The question of evil is one that weighs heavily on many hearts. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why would He create a world He knew would become a place of suffering? If He foresaw the Holocaust, the cancer wards, the broken homes—all of it—before He ever said “Let there be light,” how can He be called just? How can His goodness be defended? This is not merely an academic question; it presses deeply on every soul that has known pain and heard the shallow response, “God works in mysterious ways.”
This challenge echoes an ancient accusation, repackaged for modern times. In Paul’s day, opponents claimed, “The God of grace isn’t righteous enough; you need the law’s perfection.” Today, the charge is, “The God of sovereignty isn’t good enough; He must be the author of this evil.” Both spring from the same root: a heart that rebels against God’s character, demanding that God justify Himself before human reasoning—a court He never submitted to.
Yet, God has already held court. The decisive judgment fell at Calvary.
The Cross is the Vindication
Every question about God’s justice in a broken world finds its definitive answer not in philosophy but in history: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Scripture declares, “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). At the cross, God’s justice and mercy met in one breathtaking act. His justice was fully satisfied—sin was condemned in the flesh of His own Son. His mercy was freely extended—the very ones whose sin demanded judgment are offered pardon.
This truth must govern all theological reflection. Any understanding of Scripture that drifts from the cross risks portraying God as a monster. Some distort Paul’s teaching in Romans 9 about the potter and the clay, claiming God creates certain people as “vessels of wrath,” predetermining their evil and then condemning them for it. By any standard God Himself has given, this is evil. It makes God the author of sin. It is another gospel, presenting another Jesus.
This is not the God of the Bible. It is the god of raw determinism, a philosophy that can hide behind any religion. It is the excuse of the abusive guru who claims, “God transcends good and evil,” or the abusive partner who claims election to justify wrongdoing. Such thinking says the end justifies the means, even if the means are evil. But God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Scripture is clear: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God” (James 1:13). Evil is ours; responsibility is ours. The golden calf came from Israel’s lust, not God’s imagination.
Sovereignty is Not Authorship
How then can God’s absolute sovereignty be held alongside His perfect goodness? This is not a problem to be solved like a math equation. Both truths stand as Scripture presents them, and the tension remains. God is sovereign over all reality—the good and the evil that occurs—but He is not the author of evil.
Consider Pharaoh. Scripture says Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and it also says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Both are true. There is no need to choose one and reject the other. Yet, theological camps often pick a side and lose the fullness of the truth.
Paul’s point in Romans 9 is not about predestination to hell. It is about God’s sovereign right to use existing instruments—vessels already fitted for destruction through unbelief—to accomplish His ultimate purpose. Why does God endure Pharaoh? Why does He allow evil to persist? “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?” (Romans 9:22-23). God endures and uses their resistance to reveal His power and mercy. He takes what the enemy intends for evil and works it together for good for His people. This is true Sovereign Grace—not God creating people to damn them, but God intervening so that every plot against His people becomes a platform for blessing.
This pattern runs from Genesis to Revelation. Joseph’s brothers meant evil against him, “but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20). The worst crime in history—the murder of the Son of God—became the means of salvation for the world. God does not author sin, but He sovereignly steers its consequences to serve His redemptive purpose. The evil in the world does not make its Sovereign Author evil.
The Purpose in the Pain
What then is the “good” in Romans 8:28? What is God working all our suffering toward? “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). The good is conformity to Christ. This is God’s primary purpose. Predestination is not a secret list of who is in or out, but a glorious destiny for every believer: to share the image of the Firstborn.
Every tribulation, distress, persecution, or sword faced in this age springs from sin and the curse that still touches this world and these “earthen vessels.” Yet none of it is wasted. All is woven by a masterful hand into the tapestry of transformation. It is working a weight of glory. It teaches believers to walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, to find life not here but in union with the risen Christ. Even the hard-hearted despiser, the vessel of wrath, serves this purpose. In the ages to come, it will be clear that man’s attempts at utopia apart from God end in death and disaster. The experiment will be over. Every person in the kingdom will be there as a blood-bought trophy of grace, a former enemy brought near by the blood of Christ.
Why did God create knowing the fall would come? Because He purposed a glory and goodness that require the backdrop of the fall to be fully appreciated. He determined to have a family of sons conformed to the image of the Son who would overcome the world. The story is not about the triumph of evil, but about the triumph of a goodness so profound, resilient, and costly that it swallows up evil itself. The cross proves His justice. The empty tomb proves His power. Present suffering is the pathway to conformity.
Though we see through a glass darkly now, we do not walk in darkness. We walk by faith in the character of the God who did not spare His own Son. That is enough. The Potter has the right over the clay. And this Potter is also our Father. His hands can be trusted, even when His plans cannot be fully traced. The rest awaits the ages to come, where every question will dissolve in the light of His face, and we will know, even as we are known.
