There’s a woman in my church — a lovely woman, a mother and a wife, and selfless servant of the Lord’s people, one most highly esteemed. She has been a grief and addiction counselor, and has spent her whole life ministering to others in their moments of darkest sorrow. Her husband is also a wonderful person, and his career for several decades has been as chaplain to the
elderly, caring for fragile souls on the doorstep of eternity.
This woman has just been diagnosed with aggressive, metastasizing
liver cancer. The fatal kind.
Naturally, she is shaken and brought to grief at the prospect of leaving her family so suddenly. Her
husband is also devastated; he lost his first wife to cancer, so he’s been down this awful road before. Though strong in their faith, the whole family
is understandably emotionally rocked by this terrible, terrible prospect.
Me, I don’t know what to say.
But I hope I know what not to say.
The Godly Reaction
That remarkable fact is recorded for us in the shortest
verse in the Bible.
At that moment he was facing full-on, point-blank, the
ultimate destiny of existence in our fallen world, the final wages of sin — and he wept.
Astonishing.
All the more astonishing since we know he was about to
reverse it. In a few short moments, he would speak the words “Lazarus, come forth,” and out of the tomb would come a man fully restored to life.
What’s more, he knew this was what he was about to do.
And yet he wept.
That fact, if nothing else, should warn us against any cavalier
attitude to pain, sorrow and death. Even in the presence of the total ability
to reverse it, the tragedy was profound — that human beings, sentient creations
of God intended for eternal fellowship with him, should instead be subjected to
distress, suffering and death, this to the Son of God was more than merely
wrong … it was unspeakably sad. In the face of it, grief and empathy were
absolutely appropriate, regardless of what would happen thereafter.
Facing the Pain of Others
As Christians, we need to remember that. Human pain hurts. Sadness, grieving and tears are not signs of lack of faith. Death and deprivation are not to be dismissed
offhandedly. And empathy for those who suffer is absolutely right, regardless
of what hope may come hereafter.
Remember Job? Now, there was a guy who suffered. And when
his pals showed up to comfort him, they saw how awful his situation was, and were so dumbstruck they sat down with him and said nothing for seven days and
nights. They just shared his suffering.
It was the best thing they did. The worst was that after
that they opened their stupid mouths and tried to explain away his agony as if it were perfectly understandable in straightforward humanly-graspable terms. In doing so, they became so irreverent and self-righteous that
God nearly judged them. (Apparently, God doesn’t think much of people who explain away his dealings by quoting clichés or by being cavalier.)
Job saved their butts. But Job also never knew, this side of eternity, the why of his suffering. Even after his restored fortunes he was never told what caused the whole thing to happen.
Maybe there are people who, in this life, manage to figure out why they have suffered. Most do not. Maybe God will explain it all to us one day, and we’ll all agree when we see his wisdom. But for now, suffering just hurts.
Cavalier Christianity?
I am reminded of these facts every time I hear someone quote
or preach on the verse that says, “all things work together for good to those
who love God.” It is true, of course, but it is not and cannot be taken as a dismissal of
suffering. Human pain is real. Suffering, even the prospect of it, is
legitimately terrifying. Death is unspeakably sad. And in response, grief is
legitimate and necessary.
And yet, it seems that invariably whenever I hear Romans 8:28 quoted, it is being used in the hope of relativizing, excusing or
minimizing someone else’s pain. Sometimes it’s even used to chide the sufferer
for his or her lack of faith in feeling sorrow at what has befallen.
This, I think, is wrong. I don’t think the verse was ever
intended for that purpose, and I suggest that he (or she) who uses it that way
is doing a disservice to God and to his people.
Now, it’s not that I do not believe that God can bring good out
of any situation at all — depression, sickness, separation and even death
itself — it’s that I don’t think that God ever intended us to use that verse to
dismiss the terrors and agony of life in our fallen world. To bring us ultimate
hope, yes … but not to inoculate us against the present experience of
suffering, and certainly not as an
anaesthetic to our responsibility to feel along with others.
All things work together for good — yes, ultimately. But
right now, it is very, very hard to be a human being.
A Closer Look
In fact, I think we have good reason to question how most
people use that verse. They generally apply the “all things” to absolutely
everything that can happen, without restriction, definition or limit. But in
the scriptural context, we have good reason to suppose that might be wrong.
It is true that one can make a case for “all things”
referring back to verse 18, which speaks of “suffering” in general terms. Maybe then the “all things” are anything that causes pain to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Maybe. But verse 18 is a fair distance from verse 28, isn’t it? And
there’s a lot in between that merits attention and, I suggest, is more likely
relevant to the interpretation of those words.
First, look at verse 17: it refers specifically to the
sufferings that we who are Christians experience in our role as Christians — not to all the suffering
that goes on in the world. Similarly, the “groaning” in verse 23 is
specifically the agony of, on the one hand, knowing there is a better day ahead
but, on the other, experiencing the painful realization of its absence at the
moment; and in verse 26 is the agony of not knowing how to pray. The impression that
we are dealing with spiritual pains is further strengthened by the reference to
“hope” in verses 24 and 25; for this “hope” is a specifically Christian hope, and not something
pertaining to the general experience of the world. So even within the passage,
we find good reason to think that the sorrows being spoken of are the unique spiritual
sorrows of the Christian experience, rather than general sorrows of human life.
Not only that, but there is a whole list of specifics that
is positioned much closer to the “all things” in verse 28 than the general
“suffering” in verse 18. We are told about a whole lot of things that should
count against the sufferings we experience in the world — new birth, adoption,
sonship, redemption, salvation, hope, perseverance, and the intercession of the
Spirit. The “all things” in verse 28 is followed by foreknowledge,
predestination, election, calling, justification and our inevitable
glorification. Then “these things” is referred to again in verse 31, specifically in reference to the spiritual
blessings that God has arranged for those who love him.
The Point, Concisely
Let me put it bluntly, then: it seems to me that the “all things” referred to in Romans 8 are not things like marriage breakups, mental illness, child abuse, cancer, and death. It is not God’s will that such things should even exist, for eternity will see them banished forever. And any good that comes out of such things will be purely by God’s overruling them; in and of themselves, they are the terrible furniture of a fallen world, and they are simply bad.
In contrast, God has a bunch of “things” that he is working together for our good. These are things like salvation, justification, the work of the Spirit, the hope of full redemption and glorification. He works them together for our good, because put together they combine into ideal unitary plan that God is securing for us despite whatever circumstances are happening to us in the present moment. At the end, we will win.
It’s really those spiritual things, and not the former circumstantial things, that Paul means by “all things work together for good.”
This is why Paul exclaims, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Maybe against us are the evil circumstances of the world — like suffering, grief, pain and death. But for us is God’s wonderful plan of full redemption, secured by his foreknowledge, guaranteed by our adoption, sealed by the Spirit, and founded in the faithfulness of a promising God. If the trials of life are evil in and of themselves, they are never so great that they can put a dent in that.
Tears may fall now; but joy comes in the morning.
A Better Balance
In any case, one thing I am sure of: the Lord didn’t give us
Romans 8:28 so Christians could dismiss the pain and suffering of others with a
back-handed wave or a pat explanation.
My advice: watch how you use that verse. There’s nothing
wrong with taking personal consolation from the thought that a sovereign God
can make even very bad situations yield good in the long run. But we have no
license for minimizing the present pain people experience between now and the
long run.
When faced with the reality of human suffering, Jesus wept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ullv_XN2d8M
ReplyDeleteVery much on-point, Bernie. Thanks.
DeleteThis might help and give some hope. A true testimonial about the fact that no matter what, our trust can be placed in God and in his plan for our life.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=63wY2fylJD0