Do you guys remember the story of the Prodigal Son? It is one of Jesus’ most famous parables and addresses the topic of sin and redemption. The story is located in Luke Chapter 15 and I’m going to read it to you now because it provides a good illustration of Paul’s theological argument up to the point we have been looking so far in his letter to the Romans. We are going to be looking in Chapter 5 of Paul’s letter to the Romans today, but I want to read this text because I think it really offers a good illustration of where we are in the argument so far. I will be reading from The Message.
Then [Jesus] said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’
“So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
“That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.
“When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.” (Luke 15:11-27 MSG).
This is such a rich passage and there is really a lot here. We could spend weeks going over all of the things we can learn here. You probably know that there is more to this story than what I just read but that’s all a message for a different day. For today it is good just to look at this part and think about how it applies to what we have been studying in Romans.
Of course, when we read this story, I think we probably almost always identify ourselves with the younger son. This is in recognition of our own shortcomings. I think all of us, if we are honest with ourselves, can identify with the rebellion and selfishness of this character, and we should. One of the really interesting things about the story is that when you think about it in the context in which Jesus told it we come away with the realization that we can identify with the other two characters: the older son and the father, also. But again, that’s for a different day.
For today let’s just go with being the younger son. He is called prodigal because he is extravagantly wasteful. Prodigal means extravagant. He takes the livelihood of the father and just wantonly casts it away to satisfy his own passions and lust, with no care for the consequences either now or in the future. He doesn’t care who gets hurt as a result, or how.
Now the idea of asking for your inheritance before the death of the parent would have been a real act of rebellion in the society Jesus is telling his story to. No one ever inherited anything before the father was dead. And so that meant that when the younger son asked for his inheritance from his father while he was still alive, he was really saying he wished the father was dead. In a patriarchal and honor based society like the ancient Middle East this would have been an unconscionable act of disrespect. Jesus’ listeners would have been intrigued that the father gave in to the request, and shocked at what the younger son did.
They would have been even more shocked when the younger son decided to return to the father, which would have been incredibly bold, and they would have been absolutely astounded that the father received him back. That would have been utterly beyond belief. For the kind of disrespect the younger son had shown, the father would have been expected to disown the son. But instead the father eagerly, joyfully, welcomes him back to his full estate, and throws a big party to celebrate. This kind of love would have been beyond extravagant. That is why a recent book looking at this story by Tim Keller is titled The Prodigal God, because in this story it is really God who is extravagant with his love. That’s a book I highly recommend. In fact I highly recommend anything written by Tim Keller. In fact, much of what I am going to tell you today comes from another book by Tim Keller, The Reason For God. So now none of you can accuse me of plagiarism.
But I digress. The love that the father shows here would have seemed so extravagant to Jesus’ listeners as to seem almost foolish. The father would have forfeited the thing that was of supreme value in that society – honor – out of his overwhelming love for his lost child. And of course this is the point Jesus wanted to make: that the love of the Father is so great he will gladly give up the thing most precious to him in order to receive back his lost children.
Now isn’t this the very thing that Paul has described in his letter to the Romans so far? That all of God’s children stood condemned through their own fault, through their own rebellion, both Jew and Gentile, but that the well of God’s mercy was so deep that the Father was willing to sacrifice the thing most precious to him, his own son, to restore his lost children to full estate. This was all and entirely by the initiative of God, and no human could claim that he had done anything to deserve it. Redemption was made freely available to those God chose and all they had to do to receive it was claim it – and to act like they claimed it. And of course that last thing was the hard thing as we looked at last week, making that step of faith.
So the place in Jesus’ parable of the lost son where the Father welcomes back the son illustrates the place we are in Paul’s letter to the Romans. But what happened to the son after he was welcomed back by the father? It’s not recorded in the gospel. We are left with this wonderful scene of reconciliation. But what changed for the son? And was the son changed? We don’t know. And what happens to us after we become the receivers of God’s amazing grace? That’s what Paul starts to tell us about in the part of Romans we are looking at today.
5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:1-11 NIV)
Just to summarize, I think Paul is describing to what happens after salvation by pointing to the resurrection. Christ’s death paid the penalty for our rebellion, but his life brings us peace with God.
This outlook of Paul’s, in fact, the whole Christian outlook, can be pretty frustrating by worldly standards, because there seems to be such a distance between the promise we read in verse 1 of this text and the way the world is. Verse 1 promises “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1 NIV). We have peace with God. What does it mean to have peace with God?
Peace in the context of any Jewish Biblical writing of this period would have represented the Hebrew word shalom. When we think of the word peace we usually think of it in the context of an absence of conflict or war. Shalom does mean that but it means more. The verb form of shalom suggests making restitution for harm done. If for example someone caused damage to his neighbor’s property, he could make shalom with his neighbor by somehow paying for the damage done. The noun shalom has the more literal meaning of being in a state of wholeness or with no deficiency. The action of shalom or restitution brings about the state of being shalom which means a relationship of wholeness without deficiency. Paul’s use of shalom would have brought to mind to people living in Paul’s day the concept of making full restitution for harm done and complete wholeness in the relationship between man and God. The brokenness and corruption and death that had been introduced into creation by the rebellion of Adam and Eve would be completely, finally, and totally reversed and complete peace with God restored. It is a state of peace so complete and so wonderful that I think we have a hard time even imagining it. It imagines a perfect world. What do you think a perfect world would be like?
But of course we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a heartbreaking world that is plagued by crime, war, sickness, poverty, despair, and futility. I used to pay a lot of attention to the news but now I can barely look at it because it is too heartbreaking. The more I realize the love of Christ in my own life the more I suffer at the inhumanity that our world seems to thrive on. And even though when we see evil in the world we renounce it, the way that we do so often only adds to the evil, it doesn’t heal anything.
So how can we as Christians reconcile Paul’s bold statement that we have shalom when we are surrounded by such chaos? Can we blame the skeptics for being skeptical? Their criticism of our faith is summed up as follows: in the face of such overwhelming evil and suffering, if God is powerful enough to allow it he must not be good, and if he is good he must not be powerful enough to stop it. If God is good, he cannot be God, and if God is God, he cannot be good. In either case, the loving God of the Christians seems to be neatly done away with.
But it isn’t so simple. Let me offer you a few observations on this problem of reconciling the triumph of Christ with the existence of evil in the world.
1. Evil and Suffering Isn’t Evidence Against God
The first observation is that the existence of evil and suffering isn’t evidence against God. The argument here starts with the assumption that because there is so much pointless evil in the world, the traditional God of all good cannot exist. The major fallacy with this argument, of course, is how do we determine that something is pointless? There has to be some measure of pointlessness beyond my own idea. Just because we can’t see a good reason for evil and suffering doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. We have to acknowledge that our own perceptions of situations are limited by the narrowness of our own vision of time and space.
We are all familiar with the story of Joseph in the Bible. Joseph’s brothers hated him so much that they eventually sold him into slavery in Egypt just to get rid of him. Joseph didn’t want to become a slave, and we know from the Bible story that for him and for his father this must have seemed an overwhelming tragedy. But we also know that Joseph found favor with Pharaoh in the land of Egypt and eventually became the number two ruler of the kingdom, which placed him in a position to save the lives of his father, brothers, and their families from a terrible famine. Many years after selling Joseph into slavery, when they learned that he had survived and become powerful, his brothers feared his retribution. But Joseph said to them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen. 50:20 NIV) .
I think we have all experienced events in our own lives that at first seem to be tragic and pointless but which we look back on later and realize that all of those things had to happen in order to lead us to where we are today.
And, as another illustration, just this week I was reading the novel The Once and Future King by T. H. White. It’s a modern telling of the King Arthur story and it is not necessarily a book with a Christian outlook. Nevertheless in the middle of it I found this little story in which the magician Merlin tries to explain the seeming unfairness of life to his protégé Arthur. The Story goes:
“Sometimes, life does seem to be unfair. Do you know the story of Elijah and the Rabbi Jachanan? This Rabbi went on a journey with the prophet Elijah. They walked all day, and at nightfall they came to the humble cottage of a poor man, whose only treasure was a cow. The poor man ran out of his cottage and his wife ran too, to welcome the strangers for the night and to offer them all the simple hospitality which they were able to give in strained circumstances. Elijah and the Rabbi were entertained with plenty of the cow’s milk, sustained by home-made bread and butter, and they were put to sleep in the best bed while their kindly hosts lay down before the kitchen fire. But in the morning, the poor man’s cow was dead.
“They walked all the next day, and came that evening to the house of a very wealthy merchant, whose hospitality they craved. The merchant was cold and proud and rich, and all that he would do for the prophet and his companion was to lodge them in a cowshed and feed them on bread and water. In the morning, however, Elijah thanked him very much for what he had done, and sent for a mason to repair one of his walls, which happened to be falling down, as a return for his kindness.
“The Rabbi Jachanan, unable to keep silence any longer, begged the holy man to explain the meaning of his dealings with human beings. ’In regard to the poor man who received us so hospitably,’ replied the prophet, ‘it was decreed that his wife was to die that night, but in reward for his goodness God took the cow instead of the wife. I repaired the wall of the rich miser because a chest of gold was concealed near the place, and if the miser had repaired the wall himself he would have discovered the treasure. Say not therefore to the Lord: ‘What doest thou?’ But say in thy heart: ‘Must not the Lord of all the earth do right?’”
So, just because we can’t see the reason for evil and suffering we encounter doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. If we feel at liberty to be mad at God because he is powerful enough to stop evil but doesn’t, we must at the same time acknowledge that God is powerful enough to see the good that can come from what we see as evil. If we can acknowledge that good can come from evil some of the time, why can’t we acknowledge that God is powerful enough to make good come from evil all of the time?
2. Evil and Suffering May Be Evidence For God
My second point goes even further than the first. I have suggested that the existence of evil and suffering doesn’t constitute an argument against the existence of God. Now I will propose that the existence of evil and suffering might actually be an argument for the existence of God. And this is simply because of the fact that we know, or at least think we know, what good and evil are.
The argument against God based on the problem of evil begins with the idea that there is such a thing as justice and fair play. People ought not to suffer, be excluded, die of hunger or oppression. But if we look at the natural order in purely scientific terms we see that the evolutionary cycle demands all of those things in order for things to “evolve.” So our ideas about justice constitute a perception of how things ought to be that must come from somewhere outside of nature. Where?
I have seen this problem in my time as a professor at the university. Academia, I think in reflection of our secular society, is obsessed with the issue of fairness. Everything ought to be fair, and everyone ought to be treated fairly on an equal basis. I would never argue that people should not be, but the problem for academics, and for our society, is the basis by which we decide what is fair. Because academia reflects the society at large by falling into the post-modern trap of denying that there is any single monolithic truth that represents what is fair. How can you tell if something is fair if there is and can be no agreed upon standard of fairness? And if there is a standard, that is more likely to point outside of the natural order of things and argue for the existence of a supernatural agent, God, not against.
How do we know what good is without God? If there is no God, then everything works only according to nature, and we have no right to complain about it. Right and wrong are dependent on my own preferences, and might differ from yours, and I have no ground to argue that my ideas are superior. But if there is a moral absolute, that is an argument for a just God, not against.
3. Redemption and Suffering
The next thing. Jesus suffers our suffering. We can’t say that God is cold and distant and uncaring because the Christian message is focused on the fact that God cares enough for us to actually experience our suffering. No other religion or belief system in the world has God suffer along with people to redeem them. The writer of Hebrews writes this about how compassionate God is:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16 ESV)
If we believe that God himself suffered and died as a human being, we still may not know what the reason for pain and suffering is. But we know what it isn’t, and it isn’t that God doesn’t love us. Because out of his great love for us God willingly took on our human form to suffer with us. So, if we believe that Jesus was God and that he went to the cross for us, then we have deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life. We can know that God is truly Immanuel – God with us –even in our worst sufferings.
4. Resurrection and Suffering
Finally, as Christians we know that in spite of anything we might see or experience to the contrary, we are already triumphant because Christ is triumphant. How do we know that? Because Christ rose from the dead. This is the claim of Christianity that probably invites more skepticism than any other. Somewhere deep within ourselves we have been conditioned to take seriously the finality of death. Many very intelligent people throughout the ages have stumbled over this proposition because it just seems so preposterous.
And it is hard to believe. But it is a historical event that is supported with good historical evidence as to its reality. There are many well thought out articles and facts I could point you to, but let me just mention a couple here so that we can move past skepticism to the main point. The first thing we must consider and we must know to be true is that the writing of the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and post-resurrection appearances – the epistles and the gospels --- all happened within the lifetime of people who would have been able to deny it if it were not true. Paul writes in the first letter to the Corinthians:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:3-6 ESV)
If this were not true, don’t you think someone would have spoken up about it?
Secondly, the Apostles’ insistence that Jesus had risen from the dead put their own lives and the lives of their followers in jeopardy. History and the Bible itself are filled with stories of martyrs suffering horribly for their insistence on the truth of the resurrection. If the resurrection was just a story they had made up to try to gain notoriety, do you think the apostles would have been willing or even able to suffer and die for it? I found this very interesting quote recently by Charles Colson. Charles Colson was an aide to President Nixon who was convicted in the Watergate scandal that ended Nixon’s career who later became a respected evangelist. He says,
“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
Jesus Christ did rise from the dead.
So, given that the resurrection is true, what does that have to do with the problem of evil and suffering? Everything. One of the distinctives of the Christian religion is the idea of τέλος (telos). Τέλος means an end. Christianity proposes that the end is fore-ordained. It doesn’t mean that individuals don’t have freedom now, but it means that the whole creation is destined to a certain ending.
In the Christian worldview history is like the journey of an airplane taking off from San Diego destined for Hawaii. There is a defined beginning, the take-off in San Diego, and a certain ending, the landing in Hawaii. While the plane is in the air, the passengers are free to move around and engage in many different activities, but in the end they are all going to land in Hawaii.
In the same way we as individuals are free to pursue many different activities in our human lives, but our faith says that the whole earth will meet an end that has already been ordained by God. The difference between the airplane analogy and the τέλος is that there is any number of things that might go wrong with the airplane trip, but the τέλος will happen. That is the reason theologians call the era we are living in now “the already and the not yet.” Christ’s victory has already been accomplished by the resurrection, but the τέλος has not yet been actualized. That will happen when Jesus returns. And make no mistake about it, he will return.
What does this τέλος look like? That is the part that John read at the beginning of the service when he from Revelation about the new heaven and the new earth. Isn’t this a beautiful picture?
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4 ESV)
What does that have to do with the problem of evil and suffering? Everything. Because the sadness and suffering we experience now will make the joy of our certain homecoming complete. We have the fact of the resurrection as a promise we can count on. And the present darkness can only serve to make the coming dawn seem more miraculous.
Just after the climax of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, I’m talking about the books, not the movies, Sam Gamgee discovers that his friend Gandalf was not dead (as he thought) but alive. He cries, “I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself! Is everything sad going to come untrue?” The Bible promises us that for Christians the answer is yes. In the words of the evangelist Billy Graham, “I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right.” This is the hope that Paul is pointing to in our reading today in Romans. It is a sure hope, not a false hope, in spite of the way things may seem.
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