Can It Go Wrong Again?

In the previously mentioned EO article about heaven and hell (see June 11), the following interesting question is posed and discussed:

11. Who says that later in heaven, humanity couldn’t once again rise up against God?

In the seemingly perfect eternity, it was possible for evil to arise in the form of the rebellion of the one who was originally the bearer of light. So it could happen—and God chose to allow evil to happen in full.
Who, then, can guarantee—as the question implies—that in this “new eternity,” it couldn’t happen again? Because, so to speak, God may “let you look over the edge” and say: “Behold the consequences.”

Good question!
Unfortunately, the response can hardly be called an answer.

Let me set aside, for now, the fact that the Bible knows nothing of a rebellion by a figure who was once created as a light-bearer (Lucifer). Scripture simply states of the devil that he “is sinning from the beginning” (1 John 3:8). Not later, but from the start.
But that aside.

If one assumes that evil came into being through a rebellion not included in the Creator’s script, then we have a VERY big problem! Because in that case, from God’s perspective, something fundamentally went WRONG in the past. Evil was introduced without the Creator having planned it.

That would mean a BLUNDER of the highest order! Or to put it another way: a SIN of the highest order (after all, “sin” and “missing the mark” are the same word).

But it doesn’t stop there. If God made a blunder in the past, doesn’t that also give us every reason to fear for the future? If things could go wrong in a “perfect” creation back then, what guarantee do we have that they won’t go wrong again in a “perfect” creation in the future?

Now read the almost comical answer from the authors of the EO article:

“Because God, so to speak, lets you look over the edge and says: ‘Behold the consequences.’”

Aha—so in the past things could go wrong because God’s creatures were still ignorant of the consequences of sin.
Which basically means: if God had better informed His creatures back then, all evil could have been prevented.
In other words: a mistake.

But—so goes the comfort in the EO (Dutch Evangelical Broadcasting company) answer—this won’t happen to God a second time.

Does this offer a solid foundation for our expectation of the future?
On the contrary!

A God who makes a mistake is, quite simply, no GOD at all.
Such a being clearly does not have all things in hand.
He is dependent on what His own creations think and do.

In the Christian world, they say: “man has a free will”—
meaning: with regard to what he wants or wills, he is not under God’s control.
Such beings are unpredictable, and therefore pose a gigantic risk. Do you realize what a disaster scenario that is?

The real, biblical answer is that with God, NOTHING ever goes wrong. God KNEW that man would listen to the serpent (which God Himself had made) and would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
He KNEW that in this way, man would come to know evil—but also, thereby, the good.

That is why creation was NOT subjected to futility VOLUNTARILY, but “because of Him who subjects it” (Romans 8:20). GOD has consigned all to disobedience. No one else! Like fish in a net. Inescapable.

Why? Paul gives this majestic answer:

“God locks up all together in stubbornness,
THAT He should be merciful to all!”
– Romans 11:32 (CLNT)

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