4041 — The Creation of Man and the Plan of God
Do not regard these questions as sacrilegious. They are not so meant. We are told that God is all-wise, that time past and time future are the same to Him as present time; but if this is true (and it must be true if He is God), was it in His plan to place man in the garden with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that man should disobey Him and partake of the fruit and fall? Also that Christ should come and be betrayed and crucified? And if so, if it could have happened that the "wicked" ones could not have been found to betray and crucify Him, would not God's plans have been frustrated? But if these wicked ones were born for this purpose, were they to blame? In fact, if the least thing had happened to frustrate God's plans, would it not have proved that God was finite—if one can imagine a finite God? In the first place, God is infinite, and He knows all things; but foreknowledge does not imply, necessarily, foreordination. For fuller treatment of this, see tract on "Bible Election," No. 67, Bible Students' Library, price 2 cents. Secondly, God has not foreordained evil. His plan does not involve that. In all reason He made the earth for a certain number of a certain character; but it was not in His plan that there should be evil characters, or evil men. These things lie outside of the plan, and lying outside of the plan must lie outside of the results of that plan. Thirdly, it would be utterly impossible for character to be formed without test. The created men who will form characters acceptable to God can not be automatons, or machines. Man must be given freedom to choose; and God, tho He be infinite, could not step within that sacred circle of freedom which is thrown around each one. He Himself must take the awful risk of apostasy in His kingdom, and there could be no other way. But this did not necessitate man's choosing the evil, the selfish way, instead of God's way. But man chose the selfish way, yet God, in His infinite goodness, more than met the defect by abundance of grace, so that "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,"—superabound. Rom. 5: 20. To put it in another way, God laid before man life and death,—life in the way of willing submission to His own law of righteousness, death in the rejection of that law and in the walking in his own way. If man rejects God's way, surely he can not count God unjust to deprive him of life, and if he be told, as he is told, that his own way means death, and death comes to him, God can not be charged with injustice. By death we mean death—cessation of existence, not eternal life in misery. And therefore, in God's plan, Christ should come, "the just for the unjust, the righteous for the sinner." "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Counting Himself a sinner for our sake, He died for our sake, that we through Him might live. Nor was it necessary, in God's plan, that there should be certain wicked ones that would have any part in carrying this out. Of course God foresaw that there would be, and He predicted it that we might know His all-knowledge; but if Judas had not been there to betray Him, and the priests had not been there to purchase that betrayal, still Christ would have laid down His own life. It is His own words that "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." God permitted evil men to do as they did in order that the world and the universe might see that sin is exceeding sinful, and that the man who is utterly given to sin will not hesitate to take the life of the very One who would bring life, if his own way is thwarted. So, God's plan can not be frustrated. There may be ten thousand efforts, as there have been, by the enemy of all righteousness to thwart that plan. Still will God triumph, and still will His plan triumph over all the devices of the enemy. God's work may seem to be at a standstill, and His plan utterly thwarted; the very Son of God Himself may die, and the black gloom of the heavens proclaim that God has turned against Him. His own disciples may forsake Him and flee, but out of the grave will come everlasting righteousness, and the very death which the enemy brought will be the means of saving souls. Men are not born for the purpose of doing wickedly. That some will do wickedly is clearly evident, and men hold them responsible if that evil affects their interests. The most ultra-Calvinist would hold his neighbor responsible if he stole his horse; and while he might believe in the eternal decrees beyond the grave, he would hold that they would not obtain in connection with the horse stealing. But that very element in the man proclaims that there is justice with God. It does not seem that way now. Even Abraham asked, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" And after the whole great plan of God comes to everlasting fruitage, and review is made by the righteous ones of that plan in all its workings, they sing triumphantly, "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." We see so little now; God sees all. Let us trust Him.