By Mario A Olcese
The Reason of the Wickedness
One of the most common questions that many people are made is: Why if God is love, allows evil? This is, without a doubt, an interesting question that requires to be responded by God Himself through His Word, the Bible. In first place, God is not the creator of sin (James 1:13), because He is a good God and Holy (1 Timothy 4:4; Luke 18:19; Psalm 100:5). Now then, according to Genesis 1:31, all what God created was good, especially His supreme creation: Man. Good things can only proceed from a good God. To say that God created a corrupt and perverse man by nature, is difficult to believe.
Now here is another crucial question, if God created a good and perfect man ¿Why did he become rebellious and bad by nature? (Roman 3:9-18). Here we have to proceed with more care to understand how man's fall began. According to the Scriptures, God created man free. He gave to the first human couple freedom so that they could chose, for themselves, between the obedience and the disobedience. That has always been the "politics" of God towards all His angelic and human creatures (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
According to Genesis (and 1 John 3:8), Satan (the Devil), the biggest angel that fell in misfortune for his rebellion against God, possessed or became a snake, and through this subtle animal he spoke Eve. What was told to her reveals his Machiavellian, liar, and turbulent character. He told to the first couple that if they ate of the forbidden fruit they would not die but rather they would be as God, knowing good and bad.
The Devil always looks for men’s rebellion against God. He seeks men to believe that they can be gods, and for such purpose he has devised religions and philosophies that deify the human being. Mormonism, "The New Era", Satanism, and other similar cults, all seek to make us believe that we are gods or that we can be as God. He is the tempter par excellence and the supreme liar.
The Demonstration of God’ love for Mankind
Let us turn to Adam and Eve. When falling in sin, God condemned them to the capital punishment, but not without first to suffer of pains and physical fatigues during their existence in the earth. Nevertheless, so big it was the love of God that in the same day of the human fall, He was preparing man's redemption by means of His unique Son Jesus Christ. Let us read what says Revelation 13:8 "... of the Lamb that was immolated from the beginning of the world." In fact Christ would be immolated almost 4 millennia later, although his immolation took place in the same moment of the creation of the world, in the plan of God. The prophecy of Genesis 3:15 point out a continuous and lingering fight among good and evil. And although the wrong seemingly comes out victorious at the beginning, at the end the true winner is good represented by Christ, his church, and his "eternal reign". Finally Satan and his demons will be defeated by Christ and thrown to his place of perdition for the eternity.
The permission of evil clearly serves to the purposes of God, not only to test men, but also to teach them something still more important: THE LOVING AND MERCIFUL CHARACTER OF GOD TOWARDS SINNERS. And it‘s that Adam and Eve lacked to know God. They didn't know that God is infinitely merciful. Man's creation, of the planet earth, and of the entire universe, DEMONSTRATED that God is Almighty and Wise, ¿but does it show His great LOVE and MERCY for the unfortunate sinners? I don't believe so! In any moment the first parents appeal to the mercy of God to obtain the pardon.
According to Paul, God is known by the things that He made (Roman 1:19,20), but he is not saying that the moral and spiritual attributes of God can be known by the things that He created, but rather His "ETERNAL POWER AND DEITY". Definitively with the creation it cannot be known THE FEELINGS AND MORE SECRET PURPOSES OF GOD. ¡There is no way! It’s as seeking to know the character of an engineer for the house that he built, or that of a potter for the ceramic that he made with his hands. The maximum thing that we could know is their intelligence and good taste, but, ¿will we know if they are good parents, faithful husbands, docile, sober, meek, humble, comprising, wise, respectful, tolerant, temperate, etc? ¡It’s impossible to know all these manifestations of the personality! In a same way, the children can’t know their parents if they don't DEMONSTRATE TO THEIR CHILDREN THEIR CHARACTER OR PERSONALITY WITH SPECIFIC ATTITUDES, as for example: The affection that they offer them, the attention, the permanent maintenance, the instruction that they inculcate them, the good example that they give them, etc. A family father cannot hope his children love and obey him if he before didn’t SACRIFICED for them with good actions. Parents should be entirely dedicated to their family so that they can “harvest” good children, useful to the society.
Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice
The same thing happens with God, the FATHER. He had intended to DEMONSTRATE, in a clear and overwhelming way, His loving and merciful character towards all men through an extraordinary and ONLY ACT. God would give in SACRIFICE to its own Only-begotten Son for the humanity's salvation. The key text is Roman 5:10 that says: "But God SHOWS (or "DEMONSTRATES", according to other versions) His LOVE WITH US in that being sinful, CHRIST DIED FOR US". For his side, the same Lord Jesus Christ said: "Because in such a way God loved the world that He has given to His Only-begotten Son, so that all that believes in him doesn't get lost but has eternal life" (John 3:16). Do you understand now that the only way of being able to know that God has a "heart of gold" is by means of the delivery that He made of His dear Only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for his immolation in the cross of the Calvary in favor of the sinners? God DEMONSTRATED or SHOWED that He really loved men and that He wanted to redeem them. Now nobody could allege that God was severe, tough and inflexible. Let’s imagine for a moment how God will have felt when seeing His own Son dying in the Cross as a sinner. But He gave us His Son to save us from perdition and in this way to snatch us of the Devil's claws. How extraordinary act of love and detachment for all us on behalf of God and His Son!¡ Both loved us deeply! (See Ephesians 5:2). If the first human couple had not fallen in misfortune, then it had not been necessary for God to send His Son to the world, and in consequence WE HAD NEVER KNOWN GOD’S LOVE AND OF CHRIST FOR ALL MEN. ¿Do you imagine if Christ had not died for us? ¿Would you really love God and His Son? ¡Think on it for a while! Perhaps you would only have him a reverent respect as the Creator, but not necessarily love. God allowed the human fall to DEMOSTRATE HIS LOVE to all men. God also did allow the satanic REBELLION, because without this wicked spirit, ¿who would have tempted the first human couple? The devil, without knowing it, served to the purposes of God!
Summary
The God of the Bible has demonstrated His love for his human creatures by making a great sacrifice never before seen to redeem or save them from their fallen condition. No other God of any other world religion has been able to make similar supreme act of giving the most important thing that they can possible have to DEMONSTRATE their character of love and mercy for their worshipers. There is an uppercase test of the superiority of the Christian religion here on the other religions of the world. Christians have the whole reason of the world to love their God, because Their God loved them first, and as an answer, God "won" the reciprocal love of His worshipers. Can they really love their gods when in fact those gods had not demonstrated any simple or extraordinary act of love for them? The maximum thing that they will be able to feel it is a reverent fear to their gods, but not necessarily a true love toward them.
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