An interesting problem arises when we go back to the beginning in the Book of Genesis and contemplate Adam and Eve’s disobedience and consequent fall. God told them not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This, on the surface, sounds counter-productive. It almost sounds unfair. By putting that tree in the midst of the garden and telling them not to eat from it appears to have only set them up for failure. It actually sounds kind of mean and almost like God was setting a trap for them.

If God’s heart wasn’t for Adam and Eve to sin by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, why put it there in the first place? Telling someone not to do something is like painting a wall and putting a ‘Wet Paint’ sign. You can be certain someone is going to come along and say, ‘Wet paint? Really?’ and slide their fingers across it to see if it’s actually wet! So, did God err by planting the tree and telling them not to eat from it, the tree that became their eventual downfall? Believe it or not, this makes perfect sense and was a necessity because of who God is.

It was necessary for God to plant the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and…wait for it…to put Adam and Eve through a test. For true love to exist, there has to be a choice. Two people must choose to voluntarily fall in love with one another. Because God is a God of love, He had to give Adam and Eve that same choice to love Him, and this love could only be proven by obedience. If Adam and Eve truly loved God, they would have obeyed Him and not eaten from that tree, no matter what lies the serpent spewed out. Yes, God could have created perfect beings that loved Him, and had He done that, there would have been no sin, there would have been no fall, and we would all be walking around naked right now in a tropical garden. The only problem with this ‘perfect’ scenario is that God would have created mindless automatons, obedient robots that would have never strayed outside His will. While this may sound like a better world than the one we are living in today, it would have been detrimental to God’s character as He would no longer be a God of love. God’s love demanded choice, so God gave Adam and Eve choice, or as we better know it, ‘Free Will.’

It’s easy for us to say that we love God, or conversely, that God loves us. For many, this has become an opiate; love has become a drug to numb the pain of our sinful choices and make us feel better when we feel remorse. ‘Love covers a multitude of sins,’ as they say. God’s love, therefore, must cover our sins, and off we go happily ever after on route to our next transgression. Free will is not a license to sin. It is not given to us so that we can do whatever we want. Free will is given so that we can freely choose to love God ad obey His commandments. Love is not determined by what we say, or how we feel, but by how often we obey. Although it is the devil that tempts us to sin, God allows the temptation as a test of our commitment to Him. When we choose righteously and shun that temptation and accompanying sin, we pass the test of obedience and demonstrate that our love for God is genuine.