God and Suffering
Earlier this week, a couple of college students were telling me about a friend who was wrestling with the idea of God and suffering. The ubiquitous question arose: “If God is good, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?”
So, in the small space I have here, I will fully explain the existence of evil and suffering in light of the sovereignty of God. No, of course that would be impossible. I do, however, want to try to shed some biblical light on the subject, and hopefully draw your heart and mind toward Jesus Christ in soul-satisfying worship.
The problem of evil and suffering in the world has existed in the mind of mankind for millennia, from the writing of Job (where many theologians place it chronologically during the book of Genesis) to modern-day philosophers and theologians. The term theodicy, which comes from the Greek and literally means “justifying God”, was coined in 1710 by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. Theodicy is the attempt to provide a moral justification or reason for the existence of evil.
The problem of evil (from the human standpoint) calls into question three of God’s divine attributes: omnibenevolence (that is, that God is all-good), omniscience (all-knowing), and omnipotence (all-powerful).
Epicurus was a Greek philosopher around the 4th century BC, whose philosophy was based on the theory that pain and pleasure (or the absence of pain) are the measure of evil and good. He is credited with the “Epicurean paradox”, which states, “Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? From whence then is evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
On the surface, that appears to be a very solid argument. Basically, either God is all-good and can’t control evil and suffering, or God is all-powerful and chooses not to control evil and suffering. But it can’t be both or neither. The problem with this position is that it makes two huge assumptions.
First, that we as humans have full knowledge of everything, including God’s ultimate plan and purpose for creation. When our daughter Grace was a toddler, she had bad allergies. Michelle and I would have to physically hold her down to give her medicine. In her limited knowledge, the medicine tasted terrible and was of absolutely no benefit to her. But Michelle and I knew that, although the medicine caused her a very small amount of suffering, it would benefit her in the long run.
The second assumption is that we as humans fully understand what “good” is. Let me give you an example of how fickle we can be with our perception of good. Many of you watched the premiere of Frozen Planet on the Discovery Channel. It is an astounding nature documentary about life in the coldest places of the world. One of the scenes showed this poor, helpless penguin waddling for its life across the beach as it is being chased by this big, bad seal. Most, I’m sure, were cheering for the penguin to escape the jaws of that wicked seal, who was bent on devouring that poor penguin. The next scene shows a poor, helpless seal being stalked and ultimately devoured by a pod of killer whales. The irony, of course, is that we felt sorry for that defenseless seal with those big, sad, brown eyes, and yet we vilified the same type animal moments earlier. It was never an issue of good versus bad; the orcas and seals and penguins were only doing what God created them to do. Yet our perception of good and bad changed based on circumstances.
God is the One who defines good, not us. Jesus asked the rich, young ruler “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19) Jesus was not saying that He was not good. He was exposing the young man’s thinking to show that he really didn’t have a clue what or who was good.
When we see a man who is loving toward his wife and kids, honest, and a hard worker, we call him a ‘good’ man. His actions define who he is. Not so with God. He is the One who defines His actions. He defines good. Therefore, all that He does is good, because He is good. Psalm 145:9 & 17 says, “The LORD is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works. The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.” (See also Ps 100:5; 116:5; 136:1; Jer 33:11; Nah 1:7)
So when the Lord declares in Isaiah 45:4-7 “For the sake of Jacob My servant, and Israel My chosen one, I have also called you [Cyrus the Great, the godless Persian king] by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you have not known Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity ; I am the LORD who does all these.”( “calamity”: Heb. ra; translated “evil” 94 times in NASB; See footnote [i])
Or when the prophet Amos says, says, “If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?” (Amos 3:6) It is ultimately good in the eternal sense, because it is from God.
Consider the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis (Chapters 37 – 50), who was thrown into a pit by his jealous brothers, sold into slavery by them, falsely accused of rape, thrown into a prison and forgotten. Yet he was able to say to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Genesis 50:20) God had a purpose in Joseph’s thirteen years of suffering that saved the lives of thousands from famine, and ultimately preserved an entire race of people.
So, if we are to believe Scripture, we must believe that God is both sovereign (omniscient and omnipotent) and good (omnibenevolent). Therefore, we must believe that God has sovereignly chosen to lift His hand to allow pain, suffering, and evil for a time. He has given Satan, who is called the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), permission to rule the world system. (Ephesians 2:2; 6:12; 1 John 5:19)
But of course, all of this philosophy is of no comfort the Somali mother who will watch today as her child dies from starvation. And it does little to assuage the survivors of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, who witnessed the mass murder of some 800,000 of their countrymen and the rape of some 300,000 of their women.
While in this life we will never fully understand the existence of evil and suffering, we must take comfort in this absolutely shocking truth: that, instead of turning His back on our suffering, God deliberately and willfully interposed Himself into the evil and suffering of this world. He did not turn His back, nor was He indifferent to our plight. Instead, God orchestrated the greatest evil of all time in the murder of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ who, according to the Apostle Peter, was “delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23; See also Acts 4:27-28 and Romans 8:32). God has not left us alone in evil and suffering, but subjected Himself to it in the fullest – even to the point of death – to demonstrate His love toward us (Romans 5:8). With one heart and one mind, God the Father sent forth His only begotten, uncreated, and eternal Son Jesus Christ in the flesh; and Jesus willingly laid down His life to save us.
Now if a sovereign, omnipotent, and omniscient God would willingly subject Himself to human suffering and evil, then there must be a purpose. Our human minds and emotions cannot possibly fathom the depths to which God went to redeem His people. I believe we will spend an eternity plumbing those depths.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his epic novel The Brothers Karamazov,
I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.
At the end of the age, all of creation – both humans and angels – will have a collective “ah-ha” moment when Jesus Christ reveals Himself in the fullness of His glory. We all will witness first-hand the justice and mercy of God that was meted out on the Cross. God’s sovereign, manifold wisdom and eternal purpose will be fully revealed, and then we will understand. All the evils and pain in this world will only serve to magnify the ineffable glory of God. We will declare along with Job, “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.” (Job 40:4) Then as Revelation 6:13 reveals, “every created thing which is in heaven [including angels, rulers, authorities, and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies] and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them [including killer whales, seals, and penguins], will say, “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”
Some will do this with immeasurable and eternal regret, but those who have been adopted as children of God will sing the song of the Lamb, saying,
“Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For all the nations will come and worship before You, For Your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15:3)
[i] Calamity is the better translation here, as God did not “create” evil. Many argue that evil is not some thing that was created, but it is the absence of some thing, namely good. St. Augustine of Hippo believed that evil was a privation, that is, a lack or absence of good. Scientists do not measure darkness or cold because they are not measureable, only light and heat are. Therefore, darkness and cold are the absence of light and heat. In the same way, evil is only privatio boni – the absence of good.
Freed from Fear
Fear…I’m sure some of us felt a little of it as the storms blew through last Friday. There are, of course, some healthy fears, like what a parent feels when their toddler is running toward a busy street. God gives us those times of a heightened sense of awareness to cause us to spring into action.
Throughout Scripture we learn that the healthiest of all fears is the fear of the Lord. King Solomon tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). Over and over, we are instructed to fear the Lord (i.e., Leviticus 25:17; Deuteronomy 6:1-2, 24; Joshua 4:23-24; Psalm 33:8; 34:9; Proverbs 3:7; 24:21). Yet at the same time, God Himself tells us not to fear.
To Abram God says, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you” Genesis 15:1
To Isaac He says, “I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you.” Genesis 26:24
And to Joshua, the Lord says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
There is no contradiction here. I think one of the clearest descriptions comes in Psalm 2:11 “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” We approach a holy and awesome God with joyful trembling, because He is the only Person or thing that we should fear. As Mr. Beaver in C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia rightly explained: “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
But we, as sinful, fallen creatures, fear many things other than God. The greatest fear to mankind may be the fear of death. And Jesus Christ came to remove even that fear. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 2:14-15:
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same,” What that simply means is that Jesus physically became a human being just like you and me. This is crucial to our doctrine because, of course, God cannot die. So He took on flesh and blood in order to be able to physically die.
“[So Christ shared in our flesh and blood] that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”
Now, I want us to look closely at that phrase, “him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” When the writer says that Satan has the power of death, he does not mean that he has the ability to kill whomever he chooses. God has not given him that ability. Scripture is very clear that the power of life and death lies solely in the hands of God alone.
God says in Deuteronomy 32:39, “See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life.”
1 Samuel 2:6 says, “The LORD kills and makes alive”
And in Revelation 1:18, Jesus makes clear that He is the One who holds the keys of death and Hades.
Satan does not have unbridled control over anything. Everything that Satan does, he must ask permission from the Father. (see Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6; Luke 22:31). What Satan has is the ability to tempt and to accuse. Revelation 12:10 calls him the accuser of our brethren who accuses them before our God day and night.
What does he accuse us of? He continually brings before God our sins, our shortcomings, our falling short of the glory of God. He knows that the wages of sin is death; the just penalty for our sins is eternal separation from God. So he brings the evidence of our sins before God to try to demand penalty for those sins, namely death. That is how he held the power of death.
But Christ conquered sin and death by dying and being raised to life, thus rendering Satan powerless. But not only does He render Satan powerless, He removes his ability to effectively accuse us, thereby freeing us from slavery to sin and the fear of death.
Therefore, we no longer fear death because Christ has removed the punishment of death. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56), and Christ has removed them both by conquering sin and fulfilling the law on our behalf.
As we take the elements together, we take them with joyful trembling, knowing that Christ Jesus, in His flesh, removed the fear of death, because “He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)
Saving Us from Ourselves
I have been alive now for 42 years; 22 of those years as a husband, 20 as a father, and going on 10 years as a pastor. Through all these years of life experience and observation – especially of myself – it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the essence of sin is self-centeredness. Martin Luther used the Latin term incurvatus in se which means “to be curved inward on oneself” throughout his lectures on Romans to describe the essence of the sinful human nature. So, regardless of whether it is pride or self-loathing, the focus remains inward toward oneself.
This self-centeredness is not only acknowledged but is set as the goal of secular humanist psychology. From the idea of self-actualization introduced by Goldstein and popularized by Maslow to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, this psychology preaches – and make no mistake, it is preaching – that the greatest goal is to look inside oneself to find one’s meaning and to achieve one’s greatest potential.
We, of course, should expect nothing less from secular humanist psychology, because if the basic belief is that there is nothing beyond us, then it stands to reason that there is nowhere to look except inward. The problem is that this doctrine of self as the ultimate goal has crept into the teachings of those who would call themselves Christians. Thus we see the rise of the so-called prosperity gospel and we hear sermon after sermon of pop psychology self-improvement with a little Jesus mixed in for good measure.
The truth remains, however, that we are, as Augustine put it, a massa peccati – a “mess of sin.” We are spiritually bankrupt by sin. It is therefore utterly crucial to understand Romans 3:23 in its context. If we are careless with the Scriptures, it is easy to read “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” to mean that we “fall short” or “miss the mark” because we are immoral or bad people. Therefore, the proper remedy is to make bad people good; to clean them up. And tragically most people, including many who would call themselves Christian, have completely missed the gospel by believing that its aim is moral reform.
C.S. Lewis wrote,
“We must not suppose that if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world.”
The aim of the gospel is not moral reformation – to make bad people good. That is a false gospel, which is just another manifestation of incurvatus in se because the focus still remains inward toward ourselves. No; Christ Jesus did not come first to make bad people good. He came to raise the spiritually dead to life.
When Paul says we have fallen short of God’s glory, he means that we have been created to revel in the glory of God, to make much of Him and glorify Him. But sin has caused us to turn away from God’s glory and to seek our own. It makes us live our lives incurvatus in se. As John Piper wrote, “We have turned our back to the breathtaking beauty of God and fallen in love with our shadow.”
The gospel is that Christ came to turn our deadly focus from ourselves to the live-giving focus on the glory of God. Paul summed up the gospel when he wrote that “[Christ] died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)
In other words, Christ died to save us from ourselves so that we would no longer fall short of our created purpose to glorify God.
As we take communion together, let us remember that through Christ’s spilled blood and broken body, we are justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; a justification that is not by moralism but by faith apart from our works to the glory of God. (Romans 3:21-28)
Remember the Sabbath?
A while back, my son and his friend were studying scripture together and a question came up: Why are there certain laws in the Law of Moses that we do not have to keep and other that we do?
Now, I am not going to attempt to fully explain the purpose of the Law in this one blog post. But as a study note: when you are reading the Old Testament, it is important to keep something in mind: What was the purpose of the Law? Paul tells the Romans it was to show us what sin is (Romans 7:7), and he tells the Galatians that it served as our tutor to lead us to Christ (Galatians 3:24).
A Pharisee challenged Jesus with this question: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
In other words, Jesus was saying they are all the greatest commandment because He just summed up the Ten Commandments. The first four deal with loving the Lord with all that we are, and the last six deal with loving our neighbors. Jesus was looking past the mere letter of the Law to the very Spirit of the Law.
I would like to focus on one in particular. Have you ever wondered about the Fourth Command regarding the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments? (Exodus 20:1-17) All of the other commandments are easily understood in our context
- No other gods
- No idols
- Don’t use God’s name in a senseless or foolish way
- Honor father and mother
- Don’t murder
- Don’t commit adultery
- Don’t steal
- Don’t lie
- Don’t jealously desire anything that belongs to someone else
But what about the Sabbath? Is it Saturday? Should we be keeping it from sunset to sunset? (Leviticus 23:32) Is it wrong to do work? Is God angry with us if we meet on Sunday and not Saturday, or if we paint our house or mow our lawn on the Sabbath?
Obviously, the Sabbath was very important to God; it made His Top Ten list. People were to be executed for not observing the Sabbath in the Old Testament (Exodus 31:14).
How do we reconcile that with what Paul instructs the Colossian church: “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”? (Colossians 2:16-17) We need to understand that these things that Paul lists were not related to some pagan religious festivals. He was referring to observances required by the Law of Moses. And he specifically mentions the Sabbath.
Again, we have to remember that the Law was made to point us to Christ. The Law is not the final statement; it is not the end. Instead, Christ Himself is the end (the goal) of the Law. (Romans 10:4) And as the writer of Hebrews says, the Law “has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things.” (Hebrews 10:1)
The Sabbath was established as a reminder that after six days of creating the heaven and the earth, God rested on the seventh day (Exodus 20:8-11). According to W.E. Vine, the doubled b in the Hebrew word shabath “has an intensive force, implying a complete cessation or a making to cease, probably the former. The idea is not that of relaxation or refreshment, but of cessation from activity.” (W.E. Vine, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, p.542) The Sabbath was not established as a day of worship, per se, but of cessation from activity.
The writer of Hebrews spoke of the Israelite generation that wondered in the wilderness for 40 years and said that they were not able to enter into God’s rest because of their unbelief. That is crucial to understand: Was it because of their disobedience? No; it was because of their unbelief. They did not believe that God would give them rest, therefore God did not give them rest. Their unbelief brought about their disobedience.
“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest…For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.” (Hebrews 4:1-2, 8)
Remember that the Law – specifically in this case the Sabbath – was just a mere shadow of the things to come, but the reality of the Sabbath is found in Christ. This Sabbath – this complete cessation of work – is meant to point us to Christ.
The author of Hebrews goes on to write: “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:9-11)
Rest…Rest from what? It is rest “from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14) and points to our ultimate rest in Christ. (Revelation 14:13) So the Fourth Commandment had a shadow of the good things to come. It was written to lead us to Jesus Christ who came to bring us true rest. Or more accurately, Jesus Christ is our Sabbath day of rest. Therefore, let us indeed remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.
Now we can better understand Jesus’ words: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29)
At the same time, we must heed Paul’s words, “One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord…” (Romans 14:5-6a; see all of Romans 14 for context). So let us be careful to not condemn a person who, in faith, chooses to dedicate Sunday solely to praying, singing, and reading the Word, as long as that person understands that God does not require the observance of a certain day for merit before Him. Nor let us condemn the one who chooses to mow his lawn, who, in faith, knows that his acceptance before God is not based on whether or not he regards a particular day above another. But let each person be convinced in his own heart that God is not angry with the other for acting in faith.
For the glory of God, we will build the Church, both local and global, by being and producing radical followers of Jesus Christ.
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