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In recent weeks we have seen the utter devastation that has come about in Haiti with nearly 230,000 people having been estimated to have died as a result of an earthquake. When you consider the million people who have been left homeless and destitute as well, it causes deep emotion and a very real sense of concern to rise up in us. We are left asking again why such a terrible disaster could happen, and perhaps why God could allow such a disaster to happen? Many have been quick to speak up and give their opinion. The ‘New Atheists’ such as Richard Dawkins have seen this as further evidence that God does not exist, that it is just ‘the blind happenings of nature’. However, as we saw in the first article there are major problems with this perspective.  Just because you can give a geological explanation for an event does not mean that there is no law giver behind these events. This is a basic philosophical category mistake.

On the other hand, others such as Pat Robertson have been quick to suggest that it is God’s specific judgement on Haiti for their involvement with voodoo and the occult. However, respected theologian Dr. Albert Mohler rightly questions this premise:

“Why did no earthquake shake Nazi Germany? Why did no tsunami swallow up the killing fields of Cambodia? Why did Hurricane Katrina destroy far more evangelical churches than casinos? Why do so many murderous dictators live to old age while many missionaries die young?”

It is far too simplistic to claim that God has specifically judged one nation for wrong doing, but not others. It is true that God will judge everyone in the future (Rev 20:11-15), but for now we are wise not to speculate about God’s specific judgement on nations. In the Bible, we do see occasions of God judging nations and people for their sin, but God gives a messenger to explain these events before they even happen (Genesis 19:12-13).

Why do natural disasters happen?

The reason that we see such disasters take place is first and foremost because we live in a world which is spoiled by sin.  As I stated in my previous article, the world was in a state of perfection until Adam and Eve chose to sin against God (Gen 3:6-7), and there were consequences to this rebellion (Gen 3:17-18). Ever since the ground was cursed in response to the sin of Adam and Eve, these same natural disasters have been present. In Romans 8:18-22, Paul explains that this will remain the case until God redeems everything.

Those who agree that the world is billions of years old may find the chronology of this inconsistent with what scientific records seem to suggest. Surely there was pain, struggle and suffering in the natural order before Adam and Eve the first man and woman?

Intelligent Design scientist William Dembski agrees and has responded to this question by saying that he believes it is entirely possible that when the ‘curse’ took place in Genesis 3, it affected the world retroactively. His reasoning fits with the way that the cross of Jesus affected human history.

God’s acts transcend time in their impact

Jesus gave his life up and brought about salvation for the men and women of faith that lived in the Old Testament age. We find this clearly taught in Romans 4, when Paul is talking about how Abraham was justified by faith (Romans 4:1-3) and not by works. Similarly, despite the fact that the Israelites sacrificed animals on the day of atonement it was not the acts themselves which brought about salvation, but the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:3-5).  The salvation which God gave through Jesus Christ was transhistorical; it saved those who had faith in God’s salvation plan before the birth of Christ, as well as those who lived at the time and in the future.

Dembski argues that if you use this same logic it is possible for another act of God, [the cursing of the earth], to affect the created order in a transhistorical way too. In other words, if the salvation offered through Jesus can go backwards and forwards in history to save those living in 2010 and those living in 2010 BC, it is entirely possible for this to be true of the ‘the fall’ as well. Consequently, any pain, suffering and death which may have taken place prior to Adam and Eve could have still resulted from their sin, and God’s resultant cursing of the earth. I would want to state that this is one theory though, and would be wary of drawing too many conclusions from this.

God’s providence

In the previous article I made the point that our moral behaviour as people would be even worse if it were not for God’s common grace. This is true in a similar way for the earth that we live in. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin are death, so we could easily have expected that God would have destroyed the earth in response to our rebellion against him, but he hasn’t because of his sheer grace and mercy. Luke 8:22-25 sees Jesus commanding the wind and sea, demonstrating God’s control over the forces of nature and whilst we see many natural disasters happening around us, God’s grace will have undoubtedly stopped many others from occurring.

Conclusion

In the final article of this series we will look at how God uses suffering and difficulty in the here and now for good. For now, we can say that we see the world in the mess that it is because of sin. God was completely justified in cursing the earth in response to human sinfulness.

The sin should have led to death for all of us, but God has shown mercy and grace to us by restraining the physical destruction which happens. God can still use these very tragic events for good as we will see in our final article in this series, but we can have hope for the future, when God will complete his redemption. God is making all things new (Rev 21:5), and those who place their trust in Christ will not be experiencing pain and misery forever. There will be a day when Christ comes again, and every tear will be dried (Rev 7:17).

In the meantime Christians are called to show compassion to people who have experienced loss, to reach out with the love of Christ, both my providing for people practically (James 1:27) as well as introducing people to the one who will heal their pain ultimately.

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In the first article I was looking at if it was possible for a good all-powerful God to allow suffering to exist within our world, or whether the very existence of suffering proved that there is in fact no God at all. I came to the conclusion that in order to define suffering and evil in a meaningful way, the existence of God was necessary. In this article, we will look at the causes of suffering in our world, particularly focussing on the issue of ‘personal evil’. What I mean by this is the kind of suffering that comes about as a result of individuals or groups making decisions that have an impact on others. This includes a very broad range of things from mass evil such as the Holocaust, and 9/11 to everyday decisions.

The necessity of free will

So if God is all-powerful, why does he allow suffering to happen on an individual level? The first point to highlight is that God has given us dignity as humans through giving us free will. This free will is necessary, as without it we are sub-human and do not have a capacity to experience love.  We would merely be robots.  I have been married for 9 months to my wife Jac, and we love each other very much. Imagine though that I had met her and forced her to be in a relationship with me, this would not be love at all, but coercion. God has given us the same dignity of responding to him. He does not coerce us into relationship with him.

Some people will ask ‘if God knew that we would sin, why did he choose to give us free will in the first place?’ The issue here is that relational love could not exist without free will. God could have built a world with androids in it, but he chose something more glorious, a world with relational love, and there are potential consequences to that. God decided that it would be more glorious and praiseworthy to have a human race with love, even at the risk of his own children turning their backs on him, than an enormous bunch of robots who are simply programmed to have to respond to him.

The effects of sin

The reality is that God made men and women in the beginning to experience a relationship with him. If we look in the Genesis narrative we see that there was total harmony (Genesis 1:31), but then Adam and Eve chose to disobey God (Gen 3:6-7) and everything changed.  We have continued as a human race in much the same way. As human beings we certainly have a dignity about us, which enables us to do some very positive things: we are able to be creative with technology, draw wonderful art, make fantastic music, advance scientifically and many more things. This comes from being image-bearers of God who is also creative, but sadly we also exhibit the signs of rebellion.

It doesn’t take much to see this in action in other people such as Hitler and Stalin who were responsible for millions of deaths. Each of these dictators clearly misused their free will in order to gain power, and we rightly label their deeds as morally wrong. However, this rebellion is present in our lives more subtly as Jesus pointed out when he said in Mark 7:21-23:

‘For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.’

Each of us has probably also been responsible for the suffering that someone has experienced in their own life. The pain experienced may range from the relatively trivial to the very severe, but it is worth recognising that as humans we are not faultless. Romans 3:23 indicates that we have fallen short of the standard set out by God. We all stand guilty of misusing the free will given to us by God, and we all stand in need of a redeemer.

Why doesn’t God intervene?

One of the things that we tend to ask when evil happens to us is why God doesn’t intervene in situations? My fourth article will be devoted primarily to the purpose that comes out of suffering which God sovereignly allows, but for now I will make a couple of points.

There is an underlying assumption in this question that God never intervenes in any situation. How can we know this though?

God does intervene; if he didn’t there would be alot more suffering than there is. God does restrain the amount of evil that happens in the world. This is part of his common grace to us, if he handed us over to our desires of rebellion completely then the world would be even worse than it is.

Common Grace

This means that there are actually many wars and evil deeds which are prevented from happening. Through common grace God gives anyone the ability to forgive someone instead of holding a grudge (which we would be pre-disposed to do otherwise) which ceases the chain of bitterness and unforgiveness. How often do we see friendships and family relationships break down over something very small, which is not forgiven and escalates until the two parties no longer speak. Without God’s common grace given to all, this would be experienced on every occasion.

However, God does not always intervene in these situations, and this is because he is able to use such situations for good. I’m sure we can all think of things that have not gone our way in life, but we have come out stronger as a result. We will look at this in more detail in a couple of articles time. There will be other occasions where we can’ t see the good that comes from it, and we end up seeing it later on in life, but also times where we won’t be able to see it in this life. This is when we will need to trust God, based on what he has revealed of himself elsewhere. We can be confident even in mystery that God will use it, after all his thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9), given his perspective (unlike ours) is eternal.

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For anyone who watches the news on a regular basis it seems like our world has a considerable amount wrong with it; pain and suffering seem to surround us on every side. Broadly speaking we find the roots of suffering in two places; due to the choices of fellow human beings, and natural disasters like that recently experienced in Haiti. We will have much to say on both of these in subsequent articles, but for now I intend to tackle the issue at hand. Does the very existence of suffering lead us to atheism; that is to conclude that there is in fact no God in control of this world that we inhabit?

Whether it has come from an emotional or intellectual source, I’m sure that anyone who has ever given any consideration to world events has felt a strong sense that ‘the world is not as it should be’. It somehow seems out of sync with a world that a loving God could have made. This is entirely normal and leads us to question how this could be.

18th century philosopher David Hume spoke for many when he summarised this argument:

‘Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?’

This sounds very convincing on face value doesn’t it? However, it makes a  considerable assumption in the process; that we are able to determine what good and evil are, quite independently of God.

The problem of defining good and evil

Former atheist CS Lewis realised the difficulties with this line of enquiry:

‘My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?… Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies…consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.’

In short, if we take God out of the equation then the idea of ‘evil’ becomes meaningless. Hume’s question falls apart.  If we assume that there is no God then there is no standard by which we can say that anything is objectively wrong. All we have is subjective preferences (for more on objective moral values click here).  As I mentioned earlier though, if we’re honest we all know that internal tug deep within us, that tells us ‘this is not how it should be’. ‘The world should be just, it should be fair’, and ‘people should not have to suffer’.

If we take God out of the equation then we have to accept that pain, suffering and evil are inevitable and are just part of our world, an inevitable by-product as part of naturalistic evolution. There is no reason why we should feel any sense that things OUGHT to be a particular way at all. We are just mistaken if we think that, it is just our senses messing with us.

Richard Dawkins summarises this rather depressing and hopeless viewpoint:

‘….some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.’

Is that all our lives are though? Pitiless indifference and purposeless? It seems to me we don’t live that way (for more on the origins of meaning, click here), we live as if there is purpose to our existence. As humans we even try to look for purpose in the midst of suffering. Why does it happen? This is something we will look at in the next article.

Conclusion:

Although at this stage we have not looked at why God may allow suffering, one thing is clear: the existence of evil in our world does not prove the absence of God, it merely makes us question why he allows such suffering. It only needs to be possible for God to have a good reason for allowing suffering and evil (even one that we may never know) for this argument to be defeated.

Tim Keller cites that it is almost universally accepted in academic philosophy circles that the argument from evil is not a good argument for atheism. It seems that one of the key reasons for this is that the very definition of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is so tied up with the need for a divine yardstick that the question becomes incoherent without God.  As a human race we feel a strong inner sense that the world ‘ought’ not to be this way,  that seems to transcend mere preference. This if anything seems to provide a stronger argument for God’s existence than his non-existence. Far from the universe being purposeless and indifferent, in a christian worldview it is possible to find great purpose even in pain and suffering, which we will look at in the next article.

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If you consider yourself a sceptic about Christianity or a Christian who is looking for honest answers to some of the toughest questions, then this book was quite simply written for you. Tim Keller is a pastor in New York, who has put into writing the kinds of questions that he is asked on a regular basis about Christianity such as ‘ How can a good God allow suffering?’, ‘Hasn’t science disproved Christianity?’ and ‘How can a loving God send people to hell?’

In this book, Keller takes an unusual approach to defending Christianity, in that he essentially divides the book into two. The first half is dedicated to answering objections that are often raised against Christianity, but in the second half of the book he somewhat changes his approach. Many people often believe that the burden of proof is on Christians to show why they believe in ideas that go beyond mere naturalistic thinking. However, Keller shows very clearly through philosophy, literature and reasoning that there are in fact many assumptions made in atheistic and agnostic worldviews in practice; such as when we consider the origins of moral values, and indeed meaning in life, amongst other things that are a significant problem.

Tim Keller manages to come across as thoughtful and persuasive while maintaining an intellectually credible yet accessible work.  Overall, I would suggest that this book is a must-read for anyone, whether you consider yourself a person of faith or not. This will challenge many of your pre-suppositions to the core.

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As humans we are not just complex machines. There is more to us than the sum of the molecules we are made up of. Naturalistic philosophy teaches the opposite, which has from time to time caused confusion when considering persons with a disability. As much of Europe has adopted naturalism as a philosophical position, disabilities have been thought of increasingly like faulty machinery, despite inherent feelings of repulsion at such a concept. However, if one considers humans naturalistically it is difficult to consistently conform to any other notion. Conversely, Christianity sees humans as more than just the physical. As such, physical or mental disability is not self-defining.

What does it mean to be ‘Made in the image of God’?

A common misconception about the phrase ‘being made in the image of God’ is that it means we look like God. Being made in the image of God means that we reflect aspects of God. For example we create, we use complex language and thought, we love, and we have the capacity to know right or wrong. As such every human, disabled or not, is made in the image of God equally. Because of the Fall (see below) each person’s potential to reflect God has been marred, physically and spiritually.

The Fall

Not many people would consider the world perfect; general opinion tends to think the opposite. Imperfection permeates everything; politics, technology, relationships, and even our very personalities. The Bible calls this ‘The Fall’, which describes a break in the relationship between God and man. As beings created in the image of God we were designed to relate to God and each other perfectly. This is why we enjoy each other’s company, fall in love, live in communities, and so on. Despite this, we do not love perfectly, or live in community perfectly; reading any newspaper would verify this. If we are honest with ourselves, we can relate to this all too well. We all know what it is to deliberately make choices we know are wrong, and therefore humanity does not reflect the image of God flawlessly. All of us (able-bodied persons and those with a disability alike) have all tried to live self-determining lives without reference to God from birth. The Bible teaches that all the evil and suffering in the world is a result of rejecting God, and trying to live life independently of him.

How does the Fall affect the disabled?

The fallen condition of man dictates that from birth not only his personality but also his body is affected by the fall. In Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve broke relationship with God, he said that they would die. This affects everything on earth from genes to our very attitudes of selfishness. As a result death and illness are part of the fall, and disabilities are part of the human condition.

Universal affects

A person with a disability is no less made in the image of God than a person without a disability. A human’s eternal potential is never compromised by the physical. Suffering and malfunction are universal products of a world that is not right with God. Jesus was very clear on the subject, that the amount that one suffers in this life does not relate to how ‘bad’ one is (Luke 13:1-4, John 9:1-3), rather that everyone should be warned that rejecting God leads to death, both physically and eternally. Despite this, God’s desire is that we would come to him and be restored (Ezekiel 33:11).

Single universal solution

The Bible speaks of a God that has great love for all people, and shows concern for those who suffer. Sometimes God will even heal people with disabilities, and they will be free from them in this life. On other occasions God will not remove this condition, but promises to give us the grace to live with it, and still be able to live a full and joy-filled life. This is not to be taken lightly, and does not mean it will be easy for someone who lives with the reality of a disability at all, but God does genuinely provide joy when we can’t see how that could possibly be experienced.

Supremely, Jesus Christ is the ultimate proof of God’s love and desire for our restoration. Jesus came and suffered himself, and did so out of compassion for the ‘fallen’ condition that we are in. He did this to save us from our fallen state and give us a hope for an eternal future without imperfection where disabilities would be a thing of the past. There will be no more pain, suffering or death!

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So many things could be said in response to this question. Firstly, I am far from sure that the church does leave doctors to ‘deal’ with the mentally ill. But for the purpose of this answer I will assume that the question is concerned with healing. The Bible tells us that if anyone is sick that we should pray for their healing in faith and expect them to be healed (James 5:15.) I want to use this opportunity to speak about the nature and purpose of healing in the over-arching plan of God.

Jesus the Healer
In the Gospels we see Christ going from place to place not only preaching that His Kingdom had come but also backing this up by healing all of the sick (Matthew 4:23 & 9:35) From this we can deduce that the Kingdom (or ‘rulership’) that He describes is one in which all things that were corrupted by mankind’s rejection of God at the Fall will be set aright. This obviously includes the end of sickness and ultimately, death. On top of this, Jesus told us (in John 14:12) that his followers would do even ‘greater things’ than he himself had been doing.

The Problem
Although today we pray for people to be healed as Jesus did, we don’t always see this happen. What does that mean? Should we quit praying for the sick to be healed? Does God want some people to be sick and others not? As Jesus described His miraculous activities as examples of the ‘Kingdom of God’, we need to take a closer look at what He meant by this term.

The Kingdom
What is a kingdom? What is the ‘Kingdom of God’? Jesus himself told us that every time we pray to God we are to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) It rolls off of the tongue easily enough but I wonder if you have ever considered what you are asking God when you pray that? The clue is in the second clause ‘your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven’. What we are asking is that God effect His sovereign rulership over the Earth in increasing measure, day by day. This rule is brought in by God’s people co-working with the Spirit of Christ in prayer and action. When we pray for someone’s healing, we are asking God’s Kingdom to come in a particular way.

Now and Not Yet
So why do we only see partial evidence of God’s rulership in the earth at the moment? Surely, Christ has already died, risen and ascended to Heaven: Should it not be the case that everything is now in submission to Him as king and head over everything? Hebrews 2:8-9 describes well the situation we find ourselves in at present: The Kingdom is already here but the Kingdom is also yet to come. As the text says, “at present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus… now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” In saying this, the writer shows us that, despite the fact that we don’t currently see the full extent of Christ’s victory, we can be completely assured that the fullness of the Kingdom will come because the King has already been crowned. Ephesians 1:10 reveals to us the profound truth that God’s ultimate purpose in the Earth is to bring all things “under one head, even Christ”. Could God heal anyone of any sickness? I have no problem believing that at all. After all, if He is all-powerful then it is no more trouble for Him to heal the mentally ill than the physically ill. Why does He not heal everyone every time? It can only be that a greater purpose, one that will ultimately bring more glory to Him, takes precedence over even the temporal individual health of His people.

Agents of God’s Blessing
So, having looked at how healing functioned in Jesus earthly ministry and how it functions for Christians today, what of the original question regarding the care of the mentally ill being the charge of doctors? Well Romans 13:1, speaking with regards to obeying earthly authorities, tells us that God gives leaders who are not necessarily Christians as a ‘Common Grace’ (a gift from God that is for all people and not only for the Christian – other examples are that He keeps us breathing, sustains the earth etc.) It is part of God’s providence that He restrains evil and causes people to have compassion upon their fellow men and other creatures and not be totally selfish. It could be said that God’s provision for the seriously ill includes the use of people who may not even obey Him to bless others. Many times in Scripture, God will do this. A striking example would be the way God uses the Assyrians to discipline His people, Israel (Isaiah 10:5-7,) despite the fact the Assyrians motivations have nothing to do with the purposes God will achieve through them.

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
Because of the atoning death of Christ, we can be assured that there will be a day where every sickness and even death will be completely done away with (Revelation 7:17 & Rev 21:4.) We already know that in the mind of God (who dwells outside of time and indeed, created time,) the Kingdom has already come on Earth: The Bible describes Christ as ‘the Lamb slain from the creation of the World” (Revelation 13:8) pointing to the fact that the work that mankind has seen Christ doing in time and space (on the cross,) is a perpetual reality in the mind of God.

So What do We do?
In light of all we’ve seen, should we keep on praying for the sick? Undoubtedly! The Bible tells us that we are to do this. Isaiah 53:4-5 reveals to us that Christ died for our sins and that “by his wounds we are healed” – God sees our healing as already a done deal: Whether it plays out completely this side of eternity is in His hands but, ultimately, we will be absolutely, eternally healed and restored. It is not for us to decide who God will heal and when, it is according to His purpose alone. Our role is to offer prayers in faith and ask that God would bring about His increasing Kingdom rule through us as He has promised He will.

Resource
For some helpful further listening check out the Christian Professor John Lennox in this excerpt from a debate. Especially worth listening to between 2:50 and 5:00 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5KZYTKNE8

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In reality when we ask this question we are in fact asking two questions both of which I will attempt to answer. Firstly we are asking if God is in control of the seasons of rain and sunshine etc. We are also asking, however, ‘is God responsible for tsunamis and earthquakes etc, in short, natural disasters?’
 
Weather for all peoples
 
The answer to the first question is far simpler. The Bible describes God as sovereign over all things, and the weather certainly falls under that heading. Perhaps the clearest description of this is found in Acts 14:16-17 where Luke (the author) writes: “In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”
 
As you can see, the Bible clearly states that God provides for all peoples. Christians call this principle ‘common grace’. This is the idea that God is good to all people groups, showing them his reality through these actions, and consequently bringing them to a knowledge of him. This is evident even now in spite of famine etc, as represented through the fact that most aid charities will observe that within the world there is enough food for everyone to be satisfied, it just isn’t equally distributed.
 
God and natural disasters
 
What then do we say with regards to natural disasters; ‘if God rules over the weather then is he causing suffering and death?’ In fact the Bible is clear on God’s hatred of these things, seen in God’s decision to punish his Son, rescuing us from our sin and bringing us into eternal life. Having said this, we must confront the issue that it could seem that we have a good God who rules over everything, but is allowing these bad things to happen. Any proper response to this is going to be vast, due to the largeness of the question (which obviously has implications beyond the weather). I will do my best to summarise the Bible’s position on this matter.
 
The Bible states that the world (or creation) is suffering like us under the consequences of sin. From the time of Adam and Eve and their rebellion in the garden, sin has been present in the world; in people and in the earth. In us this is shown in our separation from God and the decay of our bodies to death. In creation the same decay and corruption is present. Creation is flawed, and like us, waiting to be liberated from its condition. We see this in Romans 8:19-21:
 
“…creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
 
This means that figuratively speaking, creation is waiting for God to come back and bring judgment of right and wrong so that only goodness will remain. God doesn’t come and fix the world right now because it is his will that as many people as possible are made right with him, giving people time to come to repentance. But, because creation is flawed it will continue to show the effects of sin as we do, outworked in disasters that are clearly not the perfection that God once created.

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The suffering of Christ

The suffering of Jesus was appalling. The Bible records that he was mocked, beaten, spat upon, stripped naked, crowned with thorns and flogged. Nails were then driven through his wrists and ankles, pinning him to a cross that he hung upon till death. Historical sources reveal that sometimes individuals would die from the flogging alone, as “veins were laid bare, and. . . the very muscles, sinews and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”* All this and we haven’t yet considered the spiritual side of his suffering.
 
God put upon him all the sin that Humanity had and would ever commit, separating him for the first and only time from God. He was wracked with our guilt and shame, best represented by his exclamation, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me”. None in this life can know what it is to be completely separated from God, only Jesus. Isaiah 53: 4-6 records “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” ”
 
The consequence of sin
To understand the need for all of this we must first try to understand the vastness of the problem, the disgusting nature of sin in God’s eyes. The Bible says that God absolutely detests our sin, that he is perfectly pure “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” and with this in mind our failure to meet his standards is horrific. Paul summarises our condition by saying that “our righteousness is as dirty rags”, by which he means that the best we can offer up in good deeds is disgusting to a holy God. In fact the Hebrew from which we translate ‘dirty rags’ is far more graphic, a bloody tampon would be more precise! Imagine a cat bringing a pigeon back to its owner as a gift, that cat believes he is bringing something valuable to impress but if we understand something of the revulsion of the owner to this gift then we understand a fraction of how God feels about sin.

I have said all that to say this; we understand best the reason for Jesus’ horrific suffering when we begin to grasp the reality of our sin before a perfect and pure God. Jesus’ suffering was necessary because God had to fully punish all our wrong deeds in order for us to be fully accepted before him. We, as Christians, celebrate Jesus’ awesome sacrifice because in so doing we are celebrating our acceptance and cleanness before God.
 
*An account given by the third Century historian, Eusebius.

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