Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Exhausted from checking on church members in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, I came home to assess the damage at the parsonage. We were lucky with just a few trees down, and no structural damage. Others in our community weren’t so lucky. Strong Christians who had been faithful their entire lives now looked at their homes buried under trees. How could God let this happen? I found myself pondering the same question that atheists and detractors of Christianity have used as their battle cry for decades: If God is such a good God, why would He let bad things happen to good people? The answer is simple, yet complex. God does not let bad things happen to good people.
God does not let bad things happen to good people.
God does not let bad things happen to good people.
At first this response may seem questionable at best and heretical at worst. However the nuance of this answer comes when you begin to identify the terms used. Let us look at the question again: “If God is such a good God, why would He let bad things happen to good people?” We know that the leading conditional clause is true. God is good. Scripture is clear that He is “abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). With that being the case, we turn our attention to the end of the question.
The brokenness of this question comes with the last two words: “good people.” Bad things never happen to good people whether God allows them to happen or not. Nothing ever happens to good people, because good people do not exist. Jesus makes this clear in the Gospel of Mark. In response to Himself being called good, he replied with, “No one is good—except God alone” (Mark 10:18).
Where did all the good people go? They had to exist at some point. Humans were made in the image of a good God, and that good God “saw all that He had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). When did goodness move from a universal condition of creation to an exclusive characteristic of God? For that, let us read in the book of Genesis.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.””
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
One prohibition, one temptation, and one decision to sin. In an instant the good world that God had created became broken to its core. Through that sin, death entered the world and “in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). Everyone since that moment has had a root of sin in our hearts, and we are “by nature deserving of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). We rebelled against our perfect Creator, spitting in the face of His perfect creation, and separating ourselves from a perfect relationship with our Heavenly Father. “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one;’” (Romans 3:10).
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God does not let bad things happen to good people, but He let a great thing happen to us bad people. The great thing in question is the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus died in our place, taking upon Himself our sins, and rose again proving His victory over death. Our debt is paid and salvation is offered in love to people who consistently rebel against God’s perfect design. All we have to do is accept Jesus as Lord and believe in His sacrifice.
Nothing bad that could happen to us compares to the grace given to us through the Gospel. Whether our house is destroyed in a storm, or we a blessed with safety and security, one thing remains the same: The only Good person to walk this earth sacrificed Himself for bad people. Let us humble ourselves and revel in the undeserved goodness of God.
