Why Do We Suffer? Is Human Suffering Fair?

Another way of asking that question is Why Does God Allow Suffering? Why does God allow bad things to happen? Why do go bad things happen to good people? If God loves us and can stop these things, why doesn’t He?

Let’s go back to the beginning. God created Adam and Eve and gave them one rule: Don’t eat from this certain tree. If you do, you will die. That’s the punishment. You sin, you die.

After Adam and Eve ate the fruit of that tree, He also gave them more punishments, including having to work hard to make the ground produce food, women having pain in childbirth, husbands and wives having strife in their relationships, and people feeling shame when we expose ourselves.

Because Adam and Eve were our ancestors, we all inherit their punishment, just like we inherit their human form.

But is that fair? Should I be punished for something my ancestors did?

Think about it this way: Adam and Eve were the perfect human beings. If anyone could have withstood temptation, it would have been them. But they couldn’t. Remember, Adam and Eve were created to be immortal. They would have had opportunity after opportunity to sin, day after day, year after year, millennia after millennia. Statistically, if they hadn’t sinned as early in life as they did, they would have sinned later.

So would any of us. Because they had free will, Adam and Eve were bound to fall at some point, and none of us would have fared any better. Don’t kid yourself by thinking you would have been better than these first two.

Only the man Jesus was able to withstand temptation because He was also God in the flesh.

The point is, yes, you bear their punishment, but it’s not unfair because you would have incurred the same punishment at some time in your life anyway.

Suffering is our punishment. Why don’t we want to suffer? Because we don’t want to take our punishment!

But didn’t Jesus die to take our punishment?

Well, if Jesus died to take our punishment, but people still die as a punishment for sin, where does that leave us?

Jesus did not die to take our punishment. He died to make it so that our punishment isn’t eternal. Once we face our punishment and die, we don’t stay dead. Our souls move on to eternal life, and He will even raise our bodies back to life at the end of redemptive history.

Any suffering we experience is punishment, but it doesn’t last. The Lord comforts us in our grief and restores us after times of trouble. He might even heal us from disease and prolong our lives in the here and now.

Suffering is punishment for sin. Submit to it, and put your hope in the One who will end it.