Your ShelfYour Projects

God Knows Best

25%

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 21, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 44.

Read the full edition

God Knows Best.

By Raymond F. Cottrell

In our darkness we may not be able to see that the way of God's choice is the best way that could be devised. How often has our Creator been reproved for suffering sin to enter into the world. If he knew that man, left to choose for himself, would take the course of sin and misery, it is thought it had been better not to have made him; or that he should have placed him in such circumstances as to preclude the possibility of his falling into sin.
We in our ignorance may not be able to comprehend the reasons why God should think it best to create man, and place him in such circumstances that he may take a course of obedience, or of sin. It is generally admitted that God foreknew the result. Whether in giving man a free choice, God chose not to know the result, which seems a thing possible to a Being having all power, I do not propose to argue; but admitting that he knew that man would sin and bring misery and death upon himself and the whole race, yet there may be reasons which he knows, though we may not see them, which make it the best thing for man to have a trial of his fidelity which would result in failure and woe, and from which he may be redeemed, and by a second probation a portion be gathered out who shall see the ways of God vindicated, and all see and know that the way of God is the best that could be devised to prepare man for immortality and make his bliss complete. Doubtless all the saved, and all the angels that have not sinned, will realize in the coming eternity that the trial of sin and wrath divine, and the redemption and salvation of those who would return to their allegiance to God, and the destruction of Satan and sin, were the things best calculated to enhance the glories and the blessedness of those who have not sinned, and those who have been reclaimed. The throne of God will be stainless, his righteous judgment vindicated, and future obedience and consequent eternal blessedness made sure.
R. F. Cottrell.