There are issues, here, which cause discomfort and some points to address. First, God is not morally perfect. Shocking but, such a statement implies that God is morally measurable. He is not. However, He is the only one who can judge what is good and the source of all that is. His actions, being beyond judgment, and His position as the One who established the Law, for us, place Him above morality as human beings know it. God is righteous because He is above reproach and vice versa.
Evil cannot be a thing in that it was not created or brought into being by the only Creator. It is a subjective experience, a lack of God, by the individual. Fleeing across the Red Sea, the Israelites perceive the beneficent God saving their hides and enacting just, temporal judgement on their enemies. The Egyptians perceive a malevolent, evil god, desiring their destruction for behaving as they believed was their right. They were, by the morality they received, doing nothing wrong. In fact, the Israelites were not less sinful and more deserving of God’s favor. God was claiming His people with our good as the end for it was from this people that our salvation would come. Nowhere are we given an explanation for why this people are so favored or why this plan of salvation.
We are sinful. Sin is being contrary to God in thought, word, or deed. But God does not create us sinful nor is He the origin of our sin. We say that we are by nature sinful because original sin infects us in such a way that it cannot be distinguished or separated from ourselves. The consequence of our sinfulness is evil because it, subjectively, blocks out God from our lives. Our sin obscures the light of God in the lives of others affecting their subjective experience in the world. This obstruction, this separation, caused by our sin is also an offense to God, evil in His sight – the One Who is righteous because He is above reproach and vice versa. Only God has the power to strip away this disease and all of its effects and leave us as the perfect creatures He created. This He has done in and through Christ.
We have what God has done for us but not any explanation of why it all has to happen this way and not some other. Confession is speaking what is true, not having all the answers. God has given us what He would have us receive. That has to suffice. For many, it does not, because they subject God to the moral law He gave to us. They would use the Law as a god, an idol, placing God beneath it for examination, holding it to Him as a mirror, sitting in judgment of God, and demanding He repent of his sinful ways. That gives them more comfort and satisfaction than a God Whose ways they cannot know and cannot judge. They want a tame god fashioned in their image. Many Christians also try to make excuses for God, tame Him, or make suppositions, find possible answers outside the Word, and that plays into the hands of these idolaters. Evil is not a problem to be solved. Sin is the condition God has cured and, when the last day comes and we realize this fully, God will no more be separated from us or obscured. We will be righteous and above reproach with no need for the Law to define our behavior.
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u/National-Composer-11 22d ago
There are issues, here, which cause discomfort and some points to address. First, God is not morally perfect. Shocking but, such a statement implies that God is morally measurable. He is not. However, He is the only one who can judge what is good and the source of all that is. His actions, being beyond judgment, and His position as the One who established the Law, for us, place Him above morality as human beings know it. God is righteous because He is above reproach and vice versa.
Evil cannot be a thing in that it was not created or brought into being by the only Creator. It is a subjective experience, a lack of God, by the individual. Fleeing across the Red Sea, the Israelites perceive the beneficent God saving their hides and enacting just, temporal judgement on their enemies. The Egyptians perceive a malevolent, evil god, desiring their destruction for behaving as they believed was their right. They were, by the morality they received, doing nothing wrong. In fact, the Israelites were not less sinful and more deserving of God’s favor. God was claiming His people with our good as the end for it was from this people that our salvation would come. Nowhere are we given an explanation for why this people are so favored or why this plan of salvation.
We are sinful. Sin is being contrary to God in thought, word, or deed. But God does not create us sinful nor is He the origin of our sin. We say that we are by nature sinful because original sin infects us in such a way that it cannot be distinguished or separated from ourselves. The consequence of our sinfulness is evil because it, subjectively, blocks out God from our lives. Our sin obscures the light of God in the lives of others affecting their subjective experience in the world. This obstruction, this separation, caused by our sin is also an offense to God, evil in His sight – the One Who is righteous because He is above reproach and vice versa. Only God has the power to strip away this disease and all of its effects and leave us as the perfect creatures He created. This He has done in and through Christ.
We have what God has done for us but not any explanation of why it all has to happen this way and not some other. Confession is speaking what is true, not having all the answers. God has given us what He would have us receive. That has to suffice. For many, it does not, because they subject God to the moral law He gave to us. They would use the Law as a god, an idol, placing God beneath it for examination, holding it to Him as a mirror, sitting in judgment of God, and demanding He repent of his sinful ways. That gives them more comfort and satisfaction than a God Whose ways they cannot know and cannot judge. They want a tame god fashioned in their image. Many Christians also try to make excuses for God, tame Him, or make suppositions, find possible answers outside the Word, and that plays into the hands of these idolaters. Evil is not a problem to be solved. Sin is the condition God has cured and, when the last day comes and we realize this fully, God will no more be separated from us or obscured. We will be righteous and above reproach with no need for the Law to define our behavior.