What Did God Expect?

I will begin this post with this assumption; God created man, just as described in the book of Genesis. 

Following that assumption … man must have been created in a sinless state.  The book of Genesis reports that he (man) had direct interaction with his Creator (God), which could not have been possible, if from the outset, man had been beset by sin.

And God, assuming that He is omnipotent, could have stopped right there. He could have created mankind as a kind of “Stepford wife”, forever compliant to His will … the inhabitant of a world without temptation.  If that were the case, every one of us would have seen and interacted with the Creator and would have enjoyed a single, world-wide religion, based upon absolute truth.

But that is decidedly not how it happened, and perhaps that was simply not the scenario that God intended.  Instead, He did two things that do not, at first glance, seem to make much sense.  First God granted man free will (the right to choose) and second, when it became necessary to banish Satan from Heaven, God chose to banish him to earth … why not, I wonder, to mars, or Jupiter, or some far away galaxy?

Then, as if to confirm the hazards of these options, God gave His creations a single rule to follow, they were not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We all know how that turned out …

They did eat that fruit and, as a result, they were cursed and deprived of perpetual care … more importantly, they were removed from God’s holiness.  Man had to work for a living … and it wasn’t long until the first murder occurred. Man’s propensity for untruthfulness, envy, greed, lust, and anger were all unleashed.  Eventually, when evil prevailed everywhere, God used a flood to eliminate all except a single family. From the flood survivors, a nation was established, and with that nation laws arose … for dealing with both God and with man’s sin.

Do you think that any of this caught an omniscient God off guard?  I doubt it.  I do not believe that He called his minions into heaven’s conference room to ask, “What are we going to do about this?” I believe that, before man’s creation, He knew that man would fall and that some means of redemption would be needed.

That redemption then, was to be a part of himself; God made flesh … and in the manner of the Jewish law, that “God-man” became a sacrifice for the sins of mankind … a sole path back to God … in a word … salvation. 

Did God, from the beginning, expect that all of mankind would choose this means to come back to Him?  The Bible clearly answers that question:

In Matthew 7:13, the Bible it says this (and I paraphrase), “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that enter therein.” And, in Matthew 7:14 He tells us, “… straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.”

So, what is the takeaway?  I believe that, from the beginning, God knew that relatively few of His created beings would seek Him.  Perhaps we can assume that He is content with that.  When all is said and done, God’s true believers are those who are drawn to Him. Those who possess an innate desire to follow Him … and that, as it turns out, is going to be far from everyone.