Many people ask: if God is so loving, why doesn’t he end all suffering and evil? The answer is, quite frankly, that we may be gone first. Our conceptions of good and evil are structured through the foundations of God’s law, which is completely void of all evil. Stated plainly, evil is not measured by our subjective standards, but by God’s objective standard of righteousness and moral rectitude. We cannot define a crooked line without seeing the straight. Nevertheless, the God of Israel, through his everlasting love, has gifted humanity with the solution to all tragedy, suffering and confusion. Most significantly, God has provided the way for us to break away from the consequences of sin. Standing as the transgression of God’s law, sin aims to invalidate God’s word while fulfilling the motives of the enemy, Satan. The word of God is enforced to sustain a nation of people that flourish and prosper, but once his word is forsaken, there erupts an atmosphere of evil that destroys the foundations of righteousness. The word of God has been commissioned to carry out a great work since the beginning of time; it can be realized that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The unity of God and his word is revealed through Jesus Christ as God’s gift to humanity; it may be helpful to ask, what is Jesus Christ’s purpose in his relationship with us as human beings? Essentially, Jesus Christ is a veil of God’s glory–he exists to liberate us from our oppression to sin, and opposition to the word of God–but since the glory of God is inherently good, God must devise an approach to connect with us without inducing our death, as we have been corrupted and made evil by sin. We are evil, and God is good. There can be no mix, nor indifference. This may be recognized as a strange phenomenon, but it is nonetheless demonstrated in the book of Exodus, in Moses’s interaction with God on mount Sinai. God said to Moses, “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). The glory of God is so powerful that if a mere human were to behold it, they would be met with death. Despite this, God remains committed to engage with Moses–he told him, “Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by…and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen” (22-23). God’s relationship with Moses is telling of his loving character–to still be willing to interact and counsel a man that opposes his glory and righteousness only communicates God’s regard for a solution to a sinful humanity. God wants to destroy the barrier that separates him from his children. This event is so astounding. After Moses witnessed God’s backside, his face shone! One can only imagine if Moses had seen God’s face. How marvelous is the glory of God! 

The Mission of Christ

God’s word, being present since the beginning of all things, “was made into flesh, and dwelt among us,” (John 1:14). Jesus is the fleshly actualization of God’s word. Gaining awareness of this relationship is crucial to understand our place in God’s plan for redeeming humanity. In the midst of all tragedy and suffering reigns a loving God determined to reconnect with his willfully defiant creation–yes, it is true that we have turned our back on God, but even then, God sent Jesus to dwell among us while fulfilling the law in his word. In essence, Jesus is the standard of perfectibility. He came to demonstrate that even while being tempted, persecuted and mocked, the word of God stands firm. Jesus exemplified the power of the word of God in conquering Satan’s doctrine of lawlessness. Even from the time of Jesus’s birth, Jesus demonstrated this power, as he was “about [his] father’s business,” (Luke 2:49) accepting the role that he must realize. This role is so significant because “the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). In order to provide the world with this gift, Jesus maintained persistent work to actualize God’s will–even since he was a boy. Ultimately, after a successive rejection of God’s word by many, Jesus was made the flawless sacrifice in his crucifixion. Hence, he was regarded as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus’s death on the cross was the ultimate atonement for the sins of humanity, because Jesus, being God in human form, was perfect. He conquered sin by accomplishing the will of God, and by fulfilling God’s law. This remains significant news because without a remedy for sin, the sinner must die themself. God took it upon himself to be the perfect remedy through Jesus’s death; he is the spotless lamb of old testament rites. 

The law of God has seemingly withered upon our defiance and rejection–but this is certainly a false impression, as Jesus says that “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall [by no means] pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (18). Jesus came not “to destroy [God’s law], but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17) its principles of holiness. His oneness with God aligns him with God’s will for humanity, which in complete form, will lead us to obedience to his law.  It may also be important to ask, how will we attain the gift of salvation that Jesus died for? The answer is found in the book of John–”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” (John 3:16). The path to accepting the gift of salvation is simple: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Follow Jesus. Embracing the truth found in Christ empowers the believer with the Holy Spirit of God, enabling them to resist the schemes of the enemy, and providing them access to a loving relationship with God. This is humanity’s best news. By providing a clear-cut solution to liberation from sin’s oppression, God cements the way to an everlasting relationship with all his people; as a result, the deceitfulness of Satan is cast away through the empowering truth found in Jesus Christ.