Questions 10-11: Couldn't God have permitted such disobedience and rebellion without punishment? Does that mean God is merciless?

 Questions 10-11: Couldn't God have permitted such disobedience and rebellion without punishment? Does that mean God is merciless?

Answer: (Response to Questions 10-11): Absolutely not. God is deeply angry not only with our own sins but also with the original sin we are born with. As a righteous judge, God punishes sinners eternally. God has declared, "Cursed be everyone who does not observe and do everything written in the law." While God is certainly merciful, he is also just. God's justice demands a severe punishment for sin—a challenge to His supreme authority—with eternal punishment of both body and soul.

God punishes sinners, but forgives those who repent. However, because God is a God of justice, He had to punish sin. That's why He sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden into the world. In the Kingdom of God, a symbol of the Garden of Eden, He imprisoned the spirits of the angels who had sinned within their bodies, transforming them into humans, and hoped they would repent and return to the Kingdom of God.

Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, but God did not specifically give them the law. Adam and Eve's eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil signified their belief that they could achieve goodness through their own will, even without God. However, after being expelled from the Garden of Eden and doing as they pleased, we see in Genesis 6 that they reached a point where God had no choice but to destroy them.
The world was filled with evil, and from the moment they were born, all they thought was evil, becoming evil beings. This led to the flood, a judgment upon all humanity except Noah and his family of eight. God created this world and created humans to challenge those who believed they could achieve good on their own, leaving Him behind. However, the result was that all humanity, except Noah's family, became evil.

After God judged humanity with the flood, He promised in the rainbow covenant that He would never again wipe out all life on earth with water. He promised that there would be no wholesale sacrifice. And He chose Israel.

God chose Israel and did not allow them to live as they pleased, as they had in the past. He knew that if they did, the result would be the same as the flood. Therefore, He gave Israel the land of Canaan, a shadow of God's kingdom. Since He had promised them that they could achieve good through their own efforts, He urged them to diligently practice these laws in Canaan, a shadow of God's kingdom. That is Israel and the land of Canaan.

The Israelites were to diligently practice the Law in Canaan, a shadow of God's kingdom, according to their own will. Encouraging them to practice the Law in Canaan was a process of realizing that they were incapable of doing so on their own. The result of observing the Law was that humans, on their own, were incapable of doing so. The Law brought about the realization of sin, and its consequence was judgment.

Just as Jesus Christ died, we too must acknowledge our own death to sin and the law. The law demands death. Keeping the law meant that the Israelites received the law and diligently lived as God's people in the land of Canaan. However, Moses, the symbol of the law, was unable to enter Canaan.

The Israelites did not live righteous lives by diligently following God's law, but rather failed. Through this process, God showed them that they could not live as sinners. Their lives of failure were the result of Israel's actions.

The result is that "spirits of God who, thinking they can do good without God, have abandoned Him" come to this world in human flesh and, no matter how hard they struggle to keep God's law, ultimately fall into sin. This is the result of making us realize this.
Every time the Israelites committed a sin, they would kill an animal and struggle to escape it, but they were incapable of doing so. The fundamental purpose of this was to make them realize that they could not. If the Israelites did not raise their hands to God and declare, "I cannot do it," they would perish.

Israel was ultimately destroyed. In the land of Canaan, Israel diligently attempted to achieve righteousness through their own efforts, using the laws God had given them. The result was failure. Failure was inevitable. And through Israel, the example for all humanity, God tells us to realize that we cannot achieve righteousness apart from God. Therefore, He tells us to discover Christ within the law.

God was born as a sinner in order to forgive repentant sinners, and He died on the cross carrying the body of sin. Therefore, He forgives the sins of sinners who repent and unite with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Those who die with Jesus are set free from sin. Romans 6:6-7 "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been set free from sin."

Being free from sin means you are no longer a sinner, and you are also free from the law. Therefore, you are not punished by the law. Romans 8:1-2: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death."
However, even for those in Christ, the old and new self coexist. The identity of the saint is now that of the new self. However, the old self sometimes attacks the new self.

Romans 7:21-24 "Therefore I find it to be a law, that when I want to do good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. What a wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Spiritual warfare is between the spiritual mind, which follows the Holy Spirit, and the fleshly mind, which follows the law. The fleshly mind, which seeks to follow the law, torments the believer. The fleshly mind torments the spiritual mind with statements like daily repentance of sins for salvation. The question, "How can a believer become holy if he or she cannot live according to the Word?" It's a gnawing question.

Saints must remember that they are not related to the verse, "Cursed be everyone who does not observe and do everything written in the law." The word "observe" here literally means to do so. However, saints simply need to engrave the law in their hearts and act under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.