Where art thou?

“And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Why would God ask Adam where he was if God is supposed to be omniscient? Surely God must have known that Adam had sinned and was ashamed? We read in the New Testament that the Lord knew what people were thinking (see Matt 9: 4) but He had to ask Adam where he was in this case. A proper understanding of God’s approach to people is needed before we can properly consider this issue. God is gracious and He always give people a chance to repent or to own what they have done (compare Matt 9: 20). In this case God was demonstrating grace rather than ignorance. He gave Adam an opportunity to own the fact that he had transgressed God’s instructions. However, he did not make any admissions. It is useless to speculate as to what might have happened if Adam had owned up to his sin because he did not and we have to deal with facts rather than assumptions.

The whole field of Biblical Studies has been polluted today by people who make assumptions and then “emend” (that is change) the text so that the text suits their assumptions rather than changing their theories to fit the truth as revealed in God’s text.

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)