Why God allows evil

There is only one answer to be given. God is not the author of evil, but He has allowed sin for His own glory. He did not create creatures who were incapable of choosing between good and evil, else He would have created mere machines—infinitely more wonderful than motor cars and aeroplanes, but yet on the same level.

The answer is plain. Because, if He would create a glorious creature — man, after His own image, and in His likeness, free to choose either good or evil, and not a creature governed by a mere chain of instinct, as the birds and beasts around him — He must leave the entrance to him of evil, a possibility, though not a necessity.

Either God must refrain, — we write the words with reverence — from creating such a being, of this high and glorious order of existence, with a free choice and will; or He must leave the question of evil a possibility to him. Alas, for the result! of which a fallen race speaks with such terrible reality. He chose the evil and refused the good; and the moment he exercised his choice he became a sinner. Man, created in the image of God, fell from that pinnacle of eminence, never to be restored to it again. Fallen Adam begets a son in his own likeness after his image (Gen. 5:3), while unfallen Adam had been created “in the likeness of God” (Gen. 5:1).

Here we have the great general principle, and true indeed in every delivered soul. There was Jesus' love trusted, and Jesus did love them all: "This sickness is not unto death." Not that it was not deadly in its character, not that it did not in fact produce and end in death. He knew it did. But this was not the ultimate result. The permission of evil was for the glory of God; that is, in triumph over it in behalf of the creature, and that in the Person of the Son, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. The resurrection power of the Son is the great central evidence of this. It was the overcoming of evil in its ultimate natural results, the full power of it as in the hands of Satan; death. It was therefore mercy to allow evil, though painful mercy, to have its full results; because it gave unqualified ground for our assurance of God's love through all, and also where evil seemed to have its way; but, above all, in full, unqualified deliverance from, triumph over, all. This was the point exhibited in the world indeed, but in the person of the saints, the really identified ones with Jesus. We must also remark that this is the power of the resurrection, and therefore has not its full accomplishment till Jesus returns, acting in His resurrection power, raising the saints, and taking them to be with Himself.

The judgment in Genesis 3 was upon Satan, though it was there for Adam to lay hold of. There was no promise to the fallen Adam, no promise to man in sin any more than innocent. Evil came in by the devil; with man, by temptation. God was over it: this is the reason why He suffered evil and the fall - in view of a greater good to come in. My answer to him who asks it is, "why, you foolish man, if you had not been a sinner, you would not have had Christ at all." And this is a true answer too, because it was in God's counsels to introduce and reveal Christ in glory ultimately.

Do you ask, reader, Why then are we in such a world still? I will tell you. Scripture tells us, God in grace is still leading souls to profit by and enjoy this. It is a world of misery, and sorrow, and oppression. Did God interfere to change it, He must come in judgment and close the time of mercy; and that He does not do, while yet any have ears to hear. He allows, therefore, the evil which He will judge, to go on meanwhile. And we, though we may thus have to suffer awhile in the world, ought in this sense to rejoice that it is yet allowed; because it is still a time of mercy extended to others. The end will be everlasting joy in a much better world. Christ is gone to prepare a place for us, and He will come again and take us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. Thus Peter says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

And why is it that the Lord has not come? Is it because He is slack concerning His promise? The Spirit of God has refuted the libel firmly, lovingly, solemnly. (2 Peter 3) His purposes of grace alone hinder for the moment. He is bent on saving souls. He shrinks, so to say, from exchanging the present work of salvation for the strange work of judgment. He wants to fill heaven with the guests of grace that are suited to it; but He is not slack concerning His promise. Whatever scoffers may say, the day of the Lord will come as a thief.

First, it is not because judgment is His delight. Let God be true, but every man a liar. "Say unto them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" If God expostulated thus with Israel of old, we may be sure He is no more willing to execute judgment now on Christendom and on the nations. Nay, where he foretells those judgments in the most solemn terms, He speaks of rising, "that he may do his work his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act." As to this very period which is passing over our heads, and in which He delays to strike the long threatened blow, it is thus the delay is accounted for: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." No; it is not that God has any pleasure in the destruction of any; but that men despise, alas! the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; after the hardness of their impenitent hearts treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Reader, is this the case with thee? If it be, O that the question may rouse thee from thy slumbers, to consider what thou canst do in the day that God shall deal with thee!

But why should the creature be found in this unhappy ignorance of his Creator? Why should this world exist at all, with its self-love, its pride, its covetousness, its violence, its cruelty, its corruption? It forces itself upon the thoughtful mind that God, who is all-wise, almighty, omniscient, must have had some marvellous purpose in view when He allowed such a flood-tide of evil to enter His creation, and to sweep over this world of men in the way in which it has done. A benevolent Being—and everywhere do we find traces of His benevolence—would not have allowed His weak creature to be subjected to such a terrible condition of things, without having some wonderful purpose of blessing in view, and which in no other way could have been effectuated.

Our third passage is Psalm 144:3-6: "Lord, what is man, that Thou takest knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that Thou makest account of him? Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passes away. Bow Thy heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out Thine arrows and destroy them." In these verses David has his enemies before his mind. He was God's Anointed, known and owned as such years before he sat on Israel's throne (2 Sam. 23:17; 2 Sam. 24:20); yet there were never wanting enemies, both before and after his accession, who did their best to frustrate the purposes of God concerning him. He speaks of these in Psalm 144. Filled with thoughts of the resistless power of God, he marvels that He should permit man who is like to vanity to so constantly fling himself across His path, and seek to obstruct Him in the accomplishment of His counsels. He follows this up with the fervent appeal: "Bow Thy heavens, O Lord, and come down … Cast forth lightning, and scatter them." It is the old problem of God's permission of evil. This has perplexed the godly in every age. The wicked triumph, and the righteous suffer; the plans and purposes of the one are carried through to a successful issue, while those of the other too often meet with disappointment and discomfiture. God could so easily order it all otherwise, yet He does not act! Heaven is silent. Who has not felt the strain and trial of this!

Here let us turn to Rev. 10. A mighty angel is seen coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, having a rainbow upon his head, his face as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. Surely this is God's Christ. With one foot upon the sea and the other upon the earth, he lifts up his hand to heaven, and swears by Him that lives for ever and ever, that there shall be no longer delay, " but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, according to the good tidings which He has declared to His servants the prophets" (R.V.) "The mystery of God," i.e., the mystery of His non-intervention, of His permission of evil, will then be cleared up. The heavens will no longer be silent, but opened. The rightful Lord of all will come forth, and take His rights; evil shall be dethroned, and righteousness will be exalted in peace. Every riddle will then be explained; every difficult problem will be solved; and we shall see that, spite of all appearances, no purpose of God has really been hindered by the enemy; but that, on the contrary, God has been silently working out to a completion all His counsels of grace, for His own glory, and for the blessing of men. In the midst of wreck and ruin all around us, this thought is full of comfort and hope to the exercised soul.