The full
spectrum of human behavior from tender compassion to inexplicable cruelty is
played out around the globe each day. A
fortunate child rests peacefully in the womb of a nurturing young mother while
in the house next door another lay captive to a woman seeking clinical services
for disposal of her unwanted “fetal tissue”.
The perpetual struggle between good and evil forces spans the sands of
time.
Oddly enough
though when it comes to the commonly held Biblical perspective on the fate of
mankind, most are quick to settle for just such a tragic eventuality, one where
the vast majority of the human race chooses an eternal allegiance to the dark
side. This then begs the question: is
our innate human intuition misguided in its bias towards the eventual triumph
of goodness or could it be that the Bible actually supports such ‘wishful’
thinking?
Well, for
those with eyes to see it, that’s exactly what the Good News is all about. The
Bible emphatically states that if God has his way, and moreover that He will have his way, all creatures will
ultimately be drawn irresistibly toward the Light in an unmitigated defeat of
darkness. Long standing tradition aside,
a closer examination of the fatalistic eternal hellfire dogma will expose it
for what it is, just another dark misconception of man directly at odds with
the revelation of God incarnate.
That’s not
to pretend that there aren’t plenty of setbacks along the way with adverse
consequences for both God and man alike, and often it appears that evil may come out on top. But such uncertainty in the outcome is
experienced only from our limited human perspective, as the final victory is known
in advance to the Sovereign One. And
through faith in his recorded Word, and in his Word made flesh, we may come to
share in this wonderfully triumphant understanding as well.
Now just
pause for a moment and let that sink in.
The battle against evil was won even before it started. “He was slain from the foundation of the
world… for the sins of the whole world” (Revelation 13:8, John 1:29 KJV). If we would allow this proposition to really
penetrate our soul, any fear of evil would gradually subside, being replaced by
a growing trust in the one who has already defeated it. While Satan may be described explicitly in the Bible as a lion
roaming the earth “seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8), implicitly in light of the Gospel, that
lion has no teeth when it comes to the eternal fate of our soul.
So then if
evil has already lost the war and it is a foregone conclusion that all of
Creation will reject it in the end, then just what was its purpose in the first
place? After all if God can at any
moment snuff it out if so desired and will eventually defeat it anyway, then
why did he allow it to exist at all, let alone to spread virtually unabated for
so long?
I would
propose that he did have a purpose for doing so and that evil was in fact brought
into existence to affect a heavenly objective.
I believe that it arose primarily by design and not simply through the
unwitting lapse in judgement of men or of angels. In spite of its chaotic appearance it is within His control and may rightfully
be acknowledged as an indispensable tool in the hand of the skilled Craftsman,
a “necessary” evil if you will.
…now stay
with me.
Though it be
ultimately desirable, a life without pain and suffering and the potential for
evil suffers from being nauseatingly unidimensional, lacking the challenge of
growth stimulating opposition. I don’t
know what it would have been like if Adam & Eve (and everyone since then)
would have found the wherewithal to simply trust God eternally with childlike obedience but I have to believe that in
order to truly appreciate that original state of innocence we must somewhere
along the line be exposed to the tragic consequences of faithless dis-obedience.
In order to
develop within us the deeper more fulfilling attributes of love, humility and
selflessness we must for a while actualize our potential for hate, arrogance,
and narcissism. We must endure the
existential emptiness of separation from God in order to subsequently
appreciate the bond of His loving intimacy.
Jesus aptly alluded to this concept in reference to the unfathomable
adoration Mary Magdalene had displayed towards him when he said: “Therefore, I
tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown
great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little” (Luke 7:47
NRSV)
Fortunately
this tainted condition of the soul need only be endured for a limited duration
in order to do the trick. And indeed
God’s “prescription” of evil will run
its course in due time as is rendered by an accurate translation of the word
‘aeon’ in numerous Biblical passages which yields… to the end of the age, not
forever!
Could God
have accomplished this maturity of our souls without the actual experience of
evil? Well, apparently not if you
recall the agonizing appeal of Jesus in the Gethsemane prayer: “…Lord if it be
possible, take this cup from me” (Matthew 26:39 NIV). Evil must be allowed its time on stage in
order for us to experience the full impact of redemption.
Accepting
then for the moment that evil and suffering must exist in our lives, we may
still wonder just how it came about and who is responsible for its inception. The Bible offers but a brief description of the
initial event wherein the first woman fell prey to the crafty solicitation of a
wily snake in direct disobedience to a simple prohibition from God. Straight away the first man was then easily seduced
by the smooth words (and body?) of that same beautiful naked woman – not hard
to imagine… and the rest is history. From
then on, that same inclination has been aroused daily within each and every one
of us as we choose to bend a knee to any of an endless array of lower impulses
in violation of what we know intuitively, if not explicitly, to be right.
On the
surface this primal narrative leads us inescapably to attribute blame for
paradise lost on the poor choices of our original parents alone, and by analogy
to all the rest of us as well. But in
light of this apparent universal weakness inherent in humanity’s misguided
volition, is it reasonable to incriminate the create-ed alone? Is that really a credible assessment, all things
considered, or does the Create-or of such a vulnerable creature share in the
culpability? When every single student
fails a test, does that not reflect on the instructor?
I do not hereby
intend to impugn the Creator’s parental proficiency… not at all, in fact quite
the opposite. What I am implying instead
is that the purpose of the encounter with the snake in the garden was never
intended to be understood as a test
so much as the first step in a long process
of human development, the first act in a play, directed and choreographed by
the capable hand of the Master. (See future blog post “Life on Earth: Test vs Process”)
The first
human pair may have been given adult bodies but they were as naïve as children,
lacking even the ability to conceive of negative consequences, having heretofore
never experienced one. Certainly our
omniscient Creator easily anticipated the straightforward free will
dynamics that would ensue. And so it has been
for every child on down the line to the present. Each of us have elicited some parental “assistance”
when first given the opportunity to exercise our freedom of choice as we defiantly
reached for that object to which we were just denied access.
Why then do
we pretend that after initially declaring it all to be “Very Good”, that God was
completely blindsided by the sudden turn for the worse? Of course he could not have been! Just exercising a modicum of common sense he
would have known the virtual inevitability of catching a ‘fly in the ointment’ once
the “kids” were pre-maturely allowed to make choices for themselves. Not only did he obviously expect such
infantile rebellion, and here is the bottom line, he was fully prepared to transform
that which would otherwise work to degrade or destroy his children into the
means of their further enhancement and regeneration.
Knowing that
the subsequent suffering unleashed through our predictable rebellion would
prove indispensable to our spiritual evolution and that our fall from grace
would induce within us an unquenchable longing for permanent reconciliation, then
rather than forcibly preventing our destructive plunge into the clutches of
evil, he chose to subsequently handle its consequences… grace-fully. And by all rights, having granted a frail
humanity full access to Pandora’s Box, would it not be unconscionable for the
Good Lord to have handled it otherwise?
(See blog post: Responsibility & Glory… HIS vs ours)
And so it is
that he has set this all in motion including the provision for full redemption
of the ensuing chaos. “All things” he
said, including evil, “will work together for good…” (Romans 8:28 NIV). Only a God of unfathomable grandeur could
pull that one off.
It is
important here to note that his inclusion of the presence of evil from the
beginning is not the same as him being
evil or practicing evil. It was still within our semi-sovereign choice
to submit to it and act upon it. It was
then within his fully Sovereign choice to overcome it on our behalf, once
activated.
Nonetheless
you may protest that in spite of the fact the Scriptures clearly communicate
that God is not only able, but absolutely determined to perform as advertised
in the sanctification of all things fallen, he had no right introducing evil
into the mix considering his lack of personal participation in its dreadful
consequences. After all, he would only
experience from a distance the immense pain and suffering which would engulf all
of humanity throughout history, remaining ever aloof in his untarnished
heavenly abode, aside from a brief encounter at the conclusion of his
Incarnation.
Fair enough,
guilty as charged… that is if it really were the nature of this God to remain
insulated from evil’s consequences while allowing his Creation to suffer alone. But once again the Scriptures do not bear this
out. Instead there is revealed a God
who after demanding a sacrifice of Abraham’s son Isaac, for example, became the
sacrificial lamb Himself. And long
before the calling of Abraham he had already thrust himself within the depths
of the coming madness, even prior to laying the foundation of the world
(Revelation 13:8, I Peter 1:19,20 KJV).
Implicit
within the scope of these verses is the notion that Christ’s agony on the cross
and the bloody beatings preceding that horrific punishment must be seen to
represent but a snapshot of a broader reality, providing just a glimpse of the
entirety of the Father’s continual immanent immersion in the sum total of all
human suffering throughout the ages (see blog post “Unveiled Glory another look
at Christ” for a full discussion of this point). Wherever and whenever the innocent suffer, He
is there, truly feeling their pain in all its intensity. And only when all pain ceases and evil be
completely overcome throughout all Creation will He come down from His cross,
and the “revealing of the transformed Sons of God” in the Body of Christ will
stand as an eternal witness to His sovereignty, wisdom and love.
Finally, in
light of the foregoing discussion of the Biblical revelation of God’s outright
victory over evil, let’s briefly consider a couple of verses concerning the
origin of evil which are not commonly quoted.
If mentioned at all they are quickly explained away in some manner so as
to protect God’s image and to ensure His fingerprint on the presence of evil is
duly obscured. But heretofore, and in
numerous other blog posts, having at length uncovered the reality of God’s plan
for reconciliation of all creation thus eliminating forever the damage wrought
by submission to evil, we need not dance around Scriptures that lay the
ultimate responsibility for its very existence at his feet… such as:
“Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the
people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord
hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6 KJV)
I form the
light, and create darkness: I
make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these
things. (Isaiah 45:7 KJV)
And then
there’s the entire book of Job which portrays God standing by as his servant
the Devil administers incomprehensibly overwhelming doses of suffering to Job
and his family. Or what about the
hardening of Pharoh’s heart, thereby “needlessly” extending the suffering of
the Israelites while apparently sealing the fate of Pharoh’s soul to a hellish
demise.
From a
traditional framework it would be impossible to imagine that a loving God could
actually act in such a reckless manner, knowing full well not only of evil’s
horrific effect on the individuals concerned and on subsequent world events but worse yet the literally
unending torment it would bring upon
most of His children who would fall prey to its delusion… with or without His
intentional “hardening” of their hearts!
On the other
hand when it be understood that He subjected even Himself to evil’s consequences and in the midst of it all declared
the eternal victorious outcome to be well worth the temporal agony for all concerned, it may provide sufficient
pause for even a critically thinking individual to offer their assent to just
such a wide band of creative discretion.
One such critically
thinking individual was that man of good repute mentioned above named Job, who
after vigorously challenging the equity of his fate, was willing to do just
that – to let God be Sovereign. He had
been taught through his intense suffering that even the devastating forces of
utter chaos (as referenced in the forms of Leviathon & Behemoth) are no
match for the scope of God’s immeasurable redemptive restorative
capability. When all was said and done,
Job had been more than compensated for his seemingly unwarranted torment and
was moved to cry out that which became the inspiration for the initial posting
of this blog: “Though he slay me, yet
will I trust in Him”.
The battle
between Good and evil is therefore fully circumscribed within the bounds of
God’s omnipotence. They are not two
coequal opposing ‘forces’ on a cosmic battlefield as portrayed in the ‘Star
Wars’ series where the ultimate victor is yet to be revealed. The overarching premise presented in the
Scriptures speaks of a singular Sovereign (God) that makes temporary use of a
subordinate servant (Devil) according to His will alone to create a heavenly
family including all of mankind. (See
blog post “The Gospel According to Willy Wonka”, referencing the Gene Wilder
movie where Wonka secretly employs “evil” Mr. Slugworth)
So in light
of this discussion, the presence of evil in our world may be reckoned perhaps more
bearable knowing that the God of Love does not exempt himself from its ill
effects and further endorses its value as a temporary but absolutely essential
grit in the grindstone of life’s character building process whereby all will be conformed to His glorious
image.
