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Peril and Providence
We went through a few questions rather quickly last time as we were ending the study.
There was a comment about God’s decisions involving risks at times.
How is that appropriate?
If God knew (knows) what was going to happen - and if he predestines the events - where’s the risk?
Perhaps Adam and Eve needed to be taught a lesson about good and evil.
Surely God did not.
But how do we get God off the moral hook when it comes to the appearance of sin and evil?
Understanding this is important when defending our faith.
By the way — an ancient Israelite would have thought differently about these questions than most believers do today.
One reason is that we have layers of tradition that filter the Bible in our thinking.
It’s time to peel those layers away.
God’s Gift
We might wonder why God doesn’t do away with evil and suffering on earth.
The answer sounds paradoxical - He can’t — because that would require the elimination of all his imagers.
He will do away with evil and suffering at the last day, but not yet.
For evil to be eliminated, Earth and humanity as we know it will have to end.
God has a plan, a chronology, for this ultimate end.
It could be no other way, given God’s decision to create time-bound humans as the vehicles for his rule.
But in the meantime, we experience the positive wonders of life as well.
Though God knew the risk of Eden, He deemed the existence of human kind preferable to our eternal absence.
Despite the risk of evil, free will is a wonderful gift.
God’s decision was a loving one.
Understanding that requires only a consideration of the two alternatives: (1) not having life at all, and (2) being a mindless robot, capable only of obeying commands and responding to programming — unable to love.
If our decisions were all coerced, how authentic would those “decisions” actually be?
If love is coerced or programmed, is it really love?
Is any decision really a genuine decision at all?
It isn’t (God is not the author of sin).
For a decision to be real, it must be made against an alternative that could be chosen.
We all know the difference between freedom and coercion.
The IRS doesn’t tell you that you may perhaps pay your taxes by April 15th.
When you behave wrongly, where would the emotional healing of forgiveness be if the person you offended was merely programmed to say those words, or coerced to say them?
Free will is a gift, despite the risk.
Knowing good and evil
several phrases in Genesis 3: 5, 22 that have puzzled interpreters become more understandable in light of what we have been talking about the last several weeks.
In Genesis 3:5
Genesis 3:5
For God knows that when you (both) eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you both) will be like god(s), knowing good and evil.”
The serpent (nachash) says to Eve. (elohim) ....
This verse is like the Psalm 82 verse singular elohim and plural — the second is plural (though most read singular) because of the context of Genesis 3:22
us — he is speaking to his council members- the elohim (plural).
This tells us to 3:5 should be plural.
And this fits well with Psalm 8:5
heavenly beings … read it like this “a little lower than elohim)....and this will be our convention — heavenly beings instead of little g gods.
We aren’t a little lower than God, we are light years lower than God.
Relatively speaking, the gap is narrower if we assume the reference in the Psalm is plural and that it speaks of heavenly beings (the council).
See Hebrews 2:7
Angels — heavenly beings - -council .... quote
So Gen 3:5
like heavenly beings (not big G god)… Adam and Eve will be like elohim — knowing good and evil.
Notice that the phrase is “knowing good and evil,” not will be capable of good and evil.
As free-will beings, Adam and Eve were already capable of disobedience (because they did disobey).
Like God’s holy ones in council (from Job last week) they were imperfect.
But Adam and Eve had not yet experience evil - either by their own commission or as bystanders.
This phrase appears in Hebrew in other places and helps us grasps its meaning
The little children referred to here are the generation of Israelites that would arise after the original generation that escaped from Egypt at the exodus.
That first generation had been sentenced to wander for 40 years until they died off for their refusal to enter the promised land (see Numbers 14).
The new generation did not know good or evil and would be allowed entrance into the land.
But they were born after the fall .... if this is about the entrance of a sin nature they already have it.... conflict ....
morally accountable
the meaning is clearly that the second generation was not held morally accountable for the sins of their parents.
Though as children they were under the authority of their parents, they had no decision-making authority in the matter and were thus not willing participants.
Therefore they were not considered liable.
They were INNOCENT.
This same perspective makes sense in Genesis 3. Prior to knowing good and evil, Adam and Eve were innocent.
They had never made a willing, conscious decision to disobey God.
They had never seen an act of disobedience, either.
When they fell, that changed.
They did indeed know good and evil, just as God and the rest of his heavenly council members — including the nachash (the serpent).
Evil and Foreknowledge
Acknowledging God’s foreknowledge and also the genuine free will of humankind (not discussing salvation here ), especially with respect to the fall, raises obvious questions: Was the fall predestined?
If so, how was the disobedience of Adam and Eve free?
How are they truly responsible?
Since we are not told much in Genesis about how human freedom works in relation to divine attributes like foreknowledge, predestination, and omniscience, we need to look elsewhere in Scripture for some clarification.
Let’s look at 1st Samuel 23: 1-13
1 Samuel 23:1–13 (ESV)
Now they told David, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors.”
Therefore David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?”
And the Lord said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.”
But David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah; how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?”
Then David inquired of the Lord again.
And the Lord answered him, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.”
And David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow.
So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.
When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, he had come down with an ephod in his hand.
Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah.
And Saul said, “God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.”
And Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.
David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him.
And he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.”
Then David said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account.
Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand?
Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard?
O Lord, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.”
And the Lord said, “He will come down.”
Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?”
And the Lord said, “They will surrender you.”
Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go.
When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition.
In this account, David appeals to the omniscient God to tell him about the future.
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