Why did God let Adam and Eve fall?

Genesis 3 is not just about Adam and Eve. It's about you and me.

“It is God’s nature to make something out of nothing. This is why God cannot make anything out of him who is not yet nothing.” — Martin Luther

God could’ve cut the tree down.

He could have done from the start what he only did after a violation, and placed security at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to prevent access.

God could have saved Adam and Eve from themselves. Why didn’t he?

Instead, God pointed out the tree to Adam, put it specifically off-limits, then went about creating Adam a partner, noting it was “not good” for him to be alone.

In Genesis 2 we have the first use of the honor system. It takes but a chapter to learn why the world does not run on honor.

In Genesis 3, after the briefest of conversations with a talking serpent, Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit.

Why did God let Adam and Eve fall?

Because if they had not fallen, God could not have caught them.

In Eden, without a worry, the first two humans made an idol of the one thing God denied them. You had one job, Adam and Eve.

Of course the humans were going to fail. That part, you expect. But why did God let them do it?

No matter how good the covenant, the human urge is to test what’s behind Door No. 2 — game shows have been built on this very premise. Humanity is the child that has to touch the hot stove for ourselves.

Without the struggle of survival, Adam and Eve had too much time on their hands. They viewed a tree and its fruit as most important than God’s word.

So God put man to work. Walking alongside God was perhaps too boring. Adam and Eve “turned right and left” and took a detour, the second they had the chance.

Note that redemption came immediately after the fall. It has to.

In Genesis 3:6, Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit. By Genesis 3:16, God has laid out a new deal for humanity: Women will suffer in childbearing, men will suffer at work. But life will go on, not the certain death they were promised. As long as we have life, we can be redeemed.

After Will Smith smacked comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, Denzel Washington pulled Smith aside. He told him the devil comes for us at our highest moments. Those words proved prophetic — Smith won his first Oscar minutes later.

God comes for us in our low moments. Sometimes we have to be brought low to realize we need him, that we can’t just “take it from here,” that we need help.

Why did God let Adam and Eve fall? Why did God disapprove of a king for Israel, yet appoint one anyway? Why did God let “his only begotten son” be tortured and killed?

If we felt God was not alongside us when we fall, it would hardly be worth climbing.

If we thought of our missteps as fatal, and final, we might as well lean in to the bad.

Instead, our conscience troubles us that we can do better. We are heartened to know we’ll be given another chance.

If there were no mistakes, there could be no redemption.

If you had not fallen, God could not catch you.

If there were no slavery in Egypt, there could be no exodus.

If Jesus had not been crucified, he could not have been resurrection.

I’ve written previously that the fall is the point of the Bible.

Today I’d modify that. What happens after the fall is the point of the Bible, and the point of your life.