This series is provided in hopes of presenting an idea of the origin of sin and why sin exists. I make some non-provable assumptions. Please read this only from a view of my attempt to pose a possible answer to those who ask the question, “why does sin exist?”
The Bible speaks of good and evil. All men understand the general concept of good and evil. God is the almighty omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient total power and authority. He is the only God, and beside him, there is no other. All things were created by him. God is righteous, and there is “no” unrighteousness in or part of God.
God is the creator of everything. Nothing exists that does not come from God. He can, at any time, withdraw creation and it would cease to exist. Therefore, everything is effectively God. Man is God’s crowning creation. Man is created by God to share his creation, be loved by God, and to love God. God has relinquished some of his authority to man. Man is created eternally and has been given the ability to make choices to love or hate his creator.
It sounds like a contradiction to say God is all, but did not create sin and hates all unrighteousness. God’s original creation consisted of complete righteousness, with not an iota of sin or iniquity in it. God created man in his image and ceded to man some of God’s own sovereignty.
When God ceded some of his sovereignty to mankind, he placed God’s perfect creation at the jeopardy of man’s deeds and actions. God and his creation were in complete righteousness and had not one iota of unrighteousness within it. Man was created perfect, but given the freewill to remain in righteousness (love and trust God as his creator), or reject God as creator and try to be his own god.
Man does not have the power of God and cannot control God’s creation or him-self; he must depend on the creator to sustain life and God’s creation. Man was given freewill because this was the only way he could choose to accept God as his creator, share his creation, and love God. If man did not have freewill, he would be like a robot and could not choose to love God, but only obey his every command. This would not be love, or the ability to share.
Since God, and his creation, was perfect and righteous, the opposite of God was unrighteousness. Man was created righteous, but had the choice to remain righteous by maintaining faith in God and his promises, or to reject God and his promises. If man removed his faith from God’s promises and tried to be his own god, he would step out of a state of righteousness and create a state of unrighteousness.
God did not create unrighteousness; it was brought into existence by Adam. God’s entire creation consisted of Holiness and righteousness. This righteousness was in Adam when God breathed the breath of life into him, and Adam became a living soul. God forewarned Adam that he would lose this righteousness, if he chose to reject it, and give it up for his own selfish desire to be his own god.
Under the influence of Satan, Adam chose to be his own god and gave up his righteousness in God. This left him in a state of unrighteousness, or with the opposite attributes of God. He immediately stepped out of the light of God into darkness and separation from God.
We can use a couple of examples from rules of the universe about unrighteousness. There is no such thing as “cold”. Cold is the absence of heat. The less heat in an object, there is the sensation of coldness. The more heat that is removed, the colder the object appears.
The same is true of darkness. There is no darkness, just the absence of light. When you dim the light, darkness seems to appear. When you remove all light, total darkness is the appearance. Hell is outer darkness with zero light. God is light and when he is not present, there is no way to see things. In Revelation, during the Tribulation, God removes the light for a time period and men were so terrified and in such pain because there was no light available, they gnawed their tongues in pain.
Prior to the creation of man and his freewill, there was no sin or iniquity. The iniquity found in Lucifer may well have been the freewill choice by men and Lucifer assumed this role of unrighteousness to compete with God.
God placed a tree in the Garden of Eden and called it the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To give Adam freewill to choose to love God and share his creation, God had to place before Adam the choice of God’s essence or the absence of God’s essence.
This tree and Adam’s choice of trusting or not trusting God represented Adam’s freewill toward God. If Adam ate of the tree, he would die a spiritual death (lose his righteousness). He would have passed from righteousness (possessing an essence of God) into unrighteousness (losing the essence of God). Adam would immediately step out of the light of God into darkness and separation from God.
Adam disobeyed God and brought unrighteousness into creation. Where did unrighteousness originate? It originated with Adam. The same principle would have applied if God had drawn a line on the ground and told Adam not to step over the line as a test of his free will and trust in God.
As long as Adam used his sovereignty and trusted God, he knew nothing about unrighteousness. Adam was in the image of God in that he knew no unrighteousness. Adam communed with God and was happy until he decided to use his sovereignty to disobey and distrust God’s promise to him.
With Adam’s misuse of his sovereignty he not only brought unrighteousness into God’s creation, he passed this curse on to his descendents to know the difference between righteousness (good) and unrighteousness (evil) without the ability of a Godly essence to protect him. Man was doomed for an eternal life in an unrighteous condition.
Since man lost his spiritual soul from God, he no longer had any righteousness, but resided in opposition to God in unrighteousness. God prepared a way of escape from the eternal torment of darkness and terror outside of God’s goodness. Man is created in God’s image as an eternal being and will spend the remainder of eternity in outer darkness unless God prepared a way of escape for him.
God prepared atonement from his own righteousness giving man the opportunity to once again regain righteousness and escape an eternal torment separated from God. Man lost his breath of righteousness from God by his distrust in God and his subsequent reliance on his own abilities.
Man must regain this righteousness from God in the reverse order in which it was lost. He must use the sovereignty given to him by God to make a new confession of faith in God through God’s only begotten son, Jesus.
Man must exercise his sovereign freewill choice to accept Christ as his Savior and God by faith. This faith is in the promise of Christ that he will baptize (quicken) a man with the Holy Ghost (a new breath of righteousness from Jesus). This breath of life from Christ will indwell the person who believes the promises of Jesus by faith.
A person is commits himself back under God’s will by faith as opposed to faith in his own abilities. Man hears the gospel of Christ and chooses to love the attributes of God in Christ rather than his own lustful desire to be his own god. The born again experience is a matter of a person loving the attributes of God and accepting him as creator God. He accepts the free gift of eternal life through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
Man is a sovereign being and has this freewill choice to accept salvation from Christ and dwell in eternity with him. Man may choose to reject the love of Christ, be his own god, and follow Satan into the eternal Lake of Fire.
Man, in his sovereign freewill state, has the innate ability to know right from wrong in order to make his choice of love or hate for the creator. If he chooses to love the creator, he does it by faith and receives the free gift of eternal life in heaven. If he chooses to reject this free gift, he has chosen self condemnation to an eternal Lake of Fire located in outer darkness. There is not one iota of light from God in this quarantined Lake of Fire for the unrighteous.
Separation from a righteous God is unrighteousness. Man cannot abide in the presence of a righteous God unless he is also righteous. The only righteousness available is from God. Apart from God, there is no righteousness. The very best that man can do on his own is as filthy rags in the sight of God. Man is evil outside of God’s righteousness and must accept God’s righteousness to avoid the Lake of Fire.
For man to obtain righteousness, he must love its attributes. Those who love God have chosen to love the attributes of a righteous God as opposed to the attributes of unrighteousness. Those who love themselves in lieu of loving God would never be happy in heaven and will not go there. In fact, unrighteousness cannot exist in the presence of a righteous God.
Those, who choose to love Christ, will accept him as their God and Savior by faith and will be born again into purity. This spirit of Christ dwelling with the born again individual is the only righteousness that is attainable by lost mankind. Why is it called being lost? Mankind, through Adam, lost the breath of God and now mankind is lost in darkness and can only attain light from God through the new spiritual birth.
Why did God create man with a freewill choice of righteousness or unrighteousness? God made Adam first before he made Eve. Adam was lonely because he had all of the things God had provided in his creation, but Adam had no one to share them. God said, “It is not good that man should be alone”. Adam had God for communion, but no one of his own kind to share his life.
Was God stating his own thoughts about himself? God had his creation, but no one to love him and share his thoughts and creation. True, God had angels, but they are similar to robots. They are created beings to do his commands and “must” do exactly as God directs in all matters. If I create a robot and program it to love me, I really love myself as the robot is only reacting to a preset program I have placed in its memory.
The robot did not choose to love me, it only responded as programmed. God created man and ceded sovereignty to man to love God or reject God. Those who choose to love God are born again with a new spirit from God. However, this time, man has chosen this free gift of righteousness by his own sovereign choice. Man becomes a new creature in Christ and God now has some of his own kind to share his creation and life.
God made man’s companion from man himself. He took the rib from man and made his companion, Eve. The Bible says, “A woman is to man as man is to God”.
The incarnate Word of the Gospel comes from God into the heart of man to pierce his heart and causes him to be born again of the Spirit of God. The man becomes part of the church or the Bride of Christ. So, as Eve came from Adam, also the Church comes from Christ. Adam and Eve appear to be a picture of Jesus and the Church. As Adam now had someone to love him and share his life, God will also have a people through his Church to truly love him and share his life.
God did not want Adam to sin and bring destruction to God’s creation, but could not help but know the end from the beginning as he is God. God had already taken the failure of Adam (mankind) and determined a better way to resolve the problem of love and companionship, although God would have to lose some of his creation in the process.
We go back to Adam and Eve’s status. They were made perfect, talked and communed with God, initially had faith in his promise, but they did not know the opposite of God, which was unrighteousness. Adam and Eve lived in total innocence. They knew God, but had no comparison of his attributes with other attributes that were not of God. They could choose to obey God and be his companions, but probably could not understand his true love nor could they experience true love to God.
Maybe, they were like those under the law, who only knew to obey or disobey the law, but did not understand the love of God. Christians are saved by grace through faith and are not under the law. We often disobey God in the flesh, but with our minds we still love God for who he is and his total essence. The era of grace is better than the era of the law, because we choose to love God and know he loves us. We do not have to worry about keeping a bunch of rituals to be his child, feel his love, and love him in return.
In some respects, those who become God’s children through love have it better than those who were children of God in the Garden of Eden through obedience. However, the downside is all who willfully choose eternal punishment with Satan as opposed to choosing a loving God.
Satan appealed to Adam, causing him to doubt God in order to become is own god. Satan told Adam, “You will not die”. When you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will become as God”. Adam changed his faith from God to follow his own wisdom and become his own god. Adam immediately lost his righteous soul and fell into darkness and unrighteousness.
Today, men walk in darkness not knowing the goodness and loving care of God. Man is spiritually dead (separated) from God. Man will remain dead to God forever unless he attains a new spiritual soul. How does man attain this spiritual soul, or become clothed with the proper garment for the wedding? Eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil provided Adam with the ability to know the difference from good and evil. God is good and man’s best is as filthy rags (evil). Man must attain righteousness from God to be able to live in God’s presence and commune with him.
Man witnesses the goodness of God daily, and God’s creation and power is evident everywhere. God provided a way for man to regain another spiritual soul (breath of life). Man is now free from the penalty of the Adamic sin, but each man has a choice to remain in his present sinful state, or accept righteousness from Christ. He must accept the free gift of salvation from Jesus which equips him with another spiritual soul from God.
Man has the innate knowledge between good and evil, but must make his choice. Man’s free will choice to accept Christ or reject him determines his fate.
God has given definite examples of the plight of those who choose their way and want to be their own god. Satan was cast out of heaven, Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden, and Cain was cast out of the presence of God into the land of Nod. Since God is completely righteous and no evil dwells within him, he cannot let evil abide in his presence. Once time is no more, all evil must be purged from the universe and quarantined from the presence of righteousness.
God has no beginning and no end and is present at every point in time of man’s past, present, and future. God did not want Adam to sin (fall), but knew the end result of Adam’s decision. God had already made a way of escape from the eternal spiritual death of man. From the foundation of the earth God had predestined he would unite with his creation and incarnate his essence in the form of his only begotten Son, Jesus.
For man to have a freewill choice to love or reject Christ, God ceded some of his authority and gave man his choice of heaven or hell. Evil must eventually be quarantined from God and his righteousness. Man is made in the image of God, eternal, and with the ability to choose between good and evil. God has no control over a man’s decision to accept or reject salvation through his Son.
Many ask the question, why does God allow evil? First, Adam brought evil into God’s perfect creation, but God is omnipotent and can even use this to his advantage and our advantage. With evil in the world man now has a contrast with God’s righteousness and can choose to love God and be an eternal companion of God. The downside of this is that man has the freewill to reject God.
From this freewill choice by man, God can have a people who truly love him. No longer will God be alone, but will have others to share his creation. We are not robots, but truly have freewill, and the God given right to choose and love as we please. God first loved us, and we have chosen to love him.
God never forces any person to accept him or reject him. It is up to each individual as to their choice and final eternal destination. Why are there only two choices? Man was not created for himself, he was created for God. Man will glorify God by accepting him or rejecting him. If he rejects God, he is saying, “I do not love you or your ways and do not want to live with you”. Instead, man says, “I will choose my own way of life and live it the way I please”. God allows each man that right, but man is forewarned of the end result of his choice.
God wants every man to love him; he is not willing that any should perish. He begot a son of a human by a spiritual miracle and then slew him on the cross as the Lamb of God to take a way the penalty of the original sin caused by Adam. The price has already been paid for a man to receive a new spirit. It grieves God that many will not take the offer and will totally reject him and his Son. However, God has relinquished that right of choice to each man.
God’s plan to create man and give him freewill has a cost. It has cost God dearly as many humans choose to hate the creator and reject him as God. It grieves God to see all the evil deeds in his creation. It cost God a perfect creation which is now full of sin and in a degrading chaotic state. God has to watch as he sees all the murders, rapes, homosexual activity, lies, wars, thefts, and the many innocent people that have to suffer or die because of this evil. However, God had to allow this to give man free will choice to love or hate God.
Through the redemptive atonement of Christ, Adam, Eve, and all their descendants are free from the penalty of Adam’s sin. Like the Israelites, brought out of bondage by Moses into the wilderness, man is now in his own wilderness to either accept the resurrection power of Christ by faith to enter the Promised Land, or reject this resurrection power and die in the wilderness.
Mankind is the soil in Matthew, chapter 13, where Satan and God would plant their seed and man would have to make a choice as to whom he would serve. Man receives the wooing of Satan and God, both the good and bad seed in his mind. The choice of righteousness and unrighteousness is before each man, and he must make one choice or the other.
In Matthew, chapter 13, man considers both seeds. He begins to love the one and hate the other, or hate the one and love the other. Eventually, a choice will be made between the two by all men. If a person chooses God, he has decided he loves God and wants God to be the master of his life. The seed of God germinates into the plant of wheat (born again believer), and man receives the spirit of God into his being. He is born again receiving a new spiritual soul from God.
The man, who rejects God, chooses the broad path to destruction and follows the wicked angels and Satan into the Lake of Fire. These unrighteous never receive a new spirit from God because they rejected it. They have effectively blasphemed the Holy Ghost. These are the ones in the wilderness who choose not to enter the Promised Land by faith.
God now has a people who have accepted his essence by faith, and love his ways. We Christians love God with all of our hearts. We love all there is about God and his Son, Jesus. We have made the choice to be with God. God also loves us and has promised that we will immediately be in his presence when we die the physical death, or are changed into an immortal body at the Rapture.
Since we have already made the choice, and truly love God, we will shed this physical body and receive a new glorified body. After every person that will accept God has done so, Jesus will end time on this earth and time will be no more. There will only be eternity. Christians will spend eternity in heaven. Since evil must be purged from God’s creation, God prepared a place for it so that it would be forever separated from his righteousness and righteous creation.
All wickedness will be eternally quarantined in a special place, Lake of Fire (outer darkness). In heaven, there will never be another iota of unrighteousness, nor ever any choice between good and evil. Evil will have been quarantined to never affect righteousness again. This is the reason the Bible stated there was a great gulf between the abode of the Rich man who was in hell and Lazarus who was in Abraham’s bosom. The rich man was told that neither of them could ever cross the gulf to the other side.
God will separate himself and us from both the fallen angels and unrighteous man. Since man is a created eternal being, the unrighteous will be banished from God into outer darkness where there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Those people will still be gnashing their teeth and cursing God as they enter hell, and all they had to do to avoid this was to choose to love God rather than to hate God.
Father Time
