The Honesty of God

Honesty of God

It is sometimes said, even by great and wise Christians, that God could have simply forgiven Adam upon his fall, but chose, of love for us, to redeem mankind in the more sublime manner of the Cross. That the Incarnation and the Cross were an overabundance of mercy beyond a mere cancelling out of the sins of man is not to be doubted, of course, but speaking under correction, I don’t think it’s quite so simple as that.

The key factor here is that God can neither deceive nor be deceived. That is, He cannot say that which is not. When we combine this with creatures who have free will, we run into something of a stalemate situation. That Adam had sinned is a fact; it can never be made otherwise. That something has happened means that it will always have happened, no matter what happens afterwards. So, God could not say that it had never happened.

Nor could He say – for He made it so – that it did not mean anything, for despite what many of our contemporaries think, actions carry meaning within them, by their own internal logic as related to the world as it is. That Adam had sinned, and sinned infinitely, was and is a fact. It cannot be made as if it had never been, because to do so would be for God to unsay what He had already said.

It bears focusing on this for a moment, since, as I say, it is not a popular view in the present age. Meaning derives from nature; that two-plus-two equals four is the inevitable consequence of the meaning of ‘two’ and ‘four’. In fact, stating this is simply another way of stating what ‘two’ and ‘four’ mean. If you were to say that two-plus-two equals five, you would be changing the meaning – the nature – of either two or five.

We, who are liars, can claim to do this, but God, who cannot lie, cannot. Therefore He could not say that Adam’s sin was not a sin and was not infinitely grievous and did not separate him and his progeny from God, for it was the nature of things as He made them that it should do so. The fact is that Adam had sinned and had not made a sufficient restitution for it.

But, at the same time, it was now impossible for Adam to make a sufficient restitution, for he had sinned as a pure and innocent creature, a perfect man, and so only a perfect man could make a sufficient restitution for his sin by offering back a superlative showing of obedience to counter his showing of disobedience (I am simplifying things here for the sake of this essay not being a book, and again all is offered under correction).

Moreover, the sin was committed by Adam, the father and thus the sovereign head of the human race. But there would never be another such sovereign once Adam had died, so that even if a man were to appear without sin who could render such restitution, he could not do so for the whole human race because he would not have authority over the whole human race.

In short, the simple fact was that sin had been committed and restitution had not been made. That fact God could not deny, because that fact was a conclusion for the natures that He Himself had made.

Hence God’s marvellous solution of sending His Son to be both perfect man and supreme sovereign of mankind, who both could offer sufficient restitution and was in a position to do so for all of humanity. This was, perhaps, not the only possible solution to the quandary, but the point is that the problem presented by the Fall imposed certain requirements for its solution. Christ’s coming as man far exceeded these, as far as His majesty and Divine perfection exceeded Adam’s pre-lapsed state of glory.

But there is another conclusion to be drawn from what we’ve said, and this is a more immediate one. The question also arises of how a supremely merciful God can damn people to Hell. The answer to that is the same; God’s supreme honesty. Again, He cannot lie and cannot say that which is not. Before His judgment seat is only truth, with no evasion possible. The fact is those who will not subject themselves to Christ do not partake in His restitution. The fact is that those who sin without repentance have separated themselves from God. And God cannot deny these facts, and thus cannot accept such people to Himself.

For remember, we are created in the image of God. How can the image of God reject God or stand in opposition to Him? To welcome such souls into the Heavenly court would be for God to lie, not only about these souls themselves, but about Himself, for to do so would be as much for Him to say “this is an adequate, true image of Myself.” A repentant sinner, filled with God’s Grace, is such an image; an unrepentant sinner is not.

(You may have noticed that this is one of the key flaws in the Protestant view of Salvation: to declare a ‘snow-covered dung hill’ as an adequate image of Himself would simply not be true, and thus not possible for God. That God is Truth means that either we are actually made pure and actually washed clean, or we could never enter Heaven at all).

This is the point to keep in mind; our actions and our choices have real meaning to them. Before the throne of God, those meanings will be laid bare by the One who set them to be such. The One who made the ground will declare the consequent, and no evasion or falsehood, no reservations or handwaving will be possible. What will be declared then is simply what Is.

So let us truly repent and truly adhere to our Sovereign Lord before that day.