Here is what God set before Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” “And God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (
Gen. 1:28; 2:16, 17) Would you encourage your children to undertake a project with a marvelous future, knowing from the start that it was doomed to failure? Would you warn them of harm, while knowing that you had planned everything so that they were sure to come to grief? Is it reasonable, then, to attribute such to God?
Matt. 7:11: “If you, although being wicked [or, “bad as you are,”
NE], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those asking him?”
If God foreordained and foreknew Adam’s sin and all that would result from this, it would mean that by creating Adam, God deliberately set in motion all the wickedness committed in human history. He would be the Source of all the wars, the crime, the immorality, the oppression, the lying, the hypocrisy, the disease. But the Bible clearly says: “You are not a God taking delight in wickedness.” (
Ps. 5:4) “Anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.” (
Ps. 11:5) “God . . . cannot lie.” (
Titus 1:2) “From oppression and from violence he [the One designated by God as Messianic King] will redeem their soul, and their blood will be precious in his eyes.” (
Ps. 72:14) “God is love.” (
1 John 4:8) “He is a lover of righteousness and justice.”—
Ps. 33:5.
Gen. 25:23: “God proceeded to say to her [Rebekah]: ‘Two nations are in your belly, and two national groups will be separated from your inward parts; and the one national group will be stronger than the other national group, and the older [Esau] will serve the younger [Jacob].’” (God was able to read the genetic pattern of the unborn twins. He may have considered this when foreseeing the qualities that each of the boys would develop and foretelling the outcome. [
Ps. 139:16] But there is no indication here that he fixed their
eternal destinies or that he predetermined how
each event in their lives would turn out.)
Ps. 41:9: “The man at peace with me, in whom I trusted, who was eating my bread, has magnified his heel against me.” (Notice that the prophecy does not specify
which close associate of Jesus it would be. God knew that the Devil had used David’s counselor Ahithophel to betray him, and He had that recorded because it demonstrated how the Devil operated and what he would do in the future. It was not God but “the Devil . . . [who] put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him [Jesus].” [
John 13:2] Instead of resisting, Judas yielded to that satanic influence.)
John 6:64: “From the beginning Jesus knew . . . who was the one that would betray him.” (Not from the beginning of creation, nor from the time of Judas’ birth, but “from the beginning” of his acting treacherously. Compare
Genesis 1:1, Luke 1:2, and
1 John 2:7, 13, in each of which texts “beginning” is used in a relative sense. Take note also of
John 12:4-6.)
Rom. 8:28, 29: “We know that God makes all his works cooperate together for the good of those who love God, those who are the ones called according to his purpose; because those whom he gave his first recognition he also foreordained [“predestinated,”
KJ] to be patterned after the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Also
Eph. 1:5, 11) Yet, to these same ones,
2 Peter 1:10 says: “Do your utmost to make the calling and choosing of you sure for yourselves; for
if you keep on doing these things you will by no means ever fail.” (If the individuals were predestinated to salvation, they could not possibly fail, regardless of what they did. Since effort is required on the part of the individuals, it must be the
class that is foreordained. God purposed that the entire
class would conform to the pattern set by Jesus Christ. Those selected by God to be part of that
class, however, must prove faithful if they are actually to attain the reward set before them.)
Eph. 1:4, 5: “He chose us in union with him [Jesus Christ]
before the founding of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love. For he foreordained us to the adoption through Jesus Christ as sons to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” (It is noteworthy that, at
Luke 11:50, 51, Jesus parallels “the founding of the world” with the time of Abel. Abel is the first human who continued to have God’s favor throughout his life. Thus, it was after the rebellion in Eden but before the conception of Abel that God formed his purpose to produce a “seed” through which deliverance would be provided. [
Gen. 3:15] God purposed that associated with the principal Seed, Jesus Christ, would be a group of his faithful followers who would share with him in a new government over the earth, the Messianic Kingdom.)
