These sorts of questions are difficult to answer from within our modern context and our present age of grace. But they are the same sorts of questions we ask when a young child dies, or a fire destroys a families home, or an earthquake wipes out a city and thousands of lives.
In the modern evangelical church we have emphasized the grace, mercy, and love of God far above the sovereignty of God to rule over His creation. I believe this emphasis to be correct, but it does not lessen the fact that God is sovereign over His creation. It is His to do with as He wills, and that includes not only nature, but individual human lives. This means, furthermore, that God is certainly sovereign over circumstances and events, but He is also sovereign over life and death. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
It is also true that God does not see life and death constrained by the limits of space and time in the same way we do. We mourn the loss of our loved ones not because they have ceased to exist, but because they do not presently exist with us. We comfort ourselves knowing that we will see them again one day. God does not have that problem. He lives in the eternal present and He is always with us.
Death is the curse of sin, and the pain of it are very real to us. God is not unaware of this pain. Simply look to the cross of Christ. Certainly God rules over life and death but in Christ God has suffered through death not only with us, but for us. Indeed, Christ died the death not due Him as it is due every other living human being. Thus, in some sense only Jesus would have any right to complain about the when's or why's of death. But He didn't of course. He willingly suffered that we might be set free.
I cannot give you a rational explanation for why the firstborn of Egypt had to die, or why perhaps your loved ones have had to die out of season, because death is the result of sin and sin is at its very root irrational. It makes no sense why we would sin in rebellion against God, but we did, and we do. What truly makes no sense to me is how or why God could die in our place, but He did. That is the wonder and majesty of our faith.
Is there some tension between God's justice and love? Yes. Is there some tension in God's sovereignty and the responsibility of humanity? Surely. Is there some tension between life, death, and new life in the resurrection? Without a doubt. But thank God He has reconciled all things to Himself in Christ Jesus our Lord.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
What a true gift it is to be a Christian. Death and separation from God which is an eternal consequences of sin is no longer ours. The question is are we willing to share such gifts to others as well? Are we willing to break the curse of sin so that others-the ones dear to us and strangers we've never or will never meet get a chance to receive the GIFT?
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