[00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks The Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and this week I'm having some technical difficulties, so I'm not really sure how this is going to end up sounding, because I have had a number... of issues this week in getting this recorded.
So if it sounds substandard, I do apologize. But here we are, and I am going to be getting back into my series on curses. As such, I was kind of wondering if I could sneak in a review of the new Indiana Jones movie this week, but I'm not going to give you any spoilers. You guys should go watch it, and I'll just leave it at that.
So I've talked before about curses, You can go back and listen to those [00:01:00] episodes for more context if you'd like. Those were episodes, uh, number 20 and 23.
In episode 20, I talked about curses in general in their context. of the Ancient Near East. And in episode 23, I talked specifically about generational curses. And in that one, I was responding to a book written by Larry Huck, a modern charismatic who seems to have some ties with the Benny Hinn. Anyway, in that episode, I talked about how there is a certain subset of Christians Who have used the language of generational curse to talk about what is, in actuality, just propagation of particular types of sins, not curses, but sins.
And by the way, if you want a fascinating discussion on how we really [00:02:00] do see some very strange things passed around in humanity, and we really can't exactly say how or why this happens. Go listen to an episode on the podcast called Piranormal. That was episode number eight of Piranormal, and they talk about how some transplant recipients take on the personalities of their donors.
They have some folks on that episode that are discussing scholarly literature as well as personal experience, and they talk about how personality traits seem to be passed along in organ transplants. It's wild stuff. Go give it a listen. I'll link it in the show notes. So anyway, yes, we do have all sorts of interconnectedness amongst us humans, but using the language of generational curses isn't helpful when we're talking about that.
Anyway, so I'm not done exploring the field of curses that are more than just people [00:03:00] appropriating the term in our modern context. As I've been doing a lot of research for my series on curses, I've gone down some rabbit trails. This is not unexpected, of course. The fact is a lot of topics are quite interconnected with one another, and one of those interconnected topics here is the area of theodicy.
Now, what is theodicy? It's a fancy word. What does that mean? Put simply, this is the question of, if we have a good god, why is there suffering? Why do we have evil? This is usually a philosophically oriented question, of course, but everyone's apparently wrestled with it all throughout history. We need answers of why there's bad things in the world.
The topic of theodicy isn't really an obvious one necessarily to us when we're discussing the concept of curses, [00:04:00] but this really is one of the biblical answers for this question of suffering. So we can ask, what was the ancient answer to this problem that we all have? Well, the answer was usually pretty simple.
There's evil and suffering because something behind the scenes is going on in the unseen spiritual realm. In the pagan world, we have battles between gods, so that's one answer. We have gods who are just as fickle as a human, so of course, maybe they're just in a bad mood, and so bad things happen because of that.
And of course, if it's not directly a god's idea to make us suffer, Maybe it's another person's idea. Maybe it's that another person is jealous or angry at us for some reason. So they request the gods to step in and deal us a good blow. So curses might be why we have bad luck, [00:05:00] especially in sickness or death.
Now, curses were often done through or because of jealousy or greed. Now, why jealousy? Why that in particular? Why would jealousy especially cause someone to try to curse another person? I mean, we can probably imagine how the one thing might cause the other thing. When we are jealous of someone, there's that tendency to want to take away the thing that we are jealous of so that if we can't have it, they can no longer have it either.
Right? Well, it's even more specific culturally for the ancient world, and this is a pretty broad concept. It centers around the idea... of the evil eye. This is a specific type of curse, and it's all over. I mean, you can find this idea in modern cultures, even. You can find wards against the [00:06:00] evil eye, and protections.
And for some cultures and people, this seems to be a real concern. But what is it? What is the evil eye? Well, it's the concept of someone who is jealous, who is out to wish harm on you. Now, do we see this in the Bible? We do. We see the concept, though it seems to be less of a thing that was actively worried about and more perhaps something like a cultural norm, something that was just understood to be a thing.
Let's take a second and look at where we can see the concept in Scripture. Turning to Galatians 3, verse 1, we read, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. End quote. So, where's the [00:07:00] evil eye in that passage? Well, it's the word bewitched.
The word there literally means to cast a spell, but it really has a definite connotation to the idea of being envious, being resentful of something, so you are, this is why you're casting the spell. In Matthew 20 verse 15, it says, quote, Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me, or do you begrudge my generosity, end quote.
So there we actually have the word for I, so there's still this idea of being envious. Let's look at one more in Job 16 verse 9, which says, quote, He has torn me in his wrath and hated me. He has gnashed his teeth at me. My adversary sharpens his eyes against me. End quote. All right, there are some other places in scripture that we kind [00:08:00] of see the concept, but you can see it's not really that this evil eye is, is being put upon anyone or that anyone's really that concerned about it.
It's just kind of a, a thing that exists in the culture, right? And so still we have the question of why jealousy in particular. So the ancient world lived within a structure of an honor shame society. We still have cultures like this today, actually. And in this kind of culture, there is often a limited amount of honor that can be had.
And so honor being the greatest value, and there being a limited amount of it, If someone has too much honor, then that means they are taking honor from everyone else around them. So, if you're too beautiful, or talented, or you have too many [00:09:00] resources, you need to try to avoid the evil eye that is cast on those who are too highly praised because they do not want to incur the envy of someone.
So, if you come across people who are a little too humble, who cannot accept compliments, or who feel that they need to cast aspersions on their perfectly beautiful or talented children, it might be on account of this idea of trying to avoid the evil eye. So now that's a particular type of curse, but you see it comes with the idea of trying to balance things out.
There is suffering because it balances out the good. Honor and shame write a kind of teeter totter, and you need a little bit of bad to balance out the good. Because if you don't balance it, you have too much of the good, and you just might get clobbered by more than your fair share of the bad when the time comes.
And of course, the evil eye is not the only type of curse [00:10:00] there was. So you, you're kind of trying to hedge your bets all, all around you to try to avoid the bad things and kind of live this in between life where you're not
Now, does that mean that this should be an answer for us? When we are asking after why we suffer? Are we being cursed? Do we have the evil eye cast upon us? Is that it? Even in a culture where we don't actively... Participate in the idea of the evil eye, necessarily, we still kind of have this idea that we don't want to jinx things, right?
We don't want to admit that we're really blessed because what if that means that then things need to get balanced out and, and we are then going to be suffering after that because we're too blessed right now. So that, that is an idea that we do have, even if a lot of times that's in the [00:11:00] back of our minds.
Because this is so widespread culturally throughout the world, this seems to be a very deep concept within humanity. But let's take a second and back off the specific idea of the evil eye and just talk about curses in general. Whether or not we should be worried about curses and whether this is an answer for some of the suffering that we have.
Now, the way that I think about this, it doesn't even matter if curses are a real thing. You know, when we look at the ancient world, And we look at what they believed. What they believed doesn't even have to be a real reality, right? They believed all kinds of goofy things that we don't have to believe.
The power of a curse ultimately stemmed from the power of a god. And so then we ask if those gods have actual power. Even if we said yes, they do. As [00:12:00] Christians, we have a higher power. So that means pretty definitively
I've heard too many stories of places or objects that may well have that curse effect attached to them, for instance. I mean, really, what do I know? I certainly can't say definitively, and I'm not going to discount someone's experience. But even so, as Christians, we worship the highest power there is, The lower gods have been disenfranchised and no longer have legitimate claim over the earth.
And that includes both nations and individuals and our territory and property. So ultimately, no curses and fights between gods and fickle deities. None of these are reasons that we can say [00:13:00] why there's suffering and evil in our lives. But that's for sure not to say that there aren't biblical reasons we can dig into for the question of suffering.
So what about this idea? of the balance in the force, so to speak. Of course, as I said, though we certainly see the idea of the evil eye as being accepted in the Bible to some degree, we don't see it actively being practiced anywhere. We don't see wards against it, really. An exception might be in the case of Balaam.
You know, Balaam and the donkey in the Book of Numbers? If you want more on that and its... Connection to the evil eye. I suggest you go listen to the Naked Bible podcast about the evil eye. It is episode number 162 of the Naked Bible podcast. Anyway, there doesn't seem an idea in the Bible that God needs to balance out the [00:14:00] books with good and bad.
Yes, they lived in an honor shame society, but I think that what we see in the Bible is that creation was and is meant to be good, and as for other types of curses, the righteous person need not fear them, because the righteous person would be under the authority of God. All right, so creation is meant to be good.
We have a loving creator who wishes this. An omnipotent creator who wishes this. A creator who is love and goodness himself. So, how exactly did we get all this evil and suffering, then? You've probably heard a number of answers for this, and I'll go out on a limb and suggest they're probably not all that satisfying, right?
Now, [00:15:00] you know I like to give options for us to think about. The thing with this question is that there's a lot of options, so I really have no reasonable way to cover them all, and nor is that my place here. Probably some listening have read more books on this than I have, so if that's you, feel free to come on my site where comments should be enabled on the episode page, and you can share some of those resources that you have for others.
One that I have that I could recommend to many people is the book called Theodicy of Love. It's pretty easy to read. It's not too deep into philosophical jargon. So if you want to get into the topic of theodicy, that's one I suggest. But the question before us, as Bible believers, how do we reconcile A Suffering World and a Good God.
We're going to go through a bit of basics, and I will be swinging it back to [00:16:00] the concept of the curse. And we're going to look at some other related things like temptation and trial as well. Ultimately, I think what we need to do is wrap it all back up with the character of God and the purposes of creation, which is where I personally feel we find the ultimate answer.
And as much as we can find an ultimate answer in this life, I also want to mention before I go any further, I was on a panel discussion on this topic a little while ago on the YouTube channel Faith Unaltered. I went a bit into what I'm going to talk about here, and there are some other good things presented there by other people.
So I will leave that link in the show notes as well. On my YouTube channel, there is a playlist of other channels I've been on, so you can feel free to check that out if you want to see where I have been on some live streams. I also want to [00:17:00] acknowledge that there really are two sides to this problem.
There is the existential side, where we are in the midst of suffering, and sometimes trying to find a reasonable answer for why is just not what we need in the moment. Sometimes there are circumstances that we are faced with that we simply need to get through. No answer will make sense or is sufficient in a moment like that.
Sometimes we don't need answers, even as we call out for them. Sometimes... Even as we call out for them. Sometimes what we need are companions who will sit with us and listen and lament with us. Sometimes experience in community and venting and feeling sometimes that's what we need, not intellectual answers, as much as I love those.
So if that's you [00:18:00] or someone you know, it's okay to just feel what you're feeling and to sit with those who are suffering and raise our voices to God in lament, even complaint. There's a big section of the Bible that we can read at those times and that can inform and guide our prayers. So in the existential problem of evil, that's not the time for logical, sensible answers, but we still want those.
And that's where... The intellectual problem of evil comes up, where we're not so deeply into the major suffering of life, and we are thinking analytically. This episode has a lot of resources to recommend, by the way. Another thing I'll put in the show notes is a link to a video by Inspiring Philosophy, where Michael Jones there does an excellent job of a really solid philosophical argument for this.
I actually think that Christianity has a very [00:19:00] good answer. to the problem of suffering, which is really amusing because you have like Feuerbach and Nietzsche who exploited some ideas in the Bible, like idolatry, to say that all religion creates a God to suit our needs. But suffering literally is something that we understand to some degree in Christianity.
And so if we were creating our own God, why would we be creating A God and a religion where suffering was kind of part and parcel of that creation and of that religion. I mean, we have a God who took on our suffering in a participatory way himself. He doesn't take it away from us entirely in this life though.
So we are all suffering and that is clearly embedded into the creation and into the story of Christianity. So if we were making up a God, why is this a God we [00:20:00] would be making up? That doesn't make any sense to me from that atheist perspective. Anyway, when we talk about the idea of suffering and evil and the origin of those things from a Christian perspective, Usually, we go right into that incident in the garden, right?
This is when it all went bad. There's an implied suggestion there that everything that was in the garden was perfect, and that it was supposed to remain like that. It's like we had Eden and the garden and all of that, and there was supposed to be some sort of stasis field around that, like there was no, like there weren't going to be any changes after that.
Because if there were changes, that would be bad. And Eden was perfect. So goes the story. We call this the Fall, and it is the reason that there is bad in the world [00:21:00] now. Whether that is human sin, or whether that is death, or whether that is even animal death, or anything negative at all, it all stems from the fact that we fell in the garden in Genesis 3.
The funny thing is, the rest of the Bible doesn't really have a whole lot to say about the fall in Genesis 3. That's always struck me as really strange. If this is the reason the Messiah had to come, the reason that sin entered into the world, Then that's a big deal. Why isn't that Repeated and talked about over and over and over in scripture, but it's not now I'm not suggesting that Genesis 3 isn't a big deal I'm not suggesting that we're not fallen humanity or anything like [00:22:00] that But I think there are some tweaks to this idea that we can make of course I already talked a couple of weeks ago in episode 27 about archetypes and how essential those are for our reading.
So Genesis 3 is a big deal because it is the ultimate archetype of humanity in our sin and what that looks like and what that means. And I think I've said before that creation wasn't made perfect and that humanity wasn't meant to stay in stasis in Eden, that we were actually meant to grow and to mature and to become something more than we were.
And so if that's the case, then I think that we actually need to look earlier Then Genesis 3, in order to find a solid [00:23:00] answer to the question we're looking at today. What we do see in Genesis 3 is the first instance of sin in the world. And so, that's fair to look at that. And of course, when I bring up the work of Dr.
Michael Heiser, Then I need to also bring up the idea of the three falls. So instead of just Genesis 3, we have the sin problem growing exponentially as we read through Genesis. We have Genesis 3 with Adam. Then we have Genesis 6 with the sons of God. And we have Genesis 11, where we have the crossing of the boundaries with the Tower of Babel.
And I actually think that's a better way of thinking about the Fall. Rather than a Fall, it's more of a crossing of boundaries and a taking of autonomy where it was not meant to be had. But really, even the narrative of the Three Falls only explains [00:24:00] the increase of sin in the world. It doesn't natively describe Why there's sin and suffering to begin with.
So we have this thing that we call the answer to the problem of suffering, but it's not really an answer. It's just an example of the suffering. Now what we do usually is we tack on the idea that we have free will, and this explains the presence of suffering. And to that I would say yes, but I think there's more to it.
I do think it is definitely the case that we are free will creatures and that there's a reason that we need to be free will creatures because God is love and he created us and he wants us to love him. And that is not possible if we don't have a will in order to love him. If we are simply [00:25:00] decreed or ordered to love him and we do that because we're decreed and ordered, then We're not really loving him.
That's not love. That's not what love is at all. So I do think that the free will argument is necessary and is very solid. However, if we leave it at that, I think there are some genuine problems with it. For instance, people bring up the idea, well, why can't God stop evil? Why is there natural evil? Why is there sickness?
How are those the result of our free will? And we usually say, those are the results of our free will because of the Fall. Okay, but where does the Bible say that that's how sickness entered in? That's something that we assume. We look at the curses and we say, well, now the Earth is producing thorns and thistles, and we look in, I think [00:26:00] it's in Romans, that says that the creation is groaning for the...
Perfection of creation. And so there's this indication that our fall made all of creation fall as well. And I think there's something to that, but I think we read a lot into it. And why couldn't God stop more evil? Why is it that God's hands are tied to prevent a lot of the evil that happens? The free will argument isn't robust enough to answer those problems.
And I don't think it has to. I think there are other things we can loop in to the idea. I think that one thing we need to do is to look at the purposes of the Messiah. Why did Christ come into creation? Jesus came to save us from our sins, right? I mean, 1 Corinthians [00:27:00] 15, verse 3, says Christ died for our sins.
So, there we go, right? I mean, fair enough, but that's not all it says, right? And that's certainly not everything that Christ did here on earth, or after he was here on earth for that matter. What I'm referring to here is an atonement theory that is very popular, particularly in Protestant circles, called Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
And this is the idea that Christ came to save us from our sins. And the reason this happened was because God was so angry at our sin that he has to pour out his wrath, and there's a certain form of justice that is wrapped up in this idea that We couldn't atone for our own sins, we couldn't [00:28:00] satisfy the justice of God, and God's wrath has to go somewhere, so it's going on to Christ instead of us.
So Christ is our substitute, taking on our wrath instead of us taking it on as we deserve, right? So that's the idea of penal substitutionary atonement. Generally, it's just kind of assumed for a lot of Christians. And I don't want to get too deep into atonement theory here in this episode, but it really matters to our view of why they're suffering, I think.
And I don't think penal substitutionary atonement does really that good of a job, again, explaining why we suffer. Why does it even exist to begin with? There are several things that penal substitutionary atonement misses, and we can look at Christ's work and see that it's actually much broader than just taking the wrath of God.[00:29:00]
There's a more comprehensive framework. And so the Messiah didn't just come in order to satisfy God's wrath. Some of these things that aren't really addressed well, I think, in Penal Substitutionary Atonement is What about death and what about Hades or hell or shale or whatever you want to say? What about demons?
What about the other gods? What about all of the reversals that we see in the New Testament of things that happened in the Old Testament? So we had bad things happen in the Old Testament, we have them reversed in the New Testament by Jesus. We have healing. We have forgiveness. We have prayer and the church.
We have the spirit and sanctification. A lot of those things are just kind of glossed over when you're only talking about the wrath of God being [00:30:00] satisfied when you're only talking about the fact of our sin as the problem that needs to be dealt with. I don't know about you, but it seems to me like we have more problems than that.
And again, how does this address creation? How is our sin management? Affecting everything in creation. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that we need something other than sin management in order to explain the problem of suffering. And we need something other than the free will argument to explain the wide variety of suffering that we see.
And also the scope of it, potentially. Let's talk about that scope for a second because we haven't really addressed it. What is fundamentally the problem? That we have. [00:31:00] To what extent do we need to look? Of course, we have human evil. We have what many call natural evil, such as sickness, death, even floods and hurricanes and other things like that.
We have the problem of just suffering in all of the myriad ways that humans suffer and feel pain. And not just humans, too. We also have problems with the fact that creation suffers, like animals suffer. And then finally, we might ask if injustice is a part of the problem of evil. Injustice of any kind, does that play into the problem that we see with suffering and sin and that kind of thing?
If we have a God who is fully just, Then why is there injustice in the world? All those things that connect to human sin, that seems to be a little bit easier for us [00:32:00] to grapple with, right? We have that explanation of Genesis 3 and the idea that, well, we are not perfect and we're not in God's presence, so we're gonna sin and that's just the answer there.
But what do we do with fires and tornadoes and hurricanes and tsunamis and all of these other things that seem to us to be evil because they cause rampant death? And it seems senseless to us. It seems pointless. Why couldn't God stop those things? Why can't or why doesn't God do away with cancer? These are tough, tough questions.
We could also ask, why do we still sin? If Christ came, if we have the spirit indwelling the believer, then what's the problem exactly here? [00:33:00] Can't God now just change us? Why doesn't he take us from being our sinful selves to, once we believe, now we're no longer sinning and we're perfect. Why can't God do that?
Or why doesn't God do that? It's a simple, I think true, answer to say that it's a process. But that's not a whole lot of comfort, right? That's kind of like saying, well, yeah, God could stop that cancer. He could stop this bad thing happening, but he doesn't. It's not really an answer. Or at minimum, it's not an answer that satisfies us in the moment.
And I think that's where we get into that practical problem of theodicy. Okay, so let's get into one of the most potent books of the Bible regarding the concept of suffering, and [00:34:00] that is the book of Job. We all kind of know the story of Job. He was a pretty great guy, right? The story starts out by saying he was blameless and upright.
One who feared God and turned away from evil. He was so concerned with pleasing God, in fact, that he would do preemptory offerings to God, just in case his children may have cursed God. without letting Job know that they cursed God. And then, of course, you have the scene in the divine council room where God is pointing out his servant Job, and the Satan comes along and says to God, Really?
You know what? There's nothing wrong with Job's life. He's got a perfect life, so of course he's not going to do anything to upset that. But you know what? I bet that if we kind of threw some wrenches in the works, that he would [00:35:00] curse you to your face, God. And God said, nah, that's not right. You could do all kinds of things to Job, and he would remain faithful to me.
So, you know what? Let's go ahead and do that. You can go ahead and attack Job's life in different ways. But you can't do anything against him personally. So you have here a story of somebody who is exceptionally blessed and who is a very faithful to God. And suddenly all of his apple carts are going to be upturned and he is going to start to suffer.
Most of us read that and we go, that's not fair. What the heck? Why would God allow that? Now, if I've done my job properly in this episode, you are now primed to think, huh, maybe this is the idea of the evil eye. Maybe here is where we see that balancing going on. [00:36:00] Okay, so that's a really good thought to have in our minds, and I want you to kind of put that aside for a second because we're going to keep looking at the story.
One thing we want to ask ourselves is, is what happened to Job, is that a curse? Was Job cursed? And remember, the evil eye, that's a type of a curse. Remember, also, we're looking for the idea of balance. Should we expect bad to balance out good? Is that the natural course of human existence? And is that what we're seeing in the story of Job?
Okay, so the story goes on and... Despite losing property and external things to himself, Job is still faithful. So the Satan strikes another deal with God and says, Well, can we just give him some sickness [00:37:00] on his own body? Then he'll curse you, I bet. And God says, I don't think so, but you know what? Go right ahead.
So, that's what happens. Job is afflicted with sores on his own body. And this is when his wife says, Really, Job? Really? Why don't you complain to God? Why don't you curse God and die? Of course, what she actually says is bless God and die, so this is a bit of irony. She's not really telling Job to bless God, but he said, you're, you're foolish.
God can give us good and God can give us evil, and that's just all there is to it. That statement itself is, I don't think, a statement saying that there should be balance. He's just saying, look, God can give us good and he can take it away. It's just a simple statement of fact, basically, and, of course, showing his continued faithfulness to God.
[00:38:00] Okay, so this is when Job's friends show up, and this is a nice part. Instead of saying anything to Job and trying to give him some reassurance, they just sat with him and lamented for seven days and seven nights. They just sat with him. I think that's a powerful lesson for us. And after this period of time, this is finally when Job opens his mouth and complains about something.
He's not really blaming God, though. He's complaining that he exists, that he even was born. After Job speaks, then his friends also respond. And here is something that his first friend says. In chapter 4, verse 7, it says, Remember, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who [00:39:00] plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions are broken. The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. So here's an opportunity for the story to tell us directly that this is a consequence of the evil eye.
That Job is being cursed because he has too much good stuff, and it all needs to be balanced out. Or that he is cursed because of someone being jealous. Now, what his friend says is, well, I think maybe you're not quite as innocent as you look, and that's probably why you're suffering. So instead of the evil eye, there's the idea of tit for tat, right?
So yeah, you're just getting what you deserve kind of thinking. [00:40:00] Of course, that's not really that helpful to us because we know that that's not really true. We see innocent people suffering for no reason. But this is a bit of evidence within the internal story itself that we might not be looking at an evil eye kind of a situation.
That Job isn't cursed because he has too much. I mean, of course, in a way he is cursed because he has too much, because this is why he's standing out to the Satan. God is making a point in showing that people can still be faithful even if they are required to suffer. So that's kind of one perspective, but it's not a very satisfying, complete perspective of the story, of course.
Most of us are aware that in the end, Job is crying out for God for a reason for his [00:41:00] suffering, and God really doesn't give him one. And that's super frustrating to us, because we really want an answer. What's interesting to me is that we can look at the story of Job and see him as a second Adam, but he is an Adam who didn't do anything wrong.
He didn't sin in order to get the consequences that he had to suffer. Of course, in the end, Job did get I mean, that's within some confines, of course, because he couldn't get his original children back. But Job didn't know that his fortunes would be restored. Even when they were, the consequences still lasted to some extent because his original children were gone.
But we can look at the story of Adam, and we can say, well, look, [00:42:00] there's a reason for suffering because he did something. But we look at the story of Job, and we can't say that. We can't say that there is a reason for Job's suffering in the same way that there was a reason that Adam suffered. So, is that it?
We just say that, you know, you're gonna suffer whether you're evil, whether you're good. There is going to be suffering. I mean, I think there's some wisdom in that knowledge. We don't have to beat ourselves up due to our sufferings because we think that we necessarily deserve everything that's happening to us.
I personally find great comfort in that, even if it's not much of an answer. So if the story of Job isn't really an answer to the problem of suffering, then what is it? What do we take away from it? We have, of course, Job's actions. He remains faithful to God, [00:43:00] even with all of this stuff going on. So the ancient world had a lot of answers for the problem of suffering, and most of them had something to do with the spiritual realm, just like we see here in the Book of Job.
We're left with the question of, was Job cursed? It doesn't use the word curse. We have the Satan, who seems to be wishing harm on Job, but we don't really have enough information to go on a motivation there. I mean, most people think that is the devil, Satan himself. It may or may not be. When you look at the Hebrew, it says the Satan.
So that's not a proper name. The person who wrote the book of Job was not thinking of the serpent in the garden necessarily. Now whether it was or not, it's hard to definitively say [00:44:00] whether this was a curse or whether it's something else. Do we see what's going on as a kind of temptation, in which case we have at least a conceptual link with the serpent in Genesis.
If it's a temptation, and it kind of is that because he is trying to entice Job to do something wrong. It sure would be helpful if the book included the Satan's motivation, but we really don't have any of that. What I do notice is that it's not the Satan who brings up Job in the first place. It's God who mentions Job to the Satan.
Now, does that make a difference? Well, I think so, because this is good storytelling, and good storytelling has people doing things for particular purposes, right? Now, for those who want to say, but this is historical, this is how it [00:45:00] happened, okay, but people can still tell stories in... Light of the way they want them taken by the reader.
So more than anything, this leads me to think that rather than a curse or a temptation, what we have going on in Job is a trial. And why does that matter? I think that it matters hugely. I think that this can help us figure some things out about the purpose of suffering. If, in fact, this is a trial. Okay, so what, then, is a trial?
I am going to read from the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. This is the entry on trial. It says, quote, The purpose of a trial is to reveal what is genuine, to prove what is true, and expose what is false. [00:46:00] Such trial is key to the verification of God's Word, reality, and very nature. See Psalm 12, 6 and Isaiah 43, 26.
The image of trial in the Bible is richly multifaceted, encompassing the trials of life And the legal courts of societies ultimately established by God. Particularly central to a biblical use of such ordeal is trial by water and by fire. 2 Peter 3. 10 combines the motifs in its picture of a world once drowned that is to be finally dissolved by fire.
The most explicit picture of trial by water and fire Occurs in Isaiah 43, 2, which says, quote, When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. End [00:47:00] quote. And end quote from Dictionary of Biblical Imagery.
The entry goes on to talk about the particular trial of water and of fire. And then it talks about the trial of love. So I'm going to quote here again from the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. It says, quote, Trial as a period of difficulty and suffering is not always accompanied by imagery of fire or water.
Job's trial is such an exception. Deuteronomy 7, 17 through 19 links periods of trial with God's judgment and his public vindication of his chosen people caught up in suffering. God uniquely used trials in the establishment of his nation, see Deuteronomy 4, 34. But they can also be intensely personal, as in a love relationship.
A recurrent motif in the biblical narratives is the trial of love, whether [00:48:00] friendship or sexual love. This may be seen, for instance, in the trial of the love of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis 29, the lovers in the Song of Songs, as in Songs 5, 2 8, the wrong love made right in the relationship of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 and 12, and Hosea's love for the unfaithful Gomer in Hosea 1 3.
The trial of friendship is particularly seen in the love of David and Jonathan in 1st Samuel 19 and 20, Ruth and Naomi in Ruth 1, and Peter and our Lord, where restoration succeeds betrayal in John 21, end quote. So I think this is really what we see over and over in scripture. The ancient world placed such an emphasis on curse, And fickle gods and things that happened in the unseen realm [00:49:00] that affected us here.
And that's still true, that this is what we see in the Bible. We still see that mirroring of heaven and earth. But from the perspective of the Bible, these are trials rather than results of what we are doing here on earth. Does that make sense? And I think that's a difference. Like, if we're suffering because of something we did, then the answer would be, stop doing that thing and then you won't suffer anymore.
And for sure, a lot of our suffering is that kind of thing. It's consequences more than curses, or any of that kind of stuff. But guess who put the tree in the garden? That would be God. God put the tree in the garden. He could have not put the tree in the garden. Right? If God had never put the tree in the garden, Adam and Eve could never have [00:50:00] eaten from the tree in the garden.
So I'm not taking away the responsibility of our, of us and our sin. Like Adam and Eve chose to take from that tree. That's their responsibility. We have responsibility for the sin that we do. But what do we have in the first chapters of Genesis? First of all, we have chaos that God is organizing. So, that's a thing.
We have trials. We have temptations. We have curses. We have all of those things going on in the first three chapters of Genesis. And somehow, all of that seems to be connected to the idea of maturity and human development. There's a problem, though. We don't ever actually quite arrive at where we're supposed to be in creation.[00:51:00]
I mean, to be fair, we have Job, who doesn't seem to fall into the temptation that his trial has brought in front of him. But he's still suffering. He still has problems. He loses his children. I mean, what is God gonna really do about that? So all of that combined, it's really hard to get away from the idea that suffering and trials and temptations are just accidents that happen in spite of God.
That's the conclusion that I can't buy. And of course, we have Christ who came to solve those problems, right? We acknowledge that he is fundamentally the answer to the problem of evil. But even so, we need an explanation that doesn't just lay this [00:52:00] at the foot of God as if it's an accident and Christ was plan B because plan A didn't quite work out all right.
Creation was not created perfect. It was always meant to develop, but did God really think that, Oh, maybe they will develop just the way I want them to, and they'll be perfect, and this will all be hunky dory and great. Did God think that? I don't think so, because that's not who we are. We didn't surprise God with our sin.
None of this was a surprise to God. And Christ is not just our sin management system. All right, I am going to try to succinctly formulate my answer to the problem of evil and why it is here [00:53:00] and why it's not actually quite as big of a problem as we tend to think it is. Because God knew from the beginning, and this was all according to His plan, Now, I'm not saying that God is the author of evil, that He wanted evil, that He planned for sin to happen, that this was something He genuinely wanted.
I'm not saying any of that. But here's the thing. When God created, He created something that was other than Himself. Well, that's obvious, right? There's a distinction between the Creator and the creation, right? We're not the same. He's not just making a copy of Himself. So, because He created something other than Himself, creation was not perfect because only God is [00:54:00] perfect.
Right? So, God did create us with a number of attributes that we share with him. In fact, he created all of creation with the various attributes of himself, but we weren't created with his perfection. And I think there was a reason for that, just like I think there's a reason we need to have free will, because he wanted to create something other than himself.
That was his goal, because by doing that, he diversified creation and existence to a monumental degree. If he created everything to be exactly like himself, then, well, where's the diversity in that? I mean, yes, he could have formed each and every one of us differently, But it would still be him doing it and making all the choices.
We'd all be mirrors of him because he was making all of the [00:55:00] decisions everywhere. In a way, that's what deterministic frameworks do. It's like, God is creating little pottery pieces to populate the world, and we're exactly how he designed us and no different. It's all God doing it all, 100% himself. Well, I think the very existence of the problem of evil shows that we do not have that situation.
Prior to creation, he already had relationships within himself in the Trinity, right? So he wasn't alone, but at the same time, it also was just him. So he created that which was not him and he had to not give it perfection so that it could grow organically so that it could grow in a way that really was not him.
Genuinely, so this is where the free will argument comes in, which is [00:56:00] part of the conversation, but not the whole thing, because creation needs to be distinct from God. And so, yes, this is where we see that evil is going to enter in because once God creates something that's not perfect, that's not himself, then that necessitates that chaos has now entered the chat.
The instant that God creates anything that is not himself, then imperfection will manifest itself in organic choices and directions within the system. This does not make God a cause of chaos. Chaos is the lack of God. It's the lack of God's organization. It's an inevitable quality of not being God. It's not necessarily evil in itself.
But it's not perfect, it's not organized, it's not what it should be, because God is what things should [00:57:00] be. Okay, so once the ability to move away from the goodness of God exists, then the chance of that happening becomes practically certain. However, for life to evolve on its own, not necessarily scientific evolution, but just organic development, it must have the ability to choose or travel down different paths, right?
So, by traveling down these different paths open to us in life, we become different people than we were if we had chosen a different path. This means, though we were created by God and set in this world, our choices join in the initial creation, so that we become something that God did not just decree himself.
So, We're still other than God, but we're being part of creation and adding to creation in a way that God couldn't, [00:58:00] which is, I mean, that's a little bit mind blowing. Not that God's limited, but he can't not be himself, right? So here's another thing. Um, a lot of times people separate the questions of the origin of evil and suffering.
Like you have intentional evil justified and unjustified suffering, but I think these are so interrelated topics that it's false to separate them. Intentional choices moving away from God, that's evil. But general chaos and bad things happen. Those also are a result of being other than God, because they're coming from chaos.
Now, couldn't God just reach in and fix it all? Yes! But this would arrest the development if he did it immediately. That doesn't stop him from reaching in, of course, [00:59:00] because he does. He reaches into creation, and he affects creation. But, God reaching into creation is also the solution to the chaos and evil and suffering.
So, he created something other than himself, and then, what did he do? And then he joined himself to that creation, in order to perfect it from within. Both the incarnation of God, and the indwelling of the Spirit. Accomplish this. And also the working out of the church in the world, because the church is God's body.
And God's suffering and dying on our behalf are God's slam dunk solution to the problem of evil and death. And the ruling of Christ on earth now, through his body, the church, and his eventual ruling at the end of time, All of it ends in the perfection of [01:00:00] creation. So, if we just ask, what does God want, why did he even create?
He wanted a creation which could be its own self, rather than just him setting up clay dolls. But he fully intended to also perfect that creation within himself. So there's a degree of bad stuff that falls out in all of that, which ultimately gets swallowed up in the goodness of God and his joining himself to us with and in the world.
So when you ask, did Christ come to save us from our sins? Yes, but there was, from the beginning, an intent and purpose of creation that could only be fulfilled by the coming of God into creation. This is what we were going to become, which, by the way, also meant a particular time and place. So when we ask, why couldn't he have [01:01:00] just come in immediately?
We could just as well ask the question, why did he come in that he did? I don't think the Incarnation's timing left anyone prior to that out of the purposes of creation, because we aren't thinking broadly enough if we are only thinking about the mortal time a person spends between birth and death.
There's a much longer existence to consider. God needed to allow us to be who we are, and to go different directions, because by so doing, a creation truly exists that is not him. But by incarnating himself into the world, a creation exists that becomes perfected. This is also the purpose we see in how we are created in God's image.
Even in the small ways we represent God naturally on earth. We are working to defeat evil in partnership with God. [01:02:00] Once we get the Spirit, our functionality increases, and then we get together as the body of Christ, and that also increases the functionality. The amazing thing, too, is that this design of creation allows for an interconnectedness That is unsurpassed, not in some pantheistic way, but in a relational way, which has us as God's viceroys in creation, truly participating, truly being an element of God's creation ourselves.
Anyway, that was probably a lot and I started rambling a bit, I think, but I really think that this is core to what we should be talking about in the purposes of creation, in the purposes of God, in the purposes of our lives, in the purposes of why Christ came. And all of that is wrapped up in Christ as our King.[01:03:00]
So then, what's up with the trials? And what's up with all of our suffering? And why? Why, why, why, right? We still have those questions. And there's a whole lot more that I could say about that. Maybe I will at some point in time. But one way or another, what we see in Job, that's what's important. Working to be faithful because God is faithful.
And I personally have a feeling that if we were able to see as God sees, And hopefully we get there at one point in time. Then our perspective will be so radically changed that we might wonder what our big deal is right now. When we see the glory and the benefit of what we are going through at the end, the hope is that all of that is worth it.
Because we are in Christ. [01:04:00] And, that is the end of the story. That ought to be the end of the story. That's certainly the end of my episode. And so, here I am, once again, thanking you all for joining me, for listening, for participating online with me. If anyone has any questions, or comments, or whatever, you can always email me at
[email protected]. I am on Facebook. I am now on Instagram. I am also... on Patreon for those who would like to support me. I have a new website up, though if I ever get that domain connected that'll be kind of a miracle. Either way, my website is functional, and you can find it on Facebook, you can find it on YouTube, but hopefully I will get that domain to make it a lot easier to find.
If you can't find it, just email me and I'll [01:05:00] send you a link. You can do all kinds of things on my website. You can comment, you can leave reviews there. I still don't have the transcripts. That's something I'm working on doing, but I'm going to be having a blog on there, as well as some other things. So, I hope you keep listening and stay tuned, and I appreciate you all, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
