Recently listened to "The Pain of the World and the Purposes of God" from John Piper. Here's a general outline of his main points (a link to the sermon can be found above.
Why do we have a world that’s full of pain and suffering?
- God has ordained in his mercy that sometimes very unbelieving people wake up to his reality because of pain, not because of it’s absence.
2 Answers that are wrong as to why there is evil in the world:
- God isn’t in control
- God is in control. Whatever he permits or causes he does so by design.
- God is evil
- God is light, in him there is no darkness at all
- “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord Almighty”
4 Correct Answers to why calamities exist::
- The reason calamities exists because God planned a history of redemption (before the world existed). And according to that plan permitted sin to enter into the world so that then there could be a history of mersible redemption from sin.
- God gave us grace, in Christ, before the world began through the crucifixion of Christ. For that to be true, there had to be sin.
- “It is not sin to will that sin be…It is not sin for God to will that sin happen.”
- God subjected the natural world to futility...God put the natural world under a curse so that the physical horrors of that corruption (disease and death) would become a vivid picture, parable, of the horrors of moral evil, sin. In other words, natural evil exists in the world as a sign post, a parable, of the horrors of moral evil.
- Adam, in the garden, hit God with his heart: “I don’t trust you any more, I’m going to do this myself.”
- So that the followers of Jesus Christ would be able to experience and display the profound God-honoring truth that Christ is more precious to us than anything we could lose in this world.
- To make a place for Jesus Christ to suffer and die. If this world didn’t exist, Jesus wouldn’t have a place to suffer and die. “
- The reason there is terror is so that Christ can be terrorized. The reason there is trouble is so that Christ could be troubled. The reason there is pain is so that Christ could feel pain. This world became what it is so that Christ could enter it and feel all of it.”
There are two points that I wanted to call special attention to.
"It is not a sin to will that sin be....It is not sin for God to will that sin happen" - I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Did God will for sin to happen? Piper was making the point that for grace to happen, Christ would've needed to suffer on the cross, and according to 2 Timothy, grace was given to "us in Christ Jesus before the ages began", therefore sin was willed. I'm not sure I agree with this necessarily, but it's something to think about. Perhaps God has allowed sin to happen so that grace can happen, but then you have to ask why allow it at all? Why do we need to experience grace. Why not prevent sin? I think Piper brings that up in the other point I wanted to draw attention to.
"God subjected the natural world to futility...God put the natural world under a curse so that the physical horrors of that corruption, disease and death, would become a vivid picture, parable, of the horrors of moral evil, sin. In other words, natural evil exists in the world as a sign post, a parable, of the horrors of moral evil." This is perhaps my favorite quote from the entire sermon. It's not enough for us to be told something is wrong or harmful, especially when the effects can't be seen, and that's exactly how it unrighteousness, unholiness, is, damaging to the soul and our union with God. To make that clear, we have been given very real and visible consequences to sin, to our disobedience to God. And once we have seen those consequences, we ought to draw closer to God; we ought to find ourselves wanting to stay away from sin. Sin may look appealing, but seeing the consequences, grace should look that much more. Creation was unwillingly subjected to such consequences by Him who willed it (God), in the hope, the anticipation, that it would be set free, through Christ and the cross.
"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." - Romans 8:20-21
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