The Little Book of Providence by Richard L. Barker - HTML preview

The suffering of God

Suffering for all parties, for our God is no deistic, impassionate chess master overseeing this wondrous plan. He had been perfectly entitled to enjoy unbroken felicity, but for mankind’s sake He was prepared to endure the agony of observing His only begotten Son’s humiliation and death. If Satan had been barred from planet earth or Adam and Eve had been erased for their disobedience and replaced, Christ need not have died. But He permitted His enemy what appeared to be an extraordinary victory for the sake of what He knew would be the ideal preparation for the beings created in His image to be raised from dust to glory. This is the third reason apart from Satan’s treachery and our first parents’

disobedience that things have been as they have been in the world and in the Church.

Suffering partnered with essential spiritual healing and progressive enlightenment are how God is drawing man toward his ultimate destiny as exemplified by His Son’s own experience.

The precise nature of human experience through eternity, although hinted at through the various offices and titles applied to those chosen for Christ, “cannot and may not be spoken of by any human being”893. What we have been told in Scripture about our future life with God and His Son (and most have yet to grasp that) pertains to the immediate future in the context of eternity, which is as much as most human minds could currently sustain. To know too much would anyway undermine the principle of faith.

God’s nature and covenant faithfulness towards those that love Him can and never will change, yet the creative energy of the Universal Deity is incomprehensible, and whatever He has prepared for the future, His divine Son as Agent and Overseer of all that has been created or has yet to be established within the universe will be at the centre. As joint heirs, the redeemed will spearhead that activity, together with the hosts of angels, supported in due time by the rest of God’s salvable earthly creation. If even an nth degree of this can be grasped, human suffering will have been worth it as it will undoubtedly have

enlarged the human capacity to enjoy a fuller communion, companionship and participation with the Divine Glory. Such will have been the meaning of life. So, who now will discern as much, going on to re-evaluate the understanding of their faith in light of this disclosure, where necessary reordering their lives in preparation for what may shortly come to pass?

892 Cf. Mal4:5-6

893 2Cor12:4

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I (the Lord) have kept silent for a long time; I have

kept silent and restrained Myself.

Now like a woman in labour I will groan, I will both

gasp and pant.

I will lead the blind by ways not known to them,

along unfamiliar paths I will guide them.

I will turn the darkness into light before them and

make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do; I will not forsake

them894 .

894 Is42:14,16

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