Are you sure? Couldn’t it be that God has a way to use suffering for good? If God exists, wouldn’t we hope He could redeem all suffering? Wouldn’t it be like God to take something as awful as pain and to turn it around and use it to his and our benefit? Why wouldn’t God do such? You know what I mean? Or, does looking at suffering from this perspective necessarily make God out to be a monster?
Who is?
Klax The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.
What was that faith in, exactly?
There’s a CCM song with a line that says God recycles pain into gain. Job would concur, and so would many others, for instance Maggie and myself. Recall my nephrectomy account – death would have been fine and gain for me (not my wife, though), but that wasn’t the current plan.
In Ravensbrück, a brutal death camp in the heart of Germany, Betsie, whispered this to Corrie just before dying from the extreme winter conditions: “We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here.”
The Hiding Place is about the Ten Boom family–how they sacrificed their lives to set Jews free during WW 2.
Klax, The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.
What if it causes suffering to express faith in love?
The ultimate reason suffering exists is so that George might display the greatness of the glory of the grace of George by suffering in himself to overcome our suffering. The suffering of the utterly innocent and holy sacrificial offering in place of undeserved sinners to bring everlasting joy to George’s followers and is the greatest display of the glory of George’s grace that ever was or ever could be.
Sounds like there is a new serial killer on the loose.
TEN BOOM: One of the most cruel things I have suffered was when in the concentration camp, we had to stand naked. They stripped us of all our clothing. And I said to Betsy, my sister, “I cannot bear this, this is so terrible.” But it was suddenly as if I saw Jesus at the Cross. It was the Holy Spirit who turned my eyes to Jesus. And the Bible tells that He…He hanged there naked, they stripped him of all his garments, and he hung there for me, and by my suffering, I could understand a fraction of the suffering of Jesus. And it made me so happy, so thankful that I could bear my suffering! Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.
Refreshing memories, but maybe not understanding:
That would be why Jesus died for his siblings, instead of them suffering the penalty themselves.
My interpretation of this is that Father’s will was to save us. Because we sinned, Jesus had to come to handle the problem. This is not the same as saying that God’s will from the beginning was to kill Jesus.
Assuming that God is not tied by time as we are, God knew from the start that humans will not do the right things. He planned a solution to that problem. When the time was right, Jesus came and the problem was handled. Again, this is not the same as saying that God’s will from the beginning was to kill Jesus.
There is a difference between wanting to cause suffering vs. having to cause suffering to save someone. I was willing to let my son suffer because of a medical operation. I certainly did not want suffering but surgery was the only possibility to save his life. It was hard to watch how he suffered several months after the surgery but as this was the only possibility to give him a life, surgery was planned and done.
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Thank you. That was my understanding as well, but it had never occurred to me that God might want to wipe out all of humanity again by any means. This is a little corner of theology I had not encountered before.
AND thank you too for this expression of your faith and detailed explanation. As I noted to Terry, I had not encountered this interpretation before, even mentioned in passing. 
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Revelation 13:8 “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world”, is not a stand alone revelation, it has the support of the Law of Moses, the prophets, John the baptist, Jesus, and the apostles.
The way that God handled the sin and judgment issues was to send Jesus. Carefully read Isaiah 53 and you can see it was the Father’s purpose and plan. It starts out in verse one, “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”
Jesus is called, “the arm of the LORD”, therefor it is God at work and all that follows in chapter 53 is God’s will and plan.
It was God’s will for Jesus to, take up our infirmities and carry our sorrows, to be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, to receive the punishment that brought us peace, to heal us by his wounds, for the LORD to lay on Him the iniquity of us all, to be cut off from the land of the living for our transgression he was stricken, it was the LORD’S will to crush him and cause him to suffer and make his life a guilt offering, the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
Again, carefully read the chapter and see what God did by sending the Word to become The Son of Man to deliver us from our enemies.
Very nice proof text. Jesus gave his life to save us from sin.
A “proof text” is not necessarily a good thing, however, because they can be taken out of context, or vacuously repeated.
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People use suffering for good, make meaning from it, transcend it, sometimes inspired by the story of God in Christ. Suffering in itself isn’t for anything. And yes, I’m quite sure.
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“And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God…”
I can turn good into bad in a heartbeat. I can turn anything into bad in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t trust myself to make a cake. I could kill people. I don’t know what I’m doing. “I’m dangerous, Jerry. I’m very, very dangerous.” Kramer
Yet, yetyetyetyetyetyet, with God, with God, I can be the complete idiot that I am and God can make me seem not quite so disgusting. You know what I mean?
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a good thing
Dearest BioLogos, I realize I am way out of line, but given the treacherous times in which we live, I thought perhaps a little levity might be in order. (If I’m wrong, this was Mitch’s idea, soley, and he should be punished severely, I agree.)
Good thing
Good thing
The one good thing in my life
Has gone away, I don’t know why
She’s gone away, I don’t know where
Somewhere I cannot follow her
[Pre-Chorus]
The one good thing didn’t stay too long
My back was turned and she was gone
[Chorus]
Good thing
Where have you gone? (Do, do-do-do)
My good thing
You’ve been gone too long (Do, do, do-do-do)
[Verse 2]
People say I should forget
There’s plenty more, don’t get upset
People say she’s doing fine
Mutual friends I see sometime
[Pre-Chorus]
That’s not what I want to hear
I want to hear she wants me near
Then one day, she came back
I was so happy that I didn’t ask
Morning came into my room
Caught me dreaming like a fool
[Outro]
Good thing, my good thing
(Do, do-do-do)
My good thing, where have you gone
(Do, do, do-do-do)
My good thing, my good thing
(Do, do-do-do)
Where have you gone
It’s been so long
(Do, do, do-do-do)
I certainly believe that.
What I do not believe is any of the pagan black magic stuff… like…
Jesus gave his life in order to appease God.
God requires a blood sacrifice ritual in order to forgive people.
Jesus’ crucifixion paid for indulgences so Christians can sin without consequences.
But…
Cheap forgiveness often does more harm than good, so God has to make us understand how bad sin is and the damage it does. Like what? Like causing us to kill the innocent and even those God has sent to save us. The point is to save us from sin by removing sin itself and not to give us the freedom to sin without consequences.
I was going to respond point by point to what you said, but I have labored to present the Gospel of Christ through the testimony of prophets, Jesus and the apostles. And yet you still choose not to believe their testimony. So I will leave you to your unbelief in the message I have made clear.
And yet, I will continue in my trust in the cross of Christ which caused me to be crucified to the world and the world to me. That I died to sin in Christ and it no longer is my master. That I was raised up with Him, Born Again, and made to be a New Creation in Him. That the blood of Christ has cleansed me from my past sins and by His Spirit I am empowered to overcome the temptations that arise from the flesh daily. Jesus is my Lord, my strength, my righteousness and my life. And from Him being these things, He is daily saving me from those things I was powerless to save myself from, mainly, sin, the devil and God’s just condemnation of me.
So your message is pagan black magic then, because that is what I explained I do not believe.
You think God cannot forgive people without magical rituals?
You think Christianity is about appeasing God like the pagan religions?
You think Jesus has paid for indulgences so you can sin without consequences?
If you are trying to get me to believe such things then you have indeed wasted your time because I will not believe such things no matter how many Bible passages you quote. Like I said, I have read the Bible already several times and meaning I get is the opposite of these things:
God does not need magic in order to forgive. Jesus demonstrated this – defying the temple priests who required blood sacrifice rituals for this. This is why their little business infuriated Him.
You cannot appease, manipulate, or control God in any way. He will do what is good regardless according to His correct understanding of reality.
There is no escape from the consequences of your sins, so the only way to avoid hell is to get God’s help in removing your sins. And by removing your sins I don’t mean is some metaphorical, ceremonial, or magical sense (i.e. indulgences so you don’t suffer any consequences from them). I am talking about changing your thinking and behavior from those self-destructive habits which are killing your spirit to a different way of thinking and behavior that will set your heart and spirit free to love and grow.
Suffering is valuable if it is for Jesus’ sake – it produces joy, not that Christians are supposed to go looking for it. That’s way counterintuitive, but it’s true, even in my minute experience of it, half a century ago.
And then on the other hand, there’s this… 
[ETA: I can be one, but that wasn’t the case at the time, 54 years ago. 
]
The Good News of the cross of Jesus was proclaimed by Isaiah in chapter 53.
Isa 53: 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, (God pierced, wounded Him for our sins, rebellion)
he was crushed for our iniquities; (God crushed, beat to pieces, broke, bruised Him because of our iniquities, perversity, faults)
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, ( the punishment, chastisement, discipline that brought us peace was upon Him)
and by his wounds we are healed. (and by his wounds we are healed, mended, cured, repaired, made whole)
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. ( the Lord laid on Him the iniquity, punishment of iniquity, sin, perversity, evil of us all.)
That is what happened on the cross of Jesus. God was judging us and sin, in Jesus on His cross. That is the work of salvation that the righteous justice, grace and mercy of the Father and the Son provided. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.