Thursday, February 28, 2013

Why is there evil and suffering....


This month we begin a new series on the problem of evil and how the Gospel addresses it.  Here's a great quote, worth considering and contemplating, from Timothy Keller...

The death of Jesus was qualitatively different from any other death. The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experience of cosmic abandonment. Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours…. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us…. If we again ask the question “Why does God allow suffering to continue?” and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we know now what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.
- Timothy Keller, The Reason For God

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