The Problem of the Will, Part 3
Why did God make man capable of sin? That is the question I’ve been addressing in this series.* In the first two installments, I explained why “free will” is not the biblical answer. The Bible never cites free will as a motivation for God, but it has plenty to say about what does motivate him. So, let’s shift our focus from the human will to God’s will. What was his purpose for creating humans with the capacity for sin? After all, we know that in the grand scheme of things (and there is a grand scheme), it is his purpose that will stand:
“I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’” (Is 46:9b-10).
God, the Alpha and the Omega (Rev 1:8), did not merely “foresee” the end from the beginning, he declared it saying: “I will accomplish all my purpose.” Creation and all of history serve to accomplish his ends. So, what is God’s purpose? Isaiah gives us a peek at the end of Chapter 46:
“I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off,
and my salvation will not delay;
I will put salvation in Zion,
for Israel my glory (vv 13).
At the end of Part 2, I left you to ponder Romans 9:22-24 with this question in mind: According to Paul, what does God want to reveal about his character in his dealings with a sinful humanity?
“What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”
Both Isaiah and Romans lay these two great purposes side by side: 1) God’s desire to reveal his righteousness, and 2) his will to reveal the riches of his glory in the merciful salvation of sinners. These parallel desires can even serve as a simple summary of the Bible’s story and the history of the world.
First, we see that the Creator desires to express his perfectly righteous character in the exercise of his wrath—his just and powerful hatred of evil. It would be right for him to do so (see Rom 3:1-8). The Creator alone defines what is right for his creatures, and he alone has the authority to exercise judgment over them. In the first three chapters of Genesis we see him express his justice both positively and negatively. In Genesis 1:31, upon completion of his creation, God stood back, evaluated his masterpiece, and judged it “very good.” The pinnacle of his “very good” creation was the people he created in his own image to inhabit it and rule it as perfect reflections of his own righteous character. In establishing a boundary for mankind—a single prohibition—God reminded his image-bearers that he defines righteousness (Gen 2:17). His standard is our standard: “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:45). (Or as Jesus later put it: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Mt 5:48]). We answer to our Creator for what we do with his image in his world.
So, what is the just outcome for rejecting the will of our Creator, our Giver of breath, our Sustainer of life, and our only Reason for being? Death, of course. Hence God’s warning, “in the day that you eat of [the forbidden fruit] you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). As Paul puts it: “[T]he wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). Death is the payment owed to us for our sin. But Adam survived the day of his sin. His relationship with God was shattered, but he continued breathing in his newly sinful state for many, many years before dying. Why the delay in God’s righteous judgment? Why the stay of execution? And beyond that, why did God allow him to procreate and fill God’s good world with sin and death?
This brings us to that second desire and to the answer we have been seeking: God was determined to exhibit the glories of his mercy through the redemptive work of his Son. From the beginning, God, “with much patience,” restrained his righteous desire for judgment in order “to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.” Adam had a taste of God’s glory; it was imprinted in the clay from which he was formed. But in a sense, he didn’t know the half of it. Nor did the rest of creation:
“To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord . . .” Eph. 3:8-11.
God’s “eternal purpose,” Paul tells us, was to reveal “the unsearchable riches of Christ” and through Christ’s church, his vessels of mercy, to reveal the “manifold wisdom of God.” And his intended audience is not mankind alone but the cosmic throng of angelic beings, both fallen and elect (cf 1 Tim 5:21). Did you ever wonder why God made angels capable of sin? Jesus tells us hell is “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Lk 10:18). Why has Satan received a stay of execution? Why are he and his angels on the loose making sinners out of humankind rather than in the hell prepared for them?
These answers are likewise found in God’s desire to fulfill his eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. Only in him will anyone see the fullness of God’s glory: his perfect justice and his loving mercy. It is in Christ that God planned to reveal every glorious aspect of his character to his creatures. The angels had seen Him as a holy, omnipotent, and caring Creator, but they'd never seen His justice meted out on enemies, nor had they ever dreamed of, let alone witnessed, the depths of His love. Apart from Christ, how could anyone have ever guessed this holy and righteous God could be long-suffering toward those who hate him? Who could have known that He could (or would) be both just, and the justifier of the ungodly (Rom 3:26)? And who would have ever imagined the lengths to which He would go to draw a people into the circle of His love. Listen as Christ pours out the desire of his heart to his Father:
“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:24-25).'
God’s great plan to reveal His glory is not rooted in a need to show off. He doesn’t need an audience. Rather, his plan is an extension of the eternal love of the Father for his Son, a love so powerful and a Son so beautiful that he wants them both to multiply:
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Rom. 8:29-30).
The Father adores the Son. He wants many more loving, self-sacrificing children, all the spitting image of His only begotten Son, who is the spitting image of the Father (Jn 14:9). Adam was created in the image of God, but he was a mere shadow, a type of the Son that was to come. Mankind could not reflect the fullness of God’s image without experiencing the fullness of his character, for “we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). Christ’s redeemed mankind will obtain a glory Adam could never have imagined.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:3-10).
Why did God make man capable of sin? Because only in Christ—his life, his cross, and his resurrection—are the glory of God's perfect love and pristine justice exhibited for all creation to witness. And only in Christ will God’s ultimate purpose for mankind be fulfilled, as “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).
Praise God for drawing us in to his beautiful plan of redemption in Christ Jesus!
