When the realities of good and evil exceed our limited perceptions, overwhelm our limited comprehension, and threaten to override our psychological and emotional circuitry, there is a reason for this. We may be fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), but we are also fearfully finite. There are things too wonderful for us to know. The peace that surpasses our understanding (Philippians 4:7), which we need so much, is available to us if we are willing to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

I’ve recently had some conversations with younger Christian friends who have been reeling from experiences and observations of confounding evil. And as a man more than double the age of the friends I have in mind, I can vouch that comprehending what appears to be senseless evil doesn’t get easier the longer you live.
Perhaps that sounds discouraging, especially since I remember as a younger Christian hoping that I’d have greater wisdom in my golden years. After all, isn’t sagacity part of “the splendor of . . . gray hair” (Proverbs 20:29)?
I hope this is true of me to some extent. But as I grow older, I’m discovering that the greater part of wisdom isn’t accumulating a greater knowledge of good and evil so much as learning how to deal more faithfully with my deficit of such knowledge. So, if I have any wisdom worth imparting to Christians struggling with incomprehensible evil, it lies in cultivating the spiritual discipline of handing back the fruit.
Problem of Evil
Theologians and philosophers call it “the problem of evil” — how horrific evil and suffering can exist in a world created and providentially governed by an almighty, all-good, all-knowing God. But calling evil a “problem” hardly begins to describe our existential experiences of it in this fallen world.
An apparently buoyant friend unexpectedly takes his life. Every member of a missionary family on home assignment is killed in a car accident. A beloved young child dies of cancer. A trusted pastor’s adultery is suddenly exposed. A spouse who vowed lifelong faithfulness demands a divorce. Sexual abuse leaves a young girl soiled with shame and psychological damage for decades. Palestinian terrorists rape and murder more than 1,500 unsuspecting noncombatant Israeli citizens. The Israeli military then wipes out more than 15,000 noncombatant Palestinians. An oceanic earthquake near Sumatra, Indonesia, produces tsunamis that sweep away over two hundred thousand souls. Such traumatic suffering, tragedies, and sins almost never make sense to us. And the closer we are to the destruction, the more chaotic and senseless it often appears.
In such experiences and observations, we glimpse the real nature of evil. And it’s almost always worse than we could have imagined. The evil events themselves, and God’s good providence in choosing not to prevent them (especially when we know he has chosen to prevent others), exceed the bounds of our rational capacities, leaving us with anguished, perplexing questions only God can answer. And most of the time, he doesn’t — not specifically. God rarely reveals his specific purposes for allowing specific tragedies and their resulting wreckage.
We find that we simply aren’t able to bear the weight of the knowledge of good and evil. It exceeds our strength to comprehend on both sides: we cannot comprehend the full breadth and length and height and depth of the goodness of what is good (though we rarely perceive this a “problem”) or of the evilness of what is evil. And mercifully, God does not ask us to bear it. He asks us to trust him with it. He asks us to hand him back the fruit.
Whence This Unbearable Weight?
Some mysteries are great mercies for finite creatures not to know. Great, great mercies.
The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil contained a secret — one that God said should remain a mystery. God warned the man and woman that it would be better for them not to eat it. It would be the death of them if they did.
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Two diametrically opposed purposes. One for the exaltation of man and his vanity, lusts, and pride; the other for the service and magnification of God Almighty. As we gather around the Lord’s Table this is a needful reminder. The same hands which receive the blood of Christ must not be hands which shed innocent blood. The same mouths which consume this bread must not be mouths that devour widows’ houses. Your body isn’t the problem, but rather who your body is in service to.

As the Hebrews left Egypt, God compelled the Egyptians to deck His people with the spoil of war. God had won the victory and after years of misery under the tyranny of Pharaoh, God loads their arms full with the treasure of the greatest empire of the time.
That gold along with much of the rest of the plunder ended up having at least two end results. First, much of it was used in rebellion. The Golden Calf was fashioned out of this plunder, to depict the god they were willing to ascribe their deliverance to. The Israelites hands were full of the treasure which Yahweh had given them, and they repurpose it into an idol in place of Yahweh.
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Written by Derek J. Brown |
Saturday, April 30, 2022
If we are ever wavering between confidence and doubt with regard to our standing with God, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to be decisive in spiritual matters. Obedience often requires earthly sacrifice, and if we are unsure that we possess eternal life, we will be unable to endure earthly trouble for the sake of Christ. Assurance is essential to the Christian life. If you have fallen into a pattern of doubt and have neglected the assurance of your salvation, let this be the day you heed the Scripture’s exhortations and, by God’s grace, find your footing through faith in God’s sure promises.

I remember a conversation during college in which a friend confessed to me that he did not think it was necessary, or even possible, for a believer to gain assurance of their salvation. I was surprised by his comments, especially because we were attending a Christian college that emphasized all the biblical truths related to assurance of salvation: election, grace, faith, repentance, substitutionary atonement, the fully deity and humanity of Christ, and eternal security.
As it turns out, this was not an isolated incident. Over the past several years as I’ve wrestled personally with the issue of assurance and had opportunity to speak to others about it, I’ve found that many Christians do not rightly understand the biblical basis or importance of this doctrine. Assurance is essential to genuine Christianity and central to the New Testament’s theological framework, yet plenty of Christians are content to walk through life without the sure knowledge that they belong to Christ. There are, of course, those who claim assurance who have no right to do so; but it seems that there are an equal number of professing Christians who have either resigned to the fact they will never have assurance or that they don’t really need it.
What is assurance?
When I use the phrase “assurance of salvation” I am referring to a professing Christian’s confidence that he is, through the gospel, presently in right standing with God and will, upon his death or at the return of Christ, enter into eternal life and be delivered from the penalty of eternal condemnation. Assurance is the present intellectual and heart-felt conviction that I am, at this moment and for eternity, at peace with the living God through Jesus Christ.
But is such assurance really that important? In light of our sin and struggles with faith, shouldn’t we be content with the reality that we may or may not achieve assurance in this lifetime? While Scripture acknowledges that we will wrestle with sin and a lack of faith, it also consistently calls professing believers to gain assurance of their salvation. Scripture doesn’t suggest that those who are without assurance of their right standing with God are not necessarily saved, but neither does it applaud those who lack it, as though being without assurance was a mark of spiritual humility and maturity. Here are five reasons why assurance is essential for the Christian life.
1. Assurance is God’s will for you.
The first reason we must say that assurance is essential for the Christian life is because assurance is God’s will for you. Listen to the language of the New Testament (emphasis added):

Colossians 2:1-3: For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Hebrews 6:11-12: And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 10:22: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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