Is God the Author of Sin? There is no more obscene or profane thought then to imply or suggest that the thrice Holy God would in any manner be accredited as the author of sin. The very idea is scandalous blasphemy and is most repugnant and repulsive to all moral minds. Yet, it is the very charge that some make against the teaching of the absolute sovereignty of God and His omnipotent control over all events in time.
This is no novel device by the enemies of truth. They attempt to set forth a completely absurd premise and then try to pass it off as the alleged teaching of others. This is the common, but dishonest means by which charges have always been brought against truth and it is the same today. The enemies of truth draw a false inference themselves, or suppose that the doctrine leads to such an inference, and then charge it as what others actually hold and teach. There is one maxim which should never be departed from among Christians: “A person is not to be held liable for the inferences which others may draw from his doctrine; and he is never to be represented as holding and teaching that which others suppose follows from his doctrine. He is answerable and liable only for what he avows.”
What is the source and cause of sin in the world and what is God’s relationship to sin? One of the references the framers of the Confession of Faith gave as a proof-text is James 1:13, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.”
First, we must make a distinction between, evil and sin. A simple distinction is that “sin” is the behavior of man in his relation to God. It is the transgression of the Law of God. It is an expression of man’s enmity against God. While it may involve our conduct towards others (murder, robbery) it is the product of the wickedness in our hearts. So David in the confession of his sin of adultery and murder said, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight...” (Psa.51:4) and he prays that God would “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (v.10)
Sin is the evil that man commits as the results of a sinful heart. Evil is the product and consequences of sin. It is what happens among humans. It involves sickness, death, sorrows, calamities, earthquakes and hurricanes. God warned Adam, “for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen.2:17) All evil is the product and consequences of Adam’s sin.
In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” The Hebrew word “ra” translated “evil” is in other places translated “sorrow,” “wretchedness,” “calamities, but never sin. God is not the author of sin. God is the source and cause of evil as an act of judgment against sin. The evil that God brings forth may not be His punishment for sin that the individual has committed, as in the case of Job and the blind man in John, chapter nine, or of the innocent who die in storms, earthquakes or wars, but it is always the product or consequences of sin.
In Amos 3:6, we have the question, “Shall there be evil in a city and God hath not done it?” Arthur Custance says in his THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GRACE, that “the Hebrew word “asah” rendered “done” in this passage is a word which may mean “doing” or “making” (nearly two thousand times), or it may mean “appointing.” The former is by far the more frequent rendering in the King James Version.”(Page 268)
If we understand the distinction between sin and evil, we will have a better understanding of this verse. Man, of his own initiative, never brings about judgment for sin. It is a manifestation of God’s holiness that produces His judgments as a consequence for man’s sin. The death of Jesus Christ was therefore both a wicked thing and an evil thing. It was an expression of the wickedness of men. It was an evil thing in that Sinless Christ suffered on the cross when He was made to be sin for us. The Holiness of God caused His wrath to fall on Christ and He died for sin.
The source of all sin can be laid on Satan. Our Lord said, that Satan “was a murderer from the beginning…a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44) It certainly is clear that Satan is the one that tempted Eve and Adam to sin. It is through Adam that sin “entered into the world, and death by sin;” (Rom.5:12) It is also very clear that Adam’s sin did not take God by surprise. We are told in 1 Peter 1:20, that Christ was ordained to be the sacrificial Lamb of God for sin “before the foundation of the world.” Here then is the source of the problem in the minds of some, “If God ordained that sin should enter into the world by Adam, does this not make God to be the author of sin?”
The solution to the problem is to be found in the distinction between God’s secret will and His revealed will. Not that God has two wills, but rather that He has a will that has been revealed to man by His Word and another part of His will which has not been revealed. This is clear from the words of God in Deuteronomy 29:29, “The SECRET things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are REVEALED belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of His law.” Man is responsible to God to keep His revealed law. This is the basis of all judgment. The writer of Ecclesiastes summaries this in chapter 12 and verse thirteen, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
All men, in every place and in every age are responsible to God, to fear Him (reverence Him) and to “keep His commandments.” This is the bases on which God judges all people in every age and from all walks of life. Even those who have not a written copy of the Law of God, have both the witness of creation and “the Law of God written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;” …so that they are without excuse… in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. (Rom 1:20; 2:15, 16) “Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)
Then every mouth will be “stopped” and “the whole world” will be made to acknowledge that it is “guilty before God.” (Rom.3:19) All people are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph.1:2) and since “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Rom.3:11, 12)
