Principle
Sin is the reason why bad things happen.
Explanation
We have previously established that:
- GOD created the heavens and the earth—everything that exists—according to His specific design.
- GOD established a specific order—a specific way that things should work together so that there would be peace, harmony, and life.
- Deviation from GOD’s specific order is called sin.
When sin entered the earthly creation, it created fundamental changes to GOD’s design. Human makeup was altered, knowing not only good but also evil.
Humans are weak fleshly creatures. Our weakness means that we tend to do not what we believe to be right or best, but rather what our heart and mind tells us would be pleasurable or less difficult.
This means that we end up often doing things that we know are either wrong, sinful, or at least not best. We often react before thinking things through, and our flawed “good and evil” capacity results in us often choosing the evil path.
The apostle Paul expressed the thought like this:
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 7:14-25 NIV
Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey GOD and eat the forbidden fruit ushered in unending disruption to GOD’s designed order on earth.
Immediately, bad things started happening.
Adam and Eve’s body began to decay. They were kicked out of their garden home and refused access to the Tree of Life—the tree that GOD had previously freely offered to them. Work became toil, the ground constantly fighting Adam’s efforts to grow food from it. Childbirth was now excruciating.
And that was only the immediate issues! Soon, the firstborn son would murder his brother out of hatred and envy. Some generations later, things got so bad that GOD had to wipe it all away with the flood.
Every bad thing that happens is ultimately due to sin.
Without sin there would be no suffering. There would be no death, destruction, war, famine, strife, pain, and on and on.
Many times, people want to know why bad things happen to good people. Sin. That’s why.
No, this does not inherently mean that every negative thing that happens to a person is directly the result of their own sin. In other words, not all suffering is something we brought upon ourselves as a result of GOD punishing us for a specific sin. But each sin has downstream impacts and consequences that we cannot fully realize or understand.
This is why GOD promised to make everything new so that, one day, His children can live in a world that is once again perfect and free of all the evil that happens as a result of sin.
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