He was heard to ask, on the cross, why God had forsaken him. That sounds just like a sin of despair. So I guess Jesus passed the human test right there.
What I’d like to know is why God, having been disappointed by Adam, did not subsequently make everyone else as good as Jesus. There’d have been only two people in need of salvation and that would’ve been the end of it.
Imagine for a moment being an all knowing fully omniscient entity.
You know the outcome of every singe event in advance. You are never surprised, never amazed, never caught off guard by the punchline of a joke, or a plot twist in a movie.
Sounds pretty boring.
What is the signature difference between Man and a host of Angels?
We have free will. We do that most precious of all things. We do the unexpected.
Jesus was quoting Psalm 22
1
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.[b]
3
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.[c]
4
In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
5
To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
7
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
8
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”
9
Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
10
From birth I was cast on you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.
12
Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
13
Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
14
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
15
My mouth[d] is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16
Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce[e] my hands and my feet.
17
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
18
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.
19
But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
20
Deliver me from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.
21
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.
22
I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.
23
You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
25
From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you[f] I will fulfill my vows.
26
The poor will eat and be satisfied;
those who seek the Lord will praise him—
may your hearts live forever!
27
All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,
28
for dominion belongs to the Lord
and he rules over the nations.
29
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
31
They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it!
Maybe you already believe what follows and I misunderstood your question/statement but I believe that’s what God is doing right now through the finished work of Jesus on the cross. If we come to God in repentance, accept the shed blood of his son to pay our sin debt, he will forgive us. At the same time he gives us his Holy Spirit to indwell us and to lead us into all righteousness. The right standing that Jesus has with the Father is imputed to us, i.e., God gives us the righteousness of his son. He declares us righteous positionally and then sets about to make us righteous experientially in our everyday life. That’s called sanctification. It’s a process and a relationship. It’s not easy. That’s why many drop out and don’t continue. We become love slaves to the Master. Our lives should be surrendered to his will - whatever that will may be. We are bought with a price and we are not our own any longer. We belong to him now. We will fall into sin occasionally but it should no longer be a lifestyle as before. Others will see the change and take note, being drawn or repulsed. We will be the sweet aroma of Christ to those who are coming to faith or the smell of death to those who reject God’s Son.
You can’t be good without consciously and deliberately rejecting evil, which requires free will. If you have no choice but to do good, it isn’t good. It’s only animal instinct at best. Likewise, we can’t even define good without a knowledge of evil. Preserving man’s free will to choose between good and evil was the highest purpose of our creation as God will force no man to heaven.
Hardly an expert, so I cannot support my view with scripture. But my belief is that if we are made in His image, and we feel sorrow and suffering, there must be some value to those experiences that cannot be obtained otherwise.
I think about what we learn from those feelings, and it is primarily how we develop compassion for the suffering of others. Could we have been created with compassion and empathy from the outset? Perhaps, but emotional pain is so often connected with our love for others that the process itself deepens the feeling. As with metals that undergo a physical change as the result of extreme heat, we are changed as people after we have gone through grief and sorrow.
And it is our own sinfulness that opens our heart to the forgiveness of others. I guess the point could be made that if there were no sin, there would not be a need to forgive others. But then, there would be no opportunity for us to feel the joy of when we are forgiven.
Because the lessons of our state of being require alignment to hear his way..
It was God’s will that we should hear him, next time hopefully those with the Earth experience, and our fallen experience we will know to hear him..
Interesting perspective. I suppose we will have a few hundred thousand years in Heaven to ponder it and ask the right people involved.
Thanks, Buttons12. I think that God wanted us to have free will. Must have been very important to Him.