Text Copyright © 2022 Ronald Ray Lambert
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It is obvious to anyone that much is wrong with the world. But what is the cause of it, and what is God doing about it? The Bible is the best source of insight on these matters, especially on what God is doing in response, since He is the One who can best give account of Himself.
God’s testimony is that He created the world and the whole universe (note Genesis 1:16, last clause), and when He created it, “God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25.) When He began creation with the creation of light, the record is: “God saw that the light was good.” (Genesis 1:4.) After creating mankind at the end of the sixth day, the record says: “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” On the seventh day of creation week, the testimony is: “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:3.)
So what went wrong? Why is it that all these things that God made are no longer what any reasonable person would call good, certainly not very good?
The earth, and humanity on earth, were not the beginning of God’s creation. We read: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things having come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of this creation;” (Hebrews 9:11.) Thus we see that the Heavenly tabernacle or sanctuary was made before the creation of earth.
And we are told in Job 38:4-7 that when God “laid the foundation of the earth” (v. 4), “the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy” (v. 7). A survey of the use of these terms throughout the Bible reveals that “morning stars” or “stars” are used to represent angels (such as Revelation 1:20), while “sons of God” usually refers to humans—note that in the genealogy in Luke, Adam was called “the son of God.” (Luke 3:38.)
Now, a little thoughtful consideration is warranted here. When the foundations of the earth were being laid, and Adam was first created, who were these other “sons of God,” who along with the angels sang and shouted for joy at the creation of humanity on earth? The only reasonable possibility is that these were other intelligent beings on other worlds, that had already been created when the time came for mankind to be created on earth. As I discussed in the first thread, “Righteous Methods of Bible Study,” the leaders or patriarchs of these other intelligent races (other “Adams”) were likely the 24 elders mentioned in Revelation 4:4, 10; 5:8; 11:16; 19:4.
The Bible also reveals to us that sin, which is rebellion against God or disobedience to His will (see 1 John 3:4), originated first in Heaven among the angels. The first one to invent sin was named “Lucifer.” We read: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer [“morning star” in some translations], son of the morning!” (Isaiah 14:12; KJV.) While this was part of “a proverb against the king of Babylon” (v. 4), clearly this was speaking of the spiritual power behind the earthly throne. It goes on to say things that applied not to any human ruler, but to Satan, the angelic enemy of God: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” (vs. 15, 16).
In a similar mention of this same angelic enemy in Ezekiel 28:13-19, although addressed ostensibly to the king of Tyre, things are said that could not have applied to the human king, but only to the angelic enemy of God. Such as: “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God….Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee…. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness….All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.” (Excerpts vs. 13-19.)
The covering cherubs were the chiefs of the angels who had the official station of standing beside the throne of God. Lucifer fell from this most exalted position when he embraced sin, and his place was taken by the angel, Gabriel. (See Luke 1:19.)
The rebellion of Lucifer became a movement among the angels of God, where Lucifer managed to get one third of the angels to join in his rebellion. (See Revelation 12:7-17.)
We see from the testimonies given through Isaiah and Ezekiel that Lucifer’s problem was one of pride. His sedition against the government of God was based on a denial that God is the Standard for Good and Right, which led to a rejection of God’s will, and to asserting that the angels were good and perfect enough that they could be a law unto themselves, as if the creatures did not need to acknowledge the Creator as the standard of righteousness.
Lucifer, after his defeat in Heaven (when God allowed the angels to make their personal and final choice whom to side with in open war), Lucifer then sought to recruit the human race to his cause. Adam and Eve had been created with the announced purpose of answering Lucifer’s charges against God. When Adam and Even chose to accept Lucifer’s temptation to doubt God and disobey Him, Lucifer likely thought that he had thwarted God’s purpose. But he did not realize that God was going to use the experience of humanity’s fall and redemption as the ultimate answer to Lucifer’s calumnies. In sacrificing Himself to save humanity, God would demonstrate the immensity of His love for His creatures, and show that He is worthy to be honored and obeyed as the Standard for righteousness.
The first promise of hope was given to Adam and Eve as soon as they fell, when God promised that the Seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent (see Genesis 3:15). We will expand on this further, later. But now, let us consider just what it was that our first parents did that was so bad, that it led to the fall of the entire human race, and brought such lasting disruption to the world, and to the deeply pervasive corruption of the human heart.
Genesis 3:1-7(1st part) relates to us this story:
1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die! 5 For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate;
This was obviously not a mere snake that talked to Eve. It was Lucifer, the angelic enemy of God (Satan), who used the form of a snake. After this, the snake became a symbolic representation of Satan, since in essence he chose it for himself. This was likely done to help deceive Eve. She would certainly have been fascinated to find a snake talking.
Cleverly, Satan deliberately said something that sounded like an innocent mistake, asking if God said she and Adam were not to eat from any tree of the Garden of God. Eve easily corrected the misstatement, saying that they were only forbidden to eat from one particular tree, which had been specifically forbidden to them by God. This would have made Eve feel confident and put her at ease.
Then Satan dared to contradict God directly. When he said that they would not immediately die if they ate the forbidden fruit, she could probably see the snake had eaten the fruit, and seemed unharmed. So she was tempted to trust in her own senses over what God had said. The fruit obviously was not poisonous.
Then Satan suggested that God did not have a good motive in forbidding them from eating this fruit, that God might be trying to keep them from attaining something higher, as if they could evolve into godhood for themselves. This further implied that God did not want to share divinity. It was when Eve entertained this notion, that she first sinned by doubting the goodness of God. She no longer trusted that God was truly motivated by love, but rather may have been motivated by selfishness.
This was likely a part of the means by which Satan had misled a third of the angels of heaven to turn against God. Satan must have promised them that in some way they could evolve into godhood themselves, if they would just assert themselves as qualified to be a law unto themselves.
The last clause of Genesis 3:6 says: “and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate.” This cannot mean that Adam was right there beside her during this temptation; otherwise Satan would have addressed Adam. But Adam was her companion, and she immediately went to share her experience with Adam, offering him some of the fruit. And like the snake, she had eaten some of it, and she had not immediately died. So Adam was tempted to trust his own senses above God’s word.
But Adam was not deceived. He understood from God’s warning to them that Eve had succumbed to a temptation by Satan. But here where Adam sinned was in thinking that God might not save Eve unless he joined with her in transgression. He presumed that God might save him; but not Eve. So in a way, Adam was presuming to manipulate God.
What Adam did might at first glance seem to be noble, putting himself at risk to ensure Eve’s survival. It is instructive that a short time later we find Adam blaming Eve, and blaming God Himself, for Adam’s sin: “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me some of the fruit of the tree, and I ate.” This is the progression toward increasing selfishness and willingness to blame others that is typical of sinful behavior. Once God is cast aside as the standard of righteousness, then all other principles of honor and honesty seem to evaporate away, because there is no absolute standard of righteousness in the creature. In other words, only God is Good. Apart from the Creator, there is no inherent goodness in the creature. If we no longer maintain faith in God’s Goodness, then we are left with nothing that can take its place.
Human history is full of failed attempts to make up for the lack of faith in God’s Goodness. The rule of laws, arrived at by democratic vote, or by assertion of tyrannical authority, no matter how vigorously enforced, are never completely adequate to effect fundamental change in human hearts.
People may be led to conform to some basic standards of decent behavior out of fear of the consequences of overt law-breaking, but this does not eradicate the principle of sin from the heart. It is possible for the Holy Spirit of God to bring about real changes in human hearts, but only if we first submit ourselves to God, trusting that He is the One who is Good.
The whole history of the world is a demonstration of the true wrongness of sin. It is as if God has given the practitioners and advocates of sin enough rope with which to hang themselves.
But God has not left us in this condition without hope. Indeed, we are told that before humanity was even created, the plan was devised by which mankind could be saved and reclaimed for fellowship with God and unfallen beings (angels and intelligent beings on other worlds). That is why Adam and Eve did not experience the death penalty immediately upon their transgression. As we will see, it is because Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) that they still lived.
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