Why does God let evil continue? Part II

In Part I I suggested that God lets evil linger to allow trials to sanctify us. Another reason I see in Scripture comes from Isaiah 30:18. God is waiting patiently for more sinners to repent and be saved.

God lets evil continue to allow more sinners a chance to hear the gospel and repent and be saved.

Isaiah prophesied for God to rebuke his people for their rebellion. He promises destruction if they don’t turn back but at the same time promises restoration and forgiveness for their repentance. He goes so far as to promise that He will come and redeem them and rebuild His city. In chapter 30 he says that God is waiting to be gracious to them, he exalts himself to show mercy to them. God wants to show mercy and be gracious. He longs to do it and waits to be gracious to you as Is. 30:18 says. As I think about how or why God waits, I consider that the reason is that He chooses to work in us in such a way that we willingly come to him. He is capable of overpowering us and forcing us to do His will. But He is exalted and glorified even more when we willingly obey him and follow Him.

Then I also think of the means that God will use to destroy evil when he comes to do away with it completely. The clearest answer I see in scripture and think out is that he will do that when he comes on the day of judgment. If he came to do away with evil today, all who are still in rebellion would be condemned eternally. If he waits until tomorrow, then those who repent today will be saved for eternity. Scripture tells us that this will not be an endless cycle going on forever and ever as a never-ending story. Scripture tells us that there is a day fixed when he will come to judge and he will do it through the firstborn of the resurrection (Acts 17:31). Scripture also tells us that only the Father knows that day. Until that day comes, there is still time to repent and be saved, while at the same time evil still lingers.

It appears that God is waiting patiently to allow more people to repent and return to him. He knows the day and that day will come at His right time. But until that day comes, there is still time for us to do our job of proclaiming his glory and pleading with more to believe in the gospel and repent and be saved. It seems like a difficult thing to grasp that we have to suffer evil both internally and externally because God is waiting to bring judgment day until his chosen loved ones come home. But on the other hand, this thought fills me with hope and longing for my friends and family to be saved. I think of my sister-in-law who has rejected God and I would be utterly grieved to think of her suffering eternally for her rebellion. It would give me the greatest joy to hear of her repentance and return to her loving savior before it is too late. I am very thankful and am willing to suffer however many more days of evil it takes if I may get the chance to see her and countless others return home and be restored to their loving creator. This compels us to go out and plead harder with our loved ones and strangers too to come to Jesus while there is still time. Because there will come a day when it will be too late and God will do away with all evil and will make all things new. He will punish and destroy all who continue to rebel and he will bring home and restore all who are washed and clothed in the righteous robes of Christ. How many more can we lead home today?

Why does God let evil continue? Part I

After talking about God letting evil in (previous post) so we could fall and then be redeemed to an even higher status through union with Christ, I would like to touch on a follow up question. Now that Christ has joined us with himself and is sanctifying us, why not just go on and fix us completely? That sounds nice. Why let evil linger? I believe we can find some answers in Scripture.

1 Peter 1:3-12. Just as gold is passed through fire to purify it, we are passed through trials to purify us.

God let evil continue to allow trials to sanctify us.

       Can it be true that the prophets of old longed to know Christ but were told that their longing was meant to serve us and not them? Why didn’t they get to see Him? I don’t know. Peter says it was revealed to them that they were serving us who would hear the preaching of Christ from the apostles. I feel a bit selfish as I think about my longings and frustrations. At times I get disappointed because it takes too long for lunch time to arrive or a coming holiday. How much more difficult was it for the prophets who never got to see the fulfillment of what they prophesied. They longed to see the Messiah. It was a true prophecy. They didn’t fail. But they didn’t get to see it before they went to the grave.  

We also have to wait. The prophets waited for Jesus to come. Long after many of them died, He came. The apostles got to see him and touch him. But then he ascended and now those of us who believe after he ascended don’t get to see him physically. Yet we can still love him and believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. How? Through faith. 

Faith is mysterious. Peter says that the outcome of our faith is the salvation of our souls. This sounds a lot like what Paul says in Romans 8:24 and 25 about hope. Then it also connects with what he says in 1 Corinthians 13:13 of faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. There will come a day when faith will be obsolete. We will no longer need it because we will see him face to face. There will come a day when hope will be obsolete. We will no longer need hope to wait for him because we will have him present. But love will continue. He will continue to love us and we will continue to love him. Until then, we need faith and hope to be able to love. Faith enables us to see him whom we do not see. Hope helps us wait for it with patience. Until that day when Christ comes back and finishes making all things new, we have faith and hope. 

What strengthens our faith and hope? Peter says our faith is more precious than gold. gold is tested by fire. Our faith is tested by trials. Trials are presented to us through having to deal with evil. I think this is one of the reasons God allows evil to linger. He allows it to be a trial to strengthen our faith and hope. I wonder if it is similar to the saying that you should not help a chick hatch itself from an egg because you will deprive it of the strength that it needs to gain by the work of pecking itself out. Perhaps it is connected to that teacher who will not give the students the answers but makes them go look them up and figure them out. God is allowing us the opportunity to grow and strengthen through the trials he puts us through with leaving evil to plague us and buffet us just as gold is passed through fire to purify it. We are passed through trials to purify us. This is done both through evil outside of us and within us. We see evil around us in the acts of the devil working through the world and people with mass shootings or rape or robbery or even with our neighbor defaming us with lies. But we also see this evil through the indwelling sin in each of us that we long to be free of that led Paul to say in Romans 8 that hope that is seen is no longer hope. We hope for that redemption and freedom from sin. He even says that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. But if we already had it completely we would no longer need to hope for it. We would have it. On that wonderful glorious day when Christ comes back, we will have it. He will be revealed to us and then we will understand and know fully. But then there will also be no more evil.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

(1 Peter 1:6–7 ESV)

Why did God let evil in?

One evening during a prayer meeting at Cristo Restaurador, we divided up into groups of 2 or 3 and after we prayed, one of the members of our church asked me this question. He was asking why God even let the forbidden tree in the garden or the devil enter in to tempt Adam and Eve. I understand the question to imply another assumption/question, "Wouldn't it have been better if we never had the chance to fall into sin?"

In Genesis 1-3, we read about God creating the heavens and the earth and it all being good and very good. We read about God establishing the one requirement with Adam. God said he could eat from all the trees of the garden except from the one tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He said that on the day that he eats of it, he will surely die. Sadly, we read on about the serpent entering and challenging this command and Adam and Eve eating the fruit, of their eyes being opened and how they knew that they were naked. Throughout history they and then their descendants one after another all died. But, God said that on the day that they eat they would surely die. Satan used this on Eve when he said they would not really die, only that their eyes would be opened. Their eyes were opened. They didn’t fall down dead like Ananias and Sapphira. Was Satan right? Where is that death that was to happen on the same day? It is the death of sin. Immediately, they knew they were naked. Shame entered. Their relationship with God was broken. Sin contaminated every thought and action from that point on. Their children were born sinners and broken in sin. (Romans 5:12-21)

Why did God let this happen? Why did he even put that tree there for them to be able to eat? Why did he let the devil in the garden?

I am reminded of a seminary class on Hebrew looking at this Genesis passage and the professor went to Jesus’ prayer in John 17: 20-26 in response to this very death of Adam and Eve. Jesus prays to his Father that we would have a unity with each other and even more with himself and the Father. Jesus brings a whole new level of union with God that Adam and Eve did not experience. So this leads us to believe that God allowed evil to enter in order to send his Son to redeem us and give us something even better than what Adam and Eve had in the garden.
Even more in John 12:20-26. Jesus curiously responds to the news that several Greeks were looking to see him, that it is his hour to be glorified and then introduces the idea of a seed needing to die in order to bear fruit. He was talking about his death, it is curious that he used the illustration of a seed needing to fall into the earth and die. He goes on to challenge us that anyone who wants to serve him must follow him and surrender his life. He says that if we love our life we will lose it, but if we hate our life in this world we will keep it for eternal life. Paul expounds on this same idea of planting a seed in order for the new plant to grow and bear fruit.
1 Corinthians 15:35-58. Paul is talking about our hope in the resurrection. He touches on the same idea of a seed needing to die so that the plant can then grow. He further explains (and connects this idea of why God allowed death to enter) that the plant that grows is much fuller and better than the bare seed that was planted. In other words, the plant life is better than the seed life. What Adam and Eve had was good. But it was nothing in comparison with what Jesus was talking about in his prayer. They walked with God but they did not have this kind of union with Him. The glory of the resurrection body is so much better than the merely physical body just as a plant is more glorious than the seed.  Romans 8:18 also says that the sufferings of this life do not compare with the coming glory to be revealed to us. This seems to mean that death and resurrection is the means that God provided for us to enter into His glory. It wouldn’t make sense to have resurrection without there first being death. There is no sense of having redemption with out first having a fall. So God allowed death and evil to enter as a part of his plan to unite us with him in glory beyond comparison. He purposefully put the tree in the garden and allowed the devil in to tempt them so that they could fall and die and then be brought into glory through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just as a gardener will purposefully place a seed in the ground and bury it, God allows us to suffer and die as a part of the process that He designed to give us something so much better than before. The plant that grows up out of the ground is so much more glorious than the bare seed. In the same way that glory that we participate in is so much better than the carnal life of sin and death.  Jesus conquered death when he was crucified, died, buried and then rose again in the new creation of the resurrection and now gives that new life to us through faith in Him. He prayed for us, that the Father would give us this unity with Him through His death and resurrection. So now, we have an amazing unity with the triune God as a result of God allowing Satan in to the garden to tempt our first parents. Satan thought he was destroying something good but he ended up being a critical piece in making something good turn into the most amazing reality in all of creation.