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It is possible that an objection may have formed itself in the minds of some of our
readers in connection with the statement made above that evil cannot be "created". In
Isa. 45: 7 we read:
"I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do
all these things" (Isa. 45: 7).
The word translated "evil" here is the Hebrew ra. So far as its usage is concerned,
there are about an equal number of passages where the word means "moral evil" or "sin",
and where the word means "evil" in the sense of a "calamity" or "judgment". Merely to
quote Isa. 45: 7 is, therefore, inconclusive. The only way to settle whether the word
"evil" is used here in a moral or in a penal sense is by considering the context. We have
met quite a number of people who misquote the passage as though it read: "I make good,
and create evil", instead of "I make peace, and create evil". Evil that is in contrast with
peace is not necessarily moral evil or sin at all. It may be righteously inflicted because of
transgression, as in Amos 3::
"Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" (Amos 3: 6).
The context deals with the principle of cause and effect. A bird cannot fall into a
snare if there is no gin set; the trumpet cannot be blown in a city, without the people
running together. And so, if there be "evil" in a city, then there must have been some just
cause, for the Lord punished sin and reward righteousness.
We must remember, in Gen. 2:, that it is not "good and evil" but the "knowledge of
good and evil" that is prohibited. Such knowledge is in itself desirable in the right
persons, for we find in Heb. 5: 14 that the ability to discern both good and evil is a mark
of the "perfect" or "full grown". Adam, however, was a babe so far as experience was
concerned, and to acquire an adult's knowledge with a baby's experience meant failure.
When the Tempter said, "Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing
good and evil", his statement was true, even thou his intention was to deceive, for in
Gen. 3: 22 we read:
"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil."
Man was made "for a little than the angels", though destined to be "above" them. To
attempt to penetrate into the realm of spirit before the right time, is witchcraft and
spiritism, and to attempt to grasp universal knowledge while still a babe is equally
disastrous. Man will one day "know even as he is known", but he must be willing to wait
God's time.
The same thing is true with regard to the kingdoms of the world. It is the revealed
purpose of God that, when the seventh angel sounds, "the kingdoms of this world shall
become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ" (Rev. 11: 15). On the other hand, for
the Lord to have yielded to the temptation of the Evil One, to grasp this sovereignty
before the appointed time, would have been the same in principle as the act which