Isn’t suffering caused by Satan and Sin, not God?

Posted by on Aug 2, 2010 | 2 comments

A few people were left asking this question after yesterday’s sermon on “God’s Will in Suffering”.  This is such an important question that I felt like I needed to address it (albeit briefly) today.  The first thing to understand is that this isn’t the simple question that many people would have you believe that it is.  The temptation we must avoid is trying to give a simpler answer to this question than The Bible does.  Christians often want simple, pat answers to complex, nuanced questions; to be faithful we have to be willing to embrace tension when Scripture leads us there.

A couple things to consider from Scripture…

  • 1 Chronicles 21:1 and 2 Samuel 24:1 seem to totally contradict each other.  One of them specifically says that God incited David to take a sinful census for which Israel was ultimately disciplined and the other specifically says that Satan incited David to take the same census.  Hmm.
  • In the first chapter of Job, Satan has to come to God to ask permission to inflict Job.  God gives him the green light.
  • Philippians 1:29 says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.”  It says “granted” as in “this suffering is a gift to you” and God is clearly the one doing the “gifting”.
  • When talking about Joseph being sold into slavery (an obviously sinful and evil action), Genesis 50:20 says to the brothers who did the selling,”You meant meant evil against me but God meant it for good.”  Disturbingly, this passage implies that God purposed Joseph being sold into slavery for ultimately good purposes.

Again, the temptation for everyone is to want to slap a simple, easy answer on a Biblically complex question.  We can’t do that and remain faithful.  While even this isn’t as nuanced an answer as I’d like to give, here’s what the above passages (as well as dozens of others) seem to show us: God doesn’t cause suffering but he is in control of it. In this way Scripture can at the same time say that Satan incited David to take a sinful census and God incited the same thing.  Scripture can point to the suffering of the Christians at Philippi and say “this is a gift from The Father”.  This is why Satan has to beg God’s permission to inflict Job – because even Satan understands that at the end of the day, he’s simply God’s puny minion. With regard to pain and suffering, God “allows with a purpose.” With any given example of pain and suffering (floods, earthquakes, cancer, you getting fired from you job, etc), there are a thousand ways that God could stop them from happening but does not.

Now I’ll be honest, this messes with me… a lot sometimes.  There are questions – LOTS of questions – that I can’t answer.  And that’s OK. If the character of God is greater than the oceans and our minds are the size of coke cans, we better expect that there are some things that don’t seem to “fit”. This should lead us to sober, soul-wrenching reflection on the character of God.  There are many questions I have about this that Scripture simply does not answer.  Some serious questions that really jack with me.  But at the end of the day, God’s response to my questions is “The secret things belong to The Lord (Deut 29:29); just know that I am good.”  The lesson of Romans 11 is that God’s sovereignty refuses to be analyzed, but demands to be adored.

2 Comments

  1. Tracy Simmons | August 2, 2010 at 11:55 am

    Josh, I know thru suffering in my own life that it doesn’t really matter who or what allowed/caused the affliction. I stopped caring about that several years ago. God just wants to find us faithful in whatever circumstance comes our way. That way of thinking may seem way too simple. The bottom line is this: Are we gonna be found faithful when stress, suffering, toil, sickness, loss, financial disaster, etc. comes our way? The answer to our “test” is how we come through it! Are we bitter, or are we better? Thanks for being willing to tackle the difficult–and sometimes unclear (to us)–topics that we don’t understand or like to hear about. You’re right. We need to be able to “embrace tension when Scripture leads us there.” Thanks for the reminder!

  2. Lance Howerton | August 3, 2010 at 6:22 am

    I appreciate so much your post above. I don’t so much worry where our suffering comes from but am so happy I have Him to rest in and trust in when it comes. Sometimes suffering is ours and we need to own it. We smoke we get lung cancer… You drink and drive, there is a wreck… Our choices, our sin, can cause suffering. Sometimes there is no great explanation, life just happens. I so appreciate the honesty of Josh’s blog and resonate with them. God is bigger than I and I can trust it is all OK in him regardless of how or why. No simple answers no simple God. I know this, he uses my suffering and my questions to draw me closer to Him.