The World and the Word

                           The Results of the Fall

The Devil had no choice but to accept God's challenge, and in response the Devil had God's Son nailed to a cruel cross on a hill in Jerusalem around 31 A.D. The Devil tried to break God's will and win the war by throwing the entire weight of all the sins and evils of all humanity on Christ on the cross in His attempt to break God's Love for His creations. But God's Love prevailed because it is Almighty, and His Spirit in the water that flowed from Jesus' riven side went back in time and filled the worldwide flood that both killed and cleansed the entire human race that was destroyed by the flood. Because Noah and his family were saved by God's grace, they were washed in the blood and water that flowed from Jesus on the cross.

Even though God had cleansed the fallen humans of all evil that would have annulled their spirits and have caused them to be lost from God forever, the sins of the fallen race still stained their spirits, and because humans have to suffer temporarily for their sins, then God had to consign these fallen spirits to the bottomless pit until Jesus could come and preach the gospel to them. When Jesus' Spirit descended into hell, He went to this prison and preached to these fallen spirits whose bodies had been killed by the flood. Jesus informed them that He could wash away their sins with the Water of His Word and forgive them. They all believed His gospel, and He rescued all their spirits and inherited living souls from this region of spiritual death. No doubt, Christ resurrected them and recreated them with new bodies, but the Bible does not inform as to where He allowed them to live after their recreation. I Peter 3:18-21; John 11:25.

Many atheists have charged God with being cruel for destroying the fallen human race in the flood and for instructing the Israelite army, at times, to kill every man, woman, and child in some of the cities that they took in war. But actually, God was very merciful in these actions. Humans suffer greatly because of sin and evil. If God did not utterly destroy evil whenever it takes control of humanity, then it would persist for a very long time in history causing many more people to suffer much more pain and death because of it than necessary. The Lord has decided to make a short work on the earth in order to alleviate as much pain and suffering as possible. Romans 9:28.

Generals of evil armies cause as much suffering and pain to their foes as possible, even after the war is over. But generals of good armies know they must make their wars as short as possible in order to save lives and alleviate the sufferings of both friend and foe. In order to do this, they know that they must attack the enemy with as much ferocity and brutality as possible. For these reasons, the Allies fire bombed Dresden, Germany and dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in WWII.