Dear Friends,

Would an uncaring God create an eternal paradise for you?

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How God feels about you: Mystery solved!

Two posts ago, I talked about the Problem of Evil in light of the fact that God is the One Who gives us our ultimate sense of morality. When our sense of morality seems to conflict with His, it’s very rational to give Him, not ourselves, the benefit of the doubt.

Today, I want to talk about how the Bible’s teaching on heaven (which we discussed in detail last time) bears on the Problem of Evil. This teaching won’t answer all questions….but it should at least answer the question of whether God loves you!

Put your cards on the table

You might be reading this and thinking, “Wait, how do we even know the Bible is true?” Fair enough, and I’m not addressing that topic today, but I would like to in the future. I welcome you to ask that question in the comments, but I will front-load that discussion with a question of my own: if the Bible is true, do you agree that its revelations about heaven, God, etc. robustly push back against the Problem of Evil?

If so, then I can see the importance of diving into the origin/veracity of Scripture with you. If not, let’s spend some more time exploring the Problem of Evil together. Fair enough? 🙂

A love that obliterates the scale!

The more you believe that God loves you, the more willing you will be to follow his guidance about money, sex, career, child-rearing, and all the other important decisions that you face each day. This question about God’s love is a biggie!

As you weigh the evidence, it’s tempting to put things like childhood abuse, disease, and your other traumatic experiences on the God-doesn’t-love-me side of the scale. I pushed back on this temptation, to some extent, in Parts 2 and 3 of this series, but for right now, I’m just going to let you put them there. I see why you look at the horrible suffering you and other people have experienced, and then doubt God’s love for you.

Oh, but you must look at the other side of the scale before you make up your mind, my friend! Behold! A place of eternal happiness, a place where God wipes away all of your tears, a place where God lets you drink from a river of water of life clear as crystal, and eat from the tree of life. This is a place, my friend, that is beyond the capacity of mortal tongue to describe.

I already admitted in Part 3 that I don’t have a satisfying, specific explanation of God’s position on every instance of trauma that you have gone through…but when it comes to your major life decisions, when it comes to where you place your trust, when it comes to where you run to when your life is falling apart, shouldn’t you choose based on the relative weight of the evidence, my dear friend?

[Rom 8:18 KJV] 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] NOT WORTHY [TO BE COMPARED] with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Dear child of God, this love doesn’t just outweigh your sufferings….it obliterates the scale!

Joy now or shame later?

I know…you can look at all the suffering in the world, and in your own life, and conclude that God is not good, or not strong enough to prevent all the suffering that’s going on. And you can turn away from him for the rest of your life.

But how embarrassed are you going to be, dear child of God, if one day, Jesus Christ comes back with His mighty angels, throws all the evil people and angels in a lake of fire, and then replaces all the temporary suffering and pain you have ever known with an indescribably perfect and eternal paradise?

[1Jo 2:28 KJV] 28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ASHAMED before him at his coming.

You can rejoice, today, in the breathtaking promises that God has made to you, or you can reject it and be majorly embarrassed later!

Heaven is for the Children

I’m suggesting to you, my dear friends, that heaven should be a huge factor in what we ultimately do with the Problem of Evil. In the final analysis, I have to conclude God loves us, given his promises of eternal paradise, even if I don’t have the specific reasons for every instance of earthly suffering.

Logically, God must love the people that go to heaven…but if I stopped there, I would be selling God’s love short. 

You see, I believe that God’s love is a lot broader than you may have been told. I don’t just want to prove His love today…I want to talk for a little bit about the big, grand, beautiful scope of His love.

You may have been told that only people who hear and believe the Christian gospel, and repent of their sins, and forgive other people (and…and…and…) can go to heaven, but this one little verse says something very different about God’s family:

[1Jo 4:7 KJV] 7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and EVERY ONE THAT LOVETH IS BORN OF GOD , and knoweth God.

Notice two things about this verse: It mentions one single characteristic, not a long to-do list: Every one that loveth. Just one descriptor: loving one another. Secondly, it is not presented as a pathway into heaven! Rather, it is cited as evidence that you are already part of God’s family.

So, heaven-bound people are scattered all over this world, and all across the ages. Who are they? People who love one another. They are God’s family….whether they ever heard of Jesus or not. I went into extreme Biblical detail on this topic in a previous series of posts (1).

So, God doesn’t just love…He loves freely, broadly, expansively. He loves across racial, gender, national, and religious lines. This isn’t just any old love, my friends…this is amazing love! It doesn’t just push back against the Problem of Evil…it sets it on fire, smashes it in a hydraulic press, and then ejects the little pieces out of the back of an interstellar rocket!

The Gordian knot

But atheists ask….and I can’t blame them: How could God love someone in hell??

Good Christian people will try very hard to explain how God could do this. It’s the ultimate Problem of Evil!

Friends, I have a very simple solution to offer you: God doesn’t love people in hell.

In fact, He never did. I went into more detail on this question in (2), so I won’t rehash it all here. For now, look over this passage and ask yourself….does it sound like God loves those people or not? 

[2Th 1:7-9 KJV] 7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

I think there is only one logical answer. And based on that answer, I contend there is no Problem of Evil here.

One last why

God doesn’t love the damned. You might agree, but still ask me….WHY does He put up with us, His children, suffering at their wicked hands? Well, I covered this in (2) as well, but I thought it important enough to recap here, since this is a series on the Problem of Evil:

[Rom 9:22 KJV] 22 [What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

God wants to show His wrath against evil people. So, yes, God could immediately exterminate all wicked people before they are even born…but then His show of wrath and power against them on Judgment Day might not make as much sense, would it?

On that great and terrible day, that day when earth and heaven will flee from the face of the One on the great white throne (Revelations 20:11), the rape victims will be satisfied. The millions who died in concentration camps, children who were tortured and abused, and all other victims of the rotten, entirely evil monsters of this world will affirm without question that justice has been served.

So, this is a Biblical Why for our suffering, in addition to the ones I discussed in Parts 2 and 3 of this series. It is probably the last one I will discuss in this series. Now, if you still think it’s unloving of God to put up with the miscreants of this world for so long, I hear you…but I would ask you to consider these thoughts (3) and get back to me.

Would an uncaring God create an eternal paradise for you?

If we carefully consider the evidence on both sides, my friends, there shouldn’t be any contest. Even if we can’t answer all important questions about our suffering, the evidence for God’s love for us is clear when we consider eternity.

Don’t spend the rest of your life in analysis paralysis, my friend. The promise of eternal life should be a clear indicator that He loves us! So, let us all stand on these promises together, and make our daily life decisions accordingly. You will be glad you did.

God willing, for next time: I saved the best for last, hehe.

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Links:

1: Series on John 3:16

2: God doesn’t love the damned

3: A piano contest with God?