The third in a series of apologetics-based columns, and the second specifically on suffering, to help Christians better understand the evidence for their faith. Read the introduction to the series in the Saturday, April 2, News-Banner.
Charles Carl Roberts IV invaded an Amish school Monday, Oct. 2, 2006, and killed five of the 10 Amish girls he held hostage. Roberts said he wanted to hurt God after his daughter died.
After Roberts’ rampage, a reporter said she hoped authorities would throw his ashes into a Dumpster.
Several members of the local Amish church, though, visited the killer’s wife and children to comfort them. About 30 Amish even attended Roberts’ funeral to comfort his family, and as donations poured in to support the victims’ families, they agreed to reallocate some of those funds to Roberts’ family.
Because they trusted God’s goodness, they also trusted His justice despite their suffering. They didn’t revel in Roberts’ death, and unlike Roberts, they didn’t rebel against the God who allowed five daughters to die. They didn’t question His justice because the Bible, they knew, declares, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
Even “perfect and upright” Job stopped challenging God’s justice when He caught a glimpse of His glory. The Prophet Jeremiah, who suffered with the rest of rebellious Jerusalem though he didn’t sin like them, said, “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins.”
Jeremiah, though, also wrote, “(God) doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.”
God consistently offers forgiveness, as Jesus showed again and again. He told the adulterous woman to sin no more. He gave the lame man another chance to walk physically and righteously, saying, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more.”
After the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, Jesus wept for Jerusalem, saying, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not.”
Like His Father, Jesus took “no pleasure in the death of him that dieth” (Ezekiel 18:32).
In fact, though God justly judges even little children, Jesus showed that God’s grace triumphs even then. Just as Jesus told His disciples to bring the little children to Him, God in grace mercifully welcomes into His kingdom every little child who dies, and they’ll never suffer again.
“And then He immediately killed Ananias and Sapphira for a little, white lie,” the skeptic retorts. “How is that just?”
Christians subject to time and circumstances will never comprehend God’s justice well enough to defend it beyond all questions, but like Jesus, they should never apologize for exalting God’s justice, particularly when men who reject God can only offer a corrupt alternative.
For instance, many skeptics who say a good God wouldn’t kill children then celebrate the abortion of hundreds of thousands of children. They even deliberately redefine murder to justify it.
“We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication … preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder.” (Emphasis added.)
Furthermore, when men reject God because of suffering, they must replace Him with themselves as the world’s only hope for justice and goodness, and history is scarred with their efforts. The “communist holocaust,” for instance, killed more than 100 million people when the architects of these so-called paradises deliberately rejected God and tried to end suffering and define justice on their own.
Finally, when people reject the cross and empty tomb, they reject the only means to redeem the suffering. For instance, when Christians unjustly suffer, God intends it not for their punishment, but their purification. “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations (or trials); Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:2-4).
(Note: Most of the material for this column was created as part of a curriculum, still in development, for the Christian publishing company Christian Light. Learn more about their resources at www.christianlight.org. Learn more about God’s goodness and suffering in Randy Alcorn’s book “If God is Good.”)
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