By Jonathan Keller
“You have a 10% chance to last more than 5 years with this illness.”
20 years later, you’re still kicking.
Wars happen all the time, yet miracles of survivors in annihilated areas inspire future generations.
Dictators rise, some last for a while, but they eventually fall.
How is it that the evil in our world, despite its pervasiveness, doesn’t seem to win at every turn?
Let’s think about an icky word in Reformed theology: total depravity. Depravity refers to our evil, fallen, and corrupted nature; we know it through phrases like “to be human is to err” and stories that highlight humanity’s inability to conquer its vices. The word “total,” though, seems to doom us to a life of incessant evil. “Total” does not mean “utter.” If we were “utterly” depraved, we would be as evil and tragic as we could possibly be at every moment. Instead, “total” refers to the extent of evil’s reach. People are called “totally” depraved because our depravity affects every aspect of our humanity.
An Utter Solution to our Totally Evil Problem
How is it that corruption can reach all of us but not utterly consume us? It’s the same reason that neither illness nor war kills everyone. God, the creator of everything, is the God over even evil. God restricts evil through His mighty power over all things.
God restricts evil by His direct involvement in our design, allowing evil to reach all parts of us but not fill us up to the uttermost. He restricts evil through the appointment of governments in many forms across the world. Legal authorities are a terror to evildoers, promoting good and punishing evil. He also works to heal and to guard some such that dangers to their lives do not destroy or, in some cases, injure them whatsoever!
While we can rightly be mind-boggled when God allows some tragedy to happen in our lives, it is a grace to us that we can be mind-boggled at all. A God who restrains evil is a God who permits hope to exist and to come true. In God’s world, evil and sin do not always win. In fact, through the evil of Jesus’ death, we have seen that God can turn evil itself into redemption for all kinds of people. The injustice of Jesus’ death – that He, a sinless man, should die a sinner’s death – accomplishes justice for our wretchedness yet offers real hope of eternal life to us!
In God’s world, a 10% chance to live more than 5 years is not a message of doom but a real possibility of life.
How might you see hope in this world where God can really restrict and overcome the advance of evil and sin? How might you see hope for yourself if God can really redeem the evil and sin within you, offering the final word of redemption to you in His Son Jesus?