If you are reading this post having recently experienced tragedy, please stop reading. What follows is truth from God’s Word, but if you are processing pain from tragedy, this post is for another time.
I live and teach in Nashville, Tennessee. In the last few days, I have held students while they cried, asked counselors for backup so I can remain with the other students in my classes, watched the shrapnel of broken, destroyed lives from an evil deed, and witnessed believers come together to weep, care for others, and praise God. As I sat with my students this week while they processed and grieved the tragedy of murders at a school, a resounding question was “Why does God allow evil?”
There are five places I know of in God’s Word where he talks about his sovereignty over evil – Genesis 50, Exodus 9, Acts 4, Matthew 13, and Romans 9. Before jumping into these passages, let us remember why evil is present in the world in the first place. Evil is in the world because of Satan, God’s enemy (Gen. 3, Matt. 13:28). The enemy sows evil in the world (Matt. 13:28) through “weeds” or unredeemed people (as explained in The Parable of the Weeds in Matt. 13).1
Understanding what God speaks about why evil is in his world is important because it frames our human perspective with his heavenly, all-knowing perspective. There is no other way to live but to allow God’s thoughts to steer and guide our own. We know God is good, trustworthy, not the author of evil, and continues in his steadfast love for his children, but how do we make sense of the evil he allows in the world? What is God doing when he allows suffering, trials, tribulation, and evil to affect his people? If you are a Christian, I want you to hear God’s answer, anchor into his truth, and see the broken world around you as purposeful and not pointless. He is doing something. Let’s look at what that is.
Genesis 50: God will use evil to produce good
Most of us are familiar with Joseph’s story. Joseph was the second youngest of Jacob’s sons. Before Benjamin the youngest brother was born, Joseph endured abuse from his older brothers who were jealous of their father’s favoritism towards Joseph. They conspired to kill Joseph, ended up throwing him in a cistern, and then sold him to the Ishmaelites, who in turn took him to Egypt. In Egypt, Joseph was thrown into prison because the wife of Potiphar (a captain of Pharaoh’s guard) wrongly accused him of rape. The Lord was with Joseph while he was in prison (Gen. 39:21, 23). Through his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph ended up second in command in Egypt. Years passed and Joseph was reunited with his brothers because they traveled to Egypt for grain since there was a famine in Canaan. After Jacob’s death, Joseph’s brothers asked (possibly guilted) him for forgiveness. When Joseph forgives his older brothers, he gives them (and us) eternal perspective. He told them what they meant for evil against him, God meant for good (Ex. 50:20). What good?
The good God accomplished in Joseph’s life was he used all the bad and what his brothers meant for evil to move Joseph into a position where he ended up saving numerous lives over a span of seven years. Joseph was responsible for feeding people and keeping them alive during a severe seven year famine. Pharaoh had a dream prior to the famine. Joseph interpreted the dream as a warning of a coming famine, and it led him to store one-fifth of the produce of Egypt’s land for seven years (Gen. 41). It was that stored grain gathered for seven years which resulted in “all the earth [coming] to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth” (Gen. 41:57). Joseph was relationally starved for years from the evil he endured, yet God used it for good so Joseph could feed the world.
We see in this story that good comes from evil because God can and will redeem evil acts when it comes to his people. What else does God show us in his Word about why he allows evil?
Exodus 9: God shows his power and his name is proclaimed in the midst of evil
In the Exodus story at the time of the seventh plague, God tells Moses to speak these words to Pharaoh,
For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Exodus 9:14-16
Paul references this Old Testament passage in Romans 9:17. He writes, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’”
In these two passages, we see it is God who placed Pharaoh as king over Egypt. God raised Pharaoh up so God’s power, not Pharaoh’s, would be shown and so his name, not any other name, would be proclaimed in all the earth. Throughout history, God has allowed evil people to do evil acts. In the midst of the evil, he is made known. Somehow through the evil, his power is shown and his name is proclaimed throughout the earth. I have witnessed this in these past days in Nashville and at other points in my life when evil strikes. Believers gather. They proclaim God’s name. They put their trust in him. Prayer vigils happen. Worship nights occur. The community of believers rise and move into faith based action being the hands and feet of Christ to those in need. And all of this happens, not because evil caused itself to rise to position, but because God allowed evil to be in position.
We see another statement about God placing evil in position in the book of Acts.
Acts 4: God is sovereign over evil
Peter and John report in Acts 4:27-28, “For truly in [Jerusalem] there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”
Like Pharaoh, Herod and Pontinus Pilate were positioned in history by God for his purposes. They were not the reason Jesus died. Herod’s and Pontius Pilate’s evil was used by God to accomplish what he knew would take place before the foundation of the world – the death of his Son – because that was God’s eternal decree. Jesus did not go to the cross because of mankind. He went to the cross for mankind. Jesus laid down his own life, no one took it from him (John 10:17-18), and this was the plan of the Triune God before he brought one day into existence.
Life is not a long game of chess with God where evil makes a move then God makes a counter move. God has known every move from the beginning. He is not only omniscient but omnipotent, the Alpha, the Omega, supreme, and sovereign. God is not making up his plan as the world turns. The triune God knew every detail of his plan from eternity past even that God the Son would lay down his life. From God’s perspective the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), which means evil was defeated before one day came into existence.
God self-attests in Scripture that he knows all things, even evil. If he did not, he would not be God.
From the human perspective, it appeared in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’s death and it appears now in Nashville as if evil won. But God makes the heavenly perspective clear in Scripture. He is sovereign even over evil. Nothing can or will happen outside of his jurisdiction.
Believers have great hope in the truth that evil has already been defeated, but why do we still have to contend with it?
Matthew 13: God is leaving the weeds until the harvest
In a parable about weeds, Jesus teaches his disciples and us that he is leaving evil until his return. It is what he says about why he is leaving evil until then that is mind blowing.
Before reading the parable, let’s look first at the meaning of each component in the story. Jesus’s disciples ask him to explain the parable of the weeds of the field, and this is what he says in Matthew 13:37-43:
- He is the sower of the good seed
- The good seed is the sons of the kingdom (believers)
- The field is the world
- The weeds are the sons of the evil one (non-believers)
- The enemy who sowed the non-believers is the devil
- The harvest is the end of the age we now live in (because he will have returned)
- The reapers are angels
- The weeds will be gathered by God’s angels and burned with fire (cast into hell)
Now, read The Parable of the Weeds knowing Jesus’s explanation.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
Matthew 13:24-30
God’s enemy sowed evil in the world. When God is asked within the parable, “Do you want us to go and gather the weeds,” he answers, “No.” He tells us that if the weeds, the evil and the evil doers, are gathered now it would uproot the wheat, his people. The two are to grow together until his return. God’s people are somehow edified through the weeds living alongside of them (see also John 11:14-15). He is doing something beyond what the human eye can see. He is making his Bride radiant (Eph. 5:25-27).
In The Parable of the Weeds, we are getting the story of Christ’s return when he comes back for his Bride, and we’re seeing the event through the lens of Judgment Day (not the Rapture). As Scripture interprets Scripture, it is my understanding (and I could be wrong) that:
- Believers will be raptured at Christ’s return (Matt. 24:29-31, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, 1 Cor. 15:50-53)
- As the weeds face God’s wrath and judgment (Rev. 11:15-19, Matt. 13:40)
- And then are extracted out of God’s kingdom by his angels and cast forever in hell (Matt. 13:41-42)
- While the wheat will be gathered into his barn (Matt 13:30), where they, the righteous, will shine like the sun in God’s completed, perfected Kingdom (Matt. 13:43).
Believers await, fight, and work out their salvation until that glorious day when Christ will return. We are not there yet, and until that day, he will be doing work in the lives of his people. All of the work, even the work of evil that is not his, he will use. It is for the sake of his people, to root his people in him, and to make known the riches of his glory for those who are his.
Romans 9: God is making known the riches of his glory to his people
Romans 9:21-23 reiterates what The Parable of the Weeds teaches. In the midst of evil, God is doing something in the lives of his people.
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”
Romans 9:21-23
All people are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). We are one race coming from the same lump of clay. God, the potter, has redeemed some from the clay. Praise God! He did not have make any vessels for honorable use, but he chose to. It is stated again in this passage that to make known his power, he has endured the vessels of wrath, the weeds, in order to make known the richness of his glory. And the verse does not end there. It is for his people, the ones he has shown mercy!
I am not claiming how God works makes complete sense to me, but I do know what he has spoken about evil in this world. He is making his name and power known, and he is remaining faithful to sanctify his people. He who has ears, let him hear (Matt. 13:43).
God is good. He is not the author of evil nor is he for evil, but he is allowing it for a time. Why is there evil in the world? “An enemy has done this” (Matt. 13:28), yet that enemy, who has to ask God for permission to wreak havoc (Job 2), does not have the final say. The cross, where the Lamb had been slain from before the world came into existence, has the final word. Christ is the greater Joseph who feeds the world forever and not with grain but with his own body and sacrifice. Christ’s name continues to be proclaimed in all the earth and no Pharaoh, Herod, Pontius Pilate, or anyone against him throughout history will stop the proclamation of his name. Christ’s death made it possible for good seed to be sown in the world. Without his blood, the entire lump of clay would all be vessels of wrath. And because of his resurrection, the slain Lamb is the conquering Lion who is returning, and at his return, the angels will reap the weeds. The evil God uses now will be uprooted and used no more because the great Dragon, that ancient serpent of old, who is now chained will be forever obliterated, and Christ’s Bride will shine like the sun in her Bridegroom’s kingdom. Pray with me for that day to come!
1Every human is born into sin because Adam, humanity’s representative head, listened to Satan, disobeyed God, and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Satan tempted Adam, and Adam chose to sin. Through Adam, sin came into the world (Gen. 3, Rom. 5:12-21). Since Adam was a pattern of the One who would come to redeem the world (Rom. 5:14), it is on Adam’s representation that Christ can represent believers united to him. This is an important truth because it means believers are covered by the blood of Christ, their new representative. Christ took on God’s wrath for believers and his righteousness is imputed to them (Rom. 5:16-19, 1 Cor. 1:30, 2 Cor. 5:21, Phil. 3:9). Believers still sin, yes, but they are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 6:15, Eph. 4:23-24, Col. 3:10).