Friday, October 1, 2010

Did God know that Adam would sin before He created him?

When I read the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis for the first time, I wondered if God knew Adam would sin before He created him. Through the Old Testament study and reading more materials, I have come to trust that God knew that Adam and Eve were going to sin in the Garden of Eden. I believe that it was part of God’s plan. I will numerate some supporting reasons for the statement in the following paragraphs?

First of all, God is omniscient. The word omniscient which literally means “all-knowing” derived from Latin. Because God is omniscient He knew that Adam would sin. Several Bible verses indicate that God is omniscient: Psalm 147:5, Job 28:24, Job 37:16, and Romans 11:33. Those verses show that God’s knowledge isn’t merely greater than human knowledge, but infinitely greater than ours. He surely knows all things in totality. Thus, I believe that God knew that Adam and Eve were going to sin before he created them.
Secondly, the Bible records the sin of Adam and Eve in several places. Romans 5:12 and Romans 5:19 are good examples. It implies that sin came into the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit that was forbidden them. 1 Peter 1:20 means that God ordained Jesus to be the sacrifice for sins before sin was even committed. He knew it would happen. It indicates that God knew Adam would sin before he created him.

Therefore, if Christ’s death and resurrection were a part of The Plan—laid down ‘before the creation of the world’—then Adam’s sin must have been a part of The Plan as well. Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished the reconciliation of mankind with God—reconciliation made necessary because of Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden. Thus, if the cross had been planned by God since before the creation, then the Fall must have been pre-ordained too.

At this point, people might come up with another question that if God knew from before creation that Adam would sin why did He go through with the creation? Or was God powerless to stop Adam from sinning? First of all, God created all things for His own glory (Psalm 19:1). Secondly, God created all things in order for the creatures to give Him the glory (Psalm 29:2) Thirdly, God created man in His image (Genesis 1:26–27). Fourthly, God gave Adam and Eve free choice. God created people with their free will instead of robots which obey Him all the time. But in Genesis 2:17, God also warned them of the consequences. God gave Adam the free will to choose and He also warned Adam. The sin from Adam was from Adam’s free will and temptation to be like God.

In sum, biblical history can be roughly divided into three main sections: 1) Paradise (Genesis 1-2); 2) Paradise Lost (Genesis 3 - Revelation 20); 3) Paradise Regained (Revelation 21-22). God knew that Adam and Eve were going to sin in the Garden of Eden. With that knowledge in hand, God still created Adam and Eve because creating them and ordaining the fall was part of God’s sovereign plan for creation to manifest His glory in all its fullness. Even though the fall was foreknown and foreordained, our freedom in making choices is not violated because our free choices are the means by which God’s will is carried out.


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