If God really made man good, why did we fall into sin?

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Genesis 1:31 tells us, "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." So if He made everything -- including being good -- why did Adam and Eve fall into sin? Did God really create us to be good or to be sinful?

The question of God's sovereignty is often questioned because of the faultiness of mankind. It's so ironic how we as people can make all the mistakes and in the end blame God for making us this way. Can we truly say that God made man kind to be sinful or are we missing a point here?

One thing is for sure, God created all things to bring Him glory. Romans 11:36 tells us, "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." And it can be hard to comprehend how such flawed engineering can glorify a perfect God.

Because God is loving, He gave us free will

To begin with, we must first understand that God did not make man evil. God made man with a choice, but it was man who chose to be evil. God placed Adam and Eve in a garden filled with all kinds of beautiful fruit-bearing trees, but the two were most drawn to the one God put in the garden specifically for non-consumption.

Why would God even put such a tree if He knew that it could cause the downfall of the human race? It's because He loves us so much that He does not want to keep us unwillingly tied to Him. Our free will is a product of God's unwillingness to force and drive us around like robots because that's not real love.

Because God is just, He honors our free will

Moreover, when man chooses any other way apart from God's, our Father honors our free will and leaves us to our choice, even to the point of abandoning our very presence. That's why God did not stop Moses from entering Canaan in Deuteronomy 34, but gave Him free will to enter it if He pleased.

But because God knew which way was His, He promised to honor Moses's free will to enter if he pleased and without His presence. Because to choose any way apart from God is to reject God.

Because God is all-knowing, He prepared Himself to be our righteousness

But once again, God's grace becomes complete for all of us. In our stubbornness and sin, God still provides a way out. God gave Adam and Eve the skin of animals -- the symbolic shedding of blood -- so that they would be free from the consequence of immediate death and after that eternal separation with Him.

Jesus has provided us today with the same grace by giving up His own life so that we may live in His righteousness and not our own. God knew that we would let Him down, so Jesus decided to play our role for us and then let us enjoy the benefits and blessings. This reflects nothing less than the magnitude of the love of Christ despite the magnitude of our flawed nature.