Monday, June 10, 2019
656 - Evil as a Modifier
Spirituality Column #656
June 11, 2019
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Evil as a Modifier
By Bob Walters
“For you are free, yet
you are God’s slaves; so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.” 1
Peter 2:16, New Living Translation
The 9 a.m.
guy on Moody Radio a few weeks back made an interesting assertion about evil: that
“evil” is not a “thing” itself; evil is a description for an action that goes
against God’s will. Some may say that’s
slicing the cheese mighty thin – evil is evil whether it’s a thing or a modifier
– but the line caught my attention as a helpful prescriptive against this
puzzling and frequently-posed apparent conundrum:
“If God is good, why did He create
evil?”
The speaker’s point – and I thought
it was a good one – was that God did not create evil; God merely allows
it. It was certainly a notion worthy of
further discussion.
But the brief piece of Pastor Mike
Fabarez’s sermon I heard included this answer – paraphrased but accurately-framed
– for the “good-evil” question he had posed: “God has to allow evil so He would
have something to redeem us from; that we could not see His redemptive, saving
self if we did not sin and then adore Him for saving us.”
That’s the point, in a Sunday
school class, that I would have put my hand up.
God’s goodness and righteousness
are unassailable, so God does not need tricks to establish His Kingdom or to
save humanity. As my wife Pam smartly
observed: “God didn’t create or allow something bad just so He could look
good.” Amen.
What God does need – what God is – is love, not some Guy looking for a
trophy or acclaim or a parade. God – in
His goodness and love – created humanity in His own free image so we too may freely
decide to love Him and participate in His infinite and eternal glory. Our tribute and obedience to God is in the
love and faith we freely aim His way.
Our human challenge lies in our fallenness in sin. The only option we have to find the way, and the truth, and the life of and
to God is through faith in Jesus Christ (John 14:6) in our own Spirit-led
freedom and love.
That’s why I dug up the 1 Peter
2:16 quote above about slavery, freedom, and evil. Americans – especially Americans – hate any
form of the word “slavery” because in our national experience, and even to this
day 150 years after it was outlawed, “slavery” connotes coercion and represents
a most vile and evil loss of freedom.
Peter isn’t talking about that. Each of us properly and freely should be a slave to that which we love.
First among our loves should be God, paired with a God-inspired and
God-honoring love of humanity. Our
national mistake of the moment is in the preponderance of folks who assert
personal rights but have no inclination to accept God-willed responsibilities. Peter, absolutely, is talking about that.
What I never see in the New
Covenant is God pushing fear, punishment, sin, or guilt as control mechanisms;
those tactics lack love. What I do see
is the love, mercy, grace, hope, peace, compassion, and sacrificial love of
Jesus Christ, whose human freedom He used to honor God and sacrifice Himself as
a slave for that which He loved.
We see evil in that which does not
honor God, and good in that which does.
Our best play, then, is to modify our personal freedom to match God’s
love and goodness.
Evil will not follow us into
heaven.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has a short fuse as to freedom without responsibility.