 |
| Exercise of free will determines punishment. |
When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden everything was perfect. It was a beautiful paradise with every animal and bird of nature and God had given them everything they would ever need. Adam was told that he could live forever and be happy forever if he listened to God’s instructions. God told Adam that he could eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except one. He clearly outlined the penalty of eating of this one particular tree.
God told Adam that if he ate of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”, he would “surely die”. This penalty was not “death” in a literal sense, but spiritual death and a separation from God.
The serpent that tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit was very clever, since he had no arms to pick the fruit and hand it to Eve. She had to make her own decision to take it and eat it, and then to get Adam involved in disobeying God.
It was here, the first decision based on free will was made and the seed of sin was planted to follow all future generations.
Did God already know that Adam and Eve would disobey Him? Since God is all knowing, we must assume that He already knew that they would give in to temptation and eat the fruit. After all, God already knew that His son Jesus would have to die on the cross to make our salvation possible.
We are all still paying a price for the disobedience of Adam and Eve, nevertheless, we are individually responsible to God for our own actions.
As parents, we should realize the times when we have allowed our children to make their own decisions and the consequences we delivered when they made the wrong ones. As children of our Heavenly Father, we should also realize that even though, by His grace, we have the privilege of using our own free will, there are consequences for using that gift.
God gave us the instructions and the consequences for not following those instructions. It is by the exercise of our own free will that we decide our own punishment.
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest.
Other Spiritual Living Articles |
