I was recently sort of a third party to a conversation in which one person asked, pondered really, on why God allowed sin to enter the world. It was an interesting question and I've asked myself a very similar question before. I didn't question why sin entered the world but why God didn't simply make a world where only those that belong to Him live, a world where there is no Satan, no sin, no evilness. A world where the people on it live for Him and there are not all the other issues that come with living in a fallen world. After all, God created the world, what need was there for all the evilness when it could have been created as good and kept that way? Needless to say I eventually stopped asking myself that question. Oh, the thought still crops up from time to time. My human mind thinks it's perfectly reasonable to simply make the world for good and put only those that are yours in that world, keeping it good and serving You. After all, if I made an apple pie I wouldn't put mostly good apples in it but stick one bad apple in there to show that the others were good. In my humanness it seems perfectly logical to simply make it good to begin with and to keep it good.
I think that was sort of the point this person was getting to when they asked why sin entered the world in the first place. The question didn't get very far though before the customary 'sin entered the world so that man could chose sin or chose God' response. There seemed to be this one person, that even after having it explained to them time and again, kept sticking on the 'free will' of man. The person that voiced the question gently explained that man has no free will and eventually resorted to explaining that free will wasn't the question. The question was why sin entered the world and could they please stick to the point. Trouble was, for that person, sin and free will were one and the same...they had free will because sin entered the world and sin entered the world so that men might 'freely' choose Christ.
The person that asked the original question made a very good point, they said that they thought sin may have entered the world to show our complete and utter dependence on God. Let's face it before sin the world was perfect. Who hasn't imagined what the garden of Eden must have been like? There was this perfect place, formed by God, for his masterpiece creations, Adam and Eve. In that perfect place was everything they needed to sustain life. How sweet the air must have been, with perfect air quality. How moderate the weather must have been for them not to need clothes. How...just right...the intensity of the sun must have been. How...perfect...the location must have been. Were the fruits and vegetables that grew there extra sweet? Was the water so clean and crisp it left their thirst fully satisfied or was it so wonderful that they longed for more with every drink? There was perfection. There was God's perfect place. It was His chosen home for his greatest creation...man. All of the rest of creation was made to serve that greatest creation of man. The water was here to quench the thirst of man and to cool the land he lived on. The plants grew to provide food, medicine, shelter, and shade for man. The animals were put here for service to man, to work for them, to help them, to feed and clothe them. It was the perfect world.
How long did Adam and Eve live in that perfect world? Or maybe the better question might be...how long did it take man to mess up that perfect world? But mess it up they did. And because they did, they also lost the perfect world. Many, many times in my life I have lived through, and with, the results of what feminism and women's liberation have done to our world. Because of decisions made by women I will never know, many of whom are dead now, I live with the results of their actions. And quite honestly, in just about every case I wish they would have kept their ideas to themselves and left us in a world where women were not seen as equal to men. Just the other day my mother was watching a television show from the 1950's (I think). In that show a group of women were protesting the demolition of a building, actually I think it may have been a house, I really wasn't paying it any attention. What did catch my attention was the way the police on the scene treated and interacted with the women. To start with, these women were only ever referred to as ladies. It was 'Ladies' this and 'Ladies' that. There was an almost gentleness, a difference, in the way the police treated the women. In that very short scene it was clear to see that women, in that time, were treated differently than women of today are. Now...I won't get into the fact that there was a huge difference in the women also. Those really were, for the most part anyway, ladies and today...a lady is almost extinct.
But there was a huge difference in the actions of those women in that show and in what women in an exact same situation in a show made today would be doing. Those women were ladies even as they stood in protest. Today if women stood in protest of something more often than not they would little resemble women much less ladies. Which is all to say that I, as a female in today's world, live in a world that was forever changed by women wanting to be equal to men. And I, and the rest of mankind for all of time, have to live in a world that was forever changed by Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit.
Now, I know the Lord allowed that to happen for His purposes. I know that it HAD to happen in order for everything to work out just the way it did. There was no need for Christ in a perfect world. There was never going to be a need for a savior when there was nothing in need of saving. Through Adam sin entered the world and through Christ salvation from that sin was given. It's short, simple, and easy enough to understand. But... I also understand the question that asked why sin needed to enter the world to begin with. Why not just make a perfect world, keep it perfect, and have all of creation, man included, recognize the holiness of God and worship Him for all of their time on earth?
I've also wondered why in the world Christians must go through trying experiences to make us more Christlike. Before we are given salvation we are sinful creatures that lust after the world and seek nothing of the Lord, even if we think we do. When we are given salvation our hearts are changed. Why not simply change us to the point He wants us changed. If He is already changing us, against our will, against our wishes, against our wants, why not just make the changes complete? Now, these are things I asked myself during a trying time in which my mind and heart could not grasp the reason for what I was going through. I didn't want the hurt I was experiencing and I couldn't help thinking...wishing even...that the Lord would simply have changed me from what I was to the finished product of what He wanted me to be. Why make me work my way, through pain, to that finished point? But that was all my human self wondering and wishing during a time of pain and stress.
And here I sit today, understanding the question that someone else asked...why did sin enter the world, why did it need to enter the world...and really, truly, I do understand. But...I don't think we can ever really have an answer. Sin had to enter the world for the world to need a savior. That's easy enough to understand but it's all the other parts of that question, and it's many answers, that leave the question hanging and leave us to continue to wonder. When a holy God creates something...why doesn't He create it perfect and leave it perfect? Why would He want something to mess it up? Why would He want His people to live in the midst of evil?
Not all that long ago I found myself frustrated with people, for the most part in general but there were specific people I was frustrated with. Now, these same specific people frustrate me often. I have a hard time dealing with people that act in certain ways. My husband reminds me often that we are simply to love people as they are but I find myself wanting to shake some sense into them more often than not. My way of loving someone is to tell them like it is.
Which leaves me wondering why the Lord would put up with evil people to prove His holiness when he could simply have left the evil out and shown His holiness through...good ways in good people.
And I feel almost guilty even thinking or writing this because I know, Scripturally speaking, why it happened. The question of why sin needed to enter the world in the first place can be answered in a single sentence. Sin entered the world so that the world would need Christ. There, it's a quick, easy, answer that explains everything. Christ is life. Christ is salvation. All of creation was made through Christ. He is the lifeblood of all of life and of all that is. The world had to need Christ. And when man lived in a perfect world there was no need for Christ in perfection. When one already has all that is perfect and good...what reason do they have to need to be saved? What reason do they need the One who is perfect?
Yet...I can understand the question. I can understand the reason for the question. It was a human question, voiced by a human heart, that feels the need to understand. And in a lot of ways, the almost immediate response of 'so that man might chose God' was the perfect example of why sin did enter the world. There, in that single response, shows sin. The very belief that man can chose Christ when Scripture clearly says He can't shows the lost condition of man. There was a person that believed in themselves for their own salvation.
When I was a kid I was taught, somewhere along the way, that the earth was a battleground where souls were separated. Here on earth people would chose Jesus or they would perish. Essentially saying they would chose heaven or hell. The idea in that was that souls would be sorted out based on whether or not they were for God or against Him. And people needed this time on earth to get that all sorted out. There time on earth gave them a chance to see whose side they were on.
I read something recently that said that when a person grows up in 'church', when the Lord saves them they have a lot of false teachings to sort through to get to the point of knowing and understanding real Scripture. I can certainly relate to that. That 'understanding' I just wrote of on why people are on earth is a perfect example. I pretty much had to erase everything I was ever taught and learn all things new again. Some of those learnings were painful and confusing.
And the person who kept saying sin came for the 'free will' of man is in that place where knowledge is not power but a hindrance. I saw a comment by a reformed preacher a while back that said something to the effect of how people that believe in 'free will' cannot be shown the Truth because they are so deluded by the belief in 'free will' that they think their own will is all that is needed to save them.
In the answering...or trying to answer...of the question as to why sin entered the earth, that one person showed the truth in that statement. I've spent lots of time with 'free will' 'christians' and can attest to that first hand. 'Free will' almost...or totally...becomes their savior. 'Free will' is of more importance than Christ. It wasn't Christ that saved them but their own 'free will'. They didn't NEED Christ, they CHOSE Him. There is the single most important factor in their salvation...their own 'free will'.
'Free will' becomes their god. They are saved because out of their own 'free will' they 'chose Jesus'. They 'got saved' because they 'chose' to believe. Why then did sin enter the world? So that men could be given 'free will'. I'm seeing a pattern here. Without 'free will' men don't have the 'freedom to chose' and therefore can't 'chose Christ.'
I recently saw comments on a reformed article where someone posted about how the original article was heresy. Now, the original article was one I enjoyed so if you enjoy what I write you wouldn't think it was heresy but if what I write goes against what you believe and you think I'm writing heresy...well, you just might agree with the person that commented on the article. Of course the fact that the original article was published in a reformed group leads me to wonder how anyone that believes reformed views are heresy would even be there to begin with but they were there and they were stirring up, what seemed to me, trouble. Or trying to anyway. The thing is, the person that posted the article backed all of their comments with Scripture. The commenter kept spewing views and beliefs but never backed it with Scripture. The original poster asked them time and again to use Scripture to support what they were saying. And the commenter never did.
I understand that. About a year ago I found myself in a conversation where I repeatedly asked the other person to use Scripture to support the beliefs they were trying to get me to embrace. And this other person never did.
It is all very much like the 'free will' understanding. I've never asked anyone that believes in 'free will' to show me where in Scripture does it say that man has 'free will' but I'm pretty sure they could not do it. Oh, they could probably show a few verses that they interpreted to say that man chooses Christ but the problem in them would be that it would be there interpretation and would not stand up to being interpreted by Scripture.
'Free will' is a false belief that becomes a god to many so-called Christians that 'freely chose' Jesus.
And it is a very good example of just why sin had to come into the world. Even among religious people, people that believe in God, people that believe in Christ, they cannot, of their own accord, believe in Christ. They believe in their own belief to believe in Christ.
Who is the most important factor in their belief? Christ? Or...themselves?
They 'chose' to believe. They used their 'free will' to believe. They...and the list goes on, always followed by what they did and how that gave them salvation.
Now, that isn't the reason sin came into the world, it's only an example of the state of men's hearts. Sin came into the world so that we would need the savior through Whom our world was made and for Whom our world was made.
Sin came for Christ.
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