The concept of God knowing Adam and Eve would sin before He created them has made many scholars wonder why God created Adam and Eve in the first place. Why would God create something only to know that they would disobey Him?
While different views exist, there is only one biblical answer. Despite the various opinions circulating throughout Christian circles and secular circles, we need to see what the Bible says about this topic.
Since God is omniscient, He already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin. God created Adam first, and then He created Eve out of Adam’s rib (Genesis 2:4-2:22). Not long after God created Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man occurred.
God had told Adam and Eve specifically that they could eat from any fruit of the Garden except the Tree of Knowledge. Through their own temptation and through the temptation of the serpent, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3).
After Adam and Eve had eaten from the forbidden fruit, they sinned against God by disobeying Him. God had told them directly not to eat from this tree, yet Adam and Eve decided to take matters into their own hands.
The major temptation to eat the forbidden fruit was the serpent’s words, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).
The serpent tells Adam and Eve that if they eat the fruit, they “will be like God.” This is the major appeal to Adam and Eve because they wanted to be their own “god.”
Once the Fall of Man occurred, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden permanently, and sin entered the world. Due to sin being in the world, we now have pain, illnesses, and death.
God knew all of this ahead of time, but He still chose to create them. This can cause most of us to question why he would still create them. Even though God knew Adam and Eve would sin, He created them for His glory.
As John Piper has mentioned in various articles and sermons, we, as human beings; our purpose is to know God and to make Him known. We were created to worship, serve, and have a relationship with God.
God gave us free will when He created us, which enabled the possibility of sin. We all are given the free choice to do good or to do evil. God didn’t create us as robots who were programmed to do His will. He chose to give us free will to freely choose to worship, love, and know Him.
As human beings, we often think that our purpose is to serve ourselves or “to be all we can be.” This is an erroneous belief because our purpose is to love, worship, and serve the Lord with our whole hearts, mind, body, and soul.
Even though God knew we would sin and disobey Him, He still loves us. Many of us believe we wouldn’t do the same thing as Adam and Eve, yet all of us would do the same thing.
We all have sinned, and we have all disobeyed God. In fact, any act of sin is disobedience toward God. As the Bible tells us, we all sin and fall short of God (Romans 3:23).
Just as God already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin and disobey Him, He also knew He was going to send His Son to die for the sins of the world. Even though mankind sinned, God still had a plan to save us from ourselves because He loves us.
Romans 5:8 tells us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As this Bible passage tells us, God still loves us despite our sinful nature.
This should be extremely impactful for us as God loved us before we ever loved Him. God sees all of our wickedness, and He still loves us.
Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. He did this because He loves us and desires a relationship with Him.
If God didn’t love us, He would have never created us, and he would have never sent His Son to redeem us from our sins. However, the truth is that God does love us, and He sent His Son to die for our sins.
John 3:16-17 tells us, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
All of us are born into sin, yet we have the chance of forgiveness through Christ. Only through placing faith in Christ can we be forgiven. Jesus suffered the most painful death in order for us to be forgiven, given eternal life, and a future with Him.
Due to the immense love of God, we are all given a chance to be redeemed from our sinful lives and to begin a new life in Him.
The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” This new life is only possible through Jesus.
God could have created us without free will, yet if He did that, we would not freely come to know Him. Instead, we would just worship, serve, and love Him because we were created that way. God doesn’t want us to be forced to love Him.
He wants us to love Him freely, worship Him freely, and serve Him because we want to serve Him. God gave us free will, which is how sin was able to enter the world because we chose to disobey Him.
Despite our disobedience, God gave us a chance to be forgiven and made new by accepting Jesus as our Savior and Lord. God opened this door to us because we were created for His glory, and He dearly loves us.
God is not a far-off “god” who doesn’t get involved in the affairs of mankind. God loves us, and He wants to have a personal relationship with Him. From the time He created us, He has loved us, and that will never change. God doesn’t need us, yet He wants us.
Our entire lives are only possible because of God. We would not be here unless God created us and gave us breath in our lungs. Without God, we truly are nothing.
Thus, God knew that Adam and Eve would sin, yet He still created them for His glory and because He loved them. Not only Adam and Eve but also all of mankind was created for God’s glory.
This means both you and I were also created for God’s glory. Since we have all been made for the glory of God, we need to serve God faithfully in every area of our lives.
May we all follow Paul’s words when he says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).
For further reading:
Did Evil Exist Before Adam and Eve Sinned?
Why Did God Ask Adam and Eve ‘Where Are You’?
Why Is it Important to View Adam and Eve as Real People?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/TShum