Why did God create us? Has He had some goal in mind from the beginning? Didn’t He know that everyone would rebel against Him? Didn’t He foresee the consequences of our rebellion, all the suffering and sadness that humanity has since faced? Then why did He create anyone in the first place?
The Bible answers these questions for us. It tells that even before God created Adam and Eve, He knew that they and everyone after them would sin. Amazingly, He had already formed a plan to redeem fallen humanity through Jesus. Of God’s pre-creation plan Paul wrote,
God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ from all eternity (2 Tim. 1:8b-9, emphasis added).
God’s grace was granted us in Christ from all eternity, not just to all eternity. That indicates that Jesus’ sacrificial death is something God had planned from ages past.
Similarly, Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians:
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:11, emphasis added).
Jesus’ death on the cross was not an afterthought, a quickly-devised plan to fix what God had not foreseen.
Not only did God have an eternal purpose in granting us His grace from all eternity, but He also foreknew from eternity past who would choose to receive His grace, and He even wrote their names in a book:
And all who dwell on the earth will worship him [the beast of Revelation], every one whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain [Jesus] (Rev. 13:8, emphasis added).
The fall of Adam didn’t catch God by surprise. Neither did your fall or my fall. God knew we would sin, and He also knew who would repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.
