YES, man was created a free agent, for God could not be satisfied with the service of a bondman, service to Him must flow from hearts in unison with Himself, as the God who delighted to bless. Love must be the mainspring, for nothing short of this could satisfy the heart of God.
Therefore man was created a free agent, that is, he had the power to choose if he would serve God or not. God meanwhile sought to attach man to Himself, by surrounding him with marks of His signal favor and love. He placed him in a beautiful, well-watered garden, full of trees (Gen. 2:99And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)) which were to provide him with food. And God gave him a companion to be with him to help him to dress, and keep, and enjoy this beautiful place. All creation was in harmony, and peace brooded over the scene. No trail of the serpent had yet defiled it, and as God looked upon the work of His own hands, He could not fail to regard it with satisfaction, for everything was very good. It was a blessed time. Man was created in innocency, and surrounded by blessings from God’s own hand, and it seemed as if there could be nothing to tempt his allegiance from such a merciful and kind Creator.
But there was a mighty spirit who desired allegiance, and who would seek to acquire it without question as to price or means. He had occupied a lofty position in the heavenly hierarchy, for he is spoken of as “the anointed cherub that covereth” (Ezek. 28:1414Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. (Ezekiel 28:14)), but, alas! he too, like man, created a free agent, was overcome by the splendor and beauty of himself and his surroundings, and he fell. Now, as a fallen spirit, full of ambition and thirsting for dominion and power, he appears upon the scene at the creation of man, determined at all costs, and utterly regardless of consequences, to win man’s allegiance to himself. There was one way in which he could do this, and with artful cuing he attacks the vulnerable spot. He approaches Eve, the weaker of the two, and the more easily beguiled, and offers her what he himself had acquired, the knowledge of evil as well as of good, possessing which, she and Adam would be as gods.
Alas! we know how successful he was, and how Eve lent a ready ear to his enticement, and was then the means of her own and Adam’s fall. Satan gained a signal victory over man, and apparently spoiled God’s carefully laid plan for the prosperity and blessing of His earthly paradise; and the enemy could rejoice in being, as he may have thought, a god of superior intelligence, even though he lacked the power of the Creator. He little knew, however, that the Creator God had not been taken unawares; He knew full well how to meet Satan, and make him the instrument for the occasion of unfolding a most wonderful plan that God had in view for man’s ultimate and eternal blessing. Yes, Satan had defeated himself, and now God could show in a way He could not have shown before, what His grace and love were capable of doing, and thus man was to hear of a love so extraordinary that it passed finding out (Eph. 3:1919And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:19)).
Satan was proved a liar, for he had insinuated that God was holding something back that would be of great good to man, whereas God had blessing in store for man when the time arrived to make it known, that neither Satan nor man could ever have conceived of.
And what had man gained by listening to Satan?
As time showed, he was no longer a free agent (Rom. 3:10-1210As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3:10‑12)), he had become the servant of sin; sin was his master, and he could not free himself from its yoke. He knew good and evil indeed, as Satan had promised, but how to perform the good and resist the evil, was the question, and he was soon to discover what an abject slave he was to the latter (Rom. 7:19-2419For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:19‑24)).
What could be done? Man was helpless, “sold under sin,” and incapable of doing the right. His conscience was active, and told him he ought to obey God his Creator, but he found another principle within him, that prevented him obeying his conscience. How, therefore, could he fit himself for the presence of God? Truly his case was hopeless, as far as concerned himself.
Now it is time for God to act, for “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” as has been rightly said, and when man finds he can do nothing, he is in the position or state to avail himself of the most wonderful offer that man has ever listened to, and which is far beyond anything he could ever have conceived of.
Let us close this paper by quoting in the sublime language of Scripture, this most wonderful measure of God’s grace to man.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
F. R.