Redeeming Us not Evil

This is a Facebook post by a good friend of mine Freddy Cardoza, P.HD.  (I add the P.HD. because he likes it... )  Anyway, I think it is an outstanding discussion regarding the idea of our redemption verses the idea that God somehow redeems evil.  We don't need to let God off the hook or justify evil or bad things.  Evil is just evil.  God's love and the price that Christ paid was for us... our redemption... our hope in a restored relationship with Him.  This is an outstanding discussion in a very small space.

Freddy Cardoza I just watched a documentary on the Holocaust (Shoah). One Jew suggested that the Shoah has nothing to teach us, because it is so horrible. As soon as one finds a 'lesson' from it, there begins to appear a silver lining and some possible redeeming element.

Yesterday at 12:02am · Comment · Like

2 people like this.

Dale Hollins 

It doesn't really make sense unless understood in the context of God's omniscience and mysterious, perfect love. If it is *man's* doing that yields a redeeming element, then of course that would be distasteful and unsatisfying; but if God is doing the redeeming, then the pieces fall into place. Joseph said it best when putting his brothers' actions into proper perspective, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good." (Gen 50:20, nlt)

Yesterday at 10:29am

Freddy Cardoza 

Dale, absolutely, but I was intrigued by this one Jewish perspective. But also, even with God's sovereignty, evil can, and often does, remain senseless and unjustifiable as an act in and of itself. God's supremacy never causes us to have to "find something redeemable"-- to find "a good reason" for it, evil itself, the act-- instead, God sometimes ...See More

Yesterday at 10:51am

Dave May 

Have you been to a concentration camp?

Yesterday at 3:15pm

Dale Hollins 

Completely agreed. Excellent points all. I don't want my statement to be construed that I think God has a good plan for each and every violent and despicable act. I especially like the point that God redeems *us* from the wreckage without necessarily redeeming the wreckage itself. Many times the only answer to "how could such a terrible thing ...See More

Yesterday at 4:18pm

Freddy Cardoza 

Great point, Dale. Yeah, that's the crucial issue-- God redeeming us not it! Blessings.

Yesterday at 8:54pm