From the time of Adam and Eve the human race has paid a high price for disobedience. To understand just how high the price has been, we have to also think about how high a price God has paid. Long ago the universe was peaceful, and then ego entered the scene. Lucifer was apparently the most capable and most honored of the angels. He knew more about God than all the others, so how could he have thought that he could become greater than God—that he could “be like the Most High”?
God was maker and ruler of the universe, but it seems evident that He did not throw His weight around. Even though Lucifer became self-centered and wanted to be greater than God, I wonder how he could actually think he could accomplish that. There was no excuse for Lucifer’s rebellion, but I suggest there was one part of God’s leadership that to some extent allowed that possibility.
A Universe Ruled by Love, Not Power
That may sound like heresy, but actually it perhaps describes the most wonderful part of the character of God; the part that makes the universe such an awesome place to live. Lucifer and all the other created beings were made by God, through His amazing power and knowledge, but God was not willing for the universe to be governed by power. He could have made His power obvious, maybe even in gentle ways, making Lucifer reluctantly realize that he could not rise above his Maker. But our God was unwilling to have His universe ruled by anything other than love, even if this made Him misunderstood, making the cost for Him very high. Our first parents were warned to avoid the tempter, because they would learn about good and evil. Was God really trying to keep something from them? Well, yes, He was. He did not wish them to know and experience what evil was. They were learning how good God was and how good their created home was, and what endless opportunities there were for them to experience the wonder of their God-given life. That is all they needed to know. The only thing they didn’t know was evil, and it would not be beneficial for them to find out what evil was and how it would hurt them. Our loving God did not want them to experience evil, to have their first family torn apart by murder.
I will suggest one other idea that might sound heretical, but it really isn’t. I suggest that before Lucifer’s fall all the created beings in the universe were naive, and innocent. Was that a bad thing? If you are a parent with young children, do you want them to grow up innocent, not experiencing evil? Since we live in an evil world, with pain all around us, our children will not be innocent in the way people before sin could be innocent. Before the entrance of Lucifer’s pride and self-love the universe was happy and peaceful. The people were not disadvantaged by their innocence and naivete in regard to evil. They did not have to make decisions of whether to follow evil ways, because God’s obvious love for them left no reason they should question how they should live. Their happiness was assured, and that put them in the most beneficial position that was possible.
Both Satan’s angels and the human race have paid a high price for our knowledge of evil.
The Experience of Evil
Then it happened—Lucifer questioned God and learned something he would not have otherwise experienced. He experienced the evil of being self-centered, and it didn’t make him a better person. Lucifer’s prideful choices also brought the other inhabitants of the universe to the need to decide what choice to make regarding Satan’s claims, and they were not prepared for the emergency. Now that evil was in the air, it would not work for God just to tell them how bad evil would be; they would understand it only if they experienced it. The price would be very high, but the presence of evil left no other choice. We lost our innocence, and the price for the human race has been growing through the centuries. We invent more effective weapons to destroy each other in wars, and more clever deceptions. As doubt of the existence of a Creator God grows, life seems to lose its meaning. We find more effective drugs to deaden the pain of our misery, even if it kills us.
We long for our children to live happy lives and not to experience the evil that surrounds us, but as children they are naive and innocent. We long for them to stay that way. Are we keeping something from them? Yes, we hope to keep them from experiencing evil, just as God wished for His created family not to experience evil. I have friends whose child left a happy home because they thought they were missing something. They came back later, sadder but wiser. They learned something they didn’t know before, but the price was very high. Perhaps the parents could have exerted their power and prevented their child’s wrong choice. But sometimes love has to recognize that because of the evil around us, our children may have hard lessons to learn.
The Price God Has Paid
Both Satan’s angels and the human race have paid a high price for our knowledge of evil. The only beneficial result is that we are no longer naive and innocent. We are told that the result will be that rebellion will not arise a second time. The universe as a whole lost its innocence because of our choices. We now all know what evil is, but that came at a very high price.
Think beyond what we have paid, and think of the price that God has paid. He knows that the universe will be a happy and secure place only if it is governed fully by love, never by power. When this experiment with evil is over, we will finally have learned that lesson. We will have lost innocence and gained wisdom, but this came at a very, very high price. God knew how much we would pay, but He also knew that love as the ruling principle of the universe could not be sacrificed. Instead, He would rule only by love, and to save the universe He would pay the greatest price of all.
God sent His Son to spend 33 painfully difficult years on earth, and He was finally murdered in the most painful, humiliating way possible. Can you imagine? God, with the power to create untold billions of stars and planets and the power to eliminate all of us if He chose to, subjected Himself to that kind of treatment, to maintain His policy of governing only by love. That is more than we can fathom, if we think about it. And that is only the beginning. Most parents love their children deeply and suffer for them if they lose their way. How many millions of His loved children has God lost? Certainly His pain is beyond what we can imagine. We chose to wander away, and the price for us has been high, and the price for God has been very, very high. The value of the reward for all who accept His sacrifice will also be very, very high.
When this long episode with evil is finally over and each person accepts the result they have chosen, the painful memories will fade away, and God’s unfathomable wisdom and love will be eternally and unquestionably clear.
