Why did God put the forbidden fruit in the middle of Eden?
To test the obedience and loyalty of Adam and Eve.
As they were gifted with free will, because they had God’s attributes and qualities in their DNA, their role here on earth was to represent God in caring for all that He had created here on earth.
They were to use their God given attributes to make sure that everything was cared for as God would care for them himself. They were to have children and fill the earth with them, extending the boundaries of their paradise hom until the whole planet was like the garden of Eden. God planted that garden as a blueprint for the whole world and gave the humans a natural desire to appreciate the beauty of nature and to love the living things he created for their enjoyment....”forever”.....including each other. So what went wrong?
If our body in heaven will be sinless unlike our current fleshly body, why did god not just do that to begin with?
To test us. If we pass the test, we will go to heaven.
Well, I cannot find such a scenario in the scriptures. Neither Adam nor his wife were created with defects of any kind....so he was never told about going to heaven or hell, or any test to decide where he would end up. The command God gave was not difficult, nor was it impossible for them to keep it....in fact, it imposed no hardship on them at all.
One tree out of all the trees in the garden was deemed by God to be his property....the fruit of every other tree in the garden was freely available to them....except this one. Obedience to God’s command would have seen the humans experiencing exactly what God had envisioned for them.....”everlasting life (not immortality) in paradise conditions on earth was assured, as long as they had access to “the tree of life”......both trees stood there in the garden but only one had a prohibition.
When satan tempted Eve (the younger and less experienced one) to disobey, this placed Adam in a difficult situation.....he had waited so long for a mate of his own, and now he was faced with losing her. His loyalties were divided and he had to choose between the love of his God, and the love he now felt for his wife. Satan had set him up. Why? Because he envied the worship that these lower creatures would give to God and he wanted it for himself. He was driven by greed and jealousy, which are the negative parts of free will. As creatures with intellectual ability and a way to determine or imagine future outcomes by present actions, Adam knew that death was going to follow disobedience, but he chose death with his wife rather than losing her.
Why does God allow suffering and Satan to hang around?
2 Peter 3:The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
This is stating a fact but not what caused it. Satan made slanderous accusations about God to the woman and deceived her.....she in turn tempted Adam.....so rather than just delete the rebels (who all deserved death) he determined that using this rebellion to his own advantage would lead to a long term outcome that would benefit all of his ‘children’ both in heaven and on earth......the first rebel was not human, so he allowed the ‘god’ they chose to rule them and he would stand back and allow what he knew would result, to take place. He handed the world over to the devil to prove that he was the better ruler over mankind. (Luke 4:5-7)
Since God’s purpose has never changed and this detour is taken in universal time, not earth time, it appears to be a “slow”process, but if a “thousand years is a one day” to God, (2 Pet 3:8) then it hasn’t taken long at all. God basically told the devil...”I’ll give you a week”....
But looking at the long term, we see what will result.....Isaiah 55:11 tells us that God will always accomplishes his purpose, so what he intended when he created our earth and placed living creatures on it, must still go ahead.....but he had to fulfill some legal obligations before he could bring it all back to his first intentions.
He had to undo what Adam did by providing a ransom to redeem the now defective human race. He fulfilled his own law...”an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and “a life for a life”. Adam lost perfect sinless life for all his children, so God provided a perfect sinless life in sacrifice to balance the scales of his justice. Jesus came so willingly to help get his Father’s purpose to come to fruition, despite knowing what it would mean for him. But we see how long it took from Adam’s sin to Christ’s sacrifice and from his death to the return that he promised.....thousands of earth years intervened.
Understanding God’s counting of time helps us to get the big picture, and to be patient for the outcome...so close now.
In the beginning God had no intentions of taking any humans to heaven, but Adam’s sin plunged the human man race into a course that only God could resolve. By providing the ransom and implementing the rule of his Kingdom, including those chosen to rule with Christ in heaven as ”kings and priests” (Rev 20:6) he created the means to bring us all back to where we started....living forever in paradise on earth.....only this time, precedents will have been created so that no rebel will ever be able to usurp God’s rightful Sovereignty again. No one will be able to say that God did not allow his adversary to try every means at his disposal to gain the worship of the humans that he desired.....or that the devil’s rulership was in any way successful.
So who will receive the outcome foretold in Revelation 21:2-4? Only those who can see what God’s original purpose was...and the means he uses to get us back there.....”God’s Kingdom”....Jesus taught us to pray for it to “come” to us, not that we would go to it. (unless we have a special invitation to do so, which is God’s choosing, not ours). God’s Kingdom will see to it that reconciliation with God will take place, (we lost our personal relationship with God in Eden through the sin of Adam) but it will be returned to obedient mankind with the end of sin...the barrier between us and God will be gone.
This is the big picture as I see the Bible paints it......satan has obscured that picture so much, that there are many interpretations that lead to no real answers or conclusions as to why we got into this mess, why God allows all the trouble and suffering, and how God gets us out of it. If he were to intervene, then the devil’s rule would not be seen for the abject failure that it is.
God can and will undo all the harm caused, because the end justifies the means.
