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The Purpose of Evil

Understanding the purpose of evil is central to addressing the problem of its existence.

If we are to come to a satisfactory understanding of the purpose of evil, then it is important to correctly understand the mission set before Jesus.[1] Among the “churched” there are assumptions and preconceptions about Jesus’ mission which have become automatic.

For example: Jesus came because he loved us, and in order to save us from sin, he had to die, thus taking our place, which removed our guilt before God. Or, Jesus came so he could show us the way to heaven so we would be with him. There are many such notions and variations of those notions about the purpose of Jesus’ mission.

But what if there was a far deeper implication to the mission of Jesus?

The gospel accounts set the stage. When thirty-year-old Jesus appeared at the banks of the Jordan River to be baptized by John, this easily and often overlooked event was actually the landmark which heralded the beginning of his ministry. Why was it crucial for Jesus to be baptized? Jesus gave us the answer when he told John, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."[2]
      With these   words the purpose of Jesus’ mission was established at the very beginning of his ministry, and so the purpose of his baptism by John.

Jesus came to us to “fulfill all righteousness.” In the design of God’s plan, it was absolutely crucial that he do so, and it was possible because he was the one man whose heart was set on doing the will of God.[3] In validation of the prophets who spoke of the man who came to do the will of God and to fulfill all righteousness, comes the announcement of the Voice from heaven, as Jesus is emerging from the water, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."[4]

In conjunction with the announcement from heaven is the Apostle John's reasoning—and by this time John might very well have been the last of the apostles alive—when he wrote, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil."[5] Between Jesus’ promise “to fulfill all righteousness” and John’s reasoning, that Jesus appeared “to destroy the works of the devil,” we are given a detailed description of Jesus’ mission.[6]

A detailed account of Jesus’ mission was announced by the prophet hundreds of years before God sent His servant. The LORD’S servant is the one who arrived at the banks of the Jordan River to fulfill all righteousness.[7] But the prophet had written, “he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."[8]

None of this could have happened to Jesus, and there would not have been a reason for him to be sent by God, had there not been the reality of the evil, the works of the devil, which John told us, “Jesus came to destroy.” In this reality was the will of Yahweh manifested, "it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief."[9] Where, in what we see and understand as the Church today is the truth of this scripture taught, that it was “the will of the LORD to crush and put to grief His servant”? And where can the people of the LORD be found speaking about God in these terms today?

The significant question is not why Yahweh would pierce His servant, but why would Yahweh have pierced, crushed, chastised, and wounded Jesus if there was no evil to overcome? In other words, without evil there would have been no reason in sending the servant of Yahweh[10] whose purpose was to destroy the works of the devil.

The far weightier question is this: If Jesus had not been sent, if he had not come into the world[11] with the mission “to destroy the works of the devil,” thus fulfilling all righteousness, how, then, was the Father to be revealed?[12] The answer to this question spotlights the glaring reality that without the existence of evil, without the devil, God the Father would not have sent Jesus into the world to destroy the works of the devil. What is ultimately at stake and is jeopardized is the way to reveal the Father, that is, His grace, mercy, love and above all His Righteousness—to the creation which He has subjected to futility.[13]

 

Theologically speaking, the rubber meets the road when we face the reality that God has created[14] vessels of wrath prepared for destruction! Are we to count God as evil because He made, and continues to make, those vessels of wrath? Few are willing to speak of and recognize the God of the scriptures who "desires to show his wrath and to make known his power, (and) has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction."[15] And why would God do so? The Apostle Paul gave the answer, "in order to make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."[16] This is the God of the scriptures. Whether for wrath or mercy, in all He does,[17] who is qualified to judge the Creator?

The purpose of Jesus coming into the world was to reveal this glory. His mission was established in the words of Yahweh, "The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God."[18]

All that the prophet Isaiah wrote is now behind us, except for one important fact: The vessels of mercy[19] are still receiving the salvation of God. Here, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction are separated from the vessels of mercy prepared for glory, according to whether one believes[20] or rejects[21] what God has accomplished with His holy arm.[22]

 

From the historical perspective, those people called Israel were not looking for a messiah King, God's holy arm, who would be Yahweh's sacrifice for the sin of the world. This was the furthest thing from the hearts of the hopeful who were looking for the promised King who would restore the kingdom to Israel.[23] The believing faithful who were looking were half right.

From the perspective of those who left us the New Testament scriptures, Jesus of Nazareth is revealed as the man content in the full knowledge of what God required from him. The requirement God placed upon Jesus is the summation of the entire body of the scriptures recognized today as the Old Testament.[24] Jesus said as much to us, "You search the Scriptures[25] because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me."[26] The scriptures testify to this vital truth: Jesus is the holy arm of Yahweh.[27]

To understand the scriptures as they bear witness to Jesus, requires that the seeker first, as he put it, "you (do) search." One cannot begin to understand Jesus in any proper context unless he or she searches the scriptures. Second, it is not an easy task. Solomon, the man acclaimed for his wisdom, attested, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh."[28] However, third, studying with others not only produces fruitful results, but is the scriptural model.[29]

The reward for the hard work of searching the scriptures is the revelation of Jesus[30] as the one man in history who truly and fully, through his obedience to the word of God, put aside his will in favor of the will of God.[31] In this context, the apostles acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as “a man approved of God,”[32] the man “in whom the LORD was well pleased.”[33] In all of human history, what other man could confirm or fulfill such a claim?

 

On the day of Pentecost, Peter did not preach about the revered Moses, or any of the patriarchal fathers; instead he preached about Jesus of Nazareth as “a man approved of God.” In a way few can claim, since he was a disciple of Jesus for over three years, Peter was privy to truth about the man he followed, and was with him in the garden the hour he was betrayed and cried out to God, “not my will LORD but yours be done.”[34] Even in that last hour, Jesus’ obedience to the Father's will was being tested.

Jesus made a profound impression on his disciples. As Yahweh's appointed and anointed servant, there had never been, nor will there ever be, anyone like Jesus, a man fully committed to and content in the will of God.[35]

A search of the scriptures reveals Jesus as a man who bore rejection and loneliness because he was sustained by the knowledge of his mission. His understanding and acceptance of his mission and all that happened to him was an outgrowth of his obedience to God. According to the author of the book of Hebrews, Jesus is the man who learned obedience through the things which he suffered.[36] In hindsight, this may well explain what the prophet Isaiah wrote centuries earlier, that the LORD's servant was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”[37]

The Apostle Paul revealed that Jesus was the second Adam, who died for the unrighteous, was raised up for their justification,[38] and was made a life-giving spirit.[39] David the Psalmist speaks of his praise (in the proleptic sense) “What I did not steal must I now restore?” [40] Jesus would pay the ultimate price as the one to restore what the first Adam had stolen, the glory in the wisdom that belongs to God alone, in the knowledge of good and evil.  

In order for Jesus to make the restitution,[41] he would have to endure the judgment of God described by the prophet Isaiah. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-- everyone-- to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.[42] Jesus was the chosen servant[43] who, when oppressed and afflicted, willingly bore the iniquity of us all which Yahweh made his burden.[44]

As both God's appointed high priest[45] and the sacrificial Lamb,[46] Jesus understood the mission set before him, which was to take away the sin[47] of the world. He would do so in both roles. With this knowledge[48] Jesus went forward, content in the will of God to redeem a people for His name’s sake. "Behold, I have come to do your will,"[49] the Hebrew’s author reminds us, "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."[50]

Jesus knew it would require the sacrifice of his soul,[51] and in a covenant of death he was found in agreement with the Father. "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ’Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.’"[52] Jesus knew full well what lay ahead of him,[53] and trusted Yahweh’s promise to raise him from the dead, not "leaving his soul in Sheol and his body to the corruption of the grave."[54] Jesus knew all of this, and was content in the knowledge he was to be Yahweh's sacrificial lamb for the justification of unrighteous men.[55]

In accepting the evil that he was to die at the hands of wicked men, Jesus proved his submission to the will of God, by trusting God would remember him in death. As the anointed one of God, Jesus knew all of this, for "by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities."[56]

 

 

In conclusion, if we are to understand the purpose of evil, it must be seen in "...the reason the Son of God appeared... to destroy the works of the devil."[57] The destruction of the works of the devil is only possible through Yahweh's requirement that the blood of the innocent be shed for the remission of the sins of the guilty. Jesus has done so as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,[58] "in order to make known the riches of his [Yahweh's] glory upon vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."[59]

You may find God's requirement of the blood of the innocent unpalatable, and or incomprehensible. Regardless, this was the way God determined to bring a people, vessels of mercy, to Himself.[60] It began with God creating the first Adam, who was capable of disobedience and discovered to have an evil heart. It would end with God sending the last Adam who, in obedience to the will of God, became the sacrifice whereby sinful men are made righteous.[61]

The necessity of redemptive history is demonstrated in both the disobedience of the evil heart, and the obedience of the perfect heart. In this necessity, Yahweh sent His servant, His lamb, who, having been perfected through the suffering of obedience,[62] became the author of eternal salvation for all who obey him.[63] To obey him is to believe him.[64] To believe in Jesus is to see that he is the one man who unreservedly put his trust in God.[65] Through his trust in God, Jesus was accepted[66] and found worthy.[67] And because God accepted and found Jesus worthy, he (Jesus) was made the door[68] and the way to the Father.[69]

There upon the throne of God sits Jesus,[70] the one who is the manifestation of the hope of those who believe and trust in God. To believe in and trust Jesus, the man “declared the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead,”[71] is to see the Glory of God. The Glory of God is a man (Jesus) sitting at the Right Hand of God.[72]

In the end, to believe God—as it is only prudent (safe) for a person to do—is to believe in the One who sits upon the throne of God,[73] to believe in the One who has been declared the express image of God. [74] Those called by God, [75] those who do believe, can rest in the promise to awake in the resurrection and to be “conformed to His image and likeness.”[76]

 

If it were not for the reality of evil, none of this could have been possible.

 

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