Category: Life of Jesus

Tim Keller writes:

Because God is both sovereign and suffering, we know our suffering always has meaning even though we cannot see it. We can trust him without understanding it all.

When one of my sons was around eight years old, he began to exert his will and resist his parents’ directions. One time I told him to do something and he said, “Dad, I’ll obey you and do this—but only if first you explain to me why I should do it.” I responded something like this: “If you obey me only because it makes sense to you, then that’s not obedience, it’s just agreement. The problem is that you are too young to understand most of the reasons why I want you do to this. Do it because you are eight and I’m thirty-eight—because you are a child and I’m an adult and your father.”

We can easily see why children need to trust their parents even when they do not understand them. How much more, then, should we trust God even though we do not understand him? It is not just that the differential in wisdom between him and us is infinitely greater than the difference between a child and a parent. It is not just that he is sovereign and allpowerful. We should also trust him because he earned our trust on the cross. So we can trust him even when he hasn’t shown us yet the reason why.

(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering)

Tim Keller writes:

…There are an increasing number of theologians who are so glad to emphasize the suffering of God that they lose the idea of divine sovereignty, depicting God as one who is not all-powerful and not able to stop suffering in the world.

Some might argue that suffering and pain are only ever caused by the Devil, or by our own foolishness and particular sins, or by the randomness that comes from living in a fallen world.  However, if this were true, then God is certainly not sovereign; he is powerless to prevent the Devil or human beings from exerting their will.  Then God is forever reacting with a “Plan B” in response to each action or decision brought about by humans or by the Devil.

Ronald Rittgers writes: “The idea that God has a causal relationship to adversity and misfortune is rejected by many contemporary theologians. The notion of God as co-sufferer is welcomed, but the idea of God as agent of suffering is shunned.” But, Rittgers adds, “the God who has no causal relationship to suffering is no God at all, certainly not the God of the Bible . . . who is both suffering and sovereign. Both beliefs were (and are) essential to the traditional Christian assertion that suffering ultimately has some meaning.”

Keller continues:

That is absolutely right. If God is out of control of history, then suffering is not part of any plan; it is random and senseless. …If God were somehow limited or out of control, his suffering would not be so radically voluntary — and therefore not so fully motivated by love.

(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 7)

Jesus’ suffering on the cross was foreordained, and part of God’s plan, not some random result of human history.  God was in control of Christ’s crucifixion, just as he is in control of all human history, including every trial, pain, and experience of suffering that we encounter.

Tim Keller writes:

According to all branches of Christian theology, the ultimate purpose of life is to glorify God. That means that the first—but perhaps hardest to grasp—purpose for our suffering is the glory of God.

(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 7)

Implicitly or explicitly, many Christians act as though one or more things (not giving glory to God) are the ultimate purpose(s) for their lives: wealth, comfort, happiness, fame, even spiritual gifts. These other priorities are pressed into our world view because they pervade the culture around us.

…In 1 Peter 1:6-7, the apostle explains why his readers are “suffering grief in all kinds of trials.” “These have come.” he writes, “so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Our sufferings, if handled properly, bring the Lord glory.

This is a difficult truth for some to accept.

Many of the most popular churches today teach that God will make you happy, healthy, and prosperous, that he is there for your personal benefit. If we tacitly accept that view of things, we may find it offensive to hear someone say that tragedies and evil can honor and glorify God.

If we believe our purpose is to enjoy a “good” life, material wealth, health, and prosperity, we will come to see God as existing in order to supply those things for us.  Suffering and pain have no useful place in such a mindset.  To suggest that God would cause his children to suffer, and that suffering is actually an instrument God uses to refine his people’s character and to bring glory to himself — these statements are abhorrent to the one who adheres to a theology of health, wealth, prosperity, and blessing.

Tim Keller writes:

What do we mean, first, when we say that God is sovereign over history and therefore over suffering? The doctrine of the sovereignty of God in the Bible has sometimes been called compatibilism. The Bible teaches that God is completely in control of what happens in history and yet he exercises that control in such a way that human beings are responsible for their freely chosen actions and the results of those actions. Human freedom and God’s direction of historical events are therefore completely compatible. To put it most practically and vividly—if a man robs a bank, that moral evil is fully his responsibility, though it also is part of God’s plan.

It is crude but effective to think of this in percentages. We think that either God has planned something or that a human being has freely chose to do it —but both cannot be true at once. Perhaps we grant that the event is due 50 percent to God’s activity and 50 percent to human agency. Or maybe it is 80-20, or 20-80. But the Bible depicts history as 100 percent under God’s purposeful direction, and yet filled with human beings who are 100 percent responsible for their behavior—at once.
 
This way of thinking is counterintuitive to both ancient and modem ways of thinking. The Greek notion of “fate” or the Islamic notion of “kismet” are quite different from the Christian doctrine of God’s sovereignty. The Greek myth of Oedipus tells of the main character who, the oracle predicts, is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Though Oedipus and all around him do all they can to avoid this fate, all of their schemes to avoid this destiny only end up hastening it. The destined end is reached despite everyone’s choices.

The Christian concept of God’s sovereignty is quite different. God’s plan works through our choices, not around or despite them. Our choices have consequences, and we are never forced by God to do anything—we always do what we most want to do.  God works out his will perfectly through our willing actions. 

The Bible everywhere presupposes this “compatibilism” between God’s plan and our actions, and at many places explicitly teaches it.  In Isaiah 10, God calls Assyria “the rod of my anger” (v. 5). He says he is using Assyria to punish Israel for its sins, and yet he nonetheless holds Assyria responsible for what it is doing. “I send him [Assyria] against a godless nation [Israel],” says God, “but this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind, his purpose is to destroy” (v. 6-7). While God uses Assyria as his rod according to his wise and just plan, that nation’s inner motivation is not a passion for justice but merely a cruel and proud desire to dominate others. And so God will judge the instrument of his judgment. Assyria’s actions are part of God’s plan, and yet the Assyrians are held accountable for their free choices.  It is a remarkable balance. On the one hand, evil is taken seriously as a reality. And yet there is an assurance that in the end, it can never triumph.

(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 6)

Tim Keller writes:

God is called the one “who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph 1:11). “Everything” that happens fits in accord with, in harmony with, God’s plan. This means that God’s plan includes “little things.” Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but the disposal thereof is from the Lord.” Even the flip of the coin is part of his plan.

Ultimately, there are no accidents. His plan also includes bad things. Psalm 60:3 reads, “You have made your people see hard things; you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.”
Suffering then is not outside God’s plan but a part of it. In Acts 4:27-28, the Christian disciples pray to God, “In this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus . . . Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” Jesus’ suffering and death was a great act of injustice, but it was also part of the set plan of God.

(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 6)

Tim Keller writes:

According to the Bible, God plans our plans.  Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” The author assumes that while we make our plans, they only fit into the larger plans of God.
There are many texts that weave free will and divine sovereignty together in ways that startle us. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph explains how his brothers’ evil action of selling him into slavery was used by God to do great good. “You intended me harm, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Notice Joseph assuming that what they did was evil—they “intended” harm, it was deliberate. Yet he says God’s plan overruled and used Joseph’s troubles and sorrows for his own good purposes.
The New Testament version of Joseph’s saying is Romans 8:28—”All things work together for good to them who love God.”
In Acts 2:23, Peter again tells us Jesus was crucified “according to the definite plan” of God, and yet the hands that put him to death were guilty of injusdee and “lawlessness.” In other words, the death of Jesus was destined to happen by God’s will—it was not possible that it would not happen. Yet no one who betrayed and put Jesus to death was forced to do it. They all freely chose what they did and were fully liable and responsible for their decisions. Jesus himself puts these truths together in one sentence: “The Son of Man will go [to his death] as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him” (Luke 22:22).
One of the most fascinating examples of this biblical perspective is found in the account of Moses’ confrontation with Pharaoh in Exodus 7-14. Moses continually calls Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage and declares that this is the will of God. Over several chapters the text tells us Pharaoh “hardened” his heart and he stubbornly refused to let the people go. This obstinate refusal led to untold misery and death for the Egyptians. But the text is fascinating, because it tells us that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex 7:3; 9:12; 10:1; 11:10; 14:4, 8) almost the same number of times it tells us Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex 8:15, 32; 9:34; 10:3; 13:15). So which is it?
Did God do it or did Pharaoh do it? The biblical answer to both is yes.
Look at the sins in the life of the patriarch Jacob, whose life is recounted in the book of Genesis. Jacob deceived his father and robbed his brother; as a result, he had to flee his homeland and experienced great suffering and injustice in a foreign land. Yet there he met the love of his life and had the children through which Jesus was descended. It is clear that his sin did not put him into a “plan B” for his life. It was all part of God’s perfect plan for him and even for the salvation of the world. Was he therefore not responsible for his sin? No, he was. Did he not suffer consequences for his foolish behavior? Yes, he did. But God was infallibly in control, even as Jacob was completely responsible.
In the end, the Christian concept of God’s sovereignty is a marvelous, practical principle. No one can claim to know exactly how both of these truths fit together. And yet even in our own ordinary experience, we know something of how to direct people along a path without violating their free will. Good leaders do this in part—why would the infinite God not be able to do it perfectly? The sovereignty of God is mysterious but not contradictory. It means that we have great incentive to use our wisdom and our will to the best effect, knowing God holds us to it and knowing we will suffer consequences from foolishness and wickedness. On the other hand, there is an absolute promise that we cannot ultimately mess up our lives. Even our failures and troubles will be used for God’s glory and our benefit. I don’t know a more comforting assurance than that. “God performs all things for me!” cries the psalmist (Ps 57:2).
This teaching has both high-level and practical implications for how we approach suffering. At one level, this means that, as Don Carson writes: “It must be the case that God stands behind good and evil in somewhat different ways; that is, he stands behind good and evil asymmetrically.”  While moral evil cannot be done outside the bounds of God’s purposes, “the evil is not morally chargeable to him” since the perpetrators are responsible. Yet since all good impulses in the human heart come ultimately from God (James 1:17) —when good things happen, they are directly attributable to him.
At the most practical level, we have the crucial assurance that even wickedness and tragedy, which we know was not part of God’s original design, is nonetheless being woven into a wise plan. So the promise of Romans 8, “that all things work together for good,” is an incomparable comfort to believers.

(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 6)

Timothy Keller, in Chapter 2 of his new book “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering,” writes:

[Saint] Gregory taught that…suffering in the world is of many different kinds and serves “a number of purposes in the divine economy.” Some suffering is given in order to chastise and correct a person for wrongful patterns of life (as in the case of Jonah imperiled by the storm), some suffering is given “not to correct past wrongs but to prevent future ones” (as in the case of Joseph sold into slavery), and some suffering has no purpose other than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone and so discover the ultimate peace and freedom. The suffering of Job, in Gregory’s view, belonged to this last category. A personal God is a purposeful God, and in the Bible, it is possible to recognize different ways that suffering operates in lives.

Timothy Keller, in his new book, “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering,” says that our culture treats pain and suffering as things to be avoided at all costs.  As Christians, we often adopt a similar posture, but Keller suggests that suffering can play an important role in our lives:

[Max] Scheler writes: “It is not the glowing prospect of a happy afterlife, but the experienced happiness of being in a state of grace of God while in throes of agony that released the wonderful powers in the martyrs.” Indeed, suffering not only is made bearable by these joys, but suffering can even enhance these joys, in the midst of sorrow. “The Christian doctrine of suffering asks for more than a patient tolerance of suffering. …The pain and suffering of life fix our spiritual vision on the central, spiritual goods of…the redemption of Christ.”

Selections from a Timothy Keller sermon: A Covenant Relationship

In modern society, relationships more and more start like this. Two people look at each other and they say, “I will be what I should be, as long as, and to the degree that you are what you should be. And if you’re not, I’m out!”

But in a covenant, two people look at each other and say, “I will be what I should be whether you are being what you should be or not.” Therefore, it’s scary to get into a covenant, and it only works if both people in a covenant say that…

If only one says that, and the other does not, then what you’ve got is exploitation, or even abuse. But if you really do get into a covenant relationship where two parties are each saying, “You are more important than me. The relationship is more important than my needs. I will be committed to your needs before my needs. I will be committed to the relationship, even if it’s not meeting my needs at the moment. I give you my independence. I give you part of my freedom as a gift of love.”

If one side and the other side are both saying that — if both people are saying, “I’m not after my needs, I’m after your needs; I will sacrifice for you” — that is a far more fulfilling, far more deep and profound, far more life-changing and joyful relationship than a consumer relationship in which each side says, “I’ll be in this as long as you’re meeting my needs.”

…

If the most profound, most joyful, most life-changing, most deep and glorious relationships are covenental relationships, then your relationship with God has got to be, through and through, a covenental relationship. It has to be.

Here is the problem. Modern people have trouble mixing law and love together. What they say is, “Oh, I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” Sociologists for years now have been finding modern people like to say “I’m spiritual but not religious.” What does that mean?

Here’s what it means. “I believe in God. I want a relationship with God, but I don’t want to go to an institution, I don’t want to go to a church or a synagogue, I don’t want people to tell me what I have to believe, I don’t want to give up my freedom, I don’t want to give up my freedom to determine what is right and wrong for me.”

In other words, what everybody’s saying is, “I want a personal relationship with God, but not a covenental relationship.”

But the Bible says that’s impossible; God only relates in terms of covenant. Every time he relates to somebody — Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Moses — it’s always covenental.

…

When you hear God say, “I will never forgive you if you break the covenant” …you say, “Wait a minute, I thought God was a forgiving God!” And yet, if he’s a covenant God, what good is a covenant if you just ignore the penalties and say, “Who cares!? I’ll forgive you.”

…

On every page [of the Bible] you have statements like this, where God says, “I cannot bless a disobedient people. I cannot. You must obey. I’m a just judge. I cannot wink at guilt. An earthly judge who winked at the guilty would be run out of town; how much less can I? …I can’t overlook it…

There are also…hundreds of statements that say, “I will never leave you. I will never give up on you. I will always accept you. I will never forsake you.”

…

This apparently irresolvable tension is the very plot line under all the other plot lines of the Bible…You see God’s people failing, and failing, and failing. And then the question comes up: “Will God give in to his people, and just accept whatever they do?” Then what about his holiness? “Or will God give up on his people?” Then what about his faithfulness?

…

Are the blessings of God conditional or unconditional? Do the blessings of God come conditionally (you’ve got to be good; you’ve got to fulfill the covenant) or unconditionally (it doesn’t matter what you do; you’re going to get them anyway?

…

The problem is that the Bible, over and over again, seems to give contradictory answers. This is so pervasive, and so apparently irreconcilable that almost every one of us tends to come down on one side or the other, instead of following the biblical balance…

Most people either read the Bible in a liberal way…they say, “Yes, you need to obey. Yes, you should obey the Ten Commandments. Yes, you should be good but, in the end, God loves everybody and will accept everybody…

Or you can come down on a conservative side, and you can say, “Well, yes, God is very loving but, in the end, you’ve got to be good, or he won’t love you.”

Everybody comes down on one or the other. Everybody says, “Law is the reality, and love is secondary.” In other words, basically, the promises and blessings of God are conditional. Or they say, “No, love is more real than law; love is the important thing, the Law is secondary.” And therefore they believe that the promises and the blessings of God are basically unconditional…

Everybody, because they don’t understand how to resolve this tension at the heart of the covenant, tends to slide toward relativism or moralism, toward being a Saducee or being a Pharisee, toward basically feeling like “I pretty much can live the way I want to, ultimately, because God’s going to love me anyway,” or feeling guilt-ridden and condemned, because you’re never living up…

Are the blessings of God conditional or unconditional? Yes!

Yes? Why?

Because on the cross, Jesus Christ absolutely fulfilled the conditions of the law, so that God could love you absolutely unconditionally.

With his perfect life, Jesus Christ completely fulfilled the terms of the covenant, and he earned the blessing. With his sacrificial death, he completely fulfilled the curse of the covenant. And that leaves the blessing for you, and me, and anyone who lifts the empty hands of faith and asks for it.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the conditions of the covenant so that we could be received unconditionally…

If you understand this…it will lead you into paradoxical obedience. What do I mean by paradoxical obedience?

Until you grasp the covenant…until you grasp the gospel, you have a tendency to either look at the law as something you’ve got to obey or God’s gonna get you…so you either look at the blessings of God as conditional, so you’re always feeling like “I’m not living up” …you always feel kind of a sense of condemnation…or you basically believe God just loves everybody unconditionally, and you feel like the law is a good thing, but you don’t take it all that seriously.

But when you understand that Jesus Christ fulfilled the conditions at radical, infinite cost to himself, so that we could be loved unconditionally…now, when I look at the law of God, first of all, the law of God is the conditions of the covenant, and I say, “I’ve got to take those things seriously…really seriously…because Jesus died to fulfill this. This is important!”

So I, with all my might, I try to obey. With every fibre of my being I try to obey the will and law of God, and the terms of the covenant. But, when I fail, and I will fail, and I do fail, I know there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

My obedience is a way of saying “Thank you!” to God, and it is a way of becoming like God, but it is not a way of earning my way in to God.

If you understand the gospel, there is this fascinating balance in your attitude toward the law. You resist sin like crazy, and you never have a sense of condemnation and despair when you fall into it.

…

Modern spirituality gives you a wispy god, who’s kind of anything you want him to be. Covenant theology gives you a crunchy God: a God that’s real, a God that bites back.

C.S. Lewis puts it like this:

“An impersonal god? Well and good. A subjective god of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads? Better still. A formless life-force, surging through everyone, a vast power which we can all tap? Best of all! But a living God? Pulling at the other end of the cord? Approaching at infinite speed? The hunter? The covenant Lord? The husband? That is quite another matter! There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion suddenly draw back. Supposing you really find him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing he found you! If there is a god you are, in a sense, alone with him. You cannot put him off with speculations about your neighbour’s hypocrisy, or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count when the anesthetic fog we call the real world fades away, and the divine presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?”

Tim Keller, on morality:

The popular concept—that we should each determine our own morality—is based on the belief that the spiritual realm is nothing at all like the rest of the world. Does anyone really believe that? For many years after each of the morning and evening Sunday services I remained in the auditorium for another hour to field questions.  Hundreds of people stayed for the give-and-take discussions.

One of the most frequent statements I heard was that “Every person has to define right and wrong for him-or herself.” I always responded to the speakers by asking, “Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior?”

They would invariably say, “Yes, of course.” Then I would ask, “Doesn’t that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is ‘there’ that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks?” Almost always, the response to that question was a silence, either a thoughtful or a grumpy one.

(The Reason for God, Chapter 3)