At one extreme during the COVID coronavirus was the claim that the pandemic was a judgement from God or at least a wake up call from him. I have responded to this claim frequently and in detail in the past. However at the other extreme is the argument that God cannot have sent the pandemic because God never sends anything bad. God is love, he is therefore loving and kind and wouldn’t do anything that would harm or hurt us.
The basis for this is James 1:13-18.
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
Along with this, we are pointed to Romans 8:1, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Condemnation is seen as a negative thing where others put us down in order to destroy us like a condemned building (an analogy I recently heard).
So, why then do bad things happen, like the pandemic, suffering, sickness and death? The answer comes that these must always be from the enemy and what this indicates is that God is not in control Whilst Hebrews 1:3 talks about Christ sustaining or upholding the world, this means he bears it, holds everything together but is not able to control the detail of what is happening because that is left with us.
It is probably worth going back through those claims and arguments in reverse order as they reflect the age old debate about suffering, sometimes referred to as theodicy. The proposed dilemma is that God is meant to be good (love, holiness etc) and great (sovereign) but if he is good, then why would he allow suffering and if he is sovereign then why would he not be able to prevent it?
It is striking that Christians if opting to choose between the two seem more ready to let go of God’s greatness, his sovereignty. They choose to argue that God doesn’t truly know and predestine all things. A classic example of this approach is Open Theism. It strikes me that this is a category error as though we could separate out his goodness and greatness. Whilst I tend to distinguish the two categories when teaching doctrine, I also want to insist that God’s love, mercy and compassion are all aspects of his greatness, his love and mercy arise out of his sovereignty and his effortless exercise of his will. His love is perfect because it is the love of the one who knows everything. This is why the God who knows all isn’t going to stop loving because there isn’t anything that is going to surprise him one day. Similarly, God’s holiness reflects his complete otherness that he is not limited as his creatures are.
At the same time, God’s sovereignty, his infinite invincibility are all aspects of his goodness and perfection. The God who does not know and control all things would be deeply flawed, subject to external factors and so not perfect or good at all.
Whether Hebrews 1 can be taken simply to mean that Jesus somehow bears up the world but isn’t in control of it (as it happens, I don’t think it does), wider Scripture, such as Ephesians 1 and Romans 8-11makes it clear that God is sovereign over the detail, not just foreknowing but predestining what happens so that yes, he is in control. That is a good thing.
This takes us to the next point, whilst we are in the vicinity of Romans 8. If we think that “no condemnation” simply means that God doesn’t mind our sin, that he lets it off as a mistake then we are missing something big. In fact, we cheapen God’s grace. Condemnation is not a dirty word but rather reflects what a perfect, loving God does. Romans 8:1 must be read in the context of the rest of the book which at the start talks both about God’s righteousness and his wrath revealed (1:17-18). It comes in the context of God demonstrating his justice in the sacrificial death of Jesus.
There is a crucial word in Romans 8:1, it is “now”. Something has changed. What is it? It is that God condemned sin, in Christ (8:3). It’s not that God doesn’t condemn because that’s not the kind of thing a loving father does. God does condemn but we are no longer under that condemnation because Jesus took our place. Isaiah 53 tells us that “He was pierced for our transgressions.”
Then we come finally to the first point and what James does and doesn’t mean. The problem with the approach taken above is that it treats anything that we see as negative as nothing to do with God and that means anything we define as negative.
Let’s go back to the Coronavirus example. It starts with the presumption that the thing was itself all bad, all evil, that suffering is always evil, always bad. Yet, this places me in the position of authority, I get to evaluate things. Now, think this through, imagine that you give your child some medicine, it tastes disgusting because medicine does. You can add in a whole host of things here, from trying to get them to eat their vegetables to insisting they get up and go to school in the morning. What if your child were to say “This tastes bad, I don’t like it” or “I’m tired and sleepy still and it makes my legs ache if I have to walk to school.”
Then they reason, because you’ve taught them well from the Bible that a good father wouldn’t give them stones and snakes instead of bread and fish. Surely, mummy and daddy will only give them good things. They conclude that vegetables, early mornings and walks to school are not good and therefore cannot be really from you. You would rightly see through the nonsense of this.
Now notice three things. First, that back in Romans again, Paul tells us that
“we[c] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”[1]
I don’t think that we are meant to “glory in” bad things. Paul here is showing that there is good in suffering. Secondly, notice that in Hebrews 12:5 we are reminded:
My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son
If God used coronavirus to discipline us as a church, then I would not be something bad from him but evidence of his love and central to his nature as Father.
Thirdly, remember that at the end of Genesis, Joseph tells his brothers that what they meant for harm, God intended for good. Notice that he isn’t saying that God attempts to turn around the bad things and find some good in them. The point is that he intended or purposed them. The issue isn’t the source but the intent.
Why is this important? Well, despite the argument I outlined above often beign presented as the compassionate one, I have to say that I find it deeply unsatisfying. It’s pastorally useless. It begs the question “what should we do in the face of trials?” What can and should I be saying as a pastor o the family who have just discovered that mum’s illness is now terminal and there is nothing more to do? What about the person who is struggling financially?
Well it seems to me that if these people are going to be consistent, then they need to be saying “look, this is an evil thing and it’s not from God. You have two choices. You either except that we are powerless and that God is powerless in the face of this. Or you can exercise all the faith you can muster to rebuke the suffering and sickness and claim healing.” So we are either left helpless or landing in prosperity Gospel territory.
What the Bible actually says, read properly, without cherry picking, offers a better answer and a better hope. We ca trust God to be present with us in our suffering. Yes, sometimes, he will answer our prayer by healing or lifting us out of the situation. However, many times, he will kee us safely through and teach us to be holy in it because God is working that suffering for our good. We can rest in him, knowing that he is in control.
[1] Romans 5:3-5.
Faithroots 