Does Sin Have a Necessary Place in God’s Plan for the Universe?
00:00:00.000 | A podcast listener named Brandon writes in, "Pastor John, in your book Spectacular Sins,
00:00:10.580 | your main point is that God can and does ordain that sin happen in order to accomplish His
00:00:15.620 | glorious purposes."
00:00:17.420 | Of which I agree.
00:00:18.420 | "But it raised a question in my mind.
00:00:21.480 | Since God uses sin to accomplish His purposes, is it true to say then that there are some
00:00:25.900 | of God's plans that only sin can fulfill?
00:00:30.160 | Does this mean that there is a need or a necessity for sin in His ultimate plan?"
00:00:37.520 | My answer is yes.
00:00:41.020 | In God's ultimate plan, sin has a necessary place.
00:00:48.480 | And I'll try to explain why from the Bible.
00:00:51.240 | But first, let me say that the word "necessary" does not mean that God is somehow constrained
00:01:00.120 | or trapped by forces outside Himself that necessitate that He includes something in
00:01:07.240 | His plan which He doesn't freely choose to include.
00:01:11.000 | Get that whole constellation of thoughts around the word "necessity" out of your head.
00:01:16.680 | Beware of picturing God as forced or necessitated to do what He doesn't freely choose to do.
00:01:28.440 | What we are saying is that God has planned the very best world for the accomplishment
00:01:39.160 | of His goal to magnify the fullness of His glory.
00:01:44.520 | And I say that's the ultimate goal of the creation of the world and the governance of
00:01:49.720 | the world, to magnify His glory, because of Romans 9, 20 to 23, which I'll let people
00:01:55.760 | look up.
00:01:56.760 | So why do I say that in God's ultimate plan, sin has a necessary place?
00:02:04.240 | And I say it because of three passages of Scripture for starters, and there are others.
00:02:11.040 | First, 2 Timothy 1, 9, He saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of works,
00:02:17.960 | but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the
00:02:23.420 | ages began.
00:02:25.840 | So grace is the disposition and action of God to treat guilty people better than we
00:02:32.400 | deserve.
00:02:33.880 | It can come to us only because of Jesus Christ, and therefore Paul says that grace is given
00:02:41.280 | to us in Jesus Christ before the ages began.
00:02:46.480 | So we were undeserving sinners in God's mind before we were created.
00:02:53.180 | We were seen in relationship to a Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and grace flowed to us in the
00:02:59.520 | mind of God before there was any creation.
00:03:03.740 | And therefore, when the plan begins to unfold, guilt, sin, grace, Redeemer are necessary.
00:03:14.080 | Second text, Ephesians 1, 4, God chose us in Him, mark that, before the foundation of
00:03:22.720 | the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
00:03:26.320 | In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.
00:03:34.220 | So predestined through Jesus Christ, chosen in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the
00:03:39.020 | world according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with
00:03:44.540 | which He blessed us in the Beloved.
00:03:46.380 | In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according
00:03:50.860 | to the riches of His grace.
00:03:53.180 | So again, the point is that before the foundation of the world, grace is operative, the grace
00:04:00.700 | of election, the grace of predestination, the grace of adoption, all coming to us in
00:04:08.100 | Him through Jesus.
00:04:11.420 | So Christ is conceived of as a mediator and a Redeemer before the foundation of the world,
00:04:18.300 | where grace is moving God to elect us and predestine us and adopt us, sinners, though
00:04:25.740 | we be in need of grace and in need of a Savior before we were created.
00:04:31.220 | So the whole plan is conceived before implements it, and therefore it is a necessary part of
00:04:39.780 | the plan.
00:04:41.180 | And the third text is Revelation 13, 8, maybe the clearest of all.
00:04:46.660 | All who dwell on the earth will worship the beast, except those whose names are written
00:04:58.700 | before the foundation of the world in the book of the life of the Lamb who was slain.
00:05:07.020 | So there's a book where names are written before the foundation of the world, and the
00:05:12.620 | book has a name, and the name of the book is the life of the Lamb who was slaughtered.
00:05:19.340 | So Christ is slaughtered for His elect sinners before the foundation of the world.
00:05:28.940 | So from those three passages, I conclude in God's ultimate plan, which He conceived in
00:05:36.980 | His mind before He created the world, sin has a necessary place because grace and a
00:05:45.660 | Redeemer are going to be exalted.
00:05:49.940 | And at this point, it is very important that we stress the holiness of God when we say
00:05:56.180 | this.
00:05:57.180 | God's holiness is not the least compromised or impugned by the fact that God wills for
00:06:05.460 | unholy acts to take place.
00:06:08.820 | We can see this, for example, in the book of Isaiah.
00:06:12.620 | Few books lift up the holiness of God like Isaiah.
00:06:17.380 | Remember chapter 6, "One angel called to the next, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
00:06:23.900 | hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.'"
00:06:25.740 | Three-fold holy is one of the strongest biblical statements there is about the unimpeachable
00:06:36.020 | holiness, purity, sinlessness of God.
00:06:41.780 | And yet it is Isaiah who in chapter 63, verse 17 says, "O Lord, O Lord, why do You make
00:06:51.340 | us wander from Your ways and harden our hearts so that we fear You not?"
00:06:59.380 | So God is ordaining, whatever the rationale and reason here, ordaining that there be a
00:07:05.580 | season in which this people not fear Him.
00:07:10.220 | With a partial explanation perhaps given in the next chapter, verse 7 of chapter 64, where
00:07:17.020 | he says, "There is no one who calls on Your name, who rouses himself to take hold of You,
00:07:23.460 | for You have hidden Your face from us and have handed us over to our iniquities."
00:07:33.900 | So Isaiah, on the one hand, gives the highest testimony of God's holiness and spotlessness
00:07:42.020 | and sinlessness, and on the other hand, gives one of the clearest statements of how God
00:07:47.380 | wills that sin happen in certain situations.
00:07:53.520 | So I would say on the basis of the Bible, three things that many people find hard to
00:08:03.100 | put together.
00:08:05.020 | But the Bible does, so I try.
00:08:08.020 | One, God is absolutely sovereign and governs all things, including the existence of sin.
00:08:17.020 | Two, the absolute, unimpeachable holiness and sinlessness and purity of God.
00:08:24.420 | Third, the complete responsibility and accountability of all human beings to believe and to do the
00:08:32.620 | things they know are right to believe and do.
00:08:37.380 | And I find it helpful, and I'd end here, I find it helpful to take Genesis 50, verse
00:08:42.460 | 20, which Joseph spoke over his brothers who sold him into slavery, to take Genesis 50,
00:08:50.180 | verse 20, and put it as a great banner over all evil, even the very first evil that was
00:08:58.780 | committed by Lucifer in heaven.
00:09:02.420 | As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
00:09:09.060 | Amen.
00:09:10.060 | Thank you for putting those three biblical priorities together for us, Pastor John, and
00:09:13.660 | thank you for the question.
00:09:15.180 | Send us your questions and download our apps or sift through our storehouse of over 800
00:09:20.020 | episodes at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:21.740 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:09:28.540 | God bless.
00:09:29.540 | God bless.
00:09:29.540 | God bless.
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