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London:
Man may not fully understand the mystery of evil but can
rejoice nonetheless in anticipation of its ultimate
destruction through the cross and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, said the international director of Langham
Partnership at the Christian Resources Exhibition on
Wednesday.
In an address on the existence of suffering and evil in
the world, Dr Chris Wright said that humans had to
accept some of the responsibility where they were caused
by man’s sin.
“A vast amount of the evil and suffering in the world
actually is not in itself a mystery,” he said. “It can
be explained in relation to our human sin, our folly,
our stupidity, either directly or often indirectly,
causing other people to suffer pain.”
He acknowledged, however, that Christians struggle to
answer the question of where evil actually comes from.
“When you come to this point where you say ‘Where did
evil come from?’ and you get silence, it seems to me
that that’s a significant silence, that God has chosen
not to answer that question in his wisdom and for his
own reason,” he said.
Dr Wright contended that while it was instinctive to try
to make sense of evil and suffering in the world, the
Bible instead compelled humans to accept the
“unanswerable nature” of evil.
“In other words we understand that we cannot understand.
And I want to say I think that’s ok. And more than ok, I
actually want to suggest to you that that’s a good
thing,” he said.
“Evil is there to be resisted, not to be understood. God
has withheld it from our understanding because it is
not, like everything else we encounter, a part of his
universe that has that sense of rational legitimacy and
justification.
“And it is therefore an enemy to be destroyed, not
simply a part of the universe to be understood and
explained.”
Dr Wright went on to reject the idea, popular among some
Christians, that natural disasters like Hurricane
Katrina or the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 were God’s
curse and judgement on man for sin.
While he acknowledged that the sinful destruction and
pollution of God’s creation could prompt creation to
“fight back”, he said it was a “curious kind of logic
that sees direct divine action in such a situation”,
pointing to Luke 13 in which Jesus said that Jews killed
by Pilate and the victims of a collapsed tower did not
perish because they were more sinful than others.
Instead, Dr Wright encouraged Christians to protest and
lament to God about the presence of evil in the world.
“It seems to me that what we are missing here especially
as evangelical Christians is familiarity with and a
willingness to use the whole tradition within the
Scriptures of lament and protest,” he said.
“The Bible allows and encourages us to protest,
complain, lament, be angry, because evil is offensive,
it is evil, and therefore we need to tell God so. And in
telling God that we struggle with it, that we are angry
about it, we are reflecting something of God’s own
emotions.”
Drawing on the Old Testament story of Joseph who was
sold by his brothers, Dr Wright said that Christians
could rejoice in the ultimate defeat of evil through the
cross and God’s ability to turn evil into good.
“At the cross what we see is the worst evil that humans
can do under the sovereignty of God, becoming the
ultimate good which is the salvation and forgiveness of
sin,” he said.
“It is the crucified Christ who governs history. Not
just who saved us from sin so we can go to Heaven when
we die, but it is the crucified Christ who is also the
reigning Christ in history.”
Dr Wright concluded by assuring Christians that evil
would be destroyed by God and a new creation achieved
through the cross of Jesus Christ.
“That’s why when we pray the prayer in the Lord’s
Prayer, ‘Deliver us from evil’, that is a prayer that
God will finally answer,” he said.
“The reality is that God will deliver us from evil when
the other part of that prayer is finally fulfilled, when
we pray ‘Your Kingdom come on earth as in heaven’.
“When the kingdoms of this world have become the
kingdoms of our God and His Christ, and when the
dwelling place of God is with humanity here in a
redeemed creation, then God will have answered that
prayer and evil and suffering and sin will be no more.
“That is the destiny to which we head and that is what
leads us to rejoice in Christ.” |
