The
Goodness of God. Rev. 6:15-17
Review
Revelation 6:15-17 NASB “Then the kings of the earth and the
great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and
free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains;
Whenever God is dealing with man in grace that also involves His justice
and His righteousness. These aspects of God’s character and essence and the way
he relates to His creatures are sometimes thought by some people to be somewhat
contradictory. Sometimes people focus on one aspect to the exclusion of
another, or on the other to the exclusion of the first, and the result is a
distorted view of God. And it always has consequences in the individual’s life
because when we go through difficult times, adversity and suffering, if we have
a demeaning view of God and have not properly understood His essence, His
character, how he deals with man and things in human history, then it causes
believers at times to waffle in their faith, have various doubts, it causes
believers to become sceptical and to use this as a fulcrum which they think
gives them leverage against the truth of God’s Word. So as we go through our
studies we stop and focus upon these aspects, these important doctrines, because
they are the focal point in these texts.
In Revelation
Who are these people who are able to stand and who have been living in
the midst of that judgment? They are believers. The martyrs do not survive the
judgments but they participate, they are as much a recipient of these judgments
as unbelievers. The question that this raises focuses on the whole topic of the
grace of God and the goodness of God, for as we understand the extremities of
these disasters the question will be how can a good and loving God allow His
creatures, especially creatures who have trusted in Christ as their saviour and
who have been part of His family, believers in Jesus Christ, go through this
kind of tremendous suffering? It just doesn’t seem to fit with the idea of al
loving, benevolent, caring God. This is often expressed by those who wish the
challenge the idea that there is a caring God according to the standards of
Christianity. So, several questions are raised as we think about this. Is God
really good, just and fair? We also need to answer questions related to the
issue of suffering. Why do good people suffer?
We have to recognise that there are four things involved in this
question; it is not a simple question: first, the nature of God; second, the
nature of suffering; third, the nature of evil; fourth, the plan of God. To
answer the question we have to have a good understanding of those four things.
People who have a somewhat limited or anaemic view of the nature of God are
going to come away thinking that somehow God must be out of control or he can’t
control things, or He is just wringing His hands up there in heaven, looking
down on the earth thinking, What am I going to do about all of this suffering?
That shows a rather weak view of God. When there is a weak view of God there is
a tendency also to have a weal view of evil and of sin. When we have a biblical
view of sin and evil we realise that it is more than just telling a white lie
or committing some social faux pas,
or thinking in terms of whatever the socially defined sins are of the day, such
as racism or sexism or some of the other things that are politically incorrect
in our culture. Sin at its very root is a rejection of the authority and person
of God. Because of the nature of reality, the way God is and the way His creation
is, when that authority relationship is breeched it has consequences which
reverberate through all of His creation in ways that we can’t even imagine. So
that things that we consider to be “white sins” or little white lies and are
somewhat inconsequential have consequences far beyond what we can imagine.
When we look at this we have to look at the nature of God and who God
is, and this brings to bear the essence of God: that God is sovereign, which
means He is in control of His creation; He is absolute righteousness and
perfect justice. This is at the core of our whole understanding. As a
righteousness God everything that He does performs to absolute perfection, and
justice is the application of that perfect standard to His creatures. Holiness
means that God is unique; He is one of a kind; He is totally set apart. This is
stated very clearly in Exodus 15:11 NASB “Who is like You among the
gods, O
LORD?
Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?” He
is also a God of love. These three attributes are not in juxtaposition to one
another but they all work together in perfect harmony. We have to understand
what these terms mean. In Genesis 18;25 Abraham is talking to God just before
the Lord goes to judge Sodom and Gomorrah for their sexual perversion: NASB
“Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked,
so that the righteous and the wicked are {treated} alike. Far be it from You!
Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” That is the point. God,
because He is not only righteous and just and love, but because He is also
omniscient and knows all the facts. Because He knows all the facts He can
always make the right and just decisions in the outworking of history. So we
can always trust Him. Jeremiah
God is not somehow distant and uninvolved and uncaring about human
suffering or the things that are going on within human history but His justice
has also provided the perfect solution to the problem, and only when we
understand the extent of this problem of sin and evil can we appreciate what
the solution is which began at the cross with Jesus Christ. It was on the cross
that the sin penalty was paid, and that sin penalty had to be paid so that the
justice and righteousness of God could be satisfied. Once His justice is
satisfied, then His love and His mercy is free to flow to mankind on the
conditions that He set within His plan—which was on the basis of faith alone in
Christ alone, trusting in Jesus Christ as saviour. But God allows human history
to run its course because He is demonstrating certain things within human
history to demonstrate that any action, no matter how innocuous it may seem,
that is independent of God is going to have consequences that are horrendous
and that reverberate throughout history. So He is demonstrating something
throughout history and in His omniscience and His omnipotence He is able to
bring that to a conclusion. In this end-time history what God is doing is
resolving these issues in judgments—the issues of sin and evil—so that He can
then bring redemption to man, the earth, and resolve this whole problem of sin
and evil. In the course of that there are those who are dear to Him who will go
through suffering and adversity, but this is not without purpose and not
without reason. At the end God wipes away every tear and we see that caring
concern that God has in bringing that to resolution when we are face to face
with Him, and there will be a time when we no longer remember any of the things
that have occurred in this life.