One of the common accusations often lobbied against God is His inability or unwillingness to deal with the existence of evil.

I believe it was science-man, Neil deGrasse Tyson who once said, “If God is all good, then God has the desire to end suffering, and if God is all-powerful, then God has the ability to end suffering. Therefore, if God does not end suffering, then God is either not all good, or is not all-powerful, and is therefore not God”.

YEAH, BUT HE’S OTHER THINGS TOO

I see his line of logic there, however, there’s another attribute of God that is missing in that argument, and it is that God is all-holy and all-just. To be “all-just” means God conforms to a perfect standard of correctness and is always and forever being in conformity with what is morally upright or good. In other words, God is so utterly holy that there cannot be near him a single stain or hint of sin.

If both of these are true (and they are), then it means that every single living being who’s presently alive, who has ever lived, and will ever live is in serious trouble.

Why?

Because every single one of us bears the stain of sin and every single one of us has failed to conform to God’s perfect standard of correctness. We’re all guilty not only of the wrong we’ve done (big and small), but also of the good we failed to do when it was within our ability to do it. We may not be as bad as the worst of us, but compared to the most innocent of us, we have all sinned and stand guilty before an utterly holy God.

Speaking of innocent, one might argue that babies don’t have sin since they haven’t lived long enough to commit any sin (some tired nursing mothers might disagree, but that’s another discussion). True. Babies are innocent, but they are not guilt free. The stain and strain of sin that resides in their parents also resides in them and will shortly manifest itself as they get older (just ask moms of toddlers).

WHY HOLINESS MATTERS

But back to the holiness of God. you have to consider the fact that because of the utter holiness of God’s nature, He cannot just let sin go or turn a blind eye to it. His holiness and justice demands that sin must be addressed and punished, otherwise He would not be a just God. Furthermore, when dealing with sin, God has to deal with ALL sin, not just actual sin, but also potential sin, (the evil that broods within each of us that has not yet been presented with the motive or opportunity to show itself). 

As you can surmise, were God’s holiness and just nature be exercised to its fullest judgment, we would ALL be wiped out. Incidentally, God still has every intention of someday “wiping the slate clean” and dealing with ALL evil, and he has set a date known to Him alone when this judgment will be executed. 

Yet, because God IS a loving God, He delays the day of complete judgment and in the meantime, provides a lifeboat of sorts to rescue all who are willing to get on board. This lifeboat is Jesus Christ. In Christ, and on the cross, God is executing the judgment we ALL deserve on His Son. Because God is all-loving, He is able to apply the righteousness of Jesus to sinful humanity who turn to faith in Him, and because God is all-powerful, He is able resolve the judgment we deserve by charging Christ with the penalty of our sin.

GOD IS BEING PATIENT

So back to the argument in the first paragraph. God IS all-loving and all-powerful. The suffering we see in the world today is a consequence of sin’s terrible and terrifying impact in this world and has corrupted everything so that the innocent many times suffer the consequences of the guilty. God can and will end suffering, but He chooses first to offer a lifeline to ALL who would grab hold on to it.

Let’s face it, were God to end suffering as we ask, He would need to be thorough in His judgment and destroy ALL humanity, and quite frankly none of us would withstand the shock and awe of that judgment. 

And so He remains patient, pushing off the moment of final judgment, and in the mean time, through His Son, Jesus Christ, He calls all who would listen to, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”, and “If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  

Jesus is the answer to the question.