Ivellious wrote:If you had the mental/emotional experience and capacity of a newborn baby, would you have been able to resist the ultimate incarnation of lies and deceit because of a handful of disembodied words? Of course that law and the punishment thereafter were unreasonable and a setup for failure!
If that's where God left it, then I can see it unreasonable. And yet, that is not where God left it.
Ephesians 1:3-6 --
- 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
God created us with a freedom knowing we would fall. God could have said don't pick up that stick. And each one of us would have wanted to pick up that stick, if not just to see what would happen next. The very mention of being told not to do something, inspires us to want to do that thing we should not. And when God is the person we are rebelling against, sure He allowed for the situation in which we became tested, but He is not accountable for our rebelling against Him. Such is not possible for God, unless God is divided against Himself. In which case God would be sinister. And I expect the world we live could be a lot more horrible if God be sinister. Take the worst horror movie or worse, then make it a reality. Then there be a valid argument from evil. Yet, it seems to me that evil in our world is constrained, even by death.
Many focus on the fall and sin. To God, while sin must be dealt with, it is not God's focal point. It is the pesky element of our fleshly desire to rebel and be otherwise (sin), that needs to be addressed before He can just enter into a relationship with us. God wanted our hearts, despite our niavities and failings when it comes to our actions we do against Him. Paul goes into detail explaining how our flesh can be at enmity with our spirit and is at enmity with God. That we do not want to do, that is what we do. Even if we desire change, we are helpless and enslaved against our own bodies to be the person we would love to be. For example, I admire those with great patience. I desire to have great patience and be calm, laid back and jovial even in the face of trying happenings. Many loose it in traffic alone. I'm quite easy there. Yet having kids, I realise how much patience I lack especially when tired or sick.
Try telling a 2 year old boy who loves to throw not to throw hard objects like toy cars or sticks. Add a baby or sister into the room when you tell him that. Then watch their mind tick over when they look at their sibling, and then their hand, and then look up at you grinning cheekily with a sparkle in their eye. He has just upped the ante, and the game now becomes: "are you going to stop me"? All this, while being dead tired and sick with the throbbing headache, and now you want to try me? So you call your 2 year olds bluff, ignoring him, to realise he was not bluffing and whack.... *sigh* so you jump up, check on your hurt child while saying some expletives, then grab your 2yo and throw him into his room for timeout, slamming the door behind you.
Why go into this detail? I've got nothing to hide. It could be worse, but I know I fail nonetheless, and I don't like it. I want to change and try to change. I just give one situation to show how what I want to be like, and what I do, can often conflict. Who can rescue me if I can't even be who I want to be, but must strive to be who I want to be?
Romans 8:1-4 --
- 1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Sin and the fall pales so much in comparison to this -- Christ. God is not after what we do, but who we are. He doesn't want us to jump through hoops to gain His love, no He lowered the bar through Christ so that now we can approach God cloaked in Christ's righteousness and He can deal with us without worrying about our sin thanks be to Christ.
So, when you look at the fall, and our falling as grown up babes niave and gullible as Adam and Eve may have been -- well, that is an incomplete picture. For God saw the end and richness in relationships that He desired from us. The fall was just one step to having that. When all is said and done, and this world has passed away... God would have produced through this temporary world wherein humanity fell (and were forgiven), there is pain and suffering (as well as beautify and happiness), freedom for people to do great evil (as well as great good)... through this temporary process of events God would have produced creatures who freely chose to love Him back. Rather than creating such beings in an instance (if that be possible), God chose the process of life that we now experience. And sin, which God tolerates but for a time, is only a small part of the picture which has been overcome to all who accept The Way that God created.
