I love your site! It has been such a huge blessing for me. Thank you for your faithfulness!! I have a few questions for you:
If God is all-knowing and omniscient and knew before Satan and man were created what would happen with the rebellion and the fall, why did He create them?
And, in the Garden of Eden, could God have just made them incorruptible THEN (or prior to their creation) instead of letting them become corruptible since He knew from before they were created that they would be corrupted?
And, lastly, why did He create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when he KNEW they were going to eat it. I’ve always found this concept difficult to understand. Why do something to tempt humans like that by putting a tree there and then saying “don’t eat it” when you could have just NOT made the tree, since you KNEW that they were going to eat it before they did it.
Since the Bible was written to guide us through the Age of Man, it doesn’t give much detail about what happens before or after the 7000 years allotted to us. For example, we’re not privy to God’s thinking in suddenly creating man after who knows how much time had passed with just the angelic realm as His created world.
He does explain His eternal purpose for the Church. In Ephes. 2:7 He had Paul write that through us He was demonstrating the incomparable riches of His Grace. In Ephes. 3:10-11, He said that His eternal purpose is accomplished in using us to make known His manifold wisdom to the Angels. That being the case, then all that came before was preparatory to the introduction of the Church.
As for making Adam and Eve incorruptible from the beginning, He certainly could have. That would have demonstrated His power, but deprived Him of the chance to demonstrate His love. And without a clear alternative, what good would man’s choice to accept God be?
Obedience cannot exist in the absence of choice. Adam and Eve were given only one rule and they broke it of their own volition. James 1:13-15 says, “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
It was not God who tempted Eve, but Satan. And all he did was to stir up her own desires. The lesson that began here and continues throughout the Bible is that man has never kept his bargain with God. It’s why he needs unconditional redemption. Any time there are any strings attached, he’ll pull the strings and ruin everything.