Sword & Trowel 2018: Issue 2 


willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.’ The implication is that there is substantially more to be known and tasted when faith gives way to sight. Another caution in Romans 11 helps us to frame a right attitude as we think about these matters. ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?’ (Romans 11.33-34.) Turning from cautions to answers,


in Romans 9.22-23 we are given a substantial clue, but probably only a small part of the reason why God allowed sin and the Fall. ‘What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared?’ This verse has Pharaoh and the Israelites in view, but it is intended to justify God’s predestinating ways. We may reason from it, if there were no Fall, there could be no demonstration and exercise of the wrath of God, or of his mercy and love. If there had never been a Fall, and God had created Heaven populated with a perfect people, there would be a whole dimension of God and his attributes that would never be exercised or displayed. We would never see his power to redeem, his power to rescue from tragedy, and his power to save, deliver and transform. Without the Fall we would never


have seen the patience of God, enduring with long-suffering the disobedience of rebellious men. He is a God of truth. Think of the vast area of truth that would never be seen or known had the Fall not been permitted. It was not known in the Garden of Eden what horrors lay in seeking autonomy from God. God is truth; the Eternal Reality who does everything in truth and as an expression or demonstration of all that is true. ‘What is truth?’ demand- ed Pilate, scornfully. In the eternal glory the whole truth will shine forth, including the realisation that there is no alternative to the holy, triune God, and nothing to compare with his ways and works. It will be eter- nally clear that autonomy is doomed and godlessness is disastrous.


History of redemption Eve, in the Garden of Eden, could


be brought by Satan to suspect that God was withholding something precious from her; that there was a better alternative for her than loyalty to her God. Such thoughts of dissat- isfaction, disobedience and rebellion can never be thought in Heaven, because the history of rebellion and redemption will be engraved in every redeemed heart, and reality and truth will reign. There God will be most fully revealed, and we will see – ‘his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he’ (Deuteronomy 32.4).


He is ‘the God of truth’ (Isaiah


65.16), just as Christ is ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14.6), and truth will be universally understood,


page 32 Why Did God Allow Sin and the Fall?


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