3.-The Establishment of Responsibility.
It has often appeared to me a strange thing that men will allow in words that God is sovereign and supreme, while the whole bent of their mind and actions evinces that they deny, or at least question, His right to make or create what sort of a man He pleased. They do not think of questioning this right as applied to the rest of creation in its existing form; but they think and act as though He had no right to call a responsible being into existence if He so willed it.
Yet He claims for Himself His undoubted prerogative, in order that men may be silenced. “Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?"
Men would throw the blame of all the evil that is in the world upon God for His not having made things otherwise, and as they would like; but they forget that God chose to make them responsible beings, as having perfect right and power to do so, and that no blame can be shifted to His sovereign act from their shoulders whose responsibility was created by that very act. It is said, God is Almighty as well as Omniscient, and could therefore have made men perfectly safe from the reach of evil, had He chosen to do so; but He has chosen to do otherwise, and so the existing state of the world is His doing, for “who has resisted his will?” But this really begs the whole question, for it assumes either that, as is expressed, the present state of things is according to His will, or that there was no course open to Him but the two contemplated in such an assumption, namely, that He must either keep men from evil by direct power, or be concerned in their evil Himself; whereas the scriptures show decisively that neither of these is the truth. Apt indeed is the inspired reply to such objectors— “Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" (Rom. 9:2020Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? (Romans 9:20).)
Now the thus is, as far as men in general are concerned, certainly not a state in which we are kept from evil by the direct action of God's omnipotence, nor is it a state in which, by the exercise of the same power, we are of necessity under evil for which He will judge us. This were indeed to make Him unrighteous, which is precisely the issue at which many have arrived, who have sought to reconcile such an idea of our position as men with their ideas of God; and therefore it is not greatly to be wondered at that, where merely the natural evil of man's heart and will has been at work, men have been glad to find thus, as they imagined, a good excuse for the rejection of the revelation of God—the Bible—which is never welcome to man naturally, and which he readily judges as opposed to “enlightened reason.” But the condition in which God chose to ordain man at the commencement of his history was one of direct responsibility, that is, a real moral relationship to God—a condition in which he was possessed of certain powers, and of intelligence, by which they could, and therefore should, be directed in happy subjection to Him; or, to put it concisely, a condition in which he was able to understand God's will, and bound to obey it. The measure of this intelligence was the word of God.
Being capable of receiving that word to this extent (that is, being intelligent), man was bound to acknowledge it as the expression of God's will, as supreme, and was not consequently responsible for any further measure of knowledge as an authoritative guide for himself. The word—the witness or testimony of God—was, and is, thus the measure of all direct responsibility, and is inseparably connected with the principle. Moreover, the fact that obedience to it was demanded and looked for, on God's part, from man, shows plainly that man had the power of doing what was contrary to that word, and that he was left free as to the possibility of exercising that power. This indeed, as we have seen, is inherent in the nature of responsibility, and it shows us that a responsible being is one to whom failure is possible—a principle which is abstractly true in all cases, except of course strictly in that of the Lord Jesus Christ, though it may on some occasions be subject to some limitations.
The account of the commencement of the subsistence of these relations between God and man is given to us in Gen. 2:7-257And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And 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. 10And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 15And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 18And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 21And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:7‑25), and it is important to note that we have the description in that chapter, and not in the first of the same book. The reason is plain. For while in chapter 1 we have simply the ordered existence of all things earthly with reference to God (Elohim) as Creator, in chapter ii. we have some of these same existences described in their relation to the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim), and they have consequently (for this is the name by which God designates Himself when in moral relationship with man thereafter in scripture) a moral character not noticeable in the former chapter. And we see herein the most admirable order of the revelation of God.
The distinction I speak of will be seen by comparing chapter 1:26-80 with chapter 2:7-25. In the former portion man is seen as created in conformity with the divine counsels concerning the plan of his creation, and as placed on the earth in his proper position, viewed, however, entirely as a creature, the, words which God addresses to him— “Be fruitful and multiply,” &c.—being similar to those which He addressed to His other creatures, with (of course) a recognition of that which was peculiar to the special position of man, namely, his dominion over the other creatures. Nothing beyond the fact is noted however, and seeing that it is here the brute creation, as such, over which he is to have dominion simply for the subduing of it, it is evidently a question of his relative physical position towards them, more than of any moral relations existing on either side. (See vers. 22, 28.) Man's physical wants, along with those of the animals, are made prominent in verses 29, 30.
In the latter portion (Gen. 2:7-257And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And 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. 10And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 15And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 18And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 21And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:7‑25)) on the other hand, man is seen in the relationship which his being has with God. It is here not simply, “God created man,” &c., but “the Lord God formed man.... and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The manner of his link with his source of life is thus shown, and it is seen to place him in direct relationship with God. It is as Elihu described in Job 33:44The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. (Job 33:4), “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life,” and as Paul says in Acts 17:2828For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. (Acts 17:28), quoting the acknowledgment which even the heathen gave to the fact, “For we are also his offspring.” The words addressed to him by the Lord God in this character are consequently concerning his moral obligation to Him (vers. 16, 17): “And the Lord God commanded the man,” &c. The moral purport and effect of the formation of the woman is also given (ver. 18-24): “It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him an help meet for him;” and “therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” Not only so, we have also in verses 19, 20 the moral side of Adam's authority over the rest of created living things, and this in direct contrast with the physical side shown us in chapter 1. “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof," &c.
Now it is with these moral relations, as ordained between God and man, that we are concerned in this examination. The intelligence and power given to man are abundantly manifest from the whole of the account, while in verses 16, 17 God's requirement is defined, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil becomes thus not only a test but the witness of God's claim, and conversely of man's responsibility.
It is a point of immense importance in the establishment of this relationship between God and man that the thing which God commanded not to be done, namely, the eating the fruit of the tree, was perfectly innocent in itself. But for the condition attached to it there was no wrong in the act, and the importance consists in this, that it shows that man was not left to the guidance of any internal conscience or inherent moral sense of wrong; in fact, it is plain from the scripture that this is what he did not possess as innocent. If it had been a sinful thing (that is, a thing morally corrupt as to the nature of it—I do not speak here of the effect) which had been forbidden, man in the present day might with some show of justice claim that there is this good in him, that from the beginning it was his own moral sense or inherent consciousness of right and wrong (or “spiritual faculty") which was to have led him in the way of serving God. But it was not.; and man was therefore simply put under the obligation to be subject to the word of God as supreme—a motive sufficient to lead him to be so, being no doubt also supplied in the goodness of God, as in all that was the expression of that (namely, God's works, see Gen. 1; 2) man had free possession and enjoyment.
Adam thus did not know right and wrong, not knowing good and evil, till his act of disobedience was done. He knew by the word of God the right thing to do; but in what was said to him there was no question proposed as to whether he knew it to be right or wrong. He had not to decide between it as good and something else, but he was responsible to do it as set by God's will in the relationship to Him, which demanded it as its condition, and as possessed of power to do the opposite, without which, of course, God's command would have been without meaning. The possession of this power was, however, perfectly compatible with a state of innocence, or, in other words, of ignorance of evil as related to good (and of good also, of course, in that distinctive sense); and that this was man's original condition is made perfectly plain by Gen. 3:2222And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: (Genesis 3:22), where the Lord God says, after man has fallen, “Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil; and now,” &c. Before he fell, everything that he knew was good in itself, and this, whether it were the works of God by which he was surrounded (for all these were declared to be “very good,” Gen. 1), or his own course which the word of God marked out for him (for this was obedience). All was good; but at the same time we can say that he did not know good relatively or abstractly as it is known in a mind which can compare it with evil.
Hence the tree of which he partook in disobedience was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” In one sense it would not be correct to say that he was unconscious of good, but he was totally unconscious of evil. I do not forget that there was the condition of death attached to God's requirement, but even this necessitated no knowledge of evil. There being no moral wrong in the act of eating the fruit apart from God's command, man was simply required to obey, not to know as right and wrong in itself. This we need to keep in view as to the act; and as to the condition we must not forget that we look back at it from the apprehension of death which guilt has brought in, and that therefore to us it has a moral character as a penal condition, which it need not have had to him—in fact, we may say it could not have had.
For “the sting of death is sin;” and until therefore he knew sin, he could not know death in its penal character. It is obvious that the knowledge of death as punishment for wrong must necessarily follow the knowledge of wrong, and therefore Adam could not have known death in this way. How much about the fact of death he knew we are not told—he could hardly have seen any instances of it at the time when the command was given to him; but to a being to whom the idea of a cause is an inherent necessity, his own end, to speak popularly, that is, the end of his life on earth, must have been an intelligible idea; and there is abundant evidence that physical death was made the prominent thought to him, and to man thereafter, for a long time.
Therefore the attachment of the condition did not make disobedience any more disobedient, or reveal its intrinsic moral character before it was an accomplished act.
This is borne witness to in what is told us about the immediate effect of the fall upon man. He then acquired what he had not before, “the knowledge of good and evil;” and it is well if we weigh the importance of this word, so that we may understand it. For it does not speak of a knowledge of good and a knowledge of evil, as though these were two distinct subjects of knowledge with which man then became acquainted, or even two separate departments of knowledge, or as though man had previously known what good was in itself, or what evil was in itself, and now had become practically acquainted with that which he already knew theoretically. It speaks of good and evil as so bound up in one apprehension, that, though it were the knowledge of two opposing principles which was acquired, yet it was but one perception, the perception of them as opposed to one another; both principles were of necessity included in one idea with which man became acquainted at that moment. For “the knowledge of good and evil” is the perception of it in itself without a law, or its being imposed. God does know, doubtless, good and evil according to the perfection of His own nature. But it is a condition of His nature to discern it; it was not of Adam's before his fall. He was innocent; he enjoyed God's goodness unsuspectingly, and did nothing else. There was no occasion to discern, nor capacity to do so. In the fall he acquired this capacity. He could now say, This is good, and that evil; but he was under sin. So that in this knowledge of good and evil we have a “capacity to discern right and wrong—a real moral condition of mind, but which is not subject to forms of thought, because it is not a question of thought. It is in the nature of relationship, and may in us be misled by thought."