Why did God allow sin?

 
Today’s reading from Charnock’s book is so profound that I’m tempted to copy/paste most of it instead of putting it in my own words. In writing about the wisdom of God, this author answers the question I’ve often been asked: Why did God allow Adam and Eve to sin? It ruined everything.

Charnock agrees that sin is “altogether black and abominable” but quickly adds that in His wisdom God allowed it that we might see His mercy and grace displayed in the incarnation and death of his Son for the atonement of sin.

With goosebumps, I stop there and say, “Of course. Without sin we would not see the mercy and power of God. We would only have a small view of His glory and miss His incredible love and power shown in what He did about our sin…

So that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21)

He permitted Adam’s fall so we could have a fuller discovery of His nature and unbounded goodness. It would not have otherwise appeared. His goodness in rewarding innocent obedience would have been manifested; but not his mercy. Without sin and its production of misery, God’s mercy in sending his Son to save his enemies, could not have appeared.
Nor would we know the power of God in the changing of hard hearts nor His vindictive justice that reveals His wrath against sin. We would not experience imputed righteousness and the glory of knowing it through faith in Christ:

For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face. (Psalm 11:7)
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Without sin, this perfection, whereby God draws good out of evil, would have no reason to happen and been utterly useless.

Instead, sin became an occasion of God glorifying himself as He used it to communicate the knowledge of all these perfections of His nature, which otherwise would not be seen. His justice would have nothing to punish, His mercy obscure, and a great part of His wisdom would remain silent without the presence of sin to order and even use for His purposes.

The OT example is Joseph. God permitted the sin of Joseph’s brethren, that he might use their evil to a good end. Because of his holiness, God never wills sin as an end; but in regard of His great wisdom He wills to permit it as a means and occasion to draw good out of those things which are in their own nature most contrary to good.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Genesis 50:20)

The NT example is like it, but with implications for far more than one family. This was for all of humanity:

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:23)

The devil inspired men to kill Jesus yet God ordered it to accomplish His own design of redemption in the death of the His Son. The devil had diabolical ends, and God overpowers his actions to serve His own divine ends. Divine wisdom uses sin to accomplish His will.

PRAY: Because my sin did this to You, Jesus, I abhor sin, even though it still draws me out of fellowship with You. Yet because of God’s wisdom, mercy, and grace, You continually draw me back to Yourself, using everything for good in my life. You are utterly amazing to use the sin that I hate as a means whereby I am able to know Your great love and grace.