Why Evil

Dear Judah and my future grandchildren,

So the question naturally arises, if God made us for a good and wonderful purpose; if we are supposed to reflect all that is good then why is there so much evil in the world?  This is a good question.  It is one that every human being asks.  It is also in a way why God inspired Moses to write the first 11 chapters of Genesis the way he did.  You see the story of the Bible from Genesis chapter 12 onward, starting with God’s call of Abram, is about God redeeming and ultimately renewing all of creation.  It is a wonderful story and like all stories it needs to be introduced or set up.  The main conflict in that story is the horrible state of man and creation.  The hero is God himself coming to save the world, ultimately in the person of His son Jesus through Jesus’ work on the cross.

However, none of that story makes sense unless you understand that God created the world originally perfect, or “very good”.  God created a world so perfect that, if Adam or no one else had sinned, then today the world would be filled with billions of people who would be so perfect in their thoughts, words and deeds that nothing they did would in the slightest be wrong, annoying, damaging, hurtful or any other destructive word in any way shape or form.  They literally couldn’t choose to do wrong (except for the one choice of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) because their natures would be perfect.  Imagine a world like that.  It wasn’t a dream.  It was a real possibility.  It will also be a reality in heaven. 

The reason this worked was because God was the source in their individual lives to live this out.  Once Adam sinned by eating the fruit, he cut off access to God’s power in his life.  He was on his own.  He died that day and death would eventually work its full power as he sunk back into the earth and became dust again.  That sickness, disease and corruption was all caused by sin, a rejection of God.

The first 11 chapters of Genesis are designed to show us the reality of just how bad sin and its consequences are.  Cain murdered Abel, even after God warned him of the sin crouching at his door.  Eve mourned the death of her son.  Lamech rejected God’s design for marriage and took two wives.  He also boasted of his murders.  Humanity became so evil that God decided to wipe it out and start over.  He took the most righteous man He could find, Noah, and started there.  He literally wiped out the earth with a flood.  You would think that things would get better after getting rid of all the ‘evil’ people in the world.  Yet it’s not long before Noah and his sons are involved in poor judgement and evil.  God promises not to flood the earth again even though the thoughts of man are always evil.  Even after that the whole population ignores God and in their arrogance and cowardice gather to make a name for “themselves” not for God.  God spreads them out.

You see, sin is pervasive and pernicious.  It is ever present and always corrupting.  It brings us guilty before God’s perfection.  It holds us corrupted from ever making ourselves better.  We need someone to rescue us.

That is where the story of Genesis 12 starts and ultimately ends in Jesus.

Don’t forget that is what the whole story of the Bible is about.

Never forget that,
Grandpa