“And I heard a voice from the throne saying, “Behold,the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,and God himself will be with them as their God.He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more,neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have
passed away.”
(Revelation 21:3-4 ESV)
One of the biggest questions people face, in terms of their faith, is the reason for all the suffering in the world. We struggle to understand why, if God is truly loving, he allows the pain of this life. And we wonder why, if he is all-powerful, he does nothing about it.
If God is loving, and all the evil in this world remains, it seems that he must not be all-powerful. If he’s all-powerful, as the evil of this world persists, it seems that he cannot be loving. Or, perhaps, there is no God at all.
We fail to realize that God did not create the world or mankind in the state in which we find them. We fail to realize that things will not remain in this state forever. And we fail to realize that, when God created all things, there was no pain and there was no suffering.
In the beginning, creation was perfect. In the beginning, mankind was perfect. And while all things were perfect, there was no suffering and there was no death.
These entered the world as the consequence of sin. Suffering and death entered into the world as the deserved punishment of sin. And, more than that, hell is the fate we deserve because of our sin.
However, it’s not as if God has done nothing about it. God sent his only Son into the world. The Son of God took on flesh, and lived the perfect life we are unable to live. He then died on the cross, not because of anything he’d done, but as the atoning sacrifice for our sin. And he rose from the grave defeating the power of death.
It’s for this reason, as we see in the passage above, that suffering and death will not forever torment. When Christ returns, at the end of this age, they will become a thing of the past. As sin will be a thing of the past, so too will its consequences.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that, when Christ returns, we will be transformed. Instead of our sinful nature, we will bear the image of Christ. We will be restored to perfection, as in the beginning.
More than that, as we see above, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. The dwelling place of God will be with man. And there will be no more death or morning or crying or pain.
In the meantime, we continue to bear our sinful nature. And, in the same way, we continue to bear the consequences of our sin. But we do so in hope. We do so knowing that, one day, we will bear them no more.
We then look to Christ, trusting in the forgiveness and salvation he won for us on the cross. We trust in his promise of life everlasting in his presence. And we anticipate his coming, when we will experience these blessings in their fullness.
