Did God Predestine Sin?

Q, “So, how is it that God can judge humans guilty for sin if He decreed that we would sin in the beginning. Did God make us fallen?”

God certainly predestined that sin would exist and that He would be both just and glorious in the judgement of it: we must continue to reiterate that God hates sin and in Him there is NO sin.^[1] This predetermining of God, that sin would always eventuate in judgement, first and foremost includes the judgement He Himself would endure at the cross; another unerringly planned sinful event from Sovereign, Divine omniscience.^[2] One might rightly suppose that as God planned and purposed sin to exist He always intended the reality of sin’s existence to personally cost Him greatly – and perhaps cost Him the most. Unquestionably Christ endured the same hell on the cross sinners endure in eternity, though this cost Christ infinitely more as He was always infinitely unworthy of the death and the judgement He there endured.^[3] Yet altough this was always God’s plan and Christ’s plan, He remains sin-free purely because He can never sin or be guilty of sin; only creatures are inhibited with fallenness, fallibleness and finiteness.

God didn't create us in a fallen state; He made our first parents free, holy and pure, though capable of sin and therein lays one of the greatest distinctions between them and their Creator.^[4] They, being deceived by the serpent rebelled, and fell, incurring a fallen nature which is inherited by every one of their descendants. Paul says in 1 Cor 15:22, "in Adam all died..."

The question is posed by some that if sin is disobedience to God and He sovereignly prescribed that fallen humans would disobey then how can that be considered sin? After all they haven’t really disobeyed God at all but rather performed His exact, predestined will.

Paul wrestles with the same issue in Romans 9:18-23,

"So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills. ¹⁹ You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?' ²⁰ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded say to its moulder, 'Why have you made me like this?' ²¹ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable use? ²² What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory."

Paul is asking the same question here and it truly is the question our natural hearts seem inclined to ask. If sin is simply resisting the will of God how then can God find any fault? How could anyone be guilty if God's will is always certainly fulfilled? Paul offers the best explanation I have ever encountered – which is of course fitting for Holy Writ.

"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded say to its moulder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay..." [vs. 20-21]

This is just stunning. The scriptures clearly declare that we are clay, not sovereign beings with our own claim on freedom or volitional authority. We are NOT, nor ever will be, nor or ever were masters of our own destiny – we're clay! And God has made from the same lump (humanity as a whole) different vessels (clay pots) that will be for eternal use. One for dishonourable use, which means they'll be vessels of vile, God-defying sin and God will fill them with His wrath and vengeance. Another vessel will be formed for mercy, which means that, though they also sin and become defiled, God will fill them with grace and by them He'll be eternally glorified through their salvation.

Human hearts naturally rebel against this, thereby proving God properly and eternally just in their condemnation (for what is clay that it should ever talk back to God, the potter?).  Human hearts also naturally conclude that God is unjust assuming that no one should ever have to be the kind of vessel created to show God glorious in judgement and condemnation. Thus revealing the true content of the human heart and proving what man naturally thinks of the purpose of creation. This wholly betrays what is in the heart of man, who thinks of himself as the most important being in the universe. Humanity have erroneously assumed everything exists for their own happiness and betterment and they have not retained God in their thinking nor realised that all things that are, are so entirely for the glory of God. For the undeniable proof of this we need only turn to consider the cross. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, did not think as we humans naturally do, He operated upon the eternal principle that God alone was to be glorified in and by everything, and this cause of glorifying God is to be the pre-eminent and single cause of all other things, no matter what the cost.

AND WHAT A COST??? The death, the holy fury, the eternal hell utterly poured out upon Christ at Cavalry's hill for a single divine purpose – God’s GLORY! Jesus Christ became a part of that very lump of clay (humanity) and what manner of vessel was He made? He was formed into a vessel of dishonour, one of wrathful glory and “…He opened not His mouth”, which is to say He did not complained but rather rejoiced that He could serve the glory of God in such a manner.^[5]

Humans squirm and protest when they think that another human may be eternally sent to hell for a sin they volitionally committed. They protest allt he more and level the charge of injustice at God because He knew and predestined it all; as though God was unjust to do with a lump of clay whatsoever He (the Potter) chooses.

We must behold the cross, the only remedy for such haughtiness, where hopefully our mouths are stopped and our hearts are melted when we consider that before God conceived of sending any human to hell, He Himself planned the demise of HIMSELF on the cross and proved undeniably that He is totally, eternally bent on His own glorification. It is only fitting that we as subservient creatures, as moulded clay, should have the same goal. If we think any other way, especially after considering the cross of Christ, we are nothing but proud brutes of sin who couldn’t care what the Author and Sovereign Potentate wishes.

When humans can look at the cross and see the greatest sin ever committed (the murder of the only sinless Person to ever live, God incarnate) and not be humbled by our audacious accusations toward God,  the only conclusion left to draw is that humanity truly is entirely depraved, enslaved to sin and self-serving desire.

Soon enough, foul mouthed pulpiteers have taken upon themselves to scratch itching ears by exchanging the message of the cross, as God's ultimate glorification, into a device to further their own ends and flatter fallen egos.^[6] They thereby suggest that on the cross God proclaimed humanity's worth and sealed their value and wrought all this purely to make man happy. This is nothing less than the highest abuse of the gospel. At the cross God's elect are redeemed and fully atoned for; God endured His own hellish wrath at the cross; sin committed suicide at the cross and all this was to secure one colossally magnificent end – GOD'S ETERNAL GLORY!

Jesus said in John 12:27-29,

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’”