Why does suffering exist in Christianity?

The Bible alone accounts for the presence of evil, and its resultant misery and death. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. It is a righteous thing that misery and death, with all their concomitant evils, should be the lot of man — the righteous dealings of a just and holy God with rebels; and, while sin remains, righteousness demands that all these evils — the fruit of sin — should also remain. Even God's saints, while here in the body, are exposed to the sorrows to which humanity is heir. The Lord Jesus Himself submitted, in grace truly, to all the consequences — sin excepted — of taking a place among men and specially the remnant of Israel, a thing wholly distinct from being made sin on the cross. To remove the sufferings while sin is present would be a denial of God's righteous government.

It is safe, then, to affirm that disobedience to God is the secret; and that, but for sin, there would be neither sorrow nor suffering.

“By one man,” we read (Rom. 5:12), “sin entered into the world and death by sin.” And again (Rom. 8:20-22), “the creature was made subject to vanity,” and that “the whole creation (not merely man) groans and travails together in pain until now.”

Suffering comes to us from different quarters and for various reasons, but that which is testing the greatest number now, and causing the most suffering at this time is the war, and many are asking why it should be? Why, if God is good, should there be any war at all? That is a question that calls for an answer. God is good, ten thousand times ten thousand voices bear witness to His goodness, but the world as such has rejected God, and despised the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that His goodness would lead them to repentance (Rom. 2:4) and has chosen to follow Satan, the adversary instead of God. In Eden Adam listened to the voice of Satan and turned his back upon God and by that act of disobedience sin entered into the world and death by sin (Rom. 5:13) and when sin came in, peace spread its wings and flew away. “There is no peace, says the Lord, unto the wicked” (Isa. 48:22). The world has been Satan’s world since that day and “suffering and sweat and tears and blood” are the result, they are part of sin’s foul brood.

In considering the fall of man we are apt to concentrate on the dire consequences for the human race, and to lose sight of what that dreadful event meant for God. The consequences of the entry of sin were certainly enormous, and this is seen as we find almost the whole human race swept away at the flood because of the corruption and violence that filled the old world, and as we see the condition of the world today even where there are the external benefits that have been brought by Christianity. Sin brought with it a guilty and defiled conscience, alienation from God and enmity with Him, the principle of sin in man’s nature, and all the sorrow, suffering and death that fill the world. What man did to the Son of God in putting Him on a malefactor’s cross showed what man in his nature, and in his disposition towards the God who has showed him nought but good.

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. "By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin," and the terrible consequences of that primal disobedience, which the whole race by nature has willingly endorsed, is that, "THEIR MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS: THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD." DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR WAYS: AND THE WAY OF PEACE HAVE THEY NOT KNOWN: THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.

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. “By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin,” and the terrible consequences of that primal disobedience, which the whole race by nature has willingly endorsed, is that,

Adam's fall had very serious consequences not only for himself, but also for the whole human race, even as it is recorded in Romans 5:12, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned". How awful are the ravages of sin, all proceeding from the one sin of Adam and from the guilt of his fallen race. The violence, corruption and falsehood that permeate the world's system can all be traced to Adam's fall. The results of sin caused the Son of God to weep when He stood by the grave of Lazarus. And how great is the grief of God's heart for all that sin has brought into the world He created.

It is not only Scripture which makes known to us that there is sin and misery in the world. There they are, even if Scripture or a Saviour did not exist. The world is a ruin. Man knows well that iniquity and defilement are in him; and nobody is satisfied with his portion here below, because his heart is ill at ease. The word of God explains, as nothing else can, how Satan entered the world, and reveals the consequence of sin in man's relations with God.

This is the result of their apostasy and is its fearful moral consequence. Again, there is the sin of the first man who, whatever may be his own eternal future, has plunged the world in a deep and long-lasting ocean of misery, and involved the whole race in the dread consequences of his transgression. “Death has passed upon all men for that all have sinned.” This awful moral effect we are bitterly proving today. Intervention in mercy as to this judgment there is none “There is no discharge in that war.”

These are what may be termed the outward consequences of sin, which are attached to our present condition of humanity, and which exist in relation to the earth whereon man was when he disobeyed God. But deeper down is the secret cause of these consequences — man having a sinful nature and being alienated from God. The deeper of those sorrows is that which is spiritual. If the painful facts of human woe are looked at in such a way as to exclude the cause of all the harvest of sorrow, then the reality of man's state is passed over, the root of human wretchedness is left unjudged, and man is not face to face with God.

What should we say of a father whose craving for drink had beggared his family, looking upon the results of his sin — his pale and wasted children, and his woe-stricken, anxious wife — and stopping in his thoughts at these consequences of his sin, instead of digging deep into his miserable heart for the root of the evil? Should not we cry shame upon the man, bid him loathe himself and repent, instead of merely lamenting the existing state of his home! When people are plaintive about the condition of man, and avoid the root of human misery, even man's sin in departing from God, they are merely trifling with the disease. The floods of sorrow which roll over this world are caused by the letting out of the waters of sin disobedience opened the floodgates, and by nature we are the children of disobedience.