What God Is Doing About Sin

Text Copyright © 2022 Ronald Ray Lambert

All Rights Reserved

The serpent in Eden was an actual snake, but was being used or possessed by Satan. The Bible notes that in Eden, snakes were "more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." (Gen. 3:1; NKJV) It is also widely believed (based on prophetic visions) that the serpents of Eden were very beautiful creatures, that had wings. Some snakes even today (such as coral snakes) are very colorful. It was only after the Fall that serpents were condemned to "go" on their "belly" and "eat dust." (Gen. 3:14) Satan used a serpent as a means for deceiving Eve. The serpent was very impressive, and commanded Eve's respect--especially when it started talking to her! Had Satan appeared in his true form, as a fallen angel kicked out of Heaven, Eve would have instantly have been on her guard. But the serpent could lead Eve to the conclusion that the forbidden fruit would not cause death as God had said, but was responsible for the Serpent's ability to speak, as if eating the fruit exalted the eater into a higher plane of existence. The sin was doubting God, especially doubting the goodness of God, and entertaining the thought that God might be trying to keep something good from Eve and her husband. These doubts, when acted upon, led to disobedience of God's specific command not to eat of this one forbidden tree. There was of course nothing wrong with the fruit. It was the test of Eve's relationship to God that led to the death sentence. Eating the fruit of this one tree was the one and only thing in all the world that God had forbidden to Adam and Eve. This was the only access to Adam and Eve that God allowed Satan to have. What has happened here on earth must be understood in the context of the larger controversy between God and Satan (“the enemy”). God wants the universe He created to be governed by love. But love requires free will, the ability to freely choose to love, to have faith--or not. So God had to allow the possibility of rebellion and doubt of His good intentions. The angel Lucifer came along, and questioned the goodness of God. He suggested that God was selfishly keeping some higher, greater experience from His creatures. Lucifer accused God of showing no self-sacrifice on behalf of His creatures, even while He required them to be self-sacrificing in their love for others and for Him. God could have destroyed Lucifer. But then all the other angels, all the other intelligent people on other worlds, would thereafter serve God out of fear, suspecting that perhaps Lucifer had been right. So God allowed Himself, along with Lucifer, to be placed on trial before all His creatures. Lucifer (now called Satan, the enemy), was allowed the time and freedom to develop the principles of his philosophy, so all could see clearly manifested the real nature and result of the kind of selfish striving and self-exaltation that Lucifer advocated. We see this demonstrated in nature, which is now "red in tooth and claw." We see this in all the cruelty and misery that sinful humans have visited upon each other. God did something that seemed really risky. He went ahead with His plan for the creation of Mankind, and announced that His purpose in creating Man was to refute Satan and prove that it is truly God Who is right and good. Mankind was going to justify God, and provide the final answer to all of Satan's criticisms and charges against God. When Satan induced Eve to sin, and then Adam chose deliberately to join her in rebellion (his sin was also to doubt the goodness of God, by supposing that unless he joined with Eve in sin, God would not spare Eve from the death sentence), the human race fell. They had embraced doubt of God's goodness, and had followed Satan's lead. Now Satan claimed that he had usurped man's position as prince or steward of the earth, and was the victor in his controversy with God. But God did not obliterate Adam and Eve. There were dire consequences of their sin, reflected in nature, even in their own bodies. They began to die, cut off from the Source of continuing life. But still God sustained them for many years, and gave them the promise that He would provide a way for them to be reconciled to Him, and eventually be fully restored to eternal life in Paradise. The principles of Satan's kingdom needed to be fully worked out, for all the universe to see, so that finally all would be satisfied that Satan's way is wrong and evil. Thus it would be ensured that never again would sin arise. All questions would be settled. Included in the questions that would be settled, is whether God is willing to sacrifice Himself for His creatures. By taking responsibility for Mankind, His fallen, erring creatures, and by giving them time to come to repentance and of their own free will choose to respond to the subtle influence of His Spirit, offered to them to enable them to repent and change their behavior--God demonstrated a profound humbling of Himself. Man's sin was not God's fault, but He accepted responsibility for it, so that He could continue to sustain our lives and give us the time we needed to come back to Him. God went even further. He joined Himself to the human race, by being born as a human. This way He could take the position of Head of the Human race, as a New Adam, and in Himself create a new sinless heritage for all people who turn to Him in faith and trust. The exact nature of the relation between those we call God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, is not spelled out in the Bible. We are presented with the paradox that they are Three Persons, and yet remain truly One God. On Calvary the full responsibility for all the sins of the human race--past, present, and future--was imputed to Christ. In Himself, Christ executed the sentence of divine justice against sin. Sinful human nature was punished with death. In Christ. For creatures, this would have been the end, since God is the Source of all life, and to be cut off from God is to be cut off from life, from existence itself. But because Christ is Himself God, and has life unborrowed and underived in Himself, He could survive when the Father turned away His face from His Son. The risk to Christ and to God was real. Had Christ failed in any regard during His life to live a life of perfect righteousness, had there been any flaw in His Sacrifice, then Christ might have had to remain unconscious for eternity. Alive with original life in Himself, but asleep. At Calvary, when the Father turned His face away from His Son, and allowed Christ to sink into unconsciousness, He showed that He Himself absolutely will not ever choose to embrace sin, no matter what the cost to Himself. All creation thus has been reassured that God will remain truly righteous and good. After all, God has freedom of choice too. On Calvary He made known to us His choice for all time. When Christ rose from the tomb, when the assurance came that His sacrifice and His righteous life were fully acceptable, Christ was allowed to restore Himself to fully conscious life. When He arose, he was still the Head of the Human race, just as when He died on the Cross. So in Him was established a new human race, one at peace with God, one fully righteous and joined to God in perfect faith. Thus Christ has already saved every human being, forgiven and washed away all their sins. Christ has taken responsibility for all of it. The good news of the gospel is that salvation and restoration of man—even more, the exaltation of man to sit on the throne of Christ (for wherever He is, humanity is)--are a finished work. But God still believes in freedom of choice, because He desires for His universe to be ruled by love. So salvation is not forced upon every human. They must choose it. They must choose to agree that Jesus Christ is the New Adam, the Head of Humanity--He is for each one of us, our Savior, and the Lord of our life. Because we still need to make this choice, the consequences and pain of sin remain with us. This should keep before our minds the reality of the true evil nature of sin, of selfish striving, of self-exaltation--so we will have every possible motivation to make a full break with Satan's kingdom, let go of all the things of this world we may fondly cling to that keep us from surrendering completely to the Spirit of God, who convicts us of the Salvation we need, and have in Christ.

While God sends His Holy Spirit to us as a Mentor, who empowers us to repent, this is a step-by-step process, because sin runs so deep within us. Repentance must be a continued experience, as each day and from moment to moment, we become aware of our continuing need for further repentance. We have so much we need to unlearn; we need make a conscious decision to turn away from the depths of sinfulness as they are revealed to us. At each step, the trial is whether we will trust in the Goodness of God. When everyone on earth has made his or her final decision for or against turning to God, then the end will come, and Christ will return to glorify His people and deliver them from this world, until it also can be made new, and Eden (which is now the Central Park of the heavenly New Jerusalem) is restored on the new earth.

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