A lot of unbelievers have a problem with the fact that God,
while holding people accountable for their sins, is at the same time the one
who provided salvation from sin, like a police officer who clocks you going
over the speed limit and then pays your speeding ticket.
First, the reason why God allowed Adam and Eve, and
subsequently the rest of humanity, to sin, that is, eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, is a reason of freewill. Love that is forced is not
love, so thus God had to give Adam and Eve the freedom to choose to love Him or
not by placing that tree in the midst of the Garden of Eden. It is the same
with us today and the sins we commit. God allows us to choose to sin or do what
is right, to choose whether we will love Him or not.
The reason why God then had to punish Adam and Eve for
committing the sin he gave them the freedom to commit is that real love doesn’t
allow itself to be harmed. If you love someone, you’ll protect them and not
want to see them get hurt by someone else. Similarly, if they are engaging in behavior
that is hurtful to themselves or others, then love will come against that behavior.
It’s the same with God. God doesn’t let Himself be blasphemed without
consequences and He doesn’t let His creatures harm themselves, each other or
Creation without consequences.
Third, the reason why God had to send His son (really
Himself since Jesus and the Father are one according to John 17) to Earth to
die for our sins is that a truly loving relationship will always include a way
to repair damage to that relationship. If two friends have a fight, if one really
loves the other one, they will make peace and reconcile with the other person.
Though in a very real sense God, being God, didn’t _have to
send Jesus to Earth, He did it because He loves us and thus there needed to be
a way provided for repairing the relationship between humans and God that sin
had damaged.
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