Why did God allow suffering?

But the Bible goes to the root of the matter and gives us the cause of man's inhumanity. He is not as God made him. He has broken away from God's rule, and proclaimed his independence of God, as a star might break away from its orbit. And this determination to be master of his own destiny is the cause of every sorrow and calamity. "Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin," and the terrible consequences of that first disobedience the whole race by nature has willingly endorsed.

He suggested that we should not blame God for sufferings (which is right); then he goes on to say that God is good, but that He cannot help it when evil happens to His people (which, of course, is a wrong thesis)… God not only allows adverse circumstances, He is even in full control and uses them to form believers in His school (Rom. 5:3-5; James 1:3). His ways ultimately and surely lead to the fulfilment of His purpose, that we should be conformed to Christ… Why do we have sufferings? Is it not also to make us realise that we are living in a world which is in direct opposition to God's will?

Man likes to see people punished when they deserve it. It is natural to the heart. There is something in our nature which, when one is not actually suffering or dreading it, likes to find some reason why another should be punished if he does suffer. This was at work in the three friends. But the book of Job is intended to show that they were all wrong in their application of this truth. Not that there will not be perfect retribution when the time comes… but that it is only partial now.

Yes, God in infinite and tender goodness can, and does, bring His children through sorrow and suffering. He did it with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David and others, and He is doing it today. He may chasten for sin, as corrective, or He may discipline the soul as seeing danger ahead, which surely is preventive, and, as in the case of Job, He may put us through a good deal of trial, that we may learn ourselves, and enter better into the knowledge of Him — which is surely promotive.

Pride and stoical resistance to sorrow will not do. That does not draw the soul to God, but effectively and especially keeps it from Him… Sorrow, when it is complete and helpless, gives intimacy with Him who is willing and able to help.

God does not say, "Stay in sorrow till I bring you into a condition where there is no sorrow," by and by, but comes down into the sorrow; but His love is found where the lack of it is so much felt.

The mystery of evil being thus suffered we accept — we do not explain it, or suppose it possible to be explained. As a fact, we know it is, and know too that God is, and that He is against the evil… Scripture gives us, not an explanation, but such a revelation of God Himself, and in view of it, that we can have perfect faith in Him, and leave it unexplained. The cross has glorified Him in every attribute… while it demonstrates that mere power could not deal with evil; the victory must be that of goodness, and in suffering.

God rests at last… God had gone to the source of all that brought in sorrow, and swept it away in the judgment of the Cross. The former things were passed away. The God who had had to drive out the man and woman in tears from the Eden He had made for unfallen creatures is able to meet us on the threshold of a new heaven and a new earth as the One who wipes away all tears from our eyes.