“And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27) Not one thing with God is impossible, He can do anything He wants, anytime He wants, and all of creation is blessed because He is a loving God.
The Lord did not create evil, but He did allow it, He knew long before He created anything that one day one of His finest creations, Lucifer, would turn his back on Him, He knew that he would go into the garden, deceive Eve, and then watch as Adam, by his own free will, did exactly the same thing that he did. God knew all these things, and so, by default, by creating Lucifer, God created evil. If He had not, there would be no knowledge of good and evil by any of those sentient beings that He created after Lucifer, us.
There are many avenues that most Christians do not care to traverse, and this is one of the main ones, the assurance of our salvation by grace through faith would be a close second. Without the knowledge of good and evil, we would be automatons, or at best, be as Adam was before Satan began his discussion with his wife. Adam was perfect, except in his ability to choose between right and wrong, which could be the main topic of this letter to you, for one must wonder, is right and wrong the same as good and evil.
It is wrong for a child to play in a busy street, but it is not evil, it is evil to murder, but it is not wrong to kill. Evil is an action against the will and Word of God, whether it is done with malicious intent or by an act of ignorance, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20) But ignorance in the case of that action only goes so far, our conscience, that part of us that no science will ever explain, tell us what is good and what is evil, the morals laws placed upon us by mankind informs us of what is right, and what is wrong, according to the laws of man.
Adam did not know the difference between good and evil before he ate of the fruit, but he knew of right and wrong, and it was this part of his conscience that made the wrong decision. Since all things are possible with God, He limits Himself only for Himself, His character and integrity are based on His own holiness. “For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.” (Heb. 6:13) And so in His decision to bring not only the knowledge of right and wrong into the world, but the opportunity for the knowledge of good and evil, He was fulfilling in His character the act of love by giving us free will.
This knowledge must also be brought into the equation when we are discussing these issues, that there was no tree with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in heaven while Lucifer walked there before his fall, his decision to sin was entirely from contemplating right and wrong, in whatever form it availed him, which infers, that this alone is enough to cause sin in a created being of the Most High. So why the second chance, as it were, for Adam, he made the decision based on the same facts as Lucifer had, that of right and wrong, whether or not he harkened to the voice of his wife, (Gen. 3:17) why was that not enough as it was for Satan, why was it also necessary for the man to commit an action of disobedience by eating of the fruit.
Would you like to know the answer? Me too.
These types of thoughts are one of the ways that we contemplate God, they are the questions that we have not been given the answers to, but at least in this case, they are the beginnings of all sin, and if we knew the answers, it could have the effect of lessoning our faith.
I will leave you with another one, if the Lord leads in that direction, we will discuss at length someday another one that we are not privy to the answers for. Since the fallen angels can never return to their first estate, (Jude 1:6) what is it that keeps any angel in heaven from falling in the same way as a third of their brothers did, if they retain their free will to do so. There is much more to studying the Word of God than just opening His book and reading it.
