Imagine how this event, occurring on your honeymoon, might affect your worldview. So what did this theologian with shattered dreams have to say about Romans 8:28?
“The fundamental thought is the universal government of God. All that comes to you is under His controlling hand. The secondary thought is the favour of God to those that love Him. If He governs all, then nothing but good can befall those to whom He would do good. … Though we are too weak to help ourselves and too blind to ask for what we need, and can only groan in unformed longings, He is the author in us of these very longings … and He will so govern all things that we shall reap only good from all that befalls us.”
Really, Dr. Warfield? Only good from all that befalls us? Even from a personal tragedy that deeply hurts your beloved wife and dramatically restricts her personal liberties and your daily schedule for the rest of her life and for most of yours? Warfield spoke not from the sidelines but from the playing field of suffering, answering an emphatic “Yes!” to the loving sovereignty of God.
No Pointless Suffering
You cannot have a Christian worldview unless you believe that God has a plan, the ability to carry it out, and the loving-kindness to do it not only for his glory but our good.
This means that for God’s child there is no pointless suffering. Finite fallen creatures are incapable of understanding the point, so much of it may appear pointless. But God is all-wise and all-loving and never pointless nor off-point. That’s why Job could cry out in agony, “Though he slay me yet I will trust him.”
Only one answer is bigger than the question of evil and suffering: JESUS. If we, as Dr Warfield did, see God as he really is, as he is revealed in Scripture, we can trust in his loving sovereignty even in life’s greatest hardships.
This article originally appeared on epm.org and is reposted here by permission.