The Shallowness of Adam's Perfect Relationship with God

If the progenitors of the human race had obeyed perfectly, they would have experienced perfect fellowship with God--but it would have taken place at a shallow level. They would have been warranted in believing that God was good to them because they did everything right. They would have had no way to know that their relationship with God depended more on his goodness to them than it ever did on their obedience. They would never have known the security of a friendship based on grace, rather than one built on merit.

That wasn't enough for God. He longed for such a deep relationship with his children--one in which they knew core things about him--that he didn't create a world in which we would be perfect. Instead, he created a world that was perfect for displaying his character, a world that required him to take our imperfections upon himself to remove them, so that we could again be in perfect relationship with him.

Sin and rebellion are not good things--we may not sin so that grace may abound--but in redeeming sin, God's goodness is revealed in a way that we would never have known otherwise. One of the primary ways the invisible God reveals himself to you is in how he treats you when you sin against him. If that is so, you probably won't be surprised that he calls you to treat others in the same way, with the same graciousness, when they sin against you.

--William P. Smith, Loving Well (Even If You Haven't Been) (Greensboro, NC: New Growth, 2012), 59.