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Does God Commit Evil Acts or Make Evil People? God is never the causative
reason for evil acts, (disease, mental illness, murders, thefts, abuses,
wars, poverty, strife, etc.) All evil originates from just two places
here on earth. It either originates from mankind, or from Satan, by
their own free will. James said this.
“Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
Turning from what? The answer is, “Turning from good to evil. James is
saying, “God is not the perpetrator of a single evil act. Never was, and
never will be. God does not
predestine some people to commit evil acts, nor does he predestine some
for salvation and others for hell. That is not what Romans 9:21 or
Eph.1.4 is saying. He does predestine things to happen to us, or for us,
like the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, or the blessings mentioned in
Eph.1:3, but only through His foreknowledge of the choices we,
ourselves, are going to make, in the first place.
Genesis 1:31
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
(God creates
only good things, including Satan at the time he was created. The word
says that everything here on earth, which God made in the beginning was
very good. There is no record of
God creating any life form which was evil. They became evil later
through sin. Sin entered, through the “free will” He gave to mankind and
Satan and his angels.)
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD,
thoughts of peace, and not of evil,
to give you an expected end.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count
slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
(All means all, including those vessels of destruction
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(God gives humans a free will to choose to believe or not believe.
Through his foreknowledge, he knows which choice each of us will make,
but that does not mean that he makes the choice for us.) 3 John 1:11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. (This verse asserts the goodness of God, and further states that He does not cause people to commit evil acts. This scripture wouldn’t make any sense if God was the causative reason for people committing evil acts.
Here is the catch, to what I have just said. Although God is never the
cause of evil, His forbearance can seem to us like He is promoting the
very evil, which in reality, He hates. However, God's forbearance is
often necessary, in dealing with the infinite number of ripple effects, caused by
only one evil act. That forbearance is what we humans can never fully
understand. Many times, we mistake His forbearance, for Him being the
perpetrator of that evil. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here
is the truth. God does not tolerate evil, and has put in place
counter measures to every single evil action that has ever been
committed. Those counter measures do not just mitigate the consequences
of that sin, but they restore what was damaged or
destroyed, to an even more glorious state than before the sin occurred. That takes time. Sinless
Jesus had to suffer over a period of time at the hands of evil men committing a
multitude of evil acts against him. Yet, He endured,
knowing that he would be raised from death to much greater power and
glory, then he was able to manifest as merely a man. However, that
manifestation has not yet been fully realized
and its been over two thousand years. (Remember, Jesus is both man and
God. I am describing his tarrying return as that of a man. He is also
God and that part of him is not tarrying. That part of Christ is working
through his church night and day, until that great day of our Lord shall
come. (Luke 21:27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a
cloud with power and great glory.) |