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THE PERMISSION OF EVIL
AND ITS RELATION TO GOD’S PLAN
Part 3
Adapted from chapter seven of The Divine Plan of the
Ages
International Bible Students Association, 1914
edition
All Scripture references
in this article are to the New International Version, UK
edition
(Part 1 of this article
appeared in the end-September 2009 issue of the Newsletter; Part 2 in the
mid-October issue.)
LIFE
EVERLASTING is not promised to
any but the obedient. Life is God’s gift, and death, the opposite of life, is
the penalty He prescribes for the disobedient. Eternal
torture is nowhere suggested in the Old Testament Scriptures, and only a few
statements in the New Testament can be so misconstrued as to appear to teach it.
‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 6: 23). ‘The soul who sins is the one who will die’
(Ezekiel 18: 4).
Many have supposed God was unjust in allowing Adam’s condemnation to be
shared by his posterity, instead of granting each one a trial and chance for
everlasting life similar to that which Adam had. But what will such say if it
can be shown that the world’s opportunity and trial for life will be much more
favourable than was Adam’s?
One for One
God assures us that as condemnation passed upon all in Adam, so He has arranged for a
new head, father or life-giver for the race, into whom all may be transferred by
faith and obedience. That as all in Adam shared the curse of
death, so all in Christ will share the
blessing of a restoration (Romans
5: 12, 18, 19). The death of Jesus, the undefiled, sinless one, was a complete
settlement toward God of the sin of Adam. As one man had sinned – and all
in him had shared his curse, his penalty – so Jesus, having paid the penalty of
that one sinner, bought not only Adam, but all his posterity with him.
Our Lord, ‘the man Christ Jesus’, with a
perfect unborn race in Him, gave Himself as the ransom-price for Adam and his race yet to be born (1
Timothy 2: 5, 6). In effect, Christ offers to adopt as His children all
of Adam’s offspring who will accept the terms of the New Covenant in His Kingdom
to come, and so through faith and obedience to join the family of God and
receive everlasting life. ‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made
alive’ (1 Corinthians 15: 22).
The injury we received through Adam’s fall is, by God’s grace, to be more than offset with favour through Christ. All people will sooner or later have a full opportunity to be restored to the same standing that Adam enjoyed before he sinned. Those who do not receive a full knowledge and, by faith, an enjoyment of this favour of God in the present time (the great majority) will receive these privileges during their resurrection in the Millennial kingdom to come (John 5: 28, 29).
One Trial for
Life
As each one becomes fully aware of
the redemption price paid by our Lord Jesus, and of his subsequent
privileges, he will be considered as on trial, as Adam was. Perfect obedience,
however, without perfect ability to render it, God does not require of any.
Under the Covenant of Grace, members of the Church during the Gospel age had the
righteousness of Christ imputed to them by faith to make up their unavoidable
deficiencies through the weakness of the flesh. Likewise, Divine Grace will also
operate toward the willingly obedient during the Millennial age. Not until
physical perfection is reached (which will be the privilege of all before
the close of the Millennial age) will absolute moral perfection be expected.
That new trial, the result of the ransom and the New Covenant, will differ from
the trial in Eden in that in it the acts of each one will affect only his own
future. (This trial is not a second chance in the strict sense of the
term.
It will be the first individual opportunity of
Adam’s descendants, who, when born, were already under condemnation to
death.)
If Things Had Been
Different
What advantage is there in the method God has pursued? Why not give all men an individual chance for life now? If evil must be permitted because of man’s free moral agency why is its extermination accomplished by such a peculiar and circuitous method? Why allow so much misery to intervene, and to come upon many who will ultimately receive the gift of life as obedient children of God anyway?
Had God arranged differently the propagation of our species, so that children would not partake of the results of parental sins, or that each one should have favourable Edenic conditions for their testing, how many might we presume would be found worthy – or unworthy – of life under an individual trial?
Suppose that one-fourth, or even one-half, were found worthy, and that the rest suffered the wages of sin – death. Then what? Let us assume that those who had passed the test had neither experienced nor witnessed sin: might they not forever feel a curiosity toward forbidden things, only restrained through fear of God and the penalty? Their service could not be so hearty, since they would lack a full appreciation of the benevolent designs of the Creator in making the moral laws which govern His creatures.
How much more like the wisdom of God to restrict the damaging effects of sin, as His plan does. In His economy, God has decreed that the Millennial reign of Christ shall accomplish the full extinction of evil and also of wilful evildoers, and usher in an eternity of righteousness, based on full knowledge and free-will obedience.
More Than One
Redeemer?
One Redeemer was quite sufficient in the plan which God devised because
only one man (Adam) had sinned and been
condemned. Had Adam’s trial been only one of many individual tests, a ransomer
would have been required for each failure. Those who can appreciate this feature
of God’s plan, which, by condemning all in one
representative, opened the way for the ransom and restitution of all
by one Redeemer, will find in it
the solution to many perplexities. The condemnation of all in one was the reverse of an injury: it was a great favour when viewed in
connection with God’s plan for providing justification for
all through
one.
When God’s plan is fully accomplished, all will be able to read clearly His wisdom, justice, love and power. They will see the justice which would not violate the Divine decree, nor save the justly condemned race without a full cancellation of their penalty by a willing redeemer. They will see the love which provided this noble sacrifice and which highly exalted the Redeemer to God’s own right hand, giving Him the power and authority to restore to life those whom He had purchased with His precious blood. They will see the power and wisdom which worked out a glorious destiny for His creatures, employing every opposing influence as willing or unwilling agents for the advancement and accomplishment of His grand designs.
Had evil not been permitted, it is
hard to see how these results could have been attained. Ultimately,
when the purposes of God shall have been accomplished, the glory of the Divine
character will be obvious to all, and this temporary regime of evil will
be acknowledged as a supremely wise feature in the Divine policy. At present,
this can only be appreciated by the eye of faith, looking forward through God’s
Word to the promises spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the
world began: the restitution of all things (Acts
3: 18-23).
(Concluded)
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This
adaptation only: copyrighted November 2009
ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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