Part 3 - Final Thoughts

According to Bishop Wright, the gospels tell a double story:

“They tell the story of how the evil in the world - political, social, personal, moral, emotional, and demonic - reached its height. And they also tell the story of how God’s long term plan for His people, and if we can put it like this, God’s long-term plan for Himself, finally came to its climax. They are about the atonement with every line; they are about the problem of evil with every paragraph. They are about evil of all sorts converging like a dark storm cloud and about God’s representative Messiah going to the heart of that storm cloud alone. The gospels read in this way offer us a richer theology of atonement and a deeper understanding of evil in our own day.”

From the political evil of Rome and Herod to the casual injustice of Caiphus to the corruption of the Pharisees to the screaming demoniacs, we are able to witness what ultimate goodness does when faced with the dark reality of humanities malevolence. In Romans 12, Paul instructs us to “overcome evil with good.” Is this a call to righteous vengeance? No. Rather it turns us back to the cross, where Christ himself confronted social, economic, political and individual evil, defeating it through the power of the Spirit. According to Wright, God’s just response to evil is not simply designed to solve a philosophical puzzle, nor is it designed to help a world that’s gottten out of kilter; rather, His response is meant to bring to glorious fruition the creation which evil has devastated and “uncreated.” An answer to the problem of evil is found in the life of Jesus, where evil reached its terrible zenith, and the suffering servant withstood it to bring new life to His errant creation.

God’s restorative, redemptive justice is ever at work; we only need the eyes to see it. One way to learn what justice looks like is to examine how He has worked before; read the Bible, and especially the gospels, carefully examining Jesus’ handling of evil. Ask questions and seek answers, but reconcile yourself to the mystery of the Creator God.

Judging from the screams of the demoniacs echoing off the waters of the Sea of Galilee to the air of deadliness lingering over the killing fields of Pol Pot, there is the overwhelming sense that we live on an embattled precipice. This is not to suggest that the ultimate victory will not belong to Christ, but rather that we are purposed to be much more involved in the darkness of our present times than we are. Albert Einstein says, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” A theology of evil is not an easy framework to construct, but it is a necessary one. Careful study, active discussion and insistent prayer are critical places to start when facing the overwhelming reality of the human condition.