The Bible tells us that God is good. People have asked, ‘If God, who is the creator of all things, a God of goodness, then where does evil like sin come from? After all, God, who is goodness, wouldn’t be the author of evil, would he?’
We can almost stop right there, and say, ‘God wouldn’t create sin, which is evil.’ But some may have a hard time reconciling God, whom they believe to have creating everything, for does it not say in GENESIS 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”? with the idea that God did not create sin.
There is no question that God created the heavens and the earth. But then, what constitutes the heavens and the earth? It would appear, from reading the Bible, that God did not create the angels around him, including Satan. One clue to that may be in Genesis 3: 22 in which God says, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” Arguably it could be said that God created the angels, but Genesis does say that. It merely says that God “created the heavens and the earth.” More plausible is that God and the angels existed before He created the heavens and the earth. Which brings us to Satan.
Satan is an angel, albeit an angel of evil. He first makes his appearance in the Bible in the form of a serpent, inducing Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil. How or why he ended up on earth, the Bible doesn’t say. It is believed by some that God threw him out of Heaven after He created Heaven. In any event, Satan makes Adam and Eve do something that God forbade them to do, and inasmuch as evil is defined as anything which is not good, and God is good, then to disobey God would be to commit the evil of sin, Satan induced them to sin. Jesus in John 8:44 acknowledges the power of Satan to exert sin on others, when, in addressing those who were determined to kill him he says, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him…” Needless to say, it is a sin to murder.
When God created Adam and Eve, He gave us a mission in Genesis 1:26 to “have dominion over…all the earth.” Well, the earth includes Satan, so we have been given a mission to, among other things, overcome the evil in the world which Satan encourages.
From Genesis to the arrival of Jesus, this has been a hard battle, such that by the time Jesus makes his appearance, it became apparent that God felt that evil stood a good chance of overcoming the goodness in the world. In other words, he must have felt that had we been left to our own devices, every city in the world would be like Sodom and Gomorrah, and full of people like the Ninevans who went against God in the way they acted.
But with the arrival of Jesus, as it is written in John 3: 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,” since it says in EZEKIEL 18: 20, “The soul who sins shall die,” God gives us hope for our salvation.
So, contrary to what some people may believe, God did not create sin; sin was already in existence, in the form of Satan, at the time that God created the heavens and the earth.
We can almost stop right there, and say, ‘God wouldn’t create sin, which is evil.’ But some may have a hard time reconciling God, whom they believe to have creating everything, for does it not say in GENESIS 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”? with the idea that God did not create sin.
There is no question that God created the heavens and the earth. But then, what constitutes the heavens and the earth? It would appear, from reading the Bible, that God did not create the angels around him, including Satan. One clue to that may be in Genesis 3: 22 in which God says, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” Arguably it could be said that God created the angels, but Genesis does say that. It merely says that God “created the heavens and the earth.” More plausible is that God and the angels existed before He created the heavens and the earth. Which brings us to Satan.
Satan is an angel, albeit an angel of evil. He first makes his appearance in the Bible in the form of a serpent, inducing Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil. How or why he ended up on earth, the Bible doesn’t say. It is believed by some that God threw him out of Heaven after He created Heaven. In any event, Satan makes Adam and Eve do something that God forbade them to do, and inasmuch as evil is defined as anything which is not good, and God is good, then to disobey God would be to commit the evil of sin, Satan induced them to sin. Jesus in John 8:44 acknowledges the power of Satan to exert sin on others, when, in addressing those who were determined to kill him he says, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him…” Needless to say, it is a sin to murder.
When God created Adam and Eve, He gave us a mission in Genesis 1:26 to “have dominion over…all the earth.” Well, the earth includes Satan, so we have been given a mission to, among other things, overcome the evil in the world which Satan encourages.
From Genesis to the arrival of Jesus, this has been a hard battle, such that by the time Jesus makes his appearance, it became apparent that God felt that evil stood a good chance of overcoming the goodness in the world. In other words, he must have felt that had we been left to our own devices, every city in the world would be like Sodom and Gomorrah, and full of people like the Ninevans who went against God in the way they acted.
But with the arrival of Jesus, as it is written in John 3: 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,” since it says in EZEKIEL 18: 20, “The soul who sins shall die,” God gives us hope for our salvation.
So, contrary to what some people may believe, God did not create sin; sin was already in existence, in the form of Satan, at the time that God created the heavens and the earth.
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