“God, are You sad at the state of the world?” “Why is there so much evil in the world, and why don’t You stop it?” “Why do good, kind people suffer, and why do evil people seem to prosper?” “Why have You allowed evil to exist and persist from the beginning of humanity?” “Where are You in our trials and tribulations?”

These questions and many similar ones come to us from hurting and puzzled people who wonder why God appears to be silent to never-ending human pain.

Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered too. He, as God in the flesh, underwent horrific beating and pain before breathing His last. What was the purpose in that? We hear how Jesus suffered for us. What then does His suffering have to do with our suffering?

Could God have made a world without evil by just taking away our ability to commit wickedness? Wouldn’t it have been easy for Him to have simply said, “I’m going to make you all marionettes —I’ll pull the strings, and everybody will do only what is right and good”?Wouldn’t that be better for everyone than what we have now?

Suffering and evil affect every one of us at different intensities. Some of you have gone through torturous physical and mental trials over the past year. Does a loving God use evil and suffering to accomplish a greater good? And if so, how? We need an explanation. We need a sensible explanation with a comforting hug.

To give fuller context to the human experience, let’s start with the end of man’s journey, the future culmination described by the apostle Paul in Romans 8:18-24 (English Standard Version):

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to [or into] us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 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 decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons [or full status of sonship], the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (emphasis added throughout).

Various reasons are given about suffering’s place in the human experience. Is it to build character? The result of cause and effect? Punishment? Testing? Time and chance? To learn compassion or empathy? To become stronger—no pain, no gain? Just God’s random will for whatever or unknown reasons—with some severely suffering, and others not so much? To induce repentance?

Let’s go beyond these common reasons for suffering and ask: Where is God in all the pain? This question is a primary one for all religions and philosophers. Where can we turn for the best answers to why suffering and evil exist? Who has the truth? What is the truth?

While we seek an all-encompassing answer for all mankind, we also want a personal answer for our pain, suffering, injustice, hurt, anger, disappointments, tragedies and catastrophes.

Back to the beginning

We’ve seen the end of the story, but now let’s go back to the beginning of the human experience.

The clues and answers about why evil and suffering exist emerge in the Garden of Eden shortly after the creation of man. But actually the story starts long before. And God clearly shows that He has not walked away from us but has actually been very much with us, as He was to lose His own Son in this saga. He has not been silent. He has spoken loudly and frequently to us through His Word and still does, remaining very much with us.

From the first verses of the Bible describing God’s creation we see that everything God created was good and very good (see Genesis 1:3-4, Genesis 1:10, Genesis 1:17-18, Genesis 1:31). God gave Adam and Eve access to everything in the Garden of Eden, including the tree of life. Man was encouraged to eat from this tree—its name suggesting that life would be perpetuated through eating its fruit.

But there was another tree in the garden with dire warnings attached to it. God declared to Adam and Eve: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). This is the first mention of death in the Bible.

God said that if they ate from this tree they wouldn’t be the same. They’d have an altered perspective. They’d suffer and finally die. Don’t do it! the Lord instructed them. Choose life! But God was not going to force them. That would not even have been a choice. Instead, He warned them of consequences the wrong choice would bring.

But here another figure entered the scene—the serpent tempting Eve into eating of the forbidden fruit, with her husband then following along. And so evil was introduced into man’s world.

Yet this was not the actual beginning of evil. So where did evil come from? Did God create it? No, evil is whatever is contrary to God and His way. It originated not with God, but with the wrong choice of a spirit being God made—a powerful archangel.

God recounts what happened in Ezekiel 28, declaring to this spirit being: “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God . . . You were the anointed cherub who covers [an angel stationed right at God’s throne] . . .

“You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you . . . You became filled with violence within, and you sinned . . . Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor” (Ezekiel 28:12-17). “Therefore,” God says, “I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God” (Ezekiel 28:16).

More is told in Isaiah 14: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High’” (Isaiah 1412-14).

This being, here called Lucifer, was an embittered angel who envied and desired God’s position and in his rebellion caused as much collateral damage as he could. He became Satan, a Hebrew term that means “Adversary,” and was cast down to the earth—along with a third of the angels who had joined his rebellion (Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:4). Satan’s way, the way of evil, was that of self-exaltation, in opposition to God’s way of outflowing love and concern.

The world led astray

It was Satan who appeared in the garden to now lead humankind astray. And mankind chose to follow him and his errant ways.

God had presented a choice to Adam and Eve and clearly outlined the outcome of each option. But man made the wrong choice. Eve was duped by Satan (as the serpent) into desiring and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve both disobeyed, deciding with free will to eat of this forbidden tree. As a consequence of rejecting God’s reign over their lives, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden and thrust into an opposing kingdom, the kingdom of Satan. This was not a “neutral” position.

And Satan has remained as “the ruler of this world” and “god of this age” (John 12:31; John 14:30; John 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4). This is his world, his environment, reflecting his violence and instability. In terms of human society this is not God’s world.

Satan the devil is the author of destruction, deception and genocide. He hates mankind. He hates you and me. It galls him that we are alive! Our prayers daily are to include a plea to “deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). And it is our duty as Christians to resist the devil and his attitudes permeating the world around us (see James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9).

The apostle Paul speaks of God leading us out of worldly ways in these terms: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

In 1 John 2:15 we’re told, “Do not love the world or the things in the world,” referring to its selfish desires and ways (1 John 2:16; compare James 4:4). The world certainly does not love those who follow God (John 15:18-19). Indeed, “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19).

This sad condition goes back to the sin of Adam and Eve. But God was not caught unaware by their big mistake in following Satan. His plan had not been thwarted. Rather, God determined well before the creation of man to redeem man from sin and its consequences—“with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb . . . foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:18-20). This was part of the plan all along.

But why would God allow all this?

The need for free will

One of the foremost objections to the Christian faith is: How could there be a loving God who permits so much pain, suffering and evil in the world?

Many people think God being all-powerful means He could do anything He wants to do. But the Bible is very clear that there are some things God can’t and won’t do.

For instance, it’s impossible for God to lie or break a promise (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18; Psalm 89:34). This is intrinsic to His nature. In fact, God is love (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16). This quality of outflowing care defines His identity. God cannot be evil or hateful.

But human beings can think and act for good or bad. With the moral freedom we’ve been given, there’s a possibility for abundant good, but there’s also the possibility for abundant evil—particularly under the influence of a powerful evil spirit, as has been the case since the Garden of Eden.

Having created human beings with the power of free choice, God can discern what they’re going to do, but He can’t make people do what they’re going to do in an ultimate sense. Otherwise they’re not really free. Evil entered the world when people freely chose to not do the right thing and to instead do the wrong thing.

God wanted those made in His image to freely choose to love Him and love others. You cannot love someone unless you have the choice to not love him. Love is a choice, a function of free will.

The sort of love people can give to God and one another depends on them being able to do it willingly from the bottom of their hearts without being forced. As soon as it’s coerced, it’s not love.

So we see in this something else God cannot do. He cannot instantly create loving beings—beings of free will with the choice to love and do right and stay that way. Genuine love and righteous character can only be developed over time—and only through allowing ongoing choice.

Of course, that of necessity also allows for consequential bad choices and all the evil we see. But what God desired was worth it. It was a good thing for God to create human beings with free will, allowing others to express sincere love not only to God but also to each other in the closest of human relationships.

Sci-fi utopias in contrast

Science fiction offers stories of futuristic utopian societies that have eradicated suffering through technology, curing disease, ending war and poverty, controlling accidents, sometimes even conquering death by artificial immortality. But the societies in these stories prove to be colossal frauds—apparently happy but experiencing deep failure, seemingly humane but really heartless. The elimination of suffering turns out to be the elimination of humanness. These utopian societies become dystopian, denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.

(Don’t get me wrong—there will yet be a truly perfect society, but not one brought about by man. Instead, God will ultimately establish His Kingdom over all nations, at last bringing true peace and joy to the world. This will be unlike any sci-fi vision.)

One of the most famous science fiction utopias is that of the 1931 book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, ranked fifth on a list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

The story’s setting is London in the year 2540. The publisher describes it as “a streamlined, soulless Eden” where there is no suffering. On the surface everyone is happy through endless combinations of mindless games, the wonder drug soma and free sex. Fundamental human relationships such as families and motherhood are relics of the past. All sources of suffering have been eliminated.

The characters in the book are happy because they’re not really human. The only truly human character in the story maintains his humanity only by suffering—and since suffering is no longer possible in this new society in which he unexpectedly finds himself, he ultimately takes his own life.

What’s missing in these imaginary societies is not just suffering but the freedom of choice for everyone that could lead to suffering—or, on the other hand, to truly positive results. Free will is both the source of and the solution to human suffering.

God became man—to suffer and die and lead many to glory

We should further realize that all the suffering God has allowed will, in His plan, work toward a good outcome for those who ultimately choose to follow God (compare Romans 8:28).

And the supreme demonstration of God’s use of suffering and evil for good is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The most inconceivable event in all of history is when the timeless, eternal Word of life left the spirit realm to become a human being. He came into the world to which Adam and Eve were exiled, the kingdom of Satan, to perform His mission.

We read of this in John 1, some of the most eloquent words in Scripture: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (verses 1-14).

This One who had been God with the Father, the “I AM” who spoke in the Old Testament (John 8:58; Exodus 3:14), came to earth as a man to die (Philippians 2:5-8).

It was hard for the Jews of His day and even His own disciples to understand this. Even the devil must have pondered why Jesus would make Himself vulnerable as flesh and enter the world of his dominion, the world of death.

Christ faced the greatest ignominy of a Roman execution. Invented a few centuries before Jesus, crucifixion was so horrific that Roman citizens were not permitted to be crucified.

The worst thing that ever happened in history was the suffering and death of God. Could God the Father have stopped it? Of course. But He allowed the devil to influence Judas Iscariot, Caiaphas, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate and others to bring about the worst event in the history of the world. In fact, this was God’s plan all along.  

Jesus Christ endured great emotional and spiritual agony as He experienced the consequences of the actual sin of the world, feeling betrayal, injustice, isolation and unimaginable torment.

But the horrific misery inflicted on Him was redeemed by an all-wise, all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God. It was used for the greatest goodness imaginable—reconciliation and justification leading to the salvation of mankind!

Jesus’ suffering and death was not the end. He would rise from the grave, victorious over death to return to the Father and then live in us to make of us a new creation—to ultimately lead us into resurrection to eternal life as well. Jesus went through all this “in bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). This is why we have hope!

Jesus has thus led the way for us. And here we get closer to answering the questions at the outset as to why we must suffer and where we find peace and relief.

God totally gets it

But again, we want more than a cerebral, mechanical, clinical explanation. We want comfort. And “the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3) gives us that, and even more.

In John 14, 15 and 16 Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit sent from God with a term John recorded in Greek as parakletos. The same word is used of Jesus Himself in 1 John 2:1. It means an advocate, one who pleads our cause, a comforter, a helper, an encourager. It’s the comfort that enables a man to pass the breaking point and not break. It exhorts us to noble deeds and high thoughts.

Help in understanding our suffering and bearing through it indeed lies in the once-for-all catastrophic event of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. God reached into our space, time and wounds. We needed more than a pep talk. The Father sent His companion from eternity as His only begotten Son. This divine Word gave Himself. He came in love seeking a relationship with us.

God did not gloss over our sins and our suffering. He came into it, like a surgeon, to cut it all out. Like a garbage man, He takes away our trash, which is sin. He indeed could feel our pain, whether it be sickness, abandonment or injury.

Jesus encouraged His disciples on the eve of His sacrifice: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, New International Version). He beat it!

Jesus acknowledges that because of what mankind has done in opening the door to evil in this world, we have pain and suffering. It’s become an inevitable part of life, and yet He tells us that He has overcome and beaten the world. And consider that God’s answer to the problem of suffering not only happened at Christ’s crucifixion, but the answer is still occurring in our lives now.

Christ has empathy for us because He went through it and has suffered. We, too, can have empathy for others.

Do we cry with emotional and physical pain? Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Are we cast aside? Christ was despised and rejected of men. Have we been misunderstood, betrayed, broken? Christ experienced all these.

In the kingdom of Satan, Christ has been to Rwanda, Auschwitz, Syria, Stalingrad, abortion clinics and countless other places of crisis and tragedy over the entire history of man on this planet. But He will turn it to victory! That was God’s plan from before the creation of man.

In God becoming human, He descends into the whole of the human condition.

Does He descend into the depths of our hells? Yes. Corrie ten Boom of the Netherlands recalled the words of her sister Betsie in the depths of a Nazi death camp: “There is no pit so deep that the love of God is not deeper still” (The Hiding Place, 1974, p. 118).

There’s a kinship in knowing that God “totally gets it” regarding our pain. He’s been there. He doesn’t just have it figured out logically and clinically. He has personally entered into the experience of mankind and really knows how we feel. He truly understands. And He shows us the way forward.

Solving the problem of suffering

In summary, Jesus came into the human condition. He suffered with us. He showed the gravity of mankind’s sins in what He went through—for sin brings not just death but misery. Thus His suffering and death paid the price for sin. And in this He also showed the awesome love of God in what God was willing to go through to save us—encouraging us to trust Him and cast all our cares on Him.

Further, after suffering and dying, Jesus rose again. In this way He opened eternal life for us, transforming death from an end into a beginning—turning death pangs to birth pangs.

In becoming flesh as one of us, Jesus made our suffering part of His work of our redemption and salvation. Again, our trials and death pangs become birth pangs for eternity. We are being prepared for a new nature.

This amazing sacrificial death is summarized in one of the most quoted of all scriptures: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

We must keep this future fixed firmly in our minds, just as Jesus did, to endure (Hebrews 12:2).

The Christian response to the problem of evil and suffering was perhaps best summarized by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:8-17:

“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment [in comparison to what follows], is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

The Word of God helps us understand this problem of evil and suffering as followers of Christ—that God can cause all these things to work for good in our lives.  

As we look back on our own trials and resultant sufferings, even severe crises with our families, work and health, we can say that there were lessons that have given us a valuable perspective about ourselves and our relationship to those around. We become different people from what we would have been if we had not gone through these things. These momentary, light afflictionsare producing for us the eternal weight of glory.

The story that started in the Garden of Eden makes full circle to a return to Eden and the tree of life with the coming down of the New Jerusalem in the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21-22.

And here in Revelation 21:3-4 we at last see an end to all suffering, as a loud voice out of heaven announces: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”