The question has been asked, Why did God put man under law and
thus make sin and the fall possible ? The question is equivalent to asking, Why
did God make a man at all, Those qualities that make man superior to the brute
are the qualities that make law a necessity. Righteousness and reward, no less
than sin and punishment are impossible without law.
Love, too, without law is impossible. It appears from
God's precepts to man that God created man especially to love Him; the first and
greatest commandment of divine law is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.
" But love is invariably an act of choice, and choice is impossible without
an alternative. Man was permitted to eat of every tree of the garden except one;
of that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was forbidden
to eat. The wording of the law implies man's power to disobey, and he certainly
had the power to obey. By obedience man would prove his love; by disobedience he
would prove his disloyalty. The power to sin, therefore, was the unavoidable
opposite of the power to love and to obey. Give man power to love, and you give
him power to sin; remove from him the power to sin, and you rob him of the power
to love.
The institution of the Edenic law was no injustice to
man. Man, possessing, as he did, the power to obey, could by obedience secure to
himself the highest degree of happiness. To make happiness possible is certainly
no injustice, even if the possibility of pain be included; more particularly so
if the possibility of both the happiness and the pain, with the way to attain
each, is clearly pointed out, and the way to happiness advised.
Everything associated with Eden, man's first home,
indicates that man could have secured to himself, by obeying God's law, the
highest degree of physical, esthetical, and spiritual happiness. "And the
Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had
formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of
the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:8 10).
The word "Eden," the name of the garden, means " pleasantness.
" There grew trees to supply "food, " " every tree that is
pleasant to the sight "; and in the midst, where walked the voice of the
Lord in the cool of the day, grew the tree of life. God, seeing that it was not
good that man should be alone in the enjoyment of Eden, made "an helpmeet
for him, " that man's joy and happiness might be heightened by his sharing
it with another.
The consequence of disobedience was made plain to Adam in
these words: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (Glen. 2: 16, 17). It
is indisputable, also, that Eve understood both the law and its penalty; for in
her conversation with the tempter she said: "We may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest
ye die" (Gen. 3: 2, 3). No injustice, then, was done man by any lack in
telling him of either the law or the result of disobeying that law.
Obedience to the Edenic law was most certainly a divine
preference. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, was predisposed by
nature to obey any law that could come from a divine and holy source. Thus, God
made man with an inward advantage in favor of obedience. Disobedience to the
Edenic law was, therefore, a free and willful act of man committed against
divine preference and adequate warning. The infinite goodness of God could not
prefer the fall and defilement of holy beings created in his own image. As well
might we think of his creating man in a state of moral defilement. God could not
wish obedience of our foreparents without wishing them the ability to obey.
Therefore they must have possessed the power to obey as also they possessed the
power to disobey. Disobedience, then, I repeat, was a free act on the part of
man. Hence no injustice could be ascribed to God on account of the Edenic law.
The law of Eden was a testing law of duty, under which
man was placed on probation. This probation under a testing law of duty was not
only a reasonable economy, but a necessity to man's highest good. Primitive
holiness, as we have learned, had no ethical value, for only personal acts of
merit can be rewarded; created holiness, therefore, could not be the basis of
reward to man. Hence in order that man be rewarded, it was necessary that he
have an opportunity of performing deeds of merit, of living a life that is
rewardable. But deeds that are inevitable, bound to be done in the very nature
of things, have no ethical value and are consequently not rewardable. If man had
been given no testing law of duty, he could never have gained a crown. It is
deeds done by choice that may be rewarded. Hence the necessity of an
alternative—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Some might ask: "Even if the law was a necessity to
the possibility of reward, why should the law have a penalty?" We answer:
In the very justice of law every deed must have its appropriate recompense.
Therefore if obedience is justly rewardable, disobedience is justly punishable.
It is an axiomatic fact that there can be no law without penalty. The law of
Eden, then, with its reward and penalty, was both reasonable on the part of the
Creator and best for the created.
We have now learned: (1) That primitive man was a holy
being created, morally, in the image and likeness of God; (2) That man was
endowed with power of choice and of action, and placed on probation under a
testing law of duty; (3) That moral law was a necessity to man's happiness and
the purpose of his creation; (4) that obedience to the law and the happiness
consequent upon obedience was a divine preference; and (5) That no injustice in
placing man under law and no responsibility for man's disobedience can be
ascribed to God.
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