Stephen Rowland: Value judgements belong to the Almighty
“What do you think God is, some kind of baby killer?” Those words still ring in my ears occasionally. They were spoken by a Christian to me many years ago when the subject came up of an infant’s death.
The bereaved mother was in anguish but taking comfort in the counsel of other Christians who assured her that her infant was now in heaven. Someone had mentioned that it’s sometimes hard to understand God’s purpose and reasoning, but we have to trust Him in all circumstances. The implication was that if God didn’t actively “take that baby home” himself, then at least God purposely allowed it to happen with no interference. That provoked the angry reaction from a “Health, Wealth and Prosperity” Christian. Let’s just call it “HWP” for short.
I attended HWP churches in my early 20’s, so I’m well acquainted with their theology. In their view anything “negative” that happens is instigated by Satan, not God. God never brings sickness or death, only blessings. If you don’t want negative things happening in your life, then you have to resist Satan, stay full of faith and “prayed up,” and never let doubt intrude into your mind. If you struggle with disease or financial misfortune then basically it’s your own fault through some type of doubt, fear, unbelief, lack of faith, sin, etc. In their minds, the sudden death of an infant was a tragedy only attributable to Satan himself.
Part of my “coming out” of this movement was Scripture itself. Remember when King David had his affair with Bathsheba in the Old Testament, then orchestrated the murder of her husband so he could marry her? God promised punishment for his crime, part of which was the death of their infant son. Despite all David’s praying and fasting, God stayed true to his promise and caused the death of their baby.
My mind drifted to the tragedy involving Job’s children in the Book of Job. God had allowed Satan to test Job severely with physical disease, the sudden loss of all his wealth, then the sudden death of all his children. I can’t imagine a worse tragedy than that. The important fact is that Job was a righteous man and innocent of sin — that was God’s evaluation himself of Job. A secondary major fact is that God allowed Satan to bring all that misfortune without killing Job himself. God is so powerful that even Satan himself is “on a leash” so to speak — he is constrained in what he can do by God. Blaming Satan is akin to blaming a soldier for shooting someone without a thought given about the general who gave that order.
We humans tend to think of the sudden death of a middle-aged person, a young person, a child, or an infant as a huge tragedy because they are in the cemetery and lost to us forever. That’s not God’s viewpoint necessarily; it’s merely a change of location from planet earth to His presence. The vast majority of Christian’s believe that to be “absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Our spirits leave our bodies to stand before God for His judgement as to our eternal destiny. A “tragedy” for us is sort of a “homecoming” for the deceased and God.
As the Author and Creator of our lives, it’s His right to “take us home” according to his plans whenever He wishes. He is God, and we are not. If we unjustly take someone’s life, then we are due life imprisonment or even capital punishment, and rightly so. As humans we don’t have that “right.” God does have that right to have us stand before Him.
It’s my own opinion that accidents and misfortune can happen to anyone, saint or sinner, without necessarily being caused by either God or Satan. It’s just life. I don’t play the “blame game.” Nether do I blame the victims necessarily; that’s lacking any compassion and being cruel, not to mention it’s “beyond our pay grade.” The ironic biblical term for that condescending attitude is a “Job’s Comforter” — don’t be one.
This life is so short; eternity is so long. This life is sort of a “testing grounds” to see what decisions you will make regarding Jesus and eternity. I don’t get all hung up on the precise timing of when someone leaves for eternity and whether I think it’s “just or not.” That value judgement belongs to the Almighty.
When tragedy happens, pray for the ones left behind, help them, comfort them, look after them, assist them in any way you can.
It’s what Jesus would do.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: Stephen Rowland: Value judgements that belong to the Almighty
