QUES. 1.-In Isaiah 45 :7 it says, "I form the light, and create darkness:I make peace, and create evil:I the Lord do all these things." Does this mean that the fall of Adam, and all the wicked things which are done in the world, are ordained of God, and done according to His predestination, so as to fulfil His purposes ?
ANS.-No, indeed ! So far is it from this, that when "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart " (Gen. 6 :5, 6). Then again, in James 1 :13, 14, " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God :for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man :hut every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
"Evil " in the passage yon cite from Isaiah has another sense altogether. Verses 10 and 11 of his 47th chapter give plainly what that sense is. It is the evil which befalls people as judgment from God for their wickedness. The expression is very largely used in this sense throughout Scripture. For instance, in Amos 3:6:" Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? " The unrepentant world is largely fatalistic; that is, they charge God with the evil that is chargeable to man only, that they may not be troubled in their consciences with the evil (the judgments) which come upon them from God for their iniquities. And even the people of God may become more or less affected by the same delusion and love of ease.
The plans of God, centering in Christ, and formed long before man was created, give full place indeed to the revolt of Satan in heaven, and of man on earth, and to all the evil resulting therefrom. All of it was taken into full consideration ; it was permitted, but none of it was ordained of God. If one ask, as many do, "Why, then, did God create man a responsible creature who could fall?" The answer is given by Scripture itself:"Oman, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?" (Rom. 9 :20.)
QUES. 2.-Did man acquire a conscience by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good ami evil? or did he merely get a bad conscience ?
ANS.-We cannot understand how conscience could exist where there is no knowledge of good and evil; for conscience is the discernment between the one and the other, with the condemnation of the one and approval of the other. It is not, however, the impartation of anything new in man from God, for man was created a moral, responsible being, and as soon as he violated his responsibility, conscience sprang out of his moral sense and condemned him. la that sense he acquired a conscience by his disobedience. It was not a new power or faculty, however, but a putting into exercise the moral element which would never have been awakened had not evil come in.
QUES. 3.-Was there anything in the fruit of the tree itself that produced a result in man, or was it simply the result of his disobedience, which would have been the same for any other transgression?
ANS.-As there was virtue in "the tree of life" to make man "live forever," that is, to give immortality to his body in his fallen condition, may there not have been likewise in "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" that which introduced mortality in man?
Eating of the tree-a physical thing-would thus introduce death in man-physical death, of course; whilst transgressing against God in eating what He forbade would bring guilt and spiritual death in his soul. Both parts of man, the material and the spiritual were thus immediately affected by the disobedience.
QUES. 4.-If man knew it was wrong to disobey God, as he must, to have been responsible, did he not discern good and evil before he experienced the evil ?
ANS.-Surely so ; but there is a vast difference between such discernment and the "knowledge" of good and evil. The first is the mere sense of responsibility; the other, the indwelling of a fearful element.