God's Kingship

The fall can look like a mistake, a slip on God's part, and yet the Bible is clear that nothing happens except by his will. We can only suppose that when God contemplated creation he saw the possible outcomes and yet purposed to create the world that would fall but to save a people for himself. Both the fall and salvation from it for the elect are things that are part of God's eternal purpose. He purposed this in such a way that he remains innocent of any guilt and does only what is right and good.

Whom God chooses

Given that who is saved is something God decides not human beings, there are only three broad possibilities. We have already said that God is under no obligation to save anyone and so he could have quite legitimately overlooked all. Alternatively, he could have saved everybody. There is no lack of power in God to do such a thing.

It seems, however, that God worked in neither of those ways but rather chose to save some, a number known only to him. It maybe, Paul suggests, that he did it this way for his greater glory. The illustration is used of the way beautiful jewellery is often best displayed against a dark background.

One can only appreciate this argument if one accepts that God is in absolute control of all things and is quite rightly working everything together for his own glory.

No obligation

God is under no obligation to save anyone. In the case of the fallen angels, he does nothing, as far as we are aware, to provide salvation for them. They have sinned and God has made a hell for them with no way of redemption.

If God treated humankind in the same way there would be no argument. God would be perfectly just to cast every single one of us into hell. What argument could we muster against that result? If hell's eternal nature is questioned, we must remember that our sins are against an eternal God. If someone in hell repented, it might be different but no-one will.
We know that God is a God of love but that does not oblige him to overlook our sins and save us. We have no claim on him except in Christ.

Total depravity

Every person is born into this world fallen and depraved. We are guilty in Adam as he was our representative in the beginning. We are also guilty because we descend from him and inherit both his sin and his sinful proclivity.

There is not a part of us or of our make up that is not affected by the fall. We are fallen physically and spiritually, in our thinking and in our consciences, in every part of us.

The fact of this total depravity must be borne in mind in all our dealings with one another. No-one is totally mired in sin so that there is no good seen but no-one is free from the taint of sin either. 

The fall of humankind

In Genesis 3 we learn of what is often called the fall of humankind. Before this point there was no sin - at least in this world - and so no corruption or decay. Presumably nothing had died, although that is a difficult idea. Adam is clearly placed in the Garden God created as a representative of humankind. He is the obvious candidate as he is the first man and no doubt the best. What happens, however, is that he disobeys God and so sins. Once he sins, everything changes.

God makes a positive law that Adam is not to eat of a certain tree, the moment he does so, he has sinned. What led to the sin? First, there is the activity of Satan who hijacks the snake. Secondly, there is the vulnerability of Eve, who Adam is meant to protect. Instead of doing that, he deliberately follows Eve's lead and sins. That sin dooms all humankind, his descendants, and drags all of creation into a fallen state so that nothing is the same again. Weeds grow where they are not wanted, we sweat and toil, everything becomes subject to decay. There is suffering.

The fall makes no sense. It is a species of madness where all right reason and sense goes out of the window. The consequences are far reaching and eternal. There is not a problem in the world that cannot be traced back to the fall in some way or another.

There seems to be no way out if it and yet even in Genesis 3 we read of the sweat of man's brow, the brow being what keeps the sweat from the eyes, and of the crushing of Satan's seed though at the cost of the bruising of the seed of man's head. God also provides skins for the couple to cover their nakedness, though clearly at the cost of the lives of certain animals.