Dear Friends,

We all want to know why. But what if the Bible tells us why…and we really don’t like the answer?

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Starting with Who

Last time I talked about how the Biblical origin story makes sense of the beautiful but fractured world we live in. I then mentioned several follow-up questions I had, without trying to answer them.

My point was that it’s fine to have questions, but to walk away from God just because we don’t have answers to those questions, or to conclude He can’t be loving and all-powerful just because we don’t have answers to those questions, is to fail to fully appreciate Whom we are walking away from. I closed by proposing a transition from Why? to Who? [shout-out to Michael Gowens (1) for summarizing it as a transition from one 3-letter question to another!]

Today, I want to continue that transition…but this time, instead of looking at…

painful unanswered questions,

we will look at…

questions with painful answers.

God willing, I will present several cases where the Bible does give us a Why…even if it’s not the Why we wanted, even if it goes against our own judgment of what should have been done, even if it doesn’t give us a warm fuzzy feeling. I will not attempt a polished explanation that makes us all feel good about the specific answers.

I want to acknowledge some hard truths presented in the Bible…and then I will suggest, before walking away because we don’t like the Why that was given, that we spend some time contemplating the Who that gave us the Why.

Proving Satan wrong was only part of the story

A great wind destroyed Job’s son’s house and all Job’s children inside, Job’s servants were killed, and the animals were killed or stolen.

Why??

The conversations between God and Satan in the first two chapters allow us to formulate a more precise question: Since Job was being so obedient and eschewing evil, why was God proving a point to Satan worth so much suffering on the part of Job and his family?

Here is a partial answer I find in Scripture:

[Job 35:14-15 KJV] 14 Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, [yet] judgment [is] before him; therefore TRUST THOU IN HIM. 15 But now, BECAUSE [IT IS] NOT [SO], HE HATH VISITED IN HIS ANGER; yet he knoweth [it] not in great extremity:

Elihu, the whippersnapper, lets Job know that his lack of trust in God is at least part of the reason for his present miserable situation. Elihu probably doesn’t know about the interaction between God and Satan, so he doesn’t know that God temporarily removed His protection from Job and Satan is the one persecuting Job. However, He DOES know that no force in heaven or earth could touch Job against God’s executive will. And Elihu tells Job that his own attitude is partially to blame for the situation. It wasn’t simply a matter of God proving a point to Satan.

Why?? Partly because Job wasn’t trusting in God.

Now, everybody be honest: How many of us, beholding someone who is doing good things but not trusting in God, would say that that person needs to have boils all over his body and his family killed?

I don’t know about you, but I am definitely not in a position to say that. My own reasoning would not have led me to that judgment against Job.

The Bible gives us a Why, and it may not be completely satisfying to us. So, I beg you, my dear friend…do not throw the Bible’s Why in God’s face and walk away from Him. Instead, let’s spend some time in a later post pondering the **WHO** that gave us the Why.

A life of blindness to show God’s works?

A man was blind from birth.

Why??

The disciples assumed it was a direct punishment from God….the only thing they couldn’t figure out is whether God was punishing the man for his sin or for his parents’ sin.

Then, Jesus dropped a truth bomb on them:

[Jhn 9:3 KJV] 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Why?? To manifest God’s works. 

Sure enough, a few verses later, Jesus healed the man.

Now, everybody be honest: Can you see yourself sitting on God’s throne and suffering a little baby to be born blind because you have a plan to miraculously heal him many years later? I can’t. In fact, this story reminds me of an atheist on a British debate show who asked a Christian ex-gangster, “Why didn’t God convert you before you hurt all those people???”

Again, the Bible gives us a Why, and it may not be completely satisfying to us. Instead of walking away because of the Why, we need to grapple with the **WHO**.

Destroying Egyptian children so all would know there is none like Him?

God sent a “destroyer” to smite all the firstborn of Egypt. Not just the firstborn of the meanest taskmasters; not just the firstborn who had grown up and had already done very naughty things; ALL the firstborn of ALL the Egyptians, whether old or young, human or animal:

[Exo 11:5 KJV] 5 And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that [is] behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts.

Why??

If you think about it, God didn’t really have to kill anybody. He could have just whisked the children of Israel away to the Promised Land on a gigantic carpet. The plagues were not simply a way to rescue the Israelites. So, why did He go the 10-plagues route? For a very specific reason:

[Exo 9:14 KJV] 14 For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that [there is] none like me in all the earth.

Put another way:

[Exo 9:16 KJV] 16 And in very deed for this [cause] have I raised thee up, for to shew [in] thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.

Why?? To teach us all His power, His name, and His uniqueness.

Now, everybody be honest: Can you see yourself, in God’s position, deciding that the best way to teach the Egyptians and the Israelites your power was to kill all the firstborn Egyptians? I can’t. Now, if it was just Pharaoh, then maybe I could see it. Maybe throw in the meanest of the taskmasters and those wily magicians. But to kill all the firstborn of Egyptian man and beast in order to show my power and my name? It’s hard to see myself coming up with that.

OK that is enough Evil

In Part 2 of this series, I discussed the relatively easy cases; the ones where we suffer as a direct result of God chastening us (His children) for something bad we did. Pretty simple concept.

In Part 3a, we saw how Genesis 1-3 explains a lot about the world around us…it is kind of like the big WHY/REASON when it comes to human suffering. But still, the passage raises new questions that I don’t have all the answers to.

Going further, the Bible also offers some more narrowly focused Whys/reasons for human suffering, like those we discussed in Part 3b today, but even those Whys/reasons may be painful and still leave me somewhat mystified.

And, in other cases, such as the 11 years of torture suffered by three young women at the hands of rapist Ariel Castro, or the millions of 20th century victims of communists and Nazis, or the multitudes who perished from the Spanish Flu or the coronavirus, I may not have a specific “Here’s why God suffered that to happen” explanation at all.

I’ve mentioned all of these horrors not to depress you, but to make it clear to you that I am not tip-toeing through the tulips when I discuss the Problem of Evil. And I think it is profitable to further study the various Biblical examples of suffering that I mentioned today, and labor and pray to understand them better. But, in this series, we are moving on to bigger and better things, so help me God.

Prepare to make the jump to hyperspace

You can read the aforementioned Bible stories, or watch the news, and then pass judgment on this supposed God that I keep talking about; you can declare Him nonexistent, or not worth believing in. If you want to walk away from God altogether, or if you already have walked away from him, I urge you to consider: After condemning the Why, what exactly have you walked towards, and  **WHO** exactly have you walked away from?

Imagine you have pain in body part X, and a man on a train tells you your real problem likely originates in body part Y. Your intuition tells you he’s wrong…so, do you completely dismiss what he says, or ask what his qualifications are?

Before we decide what to do with an unanswered, painful Why?, or a Why? that has a painful answer, we should soberly, Biblically, prayerfully and reverentially ask:

**WHO**?

Links:

1: Sovereign Grace Publications