Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City is commonly asked how a good God could allow suffering in the world. One of the ways he answers that question is to point to the cross. In his book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Keller writes:
The death of Jesus was qualitatively different from any other death. The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experience of cosmic abandonment. Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and god-forsaken. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us.
Letâs see where this has brought us. If we ask again the question: âWhy does God allow evil and suffering to continue?â and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isnât. It canât be that he doesnât love us. It canât be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself, (pg. 30-31).
