Aa
Why did God create evil at all, what does the bible say?
I've always wondered why God decided to create evil at all. Does the bible discuss anywhere? As the creator of all things, I've always wondered why Satan was introduced and evil was created.
Yes I agree it is about free will. Free will is actually the "image of God" that we are given.
Adam and Eve had free will from creation. They were not robots, they could make choices and decisions themselves. They were only given one rule/commandment, only one tree's fruit was forbidden. When they broke this commandment it meant knowledge of good and evil and immediate separation from God (spiritual death and physical death). God said that they would die the same day, indeed they did! Neither lived to be a 1000 years old and a thousand years is one day to God so they died the same day they ate the fruit!
Once Satan and the fallen angels rejected God, only evil was left to them as evil is the complete rejection of God because God IS love and morally perfect (Good).
To give free will, evil as a state had to be created otherwise we would be no different to cats or dogs, we would be like robots!
Why does bad things happen to good people? Depends on what you mean by good. What we call good and what God calls good are two separate things. To us sinful humans, good means "good enough" but to God "goodness" is holiness and righteousness. It means perfection! We are always tempted to say a person is "good" but that would mean moral perfection! I think none of us could honestly claim that!
The Psalmist wrote that "none do good and none seek God"
Paul said that his "good deeds are as filthy rags".
Our idea of a good deed is a filthy rag compared to God's goodness. That should be humbling to all of us.
So now we know that "none are good, no not one".
Instead let's look at kind people.
There are plenty of kind people who don't know God. They may be kind outwardly but there may be wickedness in their heart that only God can see. So even the most seemingly wonderful person on the outside could be desperately wicked on the inside.
Jesus called the Pharisees "whitewashed sepulchres" because they seemed righteous on the outside but because of the evil in their hearts they had "dead men's bones on the inside".
So we now know that appearances can be deceiving. A person can look "good" on the outside but be evil inside. We also know that good means moral perfection.
The bible says the heart is wicked above all things. That is all our hearts, not just some. It is called "sin nature" and we are all born with it now because of the first sin of our parents Adam and Eve. As the Calvinists say we are born into "total depravity".
God gave Israel the Mosaic law to show them what "being good" looked like. None of them could keep this law so it meant animal sacrifices every time they failed. The reason for sacrifice is because the "wages of sin in death". So the sacrificed animal was meant to be a symbol that the only consequence of sin is death. This was first instituted in the garden of Eden as God killed two animals to give to Adam and Eve to cover their iniquity. This was a foreshadowing of the only true sacrificial atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
These animal deaths would've been shocking to Adam and Eve who were vegetarian and never seen death before. It would have made a lasting impression of how ugly sin is and that it inevitably leads to death.
The law was a teacher as none could fulfil the whole of the law, none until Jesus did! Jesus raised the bar even higher! He said that hating is the same as murdering, saying "fool" makes you worthy of hell and looking on a woman with lust is the same as sleeping with her!
So knowing that no one is good. Let's instead look at those who have been given a new heart and a new nature through being born again.
Why do bad things happen to believers who now have Jesus' righteousness as a covering to them?
In the Book of Job all this is explained. Suffering is spiritual testing for all of us. Unbelievers respond to suffering with their self sufficiency and they harden their hearts to God. The suffering gets harder and harder. Hopefully they will realise that they can't get through it alone and they turn to God to help.
Then they will be saved by faith in Jesus and will be delivered from their suffering.
As believers we get these tests all the time. Just as a student has to study to show willing, we study the Bible to show ourselves approved. When testing (suffering comes along) the truth that we know from the bible mingles with the faith we have and we rely on God to get us through. God delivers us and our faith grows. We past the test.
The next test comes and then the next and the next. Each test becomes a little more difficult than the last (just like exams do). The more difficult the test, the greater the deliverance God provides. You see, our time here on earth is for us to prove our faith to God whilst God proves his faithfulness to us (that He is worthy of the faith we have in Him).
A really good example of terrible suffering/ testing being met with an even greater deliverance is the Isrealites being delivered through the parting of the Red Sea.
They found themselves in a horrific position where they had Pharoahs' army racing forward to slaughter them and behind them was the inevitable drowning affect of the Red Sea. Who had faith in this test? Only Moses did. He had great faith that matched the horror of his testing. God responded to Moses' great faith with a spectacular deliverance, the parting of the Red Sea!
Whenever we suffer, whenever we are tested. If we respond in faith, God will be faithful and prove the faith we had in Him was not in vain.
The greater the test, the greater call of faith and the greater the deliverance.
All Jesus' miracles asked the same thing of the suffering sinner. Do you believe? Every miracle that Jesus worked called for faith first. One of Jesus' greatest miracles was the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Just before this miracle Jesus asked
"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"
Martha said
" She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."
There was faith and so God could then deliver on that faith and the deliverance of a man dead into life is as great as the faith of Martha who believed her brother could be raised from the dead! Whatever we believe God can do, not only can He deliver on what we believe but always spectacularly!
Amen!
If you would like to know more about the subject of suffering, here is some excellent Bible studies that I thoroughly recommend
https://ichthys.com/Peter-Series-Home-Page.htm
Adam and Eve had free will from creation. They were not robots, they could make choices and decisions themselves. They were only given one rule/commandment, only one tree's fruit was forbidden. When they broke this commandment it meant knowledge of good and evil and immediate separation from God (spiritual death and physical death). God said that they would die the same day, indeed they did! Neither lived to be a 1000 years old and a thousand years is one day to God so they died the same day they ate the fruit!
Once Satan and the fallen angels rejected God, only evil was left to them as evil is the complete rejection of God because God IS love and morally perfect (Good).
To give free will, evil as a state had to be created otherwise we would be no different to cats or dogs, we would be like robots!
Why does bad things happen to good people? Depends on what you mean by good. What we call good and what God calls good are two separate things. To us sinful humans, good means "good enough" but to God "goodness" is holiness and righteousness. It means perfection! We are always tempted to say a person is "good" but that would mean moral perfection! I think none of us could honestly claim that!
The Psalmist wrote that "none do good and none seek God"
Paul said that his "good deeds are as filthy rags".
Our idea of a good deed is a filthy rag compared to God's goodness. That should be humbling to all of us.
So now we know that "none are good, no not one".
Instead let's look at kind people.
There are plenty of kind people who don't know God. They may be kind outwardly but there may be wickedness in their heart that only God can see. So even the most seemingly wonderful person on the outside could be desperately wicked on the inside.
Jesus called the Pharisees "whitewashed sepulchres" because they seemed righteous on the outside but because of the evil in their hearts they had "dead men's bones on the inside".
So we now know that appearances can be deceiving. A person can look "good" on the outside but be evil inside. We also know that good means moral perfection.
The bible says the heart is wicked above all things. That is all our hearts, not just some. It is called "sin nature" and we are all born with it now because of the first sin of our parents Adam and Eve. As the Calvinists say we are born into "total depravity".
God gave Israel the Mosaic law to show them what "being good" looked like. None of them could keep this law so it meant animal sacrifices every time they failed. The reason for sacrifice is because the "wages of sin in death". So the sacrificed animal was meant to be a symbol that the only consequence of sin is death. This was first instituted in the garden of Eden as God killed two animals to give to Adam and Eve to cover their iniquity. This was a foreshadowing of the only true sacrificial atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
These animal deaths would've been shocking to Adam and Eve who were vegetarian and never seen death before. It would have made a lasting impression of how ugly sin is and that it inevitably leads to death.
The law was a teacher as none could fulfil the whole of the law, none until Jesus did! Jesus raised the bar even higher! He said that hating is the same as murdering, saying "fool" makes you worthy of hell and looking on a woman with lust is the same as sleeping with her!
So knowing that no one is good. Let's instead look at those who have been given a new heart and a new nature through being born again.
Why do bad things happen to believers who now have Jesus' righteousness as a covering to them?
In the Book of Job all this is explained. Suffering is spiritual testing for all of us. Unbelievers respond to suffering with their self sufficiency and they harden their hearts to God. The suffering gets harder and harder. Hopefully they will realise that they can't get through it alone and they turn to God to help.
Then they will be saved by faith in Jesus and will be delivered from their suffering.
As believers we get these tests all the time. Just as a student has to study to show willing, we study the Bible to show ourselves approved. When testing (suffering comes along) the truth that we know from the bible mingles with the faith we have and we rely on God to get us through. God delivers us and our faith grows. We past the test.
The next test comes and then the next and the next. Each test becomes a little more difficult than the last (just like exams do). The more difficult the test, the greater the deliverance God provides. You see, our time here on earth is for us to prove our faith to God whilst God proves his faithfulness to us (that He is worthy of the faith we have in Him).
A really good example of terrible suffering/ testing being met with an even greater deliverance is the Isrealites being delivered through the parting of the Red Sea.
They found themselves in a horrific position where they had Pharoahs' army racing forward to slaughter them and behind them was the inevitable drowning affect of the Red Sea. Who had faith in this test? Only Moses did. He had great faith that matched the horror of his testing. God responded to Moses' great faith with a spectacular deliverance, the parting of the Red Sea!
Whenever we suffer, whenever we are tested. If we respond in faith, God will be faithful and prove the faith we had in Him was not in vain.
The greater the test, the greater call of faith and the greater the deliverance.
All Jesus' miracles asked the same thing of the suffering sinner. Do you believe? Every miracle that Jesus worked called for faith first. One of Jesus' greatest miracles was the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Just before this miracle Jesus asked
"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"
Martha said
" She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."
There was faith and so God could then deliver on that faith and the deliverance of a man dead into life is as great as the faith of Martha who believed her brother could be raised from the dead! Whatever we believe God can do, not only can He deliver on what we believe but always spectacularly!
Amen!
If you would like to know more about the subject of suffering, here is some excellent Bible studies that I thoroughly recommend
https://ichthys.com/Peter-Series-Home-Page.htm
Thanks for sharing Socrates. It's just always been interesting to me that evil such as we see on Earth exists at all with such a wonderful God.
While I understand free will---- I do wonder about horrible things happening to good people. I wonder why those who have exercised their free will and do not believe in God have what seems to be fairly normal, good lives. And many of them don't seem evil at all!
While I understand free will---- I do wonder about horrible things happening to good people. I wonder why those who have exercised their free will and do not believe in God have what seems to be fairly normal, good lives. And many of them don't seem evil at all!
"Free Will" is the choice of each person born into this World. "Free Will" gives each of Us a choice: to Accept God's Free Gift of Salvation or to refuse it, sounds simple, huh.
Satan was given a choice, himself, to Accept Jesus Christ or not to. Satan decided, though he was an angel, a creation of God, that he was equal to God, that he would not accept that Jesus Christ was "above him", because of this, Satan lost his place in Heaven (along with angels who chose to follow Satan).
"Free Will" is not a choice of living with God, or living with Satan.
"Free Will" is a choice (by Accepting God's Free Gift of Salvation) to live for Eternity, with God (in Heaven), OR to live for Eternity outside or away from the presence of God, (in Heaven) where there will be torment and gnashing of teeth.
Satan was given a choice, himself, to Accept Jesus Christ or not to. Satan decided, though he was an angel, a creation of God, that he was equal to God, that he would not accept that Jesus Christ was "above him", because of this, Satan lost his place in Heaven (along with angels who chose to follow Satan).
"Free Will" is not a choice of living with God, or living with Satan.
"Free Will" is a choice (by Accepting God's Free Gift of Salvation) to live for Eternity, with God (in Heaven), OR to live for Eternity outside or away from the presence of God, (in Heaven) where there will be torment and gnashing of teeth.
You must join this user group in order to participate in this discussion.
You are reading content posted in the Biblical Analysis Group Group
A list of national and international resources and hotlines to help connect you to needed health and medical services.
Herpes sores blister, then burst, scab and heal.
Herpes spreads by oral, vaginal and anal sex.
STIs are the most common cause of genital sores.
Condoms are the most effective way to prevent HIV and STDs.
PrEP is used by people with high risk to prevent HIV infection.
