We have considered the fact that the life we have in Christ is higher than the life Adam had before the fall. Should that not lead us to think about whether it was God’s plan all along that Adam would fall, so that Christ would come, and raise us to the higher life that is found only in Him?

Indeed, it was God’s plan. In fact, everything that takes place does so according to God’s perfect plan.

God’s will always accomplished

Every event in history is something that God has de­creed will take place. In eternity, God ordained every­thing that happens in time. It is not merely that God knows what is going to happen; He has decreed what is going to happen. The Scriptures make this very clear when they speak of God as the one: “…who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).

God always accomplishes that which pleases Him. God says: “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Is. 46:10).

Here God makes clear that He is not only able to do all that He pleases, but that He actually accomplishes all of His pleasure. Every person He desires to save He saves. Every event He desires to happen will actually take place.

So what Adam did was evil, yet his sin took place according to God’s perfect plan. God’s will is accom­plished even when men and demons commit wicked acts. The acts themselves are evil, but God uses their evil for the glory of His name and for the good of His people.

Christ: The goal

Looking specifically now at the fall of Adam, we see that it was God’s will that Adam would fall. When God created all things, He created them not for Adam, but for Christ. Speaking of Christ, the Scriptures say: “…all things were created by him, and for him” (Col. 1:16b).”

There are a number of other verses that speak of all things being created by God’s Son. But this verse says that all things were created not only by Him, but also for Him. Christ was the goal. He was always the goal.

Christ Himself declared this repeatedly in the vision given to the apostle John: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev. 22:13).

The same phrase, “Alpha and Omega,” appears also in Revelation 1:8; Rev. 1:11; and Rev. 21:6. Twice at the begin­ning and twice at the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus stressed the importance of the truth that He is the beginning and the end (or goal) of all things.

The sending of Christ was not some plan B, to which God supposedly had to resort after His first plan with Adam failed. All along it was God’s plan that we would have a life that could not be lost. It was God’s eternal intention that we would be brought into Christ, in whom alone we can obtain everlasting life.

With this as the goal, God decreed that Adam would fall, so that we would need the eternal Son of God to become a man to save us. And when this Son would come, He would not only pay the full price that we owed for all our sin, but also purchase for us the right to receive His glorious heavenly life—a life that can never be lost.

How marvelous is the plan of God! How wonderful is His most excellent wisdom!