God, Evil and Sin

[giantsdodie]

Sovereign means that God is in control and that nothing happens that He does not allow. It does not mean that He is the progenitor or the direct cause of everything that happens. God did not CAUSE Adam to sin. He created Adam as a free will moral agent with the ability to CHOOSE and Adam used the free will God gave him to make the wrong choice.

[ybrown]

The greek translation of Isaiah 45:7 is –

The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.

The translation doesn’t say that God merely allows calamity to happen.

Biblically, calamity is translated as evil, bad, adversity, displeasing, burdensom. Evil is subjective and it can be applied to anything that causes displeasure and discomfort on our part. God creates and uses it all, evil and good. It all plays a part. It doesn't affect His nature one bit and it most cetainly doesn't make God evil!

What we easily call evil, God uses as a corrective. If we didn’t know the origin of the Flood, today we’d certainly debate if Satan caused it because of the nature of the event itself. It was a bad thing; folks drowned, the earth was in ruin, etc.

The Flood was corrective in nature. So was Sodom & Gomorrah, and the burdens of Babylon (Isaiah 13:1-22), Moab (Isaiah 15:1-9), Damascus (Isaiah 17:1-14), etc. These were all corrective in nature and chastisements that seemed grievous and evil, and yet they yielded reconcilable fruit that caused God’s people to emerge victorious. And God was the source of and/or commanded each one of them. And not once did He commit a sin in any of them!

The source of all of His acts is love.

[Jasmine]

Question:

Did God really create evil? Or is evil (simply put)another word we have created to describe the absence of God? Evil is what happens when we do not have the Love of God inside of our hearts.

So did God really create evil, Does he cause evil, or is evil another word created to describe the absence of God?

[krazeeboi]

If we are speaking of affliction and calamity, then not only does God allow that to happen, but in many cases He actually performs it. The biblical references are many in this regard.

In the moral sense, while He actually does not perform it, I think it's a bit more than Him actually allowing it; in certain cases (at the least) I'd actually say that He ordains it to be so.

Jonathan Edwards put it like this:

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .

Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .

So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.

[krazeeboi]

By the way, the above quote was taken from this article:

Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?

[ybrown]

That’s a good piece, KB.

jasmine said:

Question:

Did God really create evil? Or is evil (simply put)another word we have created to describe the absence of God? Evil is what happens when we do not have the Love of God inside of our hearts.

So did God really create evil, Does he cause evil, or is evil another word created to describe the absence of God?

Jas, I’d definitely say that evil is a God creation and I contend that His great plan absolutely could not be performed without it.

Let’s take the greatest evil act ever committed. It was comprised of so many cruel, evil, brutal and unbearable acts of violence, yet it was God’s greatest act of passion and love.

The only thing that rivaled the beating was His passion.

Without the evil of Judas, Pilate, his soldiers and the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day, it would not have happened. The hate in those men’s hearts was all God-induced for a greater purpose. If we believe otherwise, then we’re essentially crediting Jesus’ crucifixion to those men rather than to God Almighty who knew His plan since before the foundation of the earth.

Yet God actually said it pleased Him to bruise and crucify Jesus. Even more, He gladly sent The Son to the tree knowing he was going to die brutally!

Was that evil? The acts that accomplished it sure were, but God’s motivation was always love. Always was and always will be, forever and ever, Amen.

Sometimes we’re like Peter when it comes to evil as he tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross. Like us, he too could not accept that evil must be done in order for God's will to go froth.

So yes, God created, authorizes, influences and ordains evil in order to accomplish His plan. And everything that He does is ultimately ALL for us! Only in the end will we see it.

[chloe]

How,How, How can you say God - a HOLY God does evil
How? A God that hates evildoers does evil Himself ? I don't think so.
It isn't possible.
Sounds a lil' blasphemous if u ask me.

[krazeeboi]

ybrown said:

That’s a good piece, KB.

jasmine said:

Question:

Did God really create evil? Or is evil (simply put)another word we have created to describe the absence of God? Evil is what happens when we do not have the Love of God inside of our hearts.

So did God really create evil, Does he cause evil, or is evil another word created to describe the absence of God?

Jas, I’d definitely say that evil is a God creation and I contend that His great plan absolutely could not be performed without it.

Let’s take the greatest evil act ever committed. It was comprised of so many cruel, evil, brutal and unbearable acts of violence, yet it was God’s greatest act of passion and love.

The only thing that rivaled the beating was His passion.

Without the evil of Judas, Pilate, his soldiers and the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day, it would not have happened. The hate in those men’s hearts was all God-induced for a greater purpose. If we believe otherwise, then we’re essentially crediting Jesus’ crucifixion to those men rather than to God Almighty who knew His plan since before the foundation of the earth.

Yet God actually said it pleased Him to bruise and crucify Jesus. Even more, He gladly sent The Son to the tree knowing he was going to die brutally!

Was that evil? The acts that accomplished it sure were, but God’s motivation was always love. Always was and always will be, forever and ever, Amen.

Sometimes we’re like Peter when it comes to evil as he tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross. Like us, he too could not accept that evil must be done in order for God's will to go froth.

So yes, God created, authorizes, influences and ordains evil in order to accomplish His plan. And everything that He does is ultimately ALL for us! Only in the end will we see it.

You have spoken truthfully. I wholeheartedly agree.

[giantsdodie]

chloe said:

How,How, How can you say God - a HOLY God does evil
How? A God that hates evildoers does evil Himself ? I don't think so.
It isn't possible.
Sounds a lil' blasphemous if u ask me.

I agree in some ways its like we dont even know the God that we say that we serve.

[anointedteacher]

How do you define evil?
Do we call the wrath of God and His Judgment, evil?
Do God call it evil?
How do you honestly feel about the situation with Uzzah, God smote him for touching the Ark, it was an accideent. Did God do evil or did He exercised what was written in the Law? (II Samuel 6:6-7)
Why God didn't smote the Phillistines when they handled the Ark?

God created Angels and Men/Women with freewill and is capable to do good and evil....
He did not created Lucifer and the other fallen angels as evil angels, they choose to be evil as freewill angelic beings.
He did not created man as sinners, Adam made a decision to disobey God through the gift of freewill.

I do believe God allow things to happen and He exercise His judgment on this earth in many ways.

There are something God will allow, because He has given us the power and authority to come against evil. If God allow the enemy to throw stone at me, it don't mean I have to stand and take it, He want me to fight back, not Him, but the enemy. If Him exercising His judgment toward me for being disobedience, I better to repent and ask for forgiveness and mercy.

We don't know God like we should.... We don't all know the characters of God and we don't understand everything He does and why. We need to know not only His Word, but also His Will and Way.


GDD, you right we don't know the God we serve or think we serve.

AT

[ybrown]

ATT, GDD and Nina, I totally know what you guys are saying because it was my belief for so long. That idea about God soothes us spiritually. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be correct.

A student of the bible should take a concordance and check all the words in the Bible in which the word "evil" is used. You’ll find that most often it is God who uses both bad or “evil" and "good" to accomplish His purposes on earth. The fact of God being God means that He has complete control over all things on earth and in the universe, and this means that God controls and uses both types of forces and acts consistently.

The Bible shows that God’s object of creation involves a positive outcome in scope that is supported with an equal amount of negative outcome in scope and that both the positive and the negative aspects work together in a harmonious manner to balance one another in the final design and purpose of God.

God consistently and unmistakably denotes His power (which belongs only to Him) by demonstrating His control over opposite themes that diametrically oppose each other. No, these scriptures and parts of the bible are not popular with most, especially with those behind the pulpit.

• "The Lord kills and makes alive: he brings down to the grave, and brings up. The Lord makes poor, and makes rich: he brings low, and lifts up. He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dung hill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory." (I Samuel 2:6,7)
  
  
• "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive: I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." (Deuteronomy 32:39)
  
  
• "I have created the waster to destroy." (Isaiah 54:16)
  
  These verses show a clear NEGATIVE creative power.
  
  
• "The Lord has made all things for himself: yes, even the wicked for the day of evil." (Proverbs 16:4)
  
  
• "Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good?" (Lamentations 3:38)
  
  
• "All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, what do you?" (Daniel 4:35)
  
  
• "There is one lawgiver, which is able to save and to destroy." (James 4:12)
  

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We’re even given a definitive answer about all the evil and the wickedness that we see in the world today, which was said so succinctly and powerfully by the first head of the Jerusalem Christians, James:

• "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts 15:18)

The truth is God is as much involved throughout history in negative acts as He is in positive ones. God Himself ordained Nebuchadnezzar to perform his evil upon the nation of Judah in the sixth century before Christ. In Jeremiah 25:9, 27:6 and 43:10, God even called Nebuchadnezzar "my servant"!

Not Satan’s servant, but God’s servant!

AT, the bible does not support that fallen angels, including Satan, were at first righteous and then fell from grace after creation. I know that is a common belief, but scripture does tell us otherwise.

It seems this idea comes from declaring that Satan is the anointed cherub who covered the Mercy Seat in the heavenly House of God as described in Ezekiel 28:11-19; that "King of Tyre" was another angelic personality altogether. This is something I’m still looking into, but biblically, I can see where this thought prevails, even though it may not necessarily be correct.

The truth is, Satan was created and ordained to do his role as a murderer and to be the father of liars from his first spark of his life. I believe that Satan’s role fits into the same category as those evil men that are spoken of in Jude 4: "There were certain men crept in unawares, who were BEFORE ORDAINED to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was also Jude that taught that it was God who ORDAINED these evil men to accomplish the job He wanted them to perform.

So as for Satan, he was created to be an evil being from the beginning. That was God’s ordination.

Even more, Revelation 12:7 tells us that Satan has under his control in heaven a whole army of angels who are capable of warring against the archangels Michael and Gabriel and the other non-rebellious angels. Those righteous or non-rebellious angels are what we call “good” angels as God created them from the beginning to be loyal to Him.

Even though they are what we term good, we still have to recognize in Job 4:18 that God "puts no trust in His servants [in heaven], and His angels He charged with folly".

Paul is the one who said we’re all sinners by nature and from our very births are reckoned by God to be sinners and are still charged with folly in our actions toward God. So too are angels.

With all of God’s creation, He creates good and He creates evil. To accept Him is to accept all of Him and everything He creates and ordains, not just the parts that make us feel all good and fuzzy all over.

Because in the end WE WIN and it ALL works out for our good. This is His purpose because our perfect and divine God loves us scoundrels so much its unbelievable! That is the one thing we all need to trust in because that glorious ending too, is ordained, secure and sure.

We just need understand the poetry and fluidity in His work – all of it.

[krazeeboi]

Absolutely, YBrown. Everything that exists exists because it was orchestrated by God, either by a direct action or by permission--and it all serves His purposes. He doeth according to the council of His own will.

This is precisely why the apostle Paul said that we should not be conformed to this world, but we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are called to think a certain way, and unfortunately, the society in which we live today has affected us to the extent that we think that anything that isn't all touchy-feely and lovey-dovey is wrong. God accepts full responsibility for everything that happens in this world. God knows what He is doing. The evil in this world is for the "other side" of His glory, and the good works for a side of His glory as well.

[giantsdodie]

Ybrown.

You have your belief. While I fully realize that God works all things together for HIS good and then ours I also realize what His Word CLEARLY says.

HE is not evil. HE does not do evil, NOR does he CREATE evil.

God is not evil and cannot commit evil in any way shape or form. Nor can he create evil in the sense the majority of us see evil in the terms of wickedness, or unrighteousness.

God however does allow calamity to happen and he does allow adversity. My bible shows me a God that is HOLY in ALL His ways and RIGHTEOUS in all His works.

I know what I am saying because it is what I know is the absolute truth. Not because it makes me feel good.

God is not Evil. There is NO " dark side " of God. Period.
No debate. No contention.

Now did God CREATE satan as evil. No. He became evil when he exalted himself against God. Did God create Adam fallen in nature. No he created Adam with HIS nature which Adam lost when he disobeyed God. Did God create Judas evil. NO Judas was evil because of the wickedness in his heart which exists because of mans fallen nature.

This kind of thinking leads into the erroneous beliefs that satan will go to heaven because he is only doing what God created him to do and the silly stuff like Judas will be in heaven too.

God is sovereign. He allows evil to exist ( and that will come to an end one day ) and he will allow evil to exist to accomplish HIS purpose and His will and to show His Glory. No question about that.

However God Himself is not Evil, Cannot do Evil, Nor does he CREATE Evil. Our simple minded logic says, Because God is the creator of all things, and evil exists then God ust have created it.

What we fail to realize is that GOD didnt create anything evil. satan's rebellion and mans disobedience caused the fallen state in our world. We choose to do evil. Not because God made us that way but because its our choice.

That kind of thinking allows the homosexual the excuse to say.. Well GOD made me this way when we all know that GOD didnt make them that way.

So while I understand where your thought process is in regards to this matter rest assured mine in clear as a pool of mountain spring water.

HE is not evil. HE does not do evil, NOR does he CREATE evil.

[Nikkol]

giantsdodie said:

Ybrown.

You have your belief. Keep it. While I fully realize that God works all things together for HIS good and then ours I also realize what His Word CLEARLY says.

HE is not evil. HE does not do evil, NOR does he CREATE evil.

Isa 45:7 -
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Theredore, we can say that he created evil.

[giantsdodie]

He didnt create Evil because His Word SAYS HE cannot. Now either the Word is contradicting Itself or we have a MISUNDERSTANDING of that Scripture.

The WORD doesnt contradict itself. The Word EVIL is translated as many different things. One of the translations ( and the one that fits that verse and fits what Scripture says about GOD ) is that God allows Calamity or misfortune to happen.

And that is what that verse is saying.

You must reconcile scripture with scripture. If God is the creator and progenitor of evil then He CANNOT be HOLY in ALL His ways. That is a contradiction to the Word of God. He cannot be RIGHTEOUS.


(Isaiah 45:7, KJV) - "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

Is God really the one who created evil? To answer the question we must first look at how the word for evil "rah" is used in the Bible, examine the context of the Isaiah 45:7 passage, and look at other passages on the same subject.

First of all, the Hebrew word for evil "rah" is used in many different ways in the Bible. In the KJV Bible, it occurs 663 times. 431 times it is translated as "evil." The other 232 times it is translatedas "wicked", "bad", "hurt", "harm", "ill", "sorrow", "mischief", "displeased", "adversity", "affliction", "trouble", "calamity", "grievous", "misery", and "trouble."

So we can see that the word does not require that it be translated as "evil." This is why different Bibles translate this verse differently. It is translated as "calamity" by the NASB and NKJV; "disaster" by the NIV; and "woe" by the RSV;

Second, the context of the verse is speaking of natural phenomena.

"I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me;
6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other,
7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these." (Isaiah 45:5-7).

Notice that the context of the verse is dealing with who God is, that it is God who speaks of natural phenomena (sun, light, dark), and it is God who is able to cause "well-being" as well as "calamity." Contextually, this verse is dealing with natural disasters, and human comfort issues. It is not speaking of moral evil; rather, it is dealing with calamity, distress, etc. .

Of course, this raises other questions of why God would do such a thing, which I won't cover here. But, we can trust that whatever God does is just and is used for teaching, guiding, judgement and disciplining His people.

Secondlt there are other verses that clearly show that God is pure and that He cannot approve of evil.

“The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He," (Deut. 32:4).

"Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor," (Hab. 1:13).

We can see that the Bible teaches that God is pure and does not approve of evil, that the word "rah" (evil) in Hebrew can mean many things, and that contextually, the verse is speaking calamity and distress. Therefore, God does not create evil in the moral sense, but in the sense of disaster, of calamity. SImply put he WILL allow calamity and disaster to happen and sometimes He will create it as a form of judgement ( such as the plaques that fell on Egypt ). But God himself doesnt not create unrighteousness, unholiness or wickedness.

Lets get a proper understanding of what the scripture is saying when it says God creates evil, so that we can interpet correctly.