Tackling the Questions, Finishing Up

Continuing on with my replies to the comments and questions on the fight I started.

…I could see some mental objections he could raise. Like being in Christ was for holy and blameless existence and that wouldn’t necessitate a Fall.

I suppose that objection could be raised, except that Ephesians 1 says that the plan (or the mystery of his will) didn’t only include holy and blameless existence, but “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” To graciously forgive our trespasses requires trespasses to forgive.

Did Satan sin when he was removed from Heaven?

In Genesis 3, Satan is tempting Eve, so he had already sinned by that time. We are also told the devil “has been sinning from the beginning.” (1 John 3:8 ESV) Some time very early in the history of creation, before the fall, Satan sinned.

Was sin created in eternity past or when Adam fell?

I don’t think sin is a created thing. John Murray says it’s the contradiction of God and that seems to be a pretty good definition to me. If that’s what it is, then sin didn’t exist in creation until Satan opposed God. Sin came into the human race when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command concerning the tree.

Please share what you would have done differently.

I’d have stated my answer to the original question differently than I did. Not because the answer was wrong, but because it might have been easier to accept if I’d stated it differently. I think it would have been wiser to start with the reason for my answer and then give my conclusion.

So if I were given the opportunity to start the whole thing over and answer the question of why God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden again, I’d start with the centrality of redemption to God’s plan for creation, and then worked back from that to God’s placement of the tree as part of that plan and the tree’s intended role in the fall of humankind.

Theological Term of the Week

glorification
The final step in the experience of the salvation process and in the application of redemption to believers, in which, at the return of Christ, the bodies of those believers who have died will be raised and reunited with their souls, and the bodies of all those believers still living will be transformed into resurrection bodies like the resurrection body of Christ, so that all believers will be perfectly conformed to the image of the risen and glorified Christ.

• From scripture:

  But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
  
  

  42So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:35-49 ESV)

  But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV)
  

• From The Apostles Creed:

  I believe in…the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

• From The Heidelberg Catechism, Question 57:

  Question 57. What comfort does the “resurrection of the body” afford thee?

  Answer: That not only my soul after this life shall be immediately taken up to Christ its head; (a) but also, that this my body, being raised by the power of Christ, shall be reunited with my soul, and made like unto the glorious body of Christ. (b)

• From Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray:

  The hope of the believer is centered in the coming of the Saviour again the second time without sin unto salvation. Paul calls this “the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Christ Jesus” (Titus 2:13). The believer who knows him whom he has believed and loves him whom he has not seen says, “Amen, come Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20). So indispensible is the coming of the Lord to the hope of glory that glorification for the believer has no meaning without the manifestation of Christ’s glory. Glorification is glorification with Christ. Remove the latter and we have robbed the glorification of believers of the one thing that enables them to look forward to this event with confidence, with joy unspeakable and full of glory. “But rejoice,” Peter wrote, “inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye shall be glad also with exceeding joy.” (1 Peter 4:13)

Learn more:

1. Desiring God: Will the resurrection of the body be a physical resurrection of the dead?
   
2. Desiring God: If our souls are immortal, why do our bodies need to be raised from the dead?
3. R. W. Glenn: Glorification (mp3)
4. Ray Ortland: Glorification (mp3)

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. Credit will be given for any of these suggestions I use, too.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

Tackling the Questions, Starting with the First

Finally, finally, and after it’s already dropped off the main page, I’m getting around to replying to the questions and comments left on the last post in my theological soap opera, I Started a Fight. I’ll just go right down the line and respond in the order the comments were received. In this post I tackle the very first question, the one from Catez, and I’ll address the rest as I have time.

My question is how do you make this compatible with God not being the author of sin? We can say God chose and Adam chose - but God’s plan preceded Adam - so wouldn’t this make him the author?

First, let me say that I don’t know exactly what it means to be the author of sin. I’m not unfamiliar with the phrase, but I’ve never seen it defined. And it isn’t a phrase found in scripture, so we don’t have a verse that says, “God is not the author of sin.” What we do have is almost everyone agreeing that God can’t be the author of sin, but no settled definition that means. (I’ve written on this phrase previously in more detail.)

A better way to go about thinking through this question might be to look at the “not” statements about God’s relationship to sin that we find in scripture. The main one I can think of is from James 1 where we are told that God does not tempt anyone. We know that God put the tree in the garden and forbade the eating of the fruit, and obviously, if there is no contradiction in scripture, that by itself does not constitute tempting Adam and Eve. In the Genesis account, the actual tempters—the ones who urged or enticed others to disobey—were the serpent and then Eve.

And yes, as stated in this question, God’s plan preceded Adam and Eve’s sin. God chose to permit the fall as part of his plan of redemption, and because of that permission, sin would, to quote Jonathan Edwards (see the above linked post), “most certainly and infallibly follow.” However, since Adam and Eve did not know that God had planned for the fall, God’s planning was not the stimulus for their sin. His planning did not make the fruit more attractive to them. Their desire for the fruit came from within themselves. Eve, we are told, saw the fruit was good to eat and wanted to be wise as God is wise. She desired to be like God in a way that was forbidden to her.

This is how I begin to fit God’s sovereign plan for human history and responsible human choice together in my mind. (And that’s the question that seems to be at the heart of this question of God’s authoring of sin. ) This is about as far as I go in putting them together. Further than this, I hesitate to go, and I don’t think I need to. God’s plan and responsible human choice are both in scripture side by side, so I accept them as compatible.

Besides the post linked above, this really old post at the really old blog on Isaiah 10 and reconciling God’s sovereignty and human responsiblity might help you think through some of the issues raised by this question.