Often in conversation regarding suffering and injustice in this world, questions arise as to why there is so much violence in the Bible or questions about why God annihilated certain peoples through the Israelite army. Questions tend to point to God as the instigator of suffering, cruelty and death. When you read some of the Bible stories, stories that I heard as a child growing up in the church, such as Noah and the Ark, and realized that it is a story about judgment where almost an entire population was destroyed. The story of David and Goliath is a story about the killing and beheading of an enemy. We read the story of Elijah on Mt. Carmel; the end result of hundreds of prophets of Baal slaughtered. Or we read about the good king David murdering one of his faithful soldiers so he could cover up his adultery. One of the most gruesome stories in the Bible is about the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19, who was murdered and cut into pieces and distributed among the tribes of Israel. There are other gruesome stories of evil and violence and injustice and suffering.
I can’t begin to comprehend God and all His ways. But I do know that God punishes evil and those who came under the judgment of God for horrendous sins were punished by death. To try to understand such evil, I only need to remember such people as Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler, or Stalin or Mussolini responsible for the death of millions. For the millions of lives they slaughtered, and the horrendous atrocities they committed against humanity, I can justify they got what they deserved. However, if it is so ugly and gruesome, why is it necessary to know stories of such gruesome leaders of modern history or in Bible history. Why describe such awful stories in the Bible that is supposed to offer us hope and salvation?
When I look at some of the disturbing events like these, and others, I am reminded of the gruesomeness and injustice of sin. God hates sin and the Bible is full of people whose lives are engulfed by sin and they become ugly stories of lives twisted by sin. The Bible doesn’t sugar-coat life and paint a rosy picture of humanity. It paints a picture of man’s fall into sin and the downward spiral of sin in the lives of people.
We think we are better than that, but are we? I don’t mean we are all like Hitler or Stalin. Yet, we are all sinners and left unchecked, we too have the potential of spiraling downward into the pits of horrendous sinful behavior. We only need to read history of genocides and slaughters committed by “normal” people like us.
When I realize the ugliness of disease, like cancer, in our bodies, I am more aware of the gloriousness of the cure. Amidstof the ugliness of sin and the punishment God brings on sin, I see the gloriousness of the cure through God’s one and only Son who came to die on the cross for our sins that we can be forgiven, but that we could also be changed. God loved us so much He gave His Son to die for us. The apostle Paul says in the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ …” Sin does not have to have mastery over us. Jesus can forgive, heal, cleanse and restore us. We can be set free!
The Bible is a very honest and open depiction of sin in the lives of people, like you and me, and the depths that sin can take us. Alone, our sinfulness paints an ugly picture of mankind. But, in the darkness of our sin, is the light of the good news God brought to us through Jesus Christ. Jesus came amidst sin’s ugliness and revealed mercy, grace, forgiveness and salvation for those who desire to change. There is hope in our darkness when we repent of our sin and follow Jesus. He will forgive and give us new life.
• Dan Wiese is a pastor at Church of the Nazarene.
