Bible Question: Since God is sovereign, does that make Him responsible for evil? |
Bible Answer: God made all things. And all things were good. See Gen 1 and John 1:1-3. He made a real capacity to choose ,and that capacity to choose bad was good. He did not create the fall, but rather the capacity for the fall (Oh, there is not much real substantive dispute hear with five pointers only differences in the understanding of man). And in creating the capacity to fall, He created the possibility to both stand and to be picked up. And that is very good. You see, God is. And apart from God is not. He created the capability to chose not to be with God and in not being with God, not to be or not to have life. I am not a person who believes we cease to be once we are judged, but rather we cease to have life and to have hope and to have of GOd. Thus in the final judgment, those who chose "not God" cease to be relevant and to have any impact or meaning. While we are in evil, we see evil, we know evil, we feel the impact of evil. Once evil is removed from us in God's ultimate judgment, it will cease to be a factor or have any meaning to those who have life. Actually, evil will still have one very important aspect of relevance. We will know the grace of God in a way we never could because He came and rescued us from evil and our separation from Him. John 9 asks, "Did this man sin or his parents sin?" "Neither but so the works of God may be displayed in Him." God is responible for all. He is sovereign and in His greatness He has made a way that our choice to turn away can be redeemed so that we may know Him in a deeper way than is otherwise possible. |