1MJ Luke 1:26-38 Mary’s son would:
      • Be the son of God
      • Sit on the throne of David
      • Reign forever—without end

(From Youth’s Instructor, c. 1959)

He made man.
Did He take a chance that He would die for?
Watch the Creator waiting under a newly
Trained arbor in the cool evening breeze.
He's pleasantly considering what He's
Just made. Man—calls him Adam.
And because of man He will die.

It's a pleasant evening in the Garden with the
Crickets singing their first songs, the
Bees trying to find a place for a hive,
And the aroma of newness—leaves
Damp, soil, and dew.

The Creator is resting against a tree trunk and
Is looking at man—His crowning creation.
Paradoxical—man is going to murder Him.

Evening is enclosing created and Creator now, and He
Gazes at the Friday sun melting into His mountains.
Finally He breaks the long silence gently,
"Adam, 'behold it is very good.'"

It's not logical to the human mind that God would love His creatures so much as to die for them! It would seem to us that the better alternative would be to just zap the earth and start over again. But that doesn't mesh with divine logic. God deems the free will of His creatures so much that He would die to maintain it.

So there's a lot more at stake here than merely giving His life to save mankind. That's important in God's eyes, because He loves us. But He loves us as free people! He would rather die than to take that freedom away.

God doesn't want a universe filled with robots, doing what He wants them to do because they have no choice in the matter. If He'd have destroyed the earth because of man's sin, then all the universe would have taken note that "we'd better not sin, or God will zap us too!" The inhabitants of the vast star systems would have become merely androids, unwilling to make choices on their own.

But God wanted free-will love, and that could only be possible if he made the universe safe from the arch-enemy of free willSatan.

Every person born on this planet had become an enemy of God because Satan made it impossible for them to decide to serve God. Because of their hostility toward their Creator, God would have eventually been forced to destroy them in order to prevent the virus of sin from spreading to the entire universe. Sin leads to death, and God didn't want that to happen to any of His precious people.

So, rather than destroy mankind for their sins, God took upon Himself the penalty for sindeath. And in dying, God made it possible for us to choose to love and serve Him willingly, rather than to die for our own sins.

That's why Roy Shigley felt stirred in his soul to pen the words I've reproduced above. And that's why I wrote the words of the free-verse poem I've included below. 

Berrien Springs, Michigan, 1959

Myriads of gigantic suns
Racing through the trackless void
On courses known
But to an Omniscient Mind.

Splendor beyond description,
Each flaming mass
Sings with a silent voice...
"God is my Maker!"

One tiny world proudly boasts,
"There IS no God!"

But that God,
Whom they say does not exist,
Came to that dejected globe,
And DIED! . . . for me!