The Relation Between God and Man's Sin

“I am the LORD and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being [peace] and creating calamity [evil]; I am the LORD who does all these” (Is. 45:5-7).

Is God the Author of sin? What is the relation between God and man’s sin? Erroneous conclusions have been drawn from Isaiah 45:7, because many do not consider the verse in the light of its context. Two contrasts appear in that verse: Light is contrasted with darkness, and well-being or peace is contrasted with calamity or evil. Darkness is privation of light, and calamity or evil of punishment is privation of peace.

Isaiah contrasted calamity or evil with well-being or peace, not good. He did not affirm that God originated moral evil. Darkness does not proceed from God who is light, nor the evil of sin from God who is holy. If the calamity or evil here is sin, its opposite would be good, not well-being or peace.

God forms light and creates darkness. He forms the light of nature and rational understanding. Every man who comes into the world possesses some light. He has some understanding (John 1:9). God also forms spiritual light or understanding. Darkness is God’s creature. Natural darkness results from absence of the sun. Deprivation of Divine light is spiritual darkness. Judicial darkness results in the blackness of darkness forever.

The Lord is “the One…causing well-being [peace] and creating calamity” (Is. 45:7). He now makes peace among His saints. When Jesus Christ comes as King of kings and Lord of lords, He will make universal peace. The Lord was announcing that He would remove the well-being or peace the Israelites had been enjoying and send them the evil of punishment or calamity for their sin. The evil that God creates is the evil of punishment for sin, not the evil of sin itself. Sin is not found among God’s creatures in Genesis 1. However, the Lord suffers sin and overrules it for the good of His people.

Punishment for sin is executed in various ways. Job lost his property and family; and his wife betrayed him. He said, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10). Adversity or evil in this text is used for punishment.

The Lord does not find men good, wise, and understanding, and then make them foolish, wicked, and hard. He finds men as they are in their depravity (Ps. 14:2-3; Rom. 1:18-32). He does not infuse any evil into them, but God subjects depraved men to His various providential dealings with them. That is the teaching of Isaiah 45:7.

Is God the Author of evil? Since sin did not begin with God’s original creation, where did it begin? The words “Author” and “purpose” must be distinguished. God purposed sin; otherwise, it could not exist. According to God’s determinate counsel and foreknowledge, sins of wicked men nailed the Lord Jesus Christ to the cross (Acts 2:23). God purposed to order events so that evil should come to pass to fulfill His eternal purpose.

Sin began among the angelic host with Lucifer. It began with mankind in Adam. God purposed the fall of both. If not, neither could have fallen. The Lord also purposed to prepare redemption for His elect through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Evil hands were associated with the preparation of that redemptive work. Those wicked hands were only instruments that God used to fulfill His purpose. God made Christ’s soul an offering for sin: “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand” (Is. 53:10).

God purposed to order events so that evil should come to pass to accomplish His purpose. Nevertheless, He hates evil as evil or sin as sin. To say that God is Author, that is, agent, actor, or doer of a wicked thing, would be blasphemy. Sin had no actual existence before it was committed by creatures whom God pronounced “good” after His act of creating them. Therefore, sin’s beginning cannot be attributed to God.

God’s foreknowledge of the reality of oncoming sin does not make Him author of sin. Anticipated sin and actual sin, after Lucifer’s or Adam’s fall, are entirely different. Foreknowledge of sin does not indicate eternality of sin. Some believe in dualism (the principles of good and evil are coexistent). Election is not salvation itself. It is “unto” salvation. As Divine election or foreordination does not indicate one’s actual redemption, foreknowledge of sin’s occurrence does not indicate that sin is eternal.

Sin became a reality only as God’s creatures perverted His will. It has no original substance in itself. Sin has no thesis. It has only antithesis. Since sin came by God’s creatures, it is a secondary, not primary, consideration. Conclusively, God’s foreknowledge of sin is not identical with His suffering or allowing sin.

People ask, “Why did God make Adam capable of falling?” They ask this because they seek to excuse their own sin. They refuse to admit a personal, sinful condition. Thus, considering the origin of sin is not as innocent as it may appear.

God created man capable of falling because He could make him in no other condition. God cannot create God. Whatever He creates must be inferior to Himself. Man was created upright, but he was created with two kinds of principles: inferior and superior. The inferior principle was related to man’s flesh and the superior to his fellowship with God. When Adam fell, he lost the superior principle and retained the inferior, which had become corrupted. He could no longer fellowship God. Hence, he fled to the wilderness, seeking to hide himself from God. The inferior integrity became the reigning principle in Adam’s and all his descendants’ lives.

Adam could fellowship God only through the superior principle. When that was forfeited through his sin, man was alienated from the life of God. Every person since Adam comes into the world dead in trespasses and sins.

Adam’s trial was ordained of God, because probation was an essential part of self-determination. However, God’s ordination of Adam’s trial was benevolent, not unjust. God provided hope for Adam and all His elect ones.

The Lord Jesus Christ could never be tempted the same way as Adam. He had no inferior principle—weakness within—to yield to temptation. He had only the Divine principle; therefore, He could not yield to external temptation. Temptation has no tendency in itself to pervert the soul. Only an evil will, self-determined against God, can turn temptation into an occasion of ruin.

Satan was the first actor in sin and the first tempter to sin. When he approached Eve, he concealed his own fall and enmity against God. Adam’s nature became corrupted without God infusing anything into him. Withholding those influences without which nature would be corrupted did not make God the Author of man’s sin. Sin cannot be analyzed in terms of God’s creative power.

Sin began with Lucifer. God pronounced it evil (Ezek. 28:15). If Adam, who possessed the strength of uprightness, yielded to temptation, how can mankind, possessing only an inferior principle, resist it? There is only one reaction by all men, until God’s grace intervenes. None can overcome temptation separate from the grace of God.

Man’s sin was, in a sense, necessary to God’s purpose in Christ. God did purpose to will sin, but that does not designate Him the Author of sin. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the elect, according to the purpose of God. One cannot believe that God is sovereign without also believing that He purposed or willed sin.

The idea of what is called causality is perplexing at this point. Here, the necessity of man’s sin is forged as a necessary link in a causal system. Adam fell. If God had not purposed that fall, it would not have occurred. He also purposed that Jesus Christ should come and die for sin. The Son of God is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.

The point that must be emphasized in the thought of causality is that guilt cannot be attributed to God. He is not Author of, or guilty of, sin. Author is maker of anything—Creator. The difference between authorship of and purposing sin is that God did not originate sin, but He did purpose that sin come into being.

God created Adam upright. Sin began in mankind subsequent to Adam’s creation. Sin in anticipation is not identical with the actuality of sin in time. Adam had no sin within, but he was capable of sinning. His uprightness was finite. Whatever God creates must be inferior to Himself. God cannot create God.

The apparent inconsistency of God decreeing sin, yet not being the Author of sin, is explained when one realizes that God’s purpose is not the originating cause of man’s sin. These things cannot be explained to an unsaved person. He can only be shown the actuality of sin. When he recognizes sin’s actuality, he will also recognize that he is guilty of sin.

God created man in His own image and after His likeness. Therefore, sin was no part of Adam’s creaturely reality. If sin had been a part, one could only conclude that there was a being that did not have God as its Author, or God must be the Author of sin. No person who names the name of Christ could attribute authorship of sin to God. That would be blasphemy.

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The NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE—UPDATED EDITION is the source of all Scripture quotations in this message, unless otherwise noted.