The Need for Choice

and the Consequences of Them

Adam’s declaration, when he sees the woman that God built, is a clear indication that: 1) Adam recognized his need to be completed; 2) the woman met that need! 

So…God chose to Speak, Make, Shape, Fashion, Breath, Bless, Take, Establish, Commission, Command, and Complete His creation who was in His Image and Likeness.  A Man with whom He could share Eternity; a new participant in His Always – not as an observer, as a Joint-Heir and, together with his descendants, as a kingdom of Priests with whom the LORD would dwell.

But we should not forget: in order for this creature – the one in His Image and Likeness to be fit for eternal life; to, as Paul puts it, be approved and tested, he must be able to choose and was therefore created to do so.  To be in His Image required it.  Man – each one of us, chooses – by design.  And each of our choices are accompanied by consequences. 

One of the first principles of economics is the understanding that resources are limited – but that desires, wants, and even the needs upon which resources are spent are vast (it is tempting to assign to them “unlimited” – vast will do).  This reality – experiential not just theoretical – for Mankind (and to a lesser degree to soul life) requires the act of choosing.  I should add: another miracle found in the nature of our God – Who is God – is His willingness to choose – despite having unlimited resources (a position that He alone occupies). 

In the everlasting covenant established before time – in the Always, All at Once where the LORD lives – between God Himself, a choice was made.  A willing choice.  God did not have to share, fully share, Always with His creation; He chose to, despite the cost.  I am aware that I risk either understating or (maybe to some) overstating the implications of this fact.  It is a point that resides outside of our experience and therefore outside of our comprehension.  That means that no matter how sure we are that we “get it” – in truth we do not, even cannot.  But here we sit, or stand, or recline – reading, pondering, evaluating the idea that God, somewhere in the incomprehensible eternity that occurred before the Beginning, chose.  Not because He had to but because it was His will, His pleasure to do so.  Chose to invent time.  Not frivolously, but thoughtfully.  And within this invention He spoke all that is outside of Himself into existence.  (To be clear – creation is not an abstract of time, but without assigning time within His Always to the creation, it (creation) could not be experienced by His creatures.)

God chose.  We will encounter, at least in part, the implications of the choice to which the Everlasting Covenant speaks later on.  For where we are in our discussion (maybe discovery) of Adam – he who was made in the image of God Himself and who was loved by God – knowing that the act of choice was first demonstrated by God – Who is the First, will help us, I believe, better grasp both the magnitude and the importance of Adam’s choice.  And each one of our choices too. 

Just as the choice Adam made had consequences – consequences that shaped time – so too do ours.  But his and ours also shape eternity – or better said, our place in Eternity.  Again – we are all, as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, Eternal creatures – that choice rests with God.  It is the nature of our eternity that we affect.  They, our choices, affect our place in eternity because: Who God is means that some choices are right and just and good; and some violate His nature.  It is very important that we understand that God is Holy and Just and True.  God is Love and Light.  He never changes; He is not only Always, All at Once as regards time; He is Always, Everywhere, All at Once as regards His presence.  Anything He commands – whether we are wise enough to understand it or not – is for our Good and for our Best.  He is perfect in all of His ways.  He is Righteous and will not abide sin in His presence (I do understand the arguments that suggest this would not be possible for Jesus as He walked the earth – unless of course we also consider the Everlasting Covenant).

God chose…

God created the Man in His Image and Likeness so that he and all of his descendants could share Always with Him; as participants in His works.  For them to share that destiny, to live up to the Image and Likeness in which they were made, a command with consequences must be given.  But man is created – he is not God – when he fails, does not the whole story end because of the very holiness of God upon which we rely, often unwittingly?  If sin cannot be found in His presence, how then can man fail and not be obliterated – or for that matter the spirit being Lucifer who envied and rebelled?

And so, it would be deduced that by making man fall-able, God put at risk His desired fellowship and family.  By making Man in His Image and Likeness, He assured that Man must choose – a real choice with real consequences.  The test of Man had to be True – it could not be a sham – a real choice, with real consequences.  Adam was told the choice: eat freely of all the fruit of the trees of the garden – all which were good for food and desirable to look upon; but do not eat of the tree in the midst – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He was also told of the consequences: “for in the day you eat from it, you shall surely die.” 

But – and be sure that God would know this, of course He would – for Adam, death was an unrealized idea, one that could hardly be imagined by Adam.  He would have known some of what it implied, of course.  Its import could not be denied – for eating from that tree was the only thing that God had denied him.  There is no reason either to think that Adam perceived God’s command unfair, unjust or untrue.  Those may be thoughts that we, in our fallen state, might entertain, but for Adam, who walked with God, God who was unveiled, those thoughts would never occur and so could never germinate or sprout or grow.  Also, Man’s obedience to God was not out of fear of “hell” or punishment or even death; as of yet, there was no need or place for that.  His obedience to the LORD God was purely out of the joys of the life God had created for him and that He had created him for.  And so, the choice would remain dormant – even in the presence of the command.  There was no catalyst for choosing even though a choice had been defined – therefore no choice would be made: status quo.

Here the question may be asked, “Why would the status quo prevent the realization of God’s desire to include Mankind in the Always in which He lives?” 

Without delving too deep into theology (if it is not already too late for that), it comes down to the difference between the perfection that was untried in Adam’s original state and the tried perfection of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Roughly stated: the law within the command of “though shall not eat” to Adam was not a test when the command was first given because there existed no desire in Adam to even contemplate the thing.  There was lacking in him a desire that he would need to reject; he had no “Isaac” that he would need to be willing to offer.  But even after Adam’s first recorded entry into God’s word (“This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman (“ishshah”), because this one was taken out of Man(“ish”).”), with the desire awakened and fulfilled, something was required before the “law” would be challenged by a “lust”.

With Jesus, as we know, His perfection was tried by the reality of a separation from God, His Father.  If He was to fulfill the commitment made before the foundations – His part in the Everlasting Covenant – to become sin on our behalf (2Cor.5:21), as a propitiation for the whole world, then the Face of God – the presence of God (for it is the same word) – would turn from Him.  As much as He would have liked, desired, for the cup to pass from Him – His choice was “not My will, but Yours be done.”  (By the way: the word for “world” in John 3:16 is “kosmos” and refers to all of the created order, not just “oikoumene” which speaks of the inhabited earth.)

As the story has so far unfolded, Adam was made by God in the Image and Likeness of God.  He was formed and fashioned out of the dust of the ground – the very matter the LORD God had created only days before.  Adam was unique in that after he was formed, God breathed Life into him – not just soul life which the beasts possess, but Eternal Life.  God’s plans for Adam were (and are) eternal – however, to be eternal includes implications – to both God and His Man, as we will see.

For Man it meant being blessed and tasked and charged.  Blessed by God – for God loved Adam and wanted to commune together with him Always.  That communion was not simply “being” together, it was also “doing” together – multiplying, filling, subduing and ruling.  Most importantly, Adam needed to be willing to choose to submit, to lay down his own life.  (The rules for living with Him have not changed – Matt.16:24-25.)  For him to have the opportunity to surrender his will, there needed to be a command and a desire. The command was clear – ‘do not eat’; and with it the consequence: death.  As was noted earlier, death would only be an idea to Adam – none had yet been experienced on this new earth.  It would be recognized as something outside of the plan of God but it would not have substance for him.  But it did not matter, because there was nothing in Adam that yet needed to be surrendered.

And then had come the birds and beasts and the realization by Adam (for God knew) that he was alone – and that being alone was not designed, that it would not allow for the completion of the tasks for which he had been commissioned.  God had then taken something from out of Adam while he slept a deep sleep, something that He used to build the Woman – the completion of the Man.  “Male and Female created He them.”  They were now both manifested and Adam recognized a desire – he knew her as his opposite, he was now complete and they dwelt without shame or fear or need in the garden planted by God and saw Him face to face.

…death would only be an idea to Adam – none had yet been experienced on this new earth.

And so…God desired to share Always with His creation.  That desire determined the nature and character of Man: being in His Image and Likeness; enabled to choose, to recreate, to conquer and to rule.  The ability to choose required the act of choosing in order for the Man to be approved and tested and, so that the potential to fulfill his destiny could be realized.  The choice required a command – but it also required a surrender.  If I was told to eat all that I could of what I saw as good on my plate, the command – for it is a command – does not require a surrender on my part.  In its most essential state, it is the surrender that is required for Eternal Life: the taking up of one’s cross.  For Adam, the command as initially received, included no need for surrender.  For Adam, as it was for Abraham (who also had to make a choice that would require him to surrender his desire – a son from Sarah) – a desire both given and fulfilled by God must be surrendered: the need for choice could not (cannot) be avoided.

PS – As we approach the Lord’s Day that tradition marks His resurrection (a day and event that we should remember every day) I will add one more thought:

We are told that Jesus purchased (may I insert “ransomed”?) with His blood – for God – those from every tribe and language and people and nation (Rev.5:9).  That God loved the entire world, sending His only begotten Son, so that those who put their trust in Him will not perish – but will be ransomed.  The Ransom Price has been paid; the price of a life set by God in the Everlasting Covenant.  The record of those who have trusted Him, accepting and acquiring the Ransom He paid, have been recorded in the Book of Life.  Seen in Daniel chapter 7 in possession of the Ancient of Days, in Revelation chapter 3 in the possession of Jesus, and finally at the end of time, with He Who sat on the great white throne, Who judges the dead.  The Price was Paid, it is however, the right of every man and woman to either accept or reject that act of Ransoming.  We are Eternal creatures – the choice is not a matter of time, but of Always.  We are privileged to choose either an Eternal Life of Blessing or an Eternal Life of Void – the absence of Blessing and of God Himself.  God – Who is God – will respect our choice!