By Pastor Stephen Hess –
I recently preached a sermon on the Biblical doctrine of providence and in that message, we saw that the Westminster Confession of Faith defines providence as follows: “God, who created everything, also upholds everything. He directs, regulates, and governs every creature, action, and thing, from the greatest to the least” (WCF 5.1). In other words, providence points to the Biblical reality that God governs everything that comes to pass.
When people are confronted with the all-encompassing sovereignty of God as outlined in the doctrine of providence, one of the first questions they often ask is: What about evil and suffering? If God governs every event that comes to pass, does this include evil events? This quickly brings up more questions: If God does in fact govern evil events, does this make him responsible for evil and compromise his goodness? Furthermore, if God is all-powerful and has the capacity to prevent suffering from happening, why doesn’t he?
These are deep questions with which Christians have wrestled for centuries. Such complex questions do not have simple answers, and therefore we should resist the temptation to oversimplify them. At the same time, the Bible does not leave us completely in the dark when it comes to these questions. When we look at Scripture, we can observe some important truths that help us begin to think through these mysterious questions.
First, the Bible makes clear that sin, suffering, and evil exist in the world today because of the fall. Before the fall, creation was perfect and free from these realities. But after the fall, sin, suffering, and evil entered the world. As Romans 5:12 says, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Since God created human beings with free will, this means that we have the capacity to use our free will for evil, and still today our sinful hearts choose to inflict great suffering on one another. This should remind us that God is not responsible for evil, we are.
Second, the Bible teaches the mysterious reality that while God is not responsible for the evil actions of men, he is sovereign over them and governs them according to his plan. One of the greatest examples of this reality in the Bible is the story of Joseph. Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery and shipped off to Egypt, after which he encountered years of hardships and injustices. The responsibility for the evils perpetrated against Joseph is laid solely at the feet of those who wronged him. However, at the end of Joseph’s story it becomes clear that God was guiding all the events of Joseph’s life (even Joseph’s suffering) according to a greater plan. At the end of Joseph’s story he utters these famous words: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20). Somehow in the mystery of providence, both man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty are affirmed side by side.
Third, because the Bible affirms that all things are governed according to the providence of God, this should give us confidence that no suffering we encounter takes God by surprise or falls outside of his purposes. We may not understand why we encounter certain hardships in this world, and God does not promise to answer all of our “why” questions. Yet we can remain confident that God is both good and sovereign in the midst of our questions. This is what allowed Job in the midst of his suffering to say, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job. 13:15).
Ultimately, when we struggle to have assurance of God’s goodness in the midst of suffering, we can look back to the cross. The greatest evil ever perpetrated in human history was the murder of the Son of God by sinful men. Yet this evil act was not outside the sovereign purposes of God. In fact, it was because Jesus was delivered up according to the sovereign plan of God that we could be saved. The cross is the place where we see God’s love most clearly revealed, and the cross reminds us that our God is not removed from our suffering. God knows what it is to suffer because he sent his Son to suffer for us, and therefore we are never alone in our suffering.