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New Morning Mercies
Who Is Responsible for the Suffering in the World?
Suffering in the Scriptural Narrative
Scripture begins with God creating a good world and appointing humans to establish his generous rule over creation (Gen. 1:27–28). When humans failed to do so by listening to the serpent and falling into sin (Gen. 3:1–7), they ceded dominion over creation to Satan (Matt. 4:8–9; 1 Cor. 5:5). Thus, he is described as both “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30) and “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). Today, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), and he’s filled it with suffering and death. It’s only after he gained a foothold in the garden that humanity was cursed with relational strife, painful toil, agony in childbirth, and death (Gen. 3:16–19). And it’s no coincidence that immediately after the devil will be judged (Rev. 20:10), death itself will be done away with (Rev. 20:14), and a new world will be ushered in with no “mourning, nor crying, nor pain” (Rev. 21:4).
Moreover, death is the ultimate and archetypal human suffering, and Hebrews describes the devil as having “the power of death” (Heb. 2:14). Paul, too, links death with the authorities and powers—which is Paul’s terminology for demonic powers. That’s why it’s through the victory of Jesus and his saints over death (Col. 2:12–13) that God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col. 2:15).1 Elsewhere, Paul writes, “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:24–26).
Persecution in Missions
Matt Rhodes
Sharing more than a decade of experience serving unreached people groups, Matt Rhodes helps Christians endure suffering with joy by offering a scriptural view of its role in the Christian life and in the missionary task.
Within this larger narrative, the Scriptures are filled with specific stories in which Satan causes suffering. Importantly, Satan is described as causing not only the suffering that comes as a direct result of human wickedness but also the seemingly “random” suffering that comes from natural disasters and disease. It is Satan who uses a great storm to kill Job’s children and strikes him “with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7). Similarly, in the New Testament, Matthew and Luke depict muteness, blindness, and seizures as caused by demons (Matt. 9:32–34; 12:22–24; 17:15; Luke 4:35; 11:14–15). Jesus himself describes a woman disabled for eighteen years as bound by Satan in her sickness (Luke 13:16). Clearly, as the Scriptures show, physical illness is sometimes a result of satanic or demonic activity.
Today, many Christians imagine that certain sicknesses have physical causes and should be treated medically while other illnesses are caused by demons and can be cured through exorcism. I don’t think this is what the Gospel writers mean, since they almost always speak of healings and the casting out of demons in the same breath (e.g., Matt. 4:24; 10:8; Mark 1:32, 34; Luke 9:1). Those who have power to do one have power to do the other. The Gospel writers see sickness more broadly as tied to the work of demons. Of course, sickness still has physical causes, but under the broader umbrella of God’s sovereignty, it is the devil’s work that sets them in motion to bring about human suffering, even if this often occurs only indirectly as a result of the fall. That said, the devil can act to cause suffering directly—in Job’s case, Satan works through physical causes to take Job’s livestock, kill his children, and produce intense physical pain.
Here, I’d like to offer two clarifications. First, I recognize that some readers might be confused when I say that the Scriptures point to Satan as the initiator of human suffering. Don’t the Scriptures also describe God as sovereign over all suffering and death? After all, God says:
See now that I, even I, am he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal. (Deut. 32:39)
And Satan is able to torment Job only when God gives him permission to do so (Job 1:1–12; 2:4–6).
People wouldn’t need thorns in their flesh to keep them humble if the world hadn’t been marred by the work of Satan.
We can recognize several layers of causation as we discuss this topic. It’s true that suffering and death were ordained by God, but it was still through Satan’s work that they entered human history. After all, while God curses humans with suffering and death in the garden, he does so only after they rebel and listen to the serpent (Gen. 3:14–19). Thus, while we see both God and Satan at work in people’s suffering in the Scriptures, God and Satan stand behind that suffering asymmetrically. For Satan, suffering and death are ends in themselves; for God, they are corrective measures that he uses to judge the evil that has occurred in this suffering world and to redeem his people from it. He is leading his people through suffering to a new world where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Rev. 21:4).
But suffering is only a part of our redemption because of Satan’s rule in our world. For example, Paul writes, “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor. 12:7). Clearly, God bestowed a physical ailment on Paul, and he did so for Paul’s sake. But again, because Paul’s thorn caused destruction and suffering in his body, it was not only a gift from God but also a “messenger of Satan.” People wouldn’t need thorns in their flesh to keep them humble if the world hadn’t been marred by the work of Satan.
Second, when I say that all suffering and death are largely the result of Satan’s work, I am not taking issue with the traditional evangelical position that human suffering finds its origin in human sinfulness. Here again, it’s important to remember that multiple layers of causation can operate simultaneously. D. A. Carson rightly observes that “the first human rebellion (Gen. 3) marks the onset of suffering, pain, toil, and death. . . . Evil is the primal cause of suffering, rebellion is the root of pain, sin is the source of death.”2
I agree entirely that human suffering and death entered the world through human sinfulness. I’m simply asking readers to remember, in addition, that humans fell into sin only after being tempted by Satan in the garden. Thus, both human sinfulness and the devil’s work are instrumental in causing human suffering. It’s important that we acknowledge both realities. If we insist that human suffering is merely a result of human sinfulness—introduced into the world by God either to correct and punish human sin or to establish a natural consequence for sin—then we’ll miss the malicious demonic purposes that operate alongside God’s own good purposes in our suffering. Maintaining an awareness of these darker purposes will help us both resist them and understand how great an evil human suffering is.
Notes:
- See Eph. 2:1–2; 6:12. Similarly, it is only after mentioning how “we are being killed all the day long” that Paul notes that “neither death . . . nor angels nor rulers . . . nor powers” can separate us from Christ’s love (Rom. 8:36–38). Paul connects the danger of death that his readers face with the actions of the rulers and powers.
- D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, 2nd ed. (Inter-Varsity Press, 2006), 39. Similarly, Tim Keller writes, “It is fair to say that suffering and death in general is a natural consequence and just judgment of God on our sin.” Timothy Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering (Hodder & Stoughton, 2015), 411.
This article is adapted from Persecution in Missions: A Practical Theology by Matt Rhodes.
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