Jesus is said to be the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.ok lets...wind this back @Iconoclast and @InTheLight , maybe we can get somewhere here.
@Iconoclast . From the top - help us both here.
In the beginning (insert cool cosmic sound here) - God created the heavens and the earth.
ok - full stop -
God whilst creating man does He:
A) Allow man to do things of their own will and simply know ahead of time (because He is God)
or
B) Determine that Adam will "freely" sin
"Paragraph 4. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence, that His determinate counsel extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sinful actions both of angels and men;11 and that not by a bare permission, which also He most wisely and powerfully binds, and otherwise orders and governs,12 in a manifold dispensation to His most holy ends;13 yet so, as the sinfulness of their acts proceeds only from the creatures, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.14"
.
The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Creation could not have happened unless Jesus was in place as mediator and Surety of the elect.
Again God is never surprised or unprepared. Without the mediator in place with the Covenant redemption in view, mankind might have been destroyed except for the
covenant made by the Godhead.
Adam sinned and all In Him sinned and died spiritually at that time. Romans5 says it clearly.
12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: