An Open Letter to a Suffering
Saint
Dear Friend,
This letter is
my response to the questions you sent me. The trial you currently face led you
to search the Scriptures in hope of understanding why God does or doesn’t work
in and through your suffering. You’re searching for meaning, purpose, and value
in suffering, begging God that it wouldn’t be in vain. I believe God will honor
that search, at least in part, because He’s promised to draw near to us as we
draw near to Him (Jm. 4:8).
You’ve recently come
to the conclusion that somehow and in some way, God is involved in your ordeal.
Your instincts are correct, I do believe, but you should know that they’re in
contradiction to much of today’s Christian teaching which seeks to vindicate
God’s holiness by dampening His providence and sovereignty. Now, you’ve asked
me to weigh in.
What follows is
my humble attempt at answering some of your questions according to Scripture
and, secondarily, through an appeal to what the church has taught since at
least the time of the Reformation. That is, until the most recent doctrinal
downgrade in American evangelicalism.
I should preface
all I’m about to say by acknowledging that it’s not in any way exhaustive, and
I own the possibility of error. But, I will strive to honor the Lord and your
request. I’ll try to neither sweeten God’s providence where it’s bitter, or
embitter it where it’s graciously sweet. My sincere desire is to speak the
truth in love to your immense pain (Eph. 4:15).
Your Suffering is Real
My dear friend,
I’m deeply saddened by your trial. I can only imagine the heartache of what
you’re experiencing. I can understand why you’ve been tempted to consider that
God has abandoned you to these dreadful circumstances. The underlying notion of
the counsel you’ve already received from some within the church led you to
conclude that this trial was beyond the scope of God’s control.
If God is
impotent, what kind of God have we? Or did He, in His omniscience, know your
suffering but refuse to act, like a father who looks out of his window and
passively watches as his child plays in the highway? I can’t understand why we
imprison a man for this sort of thing, while charging God with this very form
of neglectful parenting, thinking that we’re shielding Him from somehow being
the author of sin.
Perhaps God is
not truly omniscient. Maybe there was a time in eternity when He had to look
down through a supposed “tunnel of time” in order to learn that which He didn’t
previously know. This is the assertion made by open theists. If they’re
correct, how can we know that God now knows all that’s needed to address your
suffering? If God ever learned anything, what was His source and what do we
know about its fidelity to the truth?
The underlying
assumptions involved in these questions leave us in grave doubt. Many well
intended Christians are advancing them as matters of fact, wrongly thinking
that they’ve resolved the theological dilemma of the problem of evil.
Fortunately, these ideas don’t express the heart of biblical Christianity or
2,000 years of orthodox Church history. While our theology won’t always provide
the immediate comfort our hearts naturally desire, rightly dividing the word of
God promises to deliver a hope that transcends our hopeless circumstances.
Friend, I do
believe I understand something of your fears. You fear that God isn’t involved
in your suffering. You fear that He’s “asleep at the wheel,” or disinterested
in your life, or incapable of fulfilling His promises. Or else you fear that
He’s a malevolent God who perniciously or randomly selects us to suffer for no
reason other than His own good pleasure.
Doubts about His
character have crept in, and at least some of this is owing to the downgrade in
robust biblical truth throughout the church. Walls of theological plaster have
been erected in people’s lives, but those walls prove to be porous to the driving
winds and rain of tribulation which all of us should expect (Jn. 16:33; Acts
14:22).
Desperately
needed in the church today, and in our hearts when we suffer is the firm
foundation of sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). Sadly, it’s been woefully neglected,
and I regret that you’ve been forced to undertake this search for truth now
that your hour of suffering has come. Still, God doesn’t require that we
possess all truth in order to suffer well and in hope. Even when we’re
deficient, and we’re all deficient in more ways than we can count, God is for
His children (Rom. 8:31).
I can’t even
begin to fully know the countless purposes of God in your suffering, but this I
do know: Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases (Ps. 115:3).
God is Love in Suffering
By now, you may
be feeling the trajectory of what I’m suggesting. I’ve just asserted that your
suffering is, somehow and in some way, a matter of God’s will for you. This is
a hard thing. Perhaps, the hardest of all. Haven’t we been taught that God is
love (1 Jn. 4:8)? If you’re now suffering, and that at the hand of God, do we
then conclude that the Bible is in error because God has been shown to be less
than love? In the words of Paul, “By no means!” (Rom. 6:2).
What I share
next will not tidy up all the loose ends of your good questions. Still, I want
to encourage you by an appeal to what great theologians of church history said
about our loving Father and His providence, according to their study of His
word. Now, I know that you’re a Presbyterian and I’m a Baptist, but
nevertheless, I’m going to make a direct reference to what the authors of the
1689 London Baptist Confession concluded, in agreement with the earlier Westminster
Confession of Faith.
While these
confessions are not “inspired Scripture,” they are great documents that
summarize God’s word and what the Protestant church has historically believed.
You’ll surely be faced with new questions as you read, but I hope you’ll be
equally encouraged in your faith that God is with you, and that He’ll not allow
you, as His adopted child, to be “cast headlong” (Ps. 37:24).
Read for
yourself then the words of the 1689 LBC 5.4, which correspond with the WCF 5.4:
The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom,
and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence,
that His determinate counsel extends itself even to the first fall, and all
other sinful actions both of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission,
which also He most wisely and powerfully bounds, and otherwise orders and
governs, in a manifold dispensation to His most holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness
of their acts proceeds only from the creatures, and not from God, who, being
most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
These are
humbling words about the will of our God who is indeed love and declares about
Himself clearly and without hesitation, “I form light and create darkness; I
make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things”
(Is. 45:7). I’m compelled to sit quietly after reading them myself. It’s hard
to not feel the weight of God’s glory, yet Jesus calls us to Himself for the
spiritual rest we desperately need, telling us that His “burden is light”
(Matt. 11:28-30).
God is good and
He’s good to us, even when our hearts tempt us to believe otherwise.
My friend,
you’ve asked hard questions. Some in the church have provided you with answers
that are contrary to the great tradition of our faith. In attempting to
inoculate God from the appearance of sin, they’ve inadvertently obscured the
fact that God, as the first cause of all things, does not sin (1689 LBC 5.2).
Not now. Not ever. Fallen angels and evil men, as the secondary causes of
suffering, corrupt (but do not finally thwart) the good purposes of God.
They are, indeed
we all are, the progenitors of sinfulness in God’s creation.
Joy in Sorrow
For these and
other reasons, I consider that God’s character is offended when men assert that
He, with a “bare permission,” passively allows His children to suffer. Our God
is too high, too wise, too holy, and too powerful for this to be the case. It
doesn’t follow that He would simply permit Job to suffer while at the same time
sanctify Job through that same suffering. Satan and his wicked schemes were
tools in the hand of God for His glory and Job’s ultimate joy.
In the same way,
these deep truths were what allowed Joseph to say with certainty to his
brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).
These weighty matters of doctrine were what allowed Paul to write, “We know
that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who
are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Ours is not a fatalistic
faith, but one in which the God of the universe is actively involved in all
things, even if those ways are not perceptible to our finite senses (1689 LBC
5.2).
Do you love God?
Are you called according to His purpose? Yes, I know you are, and therefore I
have it on good authority that God will somehow work out your current trial for
your good and His glory. The agents of evil in this world do not have the
luxury of the last word or even the final act. Your trial is designed for you
by our Creator God, who is in many ways more gloriously sovereign and
providential than we dare imagine. The source of your pain intended it for your
harm, but God has super-intended it for your sanctification (Phil.1:6).
These things
express in part why I’m hopeful for you in this difficult time.
Friend, although
I don’t know specific details of what’s ahead, I’m trusting in Him for your
healing and restoration, whether here or in eternity. I’m interceding for you,
praying in earnest to the God who “works everything according to the counsel of
His will” (Eph. 1:11). Nothing can separate you from His love, not even the
powers of hell (Rom. 8:38).
Your brother in
Christ,
Josh
