Did God Know? by W. H. Wild

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 22, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 46.

Did God Know?

By W. H. Wild

THE question, "Did God know, when He created man, that he would fall?" is going its rounds among Christian people. Some think He did not know. Others think He did. To the law and to the testimony. They prove very clearly, to my mind, that He did know. We read in Acts 15: 18, "Known unto God are ALL HIS WORKS from the beginning of the world." This text certainly dates away back to Gen. 1: 1, before man was created. Now, if all God's works were known to Him when He created the heaven and the earth, surely the whole plan of salvation was known to Him. All His works are included in that plan. He knew the works of Abel, of Abraham, and of all His holy prophets and apostles. His works embrace the preaching of the Gospel in the old dispensation as well as under the new, by patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. And His greatest work was in sending His beloved Son down here to die. How, then, is it possible for Him to know all this and not to know that man would fall?

We read in John 2: 25 that He (Christ) needed not that any should testify of man; for He knew what was in man. If He knew what was in man, if He knew man's thoughts "afar off," before they entered his mind, then surely He must have known the thoughts of Eve before she fell, and also Adam's thoughts before and after they fell. If not, then His knowledge was limited, and He could not be omniscient. See also Ps. 139: 2. Were not all the works in the ceremonial law the works of God, especially the works of the sanctuary?—Most surely they were. Well, we are told that God knew those works before Adam sinned. Then surely He knew that Adam would fall. Reader, do you want any more proof? If so, read Isa. 46: 9, 10: "I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done." This ought to be enough to satisfy every lover of truth.

W. H. WILD. Hinsdale, Illinois.