Bulletin Articles
A World Under the Curse of Sin
Suffering brings to the front one of the most universal questions: why? Why does God allow it to happen? Why this place? Why this time? Why allow the innocent to suffer and die? We just don’t understand, and because we don’t understand, we may look to God and wonder if He really hears, cares, or will do anything about it. Yet in asking these questions, we face the truth that much of this is beyond what we can grasp. At some point we must make a choice between opposing paths:
1. We can deny God because He doesn’t give us the full explanation when, to us, He should have intervened quickly. Since God doesn’t respond as we think He should, and we see no rational reasons for it, we feel justified in denying Him.
2. We can turn to God, trusting that He sees a much greater reality than we ever could and that He will do what is right. He is just and righteous, even when we don’t understand.
We don’t have all the answers. Our understanding is finite, limited to a tiny thread of reality’s massive tapestry, and we are trying to make sense of what we see. We either trust that there is One who knows and understands, or we trust ourselves, thinking that we have enough of the big picture worked out in our heads that we can deny God over it. Choices must be made, and we do have the free will to make them. Yet at the end of the day, we trust that our thinking is good enough to figure it out, or we trust that there is One greater who has it figured out. We should want to avoid the implications of the question posed by God to Job: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). Humility is in order, especially with limited knowledge.
Following is one way to think about what’s going on in this world of suffering and sorrow. It is not the only way to think about it; it is just one piece of a puzzle that helps me think it through.
A world living in the throes of the curse of sin is a world in which God has been rejected, and because of this, life and light have been rejected (cf. John 1:4). Death and darkness are the reality of such a world. This means pain, suffering, and all the corollaries that lead to death will be part of our reality. No one is unaffected by this. No one is born in a bubble that does not experience what sin’s curse has done, even to those who are not guilty. Job is a witness that not all suffering is due to personal sin, though living in a sin-cursed world that affects all.
This curse does not let us think of sin lightly. The repercussions of sin are enormous for all creation, but when we take it lightly, we despise its outcome. We experience what sin’s curse has done, but don’t want to face the sin that lies behind it. Sin is a violation of the nature and character of the Creator, the One in whom is life and light. It is against the glory of God (cf. Rom 3:23). It is not just an arbitrary rule being broken; it is, at the heart of it, our shaking a fist at our Creator, demanding He get off the throne so that we can climb on it ourselves and do as we wish. Because God won’t do this, we get angry at Him for there being consequences to sin. We are incensed that there is a curse, not that sin itself violates God. We block out the light and are offended that there is darkness.
Yet God has done, is doing, and will do something about this. Through the curse of death, God has brought back the hope of life. Jesus, the Son of God, died to defeat death and bring life and light. This is why the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is good news. It is God’s response to our rejection of Him. We chose death and darkness; God brings back life and light. Let this not be in vain insofar as we are concerned.
This is also why we must not abandon the Lord during harsh and difficult times. If we want the hope of life and the blessing of light, then He, though rejected, is still reaching out to redeem, restore, and reconcile. One day, in His time and according to His wisdom, all will be changed and called to account. He will judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:30-31), and He will set straight what the world, in choosing sin over Him, made crooked.
The world will not know peace in the fullest sense; it cannot, for it stands for all that has rejected the only true Source of life and light. However, redemption is at hand. Hope is our anchor. Life and light are at the end of this tunnel. Let us lift up our eyes and see that we may choose life (cf. Deut 30:15-20).
