of human history at once; the beginning and the end at the same time. That doesn’t mean God is making all of the choices of what happens, but He knows what we are going to choose before we choose it!
The other component that makes it clear we are not pre-determined is the primary reason we are here, which was covered in Why Did God Create the Universe? That reason is love. God created the world so that He could have loving relationships with us. Love can mean a lot of things. From the biblical perspective, the love God has for us is shown throughout the scripture. John 3:16 (KJV) is probably the most well known verse regarding this love. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The world means the people of the world. Here, love means the willingness to give of yourself for the sake of others. When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment he answered in Mark 12:30-31 (KJV), “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Jesus said loving God and loving others is the most important things we can do.
God wants love. Love cannot be forced. If you force someone to do something against their will, they are not loving you and you are not loving them. God wants us to willingly love Him. The only way that happens is to have free will to choose God. The alternative is to choose anything else. That’s why Satan is available to be that alternative. Just like on a multiple choice test with only one right answer, there are also multiple wrong answers.
Did God Create Sin?
If God is the creator of all things, did God create sin too? We know from scriptures that God is perfect and righteous. Psalm 145:17 says, “The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” In Deuteronomy 32:4 it says, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” From these and many others, we can see God does not sin. That which is perfect cannot be imperfect. If God does not sin, how is it in the world?
As previously discussed, God gave both us and the angels free will to choose to walk with God or not. It is our choice that creates sin when we choose not to. We introduced sin into God’s perfect creation. God gave us the ability to be like Him in regards to having the choice to Love God or love the world, self, idols, etc. All it took was one wrong choice and this world is now corrupted with sin, making it and us imperfect. It’s like a beautiful and intricately detailed painting of a magnificent landscape that has a big glob of red paint dropped on the middle of it. It ruins the whole thing.
As discussed in Why Did God Create the Universe, this universe is here to give us the chance to learn that we need a loving relationship with God. God has made this world a temporary training ground that will eventually be done away with because of the sin we bring into the world. God tells us from the time of the first sin that there is a way to be redeemed and return to the state of perfection. After the first three chapters of Genesis, the rest of the bible speaks to the redemption God offers us. If only we would listen!
