People have been struggling with the question of why does God allow suffering and injustice since the time of Habakkuk:
“How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore, the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”
(Habakkuk 1:2–4)
The same cry from the heart comes up again repeatedly in the Psalms, in Job, in Lamentations, and God never rejects anyone because they ask these hard questions. In fact, we need to remember that it was the Holy Spirit who was leading these men to ask these things in the first place.
One of the things that makes me trust the Bible so much is that it is so honest. It frequently tells us truths that we’d probably not want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3 warns us, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” If you watch most of the stuff on the so-called “Christian TV” channels on Satellite TV, they are full of teachers who like to say things like, ‘if you only have enough faith, God will bless you and free you from your problems.’ That’s a popular message because it tells people what their itching ears want to hear. Not surprisingly, many of these TV preachers then say that you would need to start showing this faith by sending in money to them… so that they can show us how much God has blessed them!
On the other hand, the Bible is honest about the realities of living in a broken, sin-cursed world and the hardships we often must endure for following Christ. The Bible tells us exactly what we don’t want to hear:
Jesus said, "anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:38)
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:2)
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.” (Philippians 1:29–30)
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.” (2 Corinthians 4:8–11)
“We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.” (1 Thessalonians 3:2–4)
So, why does God allow suffering?
The Bible is frustrating. Habakkuk never really gets a direct answer to his question in Hab. 1:2–4. Job never really gets a direct answer to his questions. Nor does Jeremiah in Lamentations. Instead, God does something far dramatic. God becomes one of us. God himself becomes a human being, born in poverty, as a member of a hated race, in a country under a brutal military occupation. God himself experienced rejection and misunderstanding by his own family (Mark 3:21), betrayal by his closest friends, an unjust trial, brutal torture and one of the most humiliating and painful forms of capital punishment ever invented.
Rather than giving us an abstract theological or philosophical explanation of why He allows suffering, God gives us something far more satisfying; He reassures us that He not only cares about human suffering, He has experienced human suffering and injustice in the most extreme forms imaginable. The one thing we cannot accuse God of is indifference to suffering, when He has suffered so much Himself, on our behalf.
Have you ever been through a hard time in life? Perhaps you've faced an illness, or divorce, or lost a loved one. If so, you will probably know how much more comforting it is to speak to someone who has been through the same experience. That is exactly what we have in Jesus. When He listens to you He does not sit there like a professional psychiatrist, taking note and nodding. When you tell Jesus about that person who betrayed you, He is like the friend who says, "I know exactly how you feel. I was betrayed by my best friend too..." When you tell Him about how much it hurts now that your loved one has died, He is like the friend who says, "I know how you feel. I stood at the entrance of the tomb of my friend and wept." Whatever your sorrow, whatever your heartache, whatever your hurt, you have in Jesus someone who has experienced it all Himself. “made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God,” (Hebrews 2:17)
What's the alternative?
We now live in a culture that is lead by practical and actual atheists. The practical atheists may allow for the possibility of God, some of them even go to church, but their god is irrelevant to any of the real concerns of life. Obviously, the actual atheists are in much smaller numbers, but neither party has anything helpful or comforting to say about suffering. In fact, most of them prefer to bury their heads in the sand and completely ignore the implications of their beliefs. In a consistent atheist's beliefs about the world, human beings are just one collection of chemicals among many others which all passed through the same unguided, purposeless processes of evolution to produce life. In this worldview, pain and suffering have no purpose other than to signal to animals what in their environment may prevent them from reproducing. These chemical and electrical signals in the brains of animals are no different in nature to chemicals and electrical phenomena in the non-living world. For a consistent atheist, suffering has no more real meaning than love does. They are merely delusions conjured up by chemicals and electrons. With this as the predominant worldview, no wonder so many people are depressed!
The purposes of suffering
Thankfully we do live in a world that has a purpose, and even suffering can have a purpose. Without pain we’d burn our hands off, cut fingers off and cause all sorts of damage to ourselves and others. Pain tell us that something is wrong and that we need to take action. In this sense, pain is a gift from God which proves that He cares for us. Other types of pain, such as emotional pain, remind us that God’s laws are for our blessing, and if only everyone would obey them there would be much much less suffering in the world. This pain reminds us that humans were created to live in a very good world, we messed it up, and now live in a broken world filled with suffering. We are so broken by the Fall, we cannot do the good things that would alleviate suffering and we keep doing things that cause suffering. Pain is a constant reminder that we cannot save ourselves. Despite this God had another use for suffering. He chose to lay the sufferings of the world on His own Son as He died for us on the cross. God has used this suffering to save us. This means that for all Christians, we have been saved from an eternity of suffering and separation from God, because our eternal Saviour suffered our lost eternity in our place. Yes, we may suffer, but our suffering will only be temporary in this world, but soon Jesus will call us to Himself and we will be delivered from all the sufferings of this short life. We will swap them for an eternity of joy with HIm. Suffering is also temporary for this world as well. Jesus promised us that He would return and when He does, He will restore all things. There will be new heavens and a new earth, and God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).
